Windmill nonsense

FORWARD to the 13th century! Windmills will once again come to our rescue, providing free energy. Bollocks, as anyone who has seen the giant propellers, wheezing and creaking on the hills of Normandy, will attest. Modern windwills have the carbon footprint of a Yeti. Add the cement, steel, copper cabling, not to mention the heavy metal batteries and it is impossible to see these behemoths as doing anything worthwhile. They wreck the view, slaughter happless birds, are noisy as hell and are, at best, a sop to simple-minded Greens. None of this stops Eskom from wanting to pollute the Cape with heaven knows how many of the ghastly things. When they inevitably rust and grind to a halt, the environmental cost of taking them down will be even greater. Roll on a pebble bed mini-nuclear reactor, says Spigot -- that is a truly green solution to energy needs in the Cape. Capetonians have lived with Koeberg on their doostep for years and despite the doomsayers there is no evidence of Kaapenaars glowing in the dark.