Stop moaning, Nimbys – wind turbines have made Britain more beautiful
'Wind turbines!'
Dozens of them had popped up alongside the A30 around Carland Cross. As each bladed white spire emerged like a Channel 4 ident, he called out in excitement. From the front seats we repeated the words, helping him to wrap his mouth around the sounds.
It seems it would have been a different scene if Donald Trump was at the wheel. This week, the president of the United States condemned wind turbines as blighting the Scottish landscape and described them as a 'con job'.
Speaking at his Turnberry Golf Course in South Ayrshire, he said: 'It's probably the best course in the world. And I look over the horizon and I see nine windmills at the end of the 18th. I said: 'Isn't that a shame?''
Putting all paternal biases to one side, I am still going to side with a two year old over the leader of the free world on this matter.
Visually intrusive
Wind turbines became Britain's leading source of energy in 2024, contributing 30 per cent to the national grid. This is an energy source created on home soil, not reliant on shaky geopolitical shipping lanes. Granted, they are reliant on unpredictable weather patterns, but this doesn't seem to be the main reason they get so much grief.
One argument I often hear is that wind turbines are visually intrusive man-made blots on our countryside. 'I'd rather look at an ancient oak or a willow, than a wind turbine,' my colleague just said to me. Our green space is shrinking. Should we not leave the precious acreage that remains untouched?
OK, well here's an experiment. Think 'countryside' and what do you imagine? Hills, rivers and forests, sure, but also dry stone walls. Barns. Hedgerows. Country lanes. Hay bales. Cottages. Bridges. Church spires. Viaducts. Kissing gates. The British countryside is very much a man-made landscape.
These modern windmills are an extension of our millennia-old history of commanding the land for our needs, just like how the animal kingdom builds nests, mounds and dams to suit its needs, too.
Another colleague pointed out that the wind turbines off the coast of Norfolk have an unsightly red light at their tip, a requirement of the aviation industry to prevent collisions. These, he argued, mean that Norfolk's coastal residents can no longer look out to sea at night and enjoy the darkness of the sky.
If you relocated to Norfolk decades ago for peace and dark skies, I appreciate this would be frustrating. But positive strides are being made.
Radar-activated lights called 'Aircraft Detection Lighting Systems' (ADLS) are being introduced at new wind farms, notably in the Netherlands and parts of the US, meaning the red lights will only come on when a nearby aircraft is detected. Perhaps we will, one day, utilise similar technologies off Britain's shores, and our nighttime sea views will be (mostly) dark once again.
A gust of wind
Another counter argument is noise pollution. But context is needed here. The decibel count of a wind turbine is around 35 to 45 decibels from 300m away, which is broadly equivalent to the ambient decibel level of a typical countryside setting. (The dawn chorus can often rise above 70db, for comparison).
The noise of a wind turbine is tiny compared to that created by a fossil fuel plant, which generates noise from multiple sources including cooling systems, machinery and fuel handling infrastructure. It's a different sort of sound, too. I like David Attenborough's description: 'It's beautiful, the noise is like a gust of wind, not machinery,' he said in 2011.
One particularly worrying argument I've heard against wind farms is that they kill birds. Which is true. And bats. Nobody knows exactly how many birds die due to hitting wind turbine blades per year, but we have a broad idea. An LSE report in 2014 estimated that by 2020 it would be around 9,600 to 106,000 per year, in the UK.
By comparison, house cats kill 55 million birds in the UK each year. So you should only sign that petition against your local wind farm on 'bird death' grounds if you're willing to sacrifice young Tibbles, too. Some people don't seem to like the fact that the energy-producing benefits of a wind farm are distributed nationally, rather than locally. I suspect this is the crux of many 'not in my back yard' arguments. Why here, and not somewhere else?
Well, what they do create is local jobs. In a recent report, the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) estimated that the offshore wind sector could support up to 100,000 jobs and onshore wind farms could support as many as 45,000. I wonder how many Nimbys' children will end up working in this industry in the future?
I am not alone in my admiration for wind turbines. Off the coast of Brighton, tour guides are now selling boat trips around the 90 turbines that make up the Rampion Wind Farm. One tour guide, Paul Dyer, told the BBC that the outings are 'surprisingly popular,' particularly with residents. Fishing trips around the wind farms are also on the rise, as the sites can protect marine life and help to act as artificial reefs, away from trawlers.
I can empathise with all of the counter arguments to wind farms and turbines. We are, and should be, fiercely protective of our countryside and shores. But when I drive along the A30, or see the Glyndebourne turbine near where I live, or sit on Brighton beach gazing out to Rampion offshore wind farm, I do not see something 'blighting the landscape' as Donald Trump does. I see a graceful, elegant monument to the future.
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