This is a revised version of an article that I posted earlier this year. The reason for this revision is that I have been checking out the costs and viability of solar power in New Zealand, and I now realise that solar power generation, whilst feasible, will need some technical improvements to be truly viable. The main reason is that whilst parts of New Zealand are indeed quite sunny, the areas of the world that solar power has the greatest likelihood of success is in the sun-belt areas, with average solar insolation at least 1,700 KWh/sq.metre/annum, preferrably nearer 2,000 KWh/sq.metre/annum, such as South West USA, Africa, Australia etc. whereas figures for New Zealand are nearer 1,450 KWh/sq.metre/annum. In addition, the land should be reasonably flat and there are not that many areas like this in New Zealand (Link) (Remember here that I am talking about solar power generation, not solar water heating or passive solar heating, where the power of the sun is more than sufficient here) I am quite confident that technical developments will come, just as they have with wind. But we do have to remember that our options are going to be much more limited in future, with lack of gas and oil, global warming, and the increasing costs of importing gas if we were to do this. Solar power may well become a necessary part of our renewable energy policy and I discuss this below.
Introduction
The New Zealand government has estimated that by the year 2050 we will need approximately 49 Twh of electricity generation per year. This is about 14 TWh more than our present generation capacity from 36 TWh, or about a 35%.increase. The New Zealand Energy outlook (Link), published only last year, has been mentioned by me on other parts of this site. But to remind you, in 2050 the power projections include these figures. Total electricity generation 49 TWh, of this, hydro 28 TWh, gas 2.5 TWh, geothermal 7 TWh, coal 6 TWh, cogeneration 3 TWh, and wind 2 TWh. The inability of the government to publish realistic or believable figures in regard to oil availability and costs though make me doubt the reliability of these power projections, but they are all I have to work on, they are a start. In particular continuing high levels of immigration will make them meaningless. We should comment on these figures.
My (revised) scheme for renewable energy will make use of these figures, but also incorporate some estimates of savings that could be made by better energy efficiency.
I have previously written to ministers of energy about renewable energy electricity generation and suggested that legislation be passed to ensure all new power generation should be by renewable energy. I have been told this is not feasible, but I don't accept this. I can though accept a transfer of gas power generation to a combined cycle generating system, if this is replacing the very inefficient old generation capacity. This will gain an increase of efficiency by 20%. Gas presently represents about 5 TWh generation per annum, and we won't be able to replace this overnight, but the plan should be to replace this over the next ten years.
An overview of power generation 2050.
To generate 49 TWh of power from renewable resources will be a major undertaking. It would help if we can reduce this figure somewhat. The Energy Outlook does not say how much energy demand is predicated by increasing population. But there is a figure for a 1% annual increase in domestic energy requirements mentioned. In addition included allowances for energy efficiency are not detailed. Below I consider domestic energy measures. I admit here that it is beyond my competence to calculate the likely total energy savings from the projected 2050 demand by reducing immigration and better domestic efficiency, though I have calculated below that a 33% energy efficiency increase in domestic demand will bring 4 TWh of saving. This figure will do for a start. This means that I am allowing for an increase in generation of 9 TWh or 25% . Wind power.
My proposal for a renewable energy electricity sector in 2050 would depend almost entirely on hydro, wind and energy efficiency, solar hot water and passive solar heating. I should also consider biomass and solar power, and this may well be part of the mix, however I really don't posess enough information on biomass, so I have not included this. In regards to solar power, which I covered quite fully in my earlier incarnation of this article, I am quite certain there will be major advances in this, and with decreasing costs, again this might be part of the mix. I discuss developments in solar technology below, without using this in my figures here. If some proportion of our electricity generation was to be biomass, than this would provide us with more flexibility in our mix of renewable power generation. So we would have to find about 45 TWh minus 28 TWh hydro minus 7 TWh geothermal, equals 10 TWh of wind power.
I have looked at windpower elsewhere on this site, but to generate 10 TWh of electricity per year would require 3,300 1 MW wind power generators. Larger generators, as installed already in the Manawatu, and as proposed for the Makara project (3 MW generators) would obviously need a lesser number. (The figures are approximately these. A 1 MW generator will theoretically produce 1 x 24(hours) x 365(days) Mwh per annum, this is 8760 Mwh p.a. say 9 Gwh in round figures, if the wind blew all the time. Obviously it doesn't, but the generally accepted rate of power generation from wind at a reasonable site is about 30% , meaning that a single 1 MW generator will produce approximately 3 Gwh electricity p.a. The New Zealand figures are somewhat better, nearly 50% in the case of Makara. However such high wind utilisation may bring more stress to the generators, but we will have to wait and see. To generate 10 Twh of electricity then would require about 3,300 1 MW windmills.) A great number, but feasible. And contrary to some critic's concerns, they would not take over the landscape, even at a modest two per km2, this is only 1650 km2, or just 0.66% of NZ's total land mass. The cost of windpower is continuing to reduce dramatically. Meridian have calculated a cost for their massive generators in the spectacularly windy site at Makara at about 6 c per KWh, directly comparable to any other generating source. I have added below a link to a site with news from Sweden. Please check this out, I had a definite feeling of deja vu!. Also added below is a link to the EECA windpower outlook paper published in 2001 - you should definitely check this out. (and don't forget that I cover a good deal about wind power on other parts of this site)
Tiwai Point Aluminium Smelter
There is also the question of the Tiwai Point aluminium smelter. This one facility uses 5.6 TWh of power annually. I have discussed this elsewhere. If this were closed, our ability to provide entirely renewable power would be ludicrously easy. However, the company have threatened to build their own coal generation plant if they can't get power at a price they consider low enough. I don't know how this threat will work out in practice, private companies like this will use any sort of threat to gain commercial advantage of course. If they did do this, and it would be difficult to see any government prevent them doing so, and in fact internation trade regulations might make this difficult, then this certainly wouldn't help the climate. Additionally aluminium is a valuable, light metal, which will be increasingly needed in transport infrastructure for efficiency reasons. As this news article states, much of the finances related to this company are secret. This makes me unhappy as this is our electricity that it's using, and the public have a right of knowledge in this situation, particularly as we face major environmental issues and major infrastructural investment. This article also acknowledges the extra expense from the carbon taxes, as despite the fact that this facility uses carbon-free power generation, the process of refining bauxite into aluminium generates copious quantities of carbon dioxide from the carbonate containing ores. When I first wrote about this facility last year, I would have considered seeing it close, but with the tremendous advances in wind-power that we are seeing, we might be able to have our ecological cake and (h)eat it! The addition of biomass and solar power to the generation mix would be the icing on this cake.
Let's get real
Now the fossil fuel junkies keep rabbitting on about the intermittency of wind and solar power. This is obviously true, wind and sun are not constant. But as the power crises we have already had have shown, even hydro has its intermittency problems. But further, they are plainly wrong to say gas is not intermittent, it is certainly reliable for ten years, but after that there is no more gas, and no more power, so you can't get more intermittent than that! In addition we should remember how nuclear and coal power suffers in a reverse way, the demand for electricity is very variable, but these power providers can't be turned up and down very quickly, they are baseload plants, and through the night when power isn't so much needed, they have an excess of power which they have to price at a low level to encourage folk to make use of it. Admitted need for power storage.
The figures outlined about indicate that we could have an entirely renewable energy supply with wind providing up to 20% of the total. I am reasonably convinced that a hydro-wind power scheme can manage with this proportion of wind power. (Link) It might, though, need some modification of some hydro generating capacity to increase output for short periods of time. However, as the proportion of renewables other than hydro climbs to over 20% . we may have to plan for some sort of power storage. One likely candidate here is pump-storage, ie a combined generator and pump that use a two dams and two lakes. Water is pumped up to the top lake when power is available and not needed, and released down to the lower lake at times when the power needs boosting. The Tianhuangping scheme in China has an amazing overall efficiency of 70%. One scheme each in the North Island and the South Island would probably suffice. The Tianhaungping scheme can generate up to 1,800 MW of power. Loch Cruachan in Scotland has been operating for forty years. This is not ground-breaking stuff. See also this link for an overview of pump storage schemes with lots of links. The costs would be very significant, comparable to the Clyde dam for each facility. Additionally most pump storage schemes provide a relatively short lived power boost, to tide over demand fluctuations. A pump-storage facility as I conceive would be needed to smooth out supply fluctuations from wind power, so not only would it have to provide a lot of power, but for some considerable length of time, say several days. The design would require enough water to supply an equivalent amount of power that the ordinary hydro couldn't supply when the wind isn't blowing, depending on the installed amount of windpower. This might have to be a total of several gigawatts. The Tianhuanping reservoir has a capacity of 8 million cu metres each, and a head of 590 metres and a cost for the facility of US1 billion. A dam for the purposes envisaged here would have to have a much bigger capacity. If we could use an existing lake for the lower reservoir, this would save costs. What I can't find from the internet is the generation capacity in KWh of the Tianhuangping to enable me to estimate the likely size of any pump-storage scheme needed.
Loch Cruachan
Alternatively, and more technically advanced, would be to use the surplus power to electrolyse water, and store the hydrogen produced in large gasometers (it would be strange to see these structures in NZ, they were so much a part of the UK scene in my childhood) and use the hydrogen in large static fuel cells. Commercially available fuel cells are already available that can accomplish this. Again, this source of electricity is available almost instantaneously, so mitigating the effects of the variability of solar and wind power. The advantage of hydrogen power storage is that such facilities could be dispersed around the country, minimising transmission costs, and could be increased incrementally as needed, and would be less environmentally intrusive or permanent.The costs of such a scheme would be very high, though, more than a pump-storage scheme. Alternatively, some of the gas could be reticulated, which would in fact be more efficient. (Added 2/8/05 - a recent report from May this year, which I have just found on the internet, from the Ministry of Economic Development and the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority that suggests upto 35% peak power generation could technically be incorporated into our present electricity generation system. If this is the case, then this makes the likelihood of acheiving a fully renewable electricity generation sector even easier, and the need for storage facilities could be postponed for many years.)
Additional need for electricity, the transport sector
In fact the 50 Twh of generation capacity by 2050 is probably a good deal less than we will require, because we will be using a great deal of electricity for transport - battery powered cars, trolley buses, electric light rail etc. At present a full 40% of our energy needs is used in transport, almost entirely using oil, about 208 petajoules per year, equivalent to electricity generation of 57 TWh per year, or over 60% more than our present total electricity generation. How on earth could we convert this amount of energy to renewables? (These figures graphically illustrate the problems we face with peak oil and the concentrated energy that oil represents) Lets see if we can make some inroads in to this. The first point to make is how inefficiently we use this amount of oil. Our lack of investment in public transport, our gas-guzzling vehicles, our sprawly suburbs all conspire to make us gluttunous users of this resource. Let's say we can reduce our need for oil by 50% - the sort of things we would need to do to accomplish this would are listed in several documents on my internet site. I think this is quite acheivable, difficult certainly, but peak oil will do most of the work for us. So we are now down to an energy need of about 30 GWh equivalent.
But let's be optimistic, and I am. Battery powered cars are now beginning to be realistic option for private cars. Certainly within ten years we will see major advances. Let's get everyone into battery powered cars, when they are not using buses or trains. There is one amazingly helpful fact here. Electric cars are extremely efficient, internal combustion engine (ICE) cars are appallingly inefficient. The very best ICE car acheives an overall efficiency converting fuel to motion on the road of less than 20%. The electric cars already available achieve an overall efficiency of 70%. (electricity from the plug to forward motion) i.e. electric cars use their energy over three times as efficiently. (You can look at the figures another way and get much the same sort answer, the typical electric vehicle will achieve about 100kms/10Kwh, whereas my Honda Jazz's maximum fuel economy using petrol, which contains about 12 KWh/litre, does about 5 litres per hundred kilometres, or six times as much energy). Let's take three times as the figure, divide 30 TWh by 3, we are now down to 10 TWh - a figure exactly the same as the proposed wind power installed base of 2050. i.e a total wind power base of 20 TWh will not only provide us with entirely renewable electricity generation, it will also provide us with an entirely renewable transport sector. 20 TWh is equivalent to the installation of about 7000 MW of wind generating capacity, about the same as Denmark has already installed. In other words, there are no fundamental economic, polical, scientific, geographical or social difficulties to providing an entirely renewable power generation and transport infrastructure.
BUT THIS ISN'T ALL!! . We have approximately 2 million vehicles in New Zealand. A battery powered car will perform extremely well with about 20 KWh of battery power aboard. Cars have been made already with this power storage and will travel about 200 km on this charge. 20 KWh hours multiplied by 2 million is 40 GWh of power equivalent storage, or at 2 KW output, 4 GW power output, or nearly one half of New Zealand's total power generating capacity of about 8.5 GW. In other words, our electrical vehicles, which are mostly standing idle, could be used as a peak capacity and demand damping resource, especially useful with wind power, with economic benefit both to the car owner and the power utilities. Additionally your car battery would be a very useful backup for power outages. See this link
The nuclear option
Some people (e.g. Ken Shirley, MP, ACT Party) have suggested nuclear power as an option for New Zealand, and I mention it here merely to dismiss it. Firstly, for a country that has made much of its nuclear free policy, this would be a political about-face of embarrassing proportions. Secondly, whilst nuclear power is basically CO2 free, except in the mining of uranium and the construction of the plant, it certainly isn't environmentally free. The problem of nuclear waste has not been solved, and in this geologically young and earthquake prone nation, finding a repository for such wast would be difficult. Thirdly nuclear power is much more expensive than wind power (Link). Fourthly , if nuclear power becomes a popular option for more populated nations in the northern hemisphere, the fuel, uranium, will become scarce and expensive. And fifthly nuclear power has to come with reprocessing and other nuclear facilities. None of this makes nuclear power a feasible option for New Zealand, though I can see why present nuclear powers may have to reconsider their options in regard to nuclear power generation. But even in these countries there is a great deal of opposition to more nuclear power, and supporters of renewable energy resources and energy efficiency measures are concerned that the nuclear power option is diverting interest and investment from these more environmentally friendly options.
Solar Power
Those of you who have returned to this site, will recall that I had been an enthusiastic proponent of solar power as being part of the mix in renewable energy resources. I have been checking this out further, as explained above, and I have found that New Zealand doesn't meet the solar energy requirements to make solar trough power feasible, at reasonable cost, at the present time. I don't feel guilty about being misleading though, much of the information on renewable energy is hard to find. Also I am quite confident, that as in wind power, technology will advance. If we don't keep our own technology up to date, we will loose out. Denmark has earned a great deal of money by being a wind power innovator, we shouldn't ignore solar power just because the technology isn't quite there, we should be supporting our own research into this subject. I would be hopeful that a clever New Zealander might well come up with a scheme that would suit our climate and energy needs. However for those who are interested I add an edited version of my solar power research here, and there are internet references at the end of this article:
There are several places in NZ that have 2,200 or more hours of bright sunshine each year (eg Nelson, Tauranga, Blenheim)
I don't have figures for actual solar insolation (that is the power radiated onto the ground from the sun, per square metre) for these specific areas. For the Auckland region the figure is 4.34 kwh/m2/day . For the Wellington, Nelson and Blenheim zone it is 3.88. I think for the sunnier eastern parts of the country you could increase these figures by at least 10%
At any rate, let's take an average for the North Island and the north of the South Island as 4.0 kwh/m2/day. This then means that each year average insolation is about 1460 KWh per square metre per year.
Already operating solar trough generators can achieve about 10% (I have deliberately made this a conservative figure so as to disarm critics - in the US, efficiencies of 15% have already been achieved) overall yearly efficiency in converting solar energy into electricity. ( A trough solar generator is a parabolic mirror, long and thin, about 4 metres across but maybe 100 metres long, this concentrates the sunshine onto a tube filled with oil, this gets very hot - about 300 degree centigrade - and this hot oil is then used to produce steam which in turn produces power in a conventional generating plant. The 10 % figure means that of the total amount of power contained in the sunshine, about 10% of this is converted eventually into electricity. This is quite a good figure, and is nearly as good as much more expensive solar cells)
Mutiply 1,460 x 0.10 = 146 KWh/m2/annum electricity generation. (this means the amount of actual electrical power available per year, this is obviously much smaller than the earlier figure, because of the 10% factor)
Assume the collectors occupy 50% of the available space then the power generated is 73 kwh/m2/annum (the figure keeps going down, but read on!)
Mutliply this figure by one million to get electrical power produced per square kilometre (there is 1000 x 1000 square metres in one square kilometre) = 73 GWh/km2/annum. Put in more homely terms, one square kilometre will produce sufficient electrical power each year to supply over 8,000 average NZ households - the average is about 8,000 KWh per annum per household)
50 sq km of land, which represents about 0.02% of our total landmass will produce 3.65 Twh of electricity per annum = about 7% of our projected need of 50 TWh generation capacity by 2050. You could have four solar plants, each 12.5 km2 (5 km x 2.5km), in Gisbourne, Bay of Plenty, Hawkes Bay and Blenheim to produce this power. For extra supply Nelson is just as good, and the Wairarapa is almost up there at 2100 hours bright sunshine per year. The Wairarapa is also flat and relatively undeveloped. There are parts of Northland too that might be suitable. And this is the advantage of solar and wind power, the resources of wind and sun are widely distributed about the country and this reduces transmission costs and losses a great deal. The main problem for us is the lack of relatively level sites to install these. But at 0.2% of landmass, this shouldn't be an impossible obstacle . Perhaps a north facing slope could have efficiency advantages that would outweigh the extra construction costs. .
This site would appear to indicate an approximate cost of US$3,000 per KW. i.e a 50 MW facility would cost about US$150 million, which is about three times what an equivalent wind power facility would cost, with a levelised energy cost over the life of the plant of about US$0.11 per KWh, over twice that of windpower, and this in the best sites.
Solar Trough power plant, Arizona
Some perspective and plans for German solar power.
Here's another way to look at solar power. The Clyde dam, the second largest hydropower generator in New Zealand produces 432 Mw of power, which is equivalent to about 2TWh power per annum (I haven't been able to find the exact figure, so this is a fair guess, I will try and get this more accurate later). It cost about $1.5 billion (again an approximate figure, it may have been more, there were major cost overruns) Behind the dam is Lake Dunstan, which is 26.4 sq km in area. So here we have a facility costing $1.5 billion, taking up an area of 26 sq km and producing 2 Twh/annum. My figures for solar power are not outrageously different - we can actually generate more power via solar in the same area of land that a dam floods, though at a much higher price, presently. But the big difference is that solar power will be much nearer points of consumption, the facilites can be up and running pretty quickly, they can be installed as and when needed, they are not a permanent blight on the local ecology, being able to be dismantled easily. i.e they are a great deal more flexible.And to keep things very up to date (2.4.05), Germany, already a world leader in wind-power generation has recently installed the world's largest solar panel array, with over 30,000 solar panels, producing five megawatts. The cost was 22 million Euros, (about 40 million $NZ) This is a lot more than my costs for the solar trough, and four times what equivalent windpower generation would cost. However Germany plans to install upto 500 MW of solar panel power by the end of this year. Germany is wishing to achieve leadership in this technology, and they calculate that solar cell business will be worth over 100 billion Euros in twenty years time. I am not particularly suggesting this technology for New Zealand on a large scale, but certainly I think a few small such utilities should now be installed in favourable areas to assess its potential. But Germany isn't neglecting solar thermal power, Schott, a large glass making concern in Germany are very much involved in solar trough power generation,for instance they are making vacuum insulated glass collecting tubes, like very long Thermos flasks. Germany has said they will be installing a number of 5,000 MW capacity solar thermal power stations in southern European countries in the next ten years. And just as wind power costs have plummeted with large scale deployment and practical experience, this will happen with this technology. The Germans estimate a 50% lowering of costs in the next few years, down to about US$0.06 per KWh - well within the realm of economic acceptability for a non-polluting, renewable resource. I have been pleased to read this, as it means my suggestions of solar power are definitely not completely cranky - but on the cutting edge of technology!. This technology is obviously beginning to take off, as it has with wind. New Zealand ignores this sort of technology at its economic peril.
Our need to get cracking.
What is going to be an overriding issue for us all, in all our energy concerns, is that private transport is the single most wasteful use of this irreplaceable asset, oil. We must get our petrol and diesel consumption down by a substantial margin, this will then free up enough oil to allow us to manufacture the facilities that we will be desperately needing, the windpower generators and the storage facilities that I have talked about on this page, or we are actually going to run out of the energy substrate we need to accomplish these tasks. We will then be in a social and economic cul-de-sac with no means of reversing our way out. We literally have only a few precious years to accomplish this. I have said elsewhere on this site, this is a revolution, and you can't have a revolution without a some pain, but that will be as nothing to the pain we will suffer if we don't do this. We are not in the cul-de-sac yet, but if we don't make these very significant sacrifices now, in less than ten years it will be too late. I am actually very positive, and I have stated that elsewhere, but it is getting to be rather too close a call for my comfort. Missed opportunities
Of course some simple renewable energy resources are being poorly utilised. A solar power water heater on the roof of a home can save nearly 25% in home electricity usage. I have written umpteen times to ministers about this, damn all response. In the last twenty years we must have built over 300,000 homes, think of the elecricity savings that could have been made if solar hot water heating was compulsory in all new homes. Similarly with passive solar heating. A simple calculation will show the benefit of such planning. An installed solar hot water heater, and passive solar design, insulation, power efficient lighting etc should easily bring about savings of 50% annual home electricity usage. As the average home usage is about 8,000 KHh p.a., this would mean savings of 4,000 KWh p.a., multiplied by 300,000 gives us 1.2 TWh p.a. or 3% of our present generating capacity. This is low technology stuff providing returns after initial pay back time for the lifetime of the building. It is nothing short of insane that this country, with its good sunshine resource, should be neglecting such a low cost, low technology but high value resource.
Projecting these figures to 2050 is difficult, but let's give it a go. Our present (2002) domestic electricity use is 42.9 PJ per annum, this is about 12 TWh per annum. ie our domestic electricity demand is about one third of total electricity demand. Lets examine the present situation. There will be at least 500,000 older properties in New Zealand that have little insulation. Probably loft, but no wall and ineffective floor insulation. A $2-3 billion investment in insulation will see these properties brought up to scratch. We need to continue in investment in lower power lighting and appliances, and an eventual installation of solar hot water heating in all homes. I have found it very difficult to get potential energy savings figures for all these measures. However I profer a figure of 33% to start with, I am certain this figure is eminently acheivable. Solar hot water heating on every home would, on its own, save 20% of domestic power consumption at a conservative estimate. High efficiency refrigeration, lighting etc. would certainly save 13%. Extrapolating to our figures worked out above, would mean a total saving of 4 TWh per annum. You will see this is the figure I have used.
No technical revolution required
The ideas outlined above do confirm that our entire electrical generation capacity can be by renewables by 2025. I am not proposing anything revolutionary. Wind power is mainstream technology and is directly comparable in price to any other generation mode. Solar power is more expensive, but exists now, and uses simple proven technology. Biomass has been around since our distant ancestors first tamed fire. Pump storage schemes have been around for forty years. There are over a six hundred large sized fuel cells already working in the world. I get so angry with opponents of these sustainable technologies who say that they are marginal, or uncompetitive or unproven. Yet these same people will tell you that the problems associated with nuclear power have been solved, or that carbon sequestration is just around the corner, or that we can import liquified petroleum gas. These people are simply wrong. The nuclear power waste issue has nowhere near been solved, carbon sequestration is a distant dream and importing gas is impossible - there just won't be any, or if there is the cost will be unbearable. But we do need a cultural revolution
In fact, an entirely renewable electricity generation capacity could be effected within TEN YEARS. And we will probably have to. We have a desperately short time to save ourselves and our world. Recent major increases in oil prices probably means that we perilously close to the dreaded oil peak. We have only a little time to get organised, because the things we need to do require oil to do them. Oil is going to get rapidly very expensive, and may be even unavailable. There is going to be the most incredible demand worldwide for wind power and solar generators, and down here in this little country, we might have difficulty sourcing components. In addition as our conventional energy costs skyrocket, manufacturing these facilities will become ever more expensive. Let's do it NOW, while we can. We can also take what measures we can to drastically reduce our oil import needs, and use the ten year's gas supply we have to substitute for oil while we work out what to do next!PS. I am delighted though to read in the Herald today that New Zealand's wind power base increased by 360% last year. Fantastic. The message is getting through, but this is just the start. In addition Genesis's coal fired generation proposals are being quietly shelved, fantastic. But wind power has started from a very low base, and our increased windpower is still just a fraction of what is going to be needed. I feel that I shouldn't complain, it is what I so wish to see, but the pace of installation is still painfully modest by overseas standards, and must be urgently increased.
This is a major wind development in Spain. Spain added 2,000 MW capacity in 2004, this one year's installation is nearly six times New Zealand's total installation to date. (To put this more in perspective, less than two years of Spanish windpower installation would provide more than the total windpower generation than I have suggested for 2025!!) I would have to agree that these wind mills are not the most prepossessing. But the problem is we are running out of alternatives. Our modern society cannot exist without energy, and this form of energy is by far the cleanest, most efficient and readily available. When nuclear fusion starts being commercially available in eighty year's time, then we can dismantle these facilites and return the hills to their natural state.