A chara, – While I cannot claim to have any grounding in philosophy or related disciplines, I was very much intrigued by the advice offered by Kevin McLoughlin (Letters, December 29th) that "offshore wind turbines are only a blight on the environment if we choose to think so."
I wonder if your correspondent has touched on the answer to all of life’s vagaries?
I mean, off the top of my head, is climate change only a problem if we choose to think so? – Is mise,
Dr GARETH P KEELEY,
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Grenoble,
France.
A chara, – Whether you consider them to be strangely beautiful or a blight on the landscape, nobody can seriously suggest or believe that such an inefficient, unreliable, costly, environmentally destructive and inappropriately located technology as the wind turbine, which almost laughably requires a back-up system anyway, is going to be the long-term replacement for fossil fuels.
Apparently a lad going by the name of “Einstein” has figured out that tiny amounts of mass can be converted into vast amounts of energy. That might just be the way to go.
Windmills are not only inefficient and unreliable, they are about as efficient and reliable as they are ever going to get.
Nuclear power, including fusion, is just starting and vast improvements in both safety and efficiency are being and can continue to be made.
That can only happen if serious investment continues into nuclear, rather than a bizarre plan to divert those funds on an emotional rather than rational basis toward filling the land and seas with archaic machines that Don Quixote would be happy to tilt at. – Yours, etc,
DAVE SLATER,
Kilkea, Co Kildare.