Tuesday 8 January 2008

Micro wind vs Micro water

Two very different environmental stories caught my eye today.

The first via Yahoo but published in The Register deals with a small study on the viability of micro turbines in your back garden, far from being the ideal way forward as David Cameron was suggesting it would appear that in many cases the turbines would not even light one bulb let alone boil the water to melt the chocolate Tory teacup.

The problem it appears has many facets ranging from not enough wind to too much turbulence and common or garden theft and vandalism. Overoptimism from contractors also appears to have a role to play.

In contrast Talybont on usk just (30miles) down the road from me are looking to expand their existing hydro electric scheme into a wider community led initiative to make the village carbon neutral.

Coming two days after I was down in Clydach where the Forge Fach community resource centre were looking to meet their energy needs by redeveloping an historic leat into a small scale hydro scheme it would seem that for many water power may be a better way forward.

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