Renewable power supply should of course be encouraged at every possible opportunity, but as I understand it the licenses that have been granted for these wind farms fall far short of the mark.
I am led to believe that in the rush to be seen to be backing the goverment's requirement to produce a certain percentage of the UK's energy production from renewable sources, corners have been cut left right and centre. For example, in a number of the installations (and I am pretty sure this doesn't apply to all of them) there is no inclusion of whose reponsibility it is to maintain the site, or remove old turbines. The result is that already you quite often see decommisioned, rusting towers that the councils can't afford to remove, and that the power companies have abandoned.
With regards the offshore wind farms, the word is that by the time they are actually commissioned, the technology will be so far out of date that they will be uneconomic to run for more than about a year!
Southampton and Cowes are currently a world centre for wind turbine production (we regularly see ships laden with the carbon blades being driven out of the Solent, showing that the UK can be involved on a global scale, but there needs to be a lot more practical thought about the consequences before we rush in like fools because Tony wants to win another term.
Other than that, I really like them, and think that their majesty really graces a number of the locations that they have been put in.
