"Sadly the Scottish landscape is being ruined by wind monstrosities." Surely Bill that depends on your point of view. There are large areas of Yorkshire, i.e. the Halifax area, and areas of Cornwall to name but a few where wind turbine farms have been placed. Longley Farm yogurts outside Holmfirth had a huge windmill there thirty years ago, so they are not new on the landscape. On Orkney we have several and most communities are trying to get their own. If you fly along the Fylde coast you will see a huge wind farm out to sea. The Scottish landscape is in some places ideal as we have a reasonable supply of wind. I do not deny for one moment it is the most stunning and beautiful part of Britain, unique in so many diverse ways. I do agree that it often seems a bit one sided in that those in the South do not seem to have as many as we do up here, however it is a "needs must," as far as I can see.

Not excusing the past but huge areas of Yorkshire and Wales were blighted by the mining of coal as were areas of Scotland, Midlands and Kent. Given that, surely it is more appealing to the eye, more environmentally and ecologically friendly to have wind farms all over the place? The Orkney area has several different approaches. We have wind and wave technologies some experimental. Of course there are the NIMBY's reluctant to change or accept that we can play a part toward the benefit of future generations.

The problem with wind farms is their efficiency. They do not work continuously; sometimes the wind is too strong, sometimes too weak. We are dependent on external energy supplies and it would be good for the islands to be independent.

The Netherlands has huge areas of with wind farms and farmers work the land underneath. I have stood underneath working wind turbines; they are less noisy than a huge truck going past or the hi-fi in some cars.

What worries me is the huge subsidy that is attached to wind power. They use a lot on materials to build, the carbon footprint for each wind turbine is quite large, and they sell electricity back to the national grid at a higher price than we pay for it. Some people are making a lot of money from their spare capacity. The subsidy far outweighs the profit so each individual pays to have wind farms via green taxes. The problem is that the cost of production and maintenance far outweighs the energy produced.