I have used the title of this post advisedly, and I hope nobody in Point will take this too personally. The Norwegian energy company Statoil has proposed to build two windfarms in the Minch, off Bayble and between Ness and Cape Wrath. The structures, towering 100 metres above the water and an equal length below, would be build in clusters. Each turbine is anchored to the seabed. The people in Point have voiced their opposition, as it would spoil the view. Hmm. Isn't it the community enterprise Point and Sandwick Power that is proposing to build a windfarm off the Pentland Road - and that is NOT going to spoil the view?
Anyway, the Bayble windfarm will be linked to the Gravir interconnector (do I detect another attempt to justify the construction of the interconnector?) to the mainland.
The Stornoway Gazette, in its edition of 8 July, published the results of an unofficial poll, which revealed that 82% of respondents were opposed to the construction of a(nother) large windfarm in Lewis. I think the same applies to offshore. I appreciate that there would be a large element of NIMBY'ism about, but I see no benefit to the island for the Minch windfarms. And the recent problems with no wind just served to underline the folly in overreliance on wind-energy.
Sadly, I don't know much about the windfarm (both land and sea) proposals in your lovely part of the world. Although a Scot, I generally live in northern Sweden and can simply say that Statoil, like most - if not all - large Scandinavian businesses, is a largely uncompetitive, expensive and greedy fuel/energy company. It will have no compunction in exploiting your natural resources and blighting your landscape, in my opinion. Best wishes to all.
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