Smash hit

During the general election campaign it was hinted that Tony Blair would soon bite the bullet and order another generation of nuclear plants to be built. If the government is serious about global warming the decision takes itself. Blair now appears to be in no hurry. The official line is that he will make a yes or no decision during this parliament.

One policy which is clear is that renewable sources are subsidised. Companies that produce electricity from wind get a so-called “renewable obligation certificate” for each megawatt-hour that they generate. The power distribution companies are obliged to pay a market price for those certificates (as well as for the power itself) or be fined for failing to use renewable energy.

According to the Commons public accounts committee, the total cost of subsidies paid to renewable energy suppliers could reach £5 billion by 2010, with additional costs for the power lines needed to bring the juice from the mountains and seas. We pay for it through our electricity bills.

What is more, the committee believes that a third of the subsidy goes to companies that do not need it.

I confess that I loathe wind turbines. It dismays me that we can despoil vast areas of great natural beauty in the name of saving the planet. Looking at a magnificent hillside or cliff edge covered in these huge towers is, to paraphrase the Prince of Wales’s famous remark on modern architecture, like seeing a finely shaped chin defaced by a growth.

Some people claim to like the wind machines. Roy Hattersley, former deputy leader of the Labour party, says that passing the wind farm near Tintagel, in Cornwall, makes him think of Camelot. The noise reminds him of “the gentle hum of swarming bees”. I would compare it with the whine of an aircraft engine, obliterating the sounds of nature.

Positioned to catch the breeze on high ridges, the turbines scythe down migrating birds. On a recent visit to Spain, where turbines have spread like a vicious pox, I learnt that this month 47 vultures headed for the Strait of Gibraltar had been felled by turbine blades.

Wind turbines are not efficient. In Germany during 2003 they were used to only a sixth of their capacity, largely because the wind is unpredictable. Fossil stations are kept turning over and emitting greenhouse gases in case they are needed to make up the shortfall, yet if the turbines produce too much electricity the excess cannot be stored.

The turbines are to the countryside in our times what the tower blocks were to the cities in the 1960s. I look forward to the parties when, 40 years from now, we dynamite them.

I would hesitate to make an economic case for nuclear power. Today it seems that nuclear could generate electricity more cheaply than wind turbines, but we know little about the capital costs because it is a while since we built nuclear stations. Still, past experience is far from encouraging.

I realise, too, that nuclear power raises fears that wind turbines do not; unless you are Don Quixote. However, as with other technologies, as nuclear power evolves we get better at building in safety features. The problem of waste is a challenge but it looks as though it can be handled.

The point about nuclear power is that it does the job. Using remotely located stations that would have much less visual impact than turbines, we could replace all fossil-fuelled stations (if global warming matters that much).

One day we could use electricity from nuclear stations to charge our battery-powered cars or to produce hydrogen on which our vehicles could run, all without producing greenhouse gases. Even if we cover every last hillock of our green and pleasant land with wind turbines we will not get close to that.

Meanwhile, apart from desecrating the countryside, wind turbines are diverting resources that could be put to better use. They provide a frivolous distraction for a government that should be implementing a serious energy policy.

It is good news that the fuel tax protesters failed to halt the country last week. They should be heeded only inasmuch as they highlight a real problem: that Britain is over-dependent on oil. The traffic is still moving but the government’s energy policy is at a standstill.

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