Wind farms, Nuclear power stations and Land fills - just three of the patterns in the British countryside future generations are REALLY going to thank us for. And the National Grid.

Alternative means of generating power needs alternative thinking. One of these high-tech whirligigs might work if it served a specific community who were geared up to using greener energy - well insulated houses with batteries (for when the wind ain't blowin'), solar panels and the like. As it is they're just waving in a new generation of nuclear power stations whilst ruining what's left of our traditional land & sea scapes.

I've heard it said that if all the concrete needed to keep these wretched things upright had been put into hydro-electric schemes we could have slashed electric tariffs by 70%. Not without it's problems (though I'm not suggesting anything on the Three Gorges scale, however so impressive its output) but how many dams are there in the UK, great and small, that aren't generating electricity? And how much would they be if they were?

The answer, my friends, is most certainly not blowing in the wind.