Have you seen the new offshore wind turbine design in today's Guardian? Instead of the usual three blades on a tall tower, it has two large wings that rotate at the base, supposedly inspired by a spinning sycamore leaf. (That's not it above, by the way!)
My first thought was "cool!". My second thought was "How many of them can you fit side by side?"
And therein lies the rub. If we're ever going to get to the point where offshore and onshore wind turbines are challenging the big carbon-belching concrete box on the coastline, then we have to not only scale them up, but use every available space that we can afford to.
This doesn't mean I'd like the whole country and it's coastline carpeted with turbines. But we have to make the best use we possibly can of the areas we designate to house them.
And I'm afraid that means that the cool sycamore turbine will have to be nudged out in favour of the majestic standard design. Until something cool with a smaller footprint comes along...
0 comments:
Post a Comment