getting smart

I was passed by an electric car this morning as I made my way up to ''the employment''. To most urbanites this might be utterly mundane but in ''the sticks'' we don't have them because the leads aren't long enough to get you between plug-sockets.

It didn't sound like a milk float, as I remember them. It sounded not too unlike our wind-up torch being frantically wound up before entering the attic. I suppose it was going uphill. It was a Smart car in case anyone's interested, black, and it looked okay. If I lived in a city I would consider one myself. Or maybe I'd only use public transport. I can't really say, and I'm probably relieved I don't have to choose.

On the news yesterday, it said that part of the London to South West train line would be electrified by 2015. Currently they run diesel locomotives. The advantage of electric locos is lightness, better acceleration, power, and speed, not to mention fewer emissions (providing the electricity is cleanly made). Presumably, the advantage of diesels, and the reason we've had them, is low capital (infrastructure) costs and those who own the diesels don't own the tracks which wear out faster with the heavier, punishing diesel locos, I don't know. But I do think electricity is the future secondary energy source. Hats off to that.

bad transport, ill wind

I plan the best way to get to my prospective employers' offices. Asking for directions, I told them I would come by train. However, Google-maps calculates the car journey to be an hour and the City Car Parks website tells me parking for a day is a tenner. A return ticket by train will cost a staggering £42. The journey, I know, will take considerably longer than an hour, not to mention I'll be completely at the mercy of the system as soon as I step onto the platform. How can you be green in this economy?

Btw, I see HFW - an admirable fellow! - is encouraging readers to sign-up to green energy. He has installed a small wind-turbine and there's a ''live'' metering widget showing how much power it is producing and the wind speed. I'm fascinated; it's more interesting than the video art at Cheltenham gallery. Over several day's visits it appears to fluctuate between 0.1 and 0.2 kW. That's between 5 and 10 energy efficient light bulbs, an average house worth of illumination, but not quite enough to power an average kettle. But every little helps in the big picture, I realise this, and if everyone adopted a windmill to light their homes the capital cost of installing these things should come down and it wouldn't take ten years or more to recoup your expenditure, just before the thing falls to bits.

So the choice seems to be, be greener and be poorer, or, enjoy it while you can because, I repeat, how can you be green in this economy?

small is beautiful, big is ugly

I found a couple of interesting video clips on BBC news. They're both about Spain and harnessing wind power. The first clip illustrates what is appalling about ''wind farms'', and why we shouldn't call them wind farms. Look at the relative scale compared to the surrounding countryside (especially the scene about 2.00 into the clip), it's a large scale industrial invasion, not some quaint farmyard scene. For instance, just think of the tonnage of concrete needed to secure these whirling monsters into the earth! And this is to provide energy for people who live in the cities so that they may carry on ''business as usual''. As there's more of them than those living in the areas of countryside at risk, they'll be justified by due democratic process. Good, isn't it? No, not really.

The second clip is a good news story. But first it's interesting to spot that though the clouds are moving gracefully across the skyline, the turbines are very, very still. For whatever reason - maintenance, mechanical failure, or likely just not enough wind - these things don't work all the time and, on their own, aren't going to provide the energy needed for the towns and cities. As I said, this is a good story because the people of El Hierro (pop. 10,000) have understood this and combined the small number of turbines - just five - with a hydro-electricity plant, thereby storing the energy gathered by the wind by converting it into a head of water to be utilised when there is not enough wind. They claim it, along with existing solar energy systems, will make the island self-reliant in electrical power. This looks like clear thinking. I know we can't easily use the combined system of wind and hydro- everywhere, we're a bigger island, we have big urban areas that need massive amounts of energy and we don't have that ideal topography in the amounts needed. Instead our turbines will need to be backed up by conventional power stations.
Not good.

tilting

I don't remember ever liking the idea of wind farms and now I've seen the turbine on Green Park, beside the motorway near Reading, several times I realise I hate the things. There it stands incongruous and arrogant, dwarfing the multi-storey glass office blocks surrounding it, turning its heavy blades indolently though deceptively fast, its tip speed over twice the national legal limit of the motorway below. Coming across it never fails to shock me and the sight of it makes me crazy and like Quixote I feel an urge to tilt at it.

Of course, these feelings were almost entirely motivated by a sense of aesthetics and scale. Out of its sight, I would concede that we would have to bite the bullet and tolerate them in the cause of reducing carbon emissions. Like it's better to cut out a diseased lung than die of cancer, if it must be done for the best then let's do it.

But then I started picking up on voices claiming wind power was a big mistake. Not purely aesthetes or nimby types like me but serious, sound-headed thinkers - reasonable people like John Etherington and James Lovelock. Worse than a mistake, the whole enterprise sounds like a government and business scam. They're being rushed through because there's easy money to be made building them and the government can claim to be green, even though in real terms and in the long run, they cost the consumer more in bills - three times more! - and make insignificant impact on reducing carbon emissions - there is even a good case to suggest they actually increase emissions when factoring in the standby conventional generation needed to compensate for wind intermittency, not to mention the concrete needed in their foundations, and the number needed to make any meaningful contribution to national energy requirements. These things are real and far worse monsters than Cervantes would have dreamed!

I still hold that however horrific a solution may appear, if it achieves overall good and prevents ultimate harm then it should be done. But the more I look into it the more it seems like being a horrible error. I don't want to see what's left of our green and pleasant land turned into dark, satanic mills purely for the benefit of careless urbanites lining their pockets with easy subsidies and governments ticking spurious quick solution boxes. So, for now, and for good reasons;

I'm against ''wind farms''!

note, the image is not Green Park but gives a sense of the inhuman scale of standard aerogenerators. I would have used an image of Green Park but found only ones which deliberately show it in a good angle, either in profile to avoid showing its full span or by selecting a view point which appears to diminish its real size in relation to its neighbouring structures. Being keen enough on photography, I've half a mind to jump in the car and do an honest job of the thing, but maybe it's something you need to see in the flesh to understand.