TOPIC 'Environment' on Jul 24, 2009 (CEST)
Run With the Wind
Renewable, sustainable energy is on everyone’s mind these days. The energy crisis is here and fossil fuels won’t last forever. The cost of continuing to use fossil fuels for heating our homes, running our cars, and just about everything else that requires energy to run it, is more than just the money we spend. The cost to our dependence on foreign oil, our carbon footprint, and what the future holds for us if we do not find other sources of energy is scary, to say the least.
Change is not always something that is welcomed by the masses. History reveals that railway lines were initially thought to be frivolous and dirty while the motor car, well, it was never going to replace the horse. The telephone was considered a luxury and only the wealthy had one in their homes. And the same reasoning was found for electricity. Who needed electric lights when gas was just fine and practical, too? Mobile phones were the luxury of the wealthy and the important and now we see young school children carrying them. Even our generation has seen advances in computer technology that seemed impossible when they were introduced.
So what is all the controversy over the building of wind farms to generate electricity? There are already countless wind farms in the UK and abroad. These wind turbines are designed with a simple, modern look: streamlined and graceful in their presentation. They can be found perched on cliff-tops and in open areas that receive a lot of wind every day. Some people believe they are blight on the landscape while others look at them as ‘living’ art. Rallies have been held against building more in some communities while other communities band together to restrict building them in the first place.
One possible answer to all of the fuss is to build them off-shore. There is work in process that will allow for wind turbines to be built in some of the windiest places on earth, out in the sea, in order to harvest the power of the wind for conversion to energy we use for our homes and businesses. This is clearly the wave of the future. It is something we can build on for generations to come, helping eliminate our dependence on foreign oil while at the same time allowing us to become ‘cleaner’ in the way we produce and use energy.
Let’s all get behind the building of wind farms and run with the wind.
Jason Grace
on behalf of the
BascoTec Internet Limited
Technologie Park 13
33100 Paderborn
Germany
