i hate the LL off shore windfarms with a passion. Which makes me have double standards
I suspect we're all guilty of that, P. 'Nimbyism' was a phenomenon of the 20th C and seems to be getting more pronounced with every passing day. One problem is the growing need for power, something which has mushroomed over the past 20 years, and which has left us dangerously reliant on imported power supplies. In the early 1950s average power consumption was limited to one light per room, the odd iron and perhaps an electric cooker. These days, however, the number of chargers alone fill any spare sockets, while manufacturers have only belatedly started to get to grips with standby power consumption on things like sky boxes. CFL lighting only partly addresses this issue (LEDS are much better but a lot more expensive to buy) but the real problem is that we've come to expect (and enjoy) being clean.
In the post-war years most houses had one bath night, which - in many cases - meant a steel bathtub dragged into the lounge where it had some hot water poured in and where each member of the family would have to enjoy what hot soaking they could, and always in the water from the previous users.
It's now rare if people don't shower on a daily basis, often twice a day, and none of that water is re-used. Heating water is where most of our electricity goes, and - contrary to popular belief - many showers use even more water than baths did, especially as some folk enjoy long, soothing showers.
One answer would be to make domestic heat pumps much cheaper and more efficient, but even then installation would cost an arm and a leg in many cases, and people won't pay it. Making solar panels on roofs compulsory for all new-build homes was scrapped by the coalition, since that would cause problems for too many builders (!) so until and unless the government decides to legislate forcing such changes the only options are increasing numbers of wind farms and nuclear plants.
