More forestry?
“No, it ruins the countryside.”
Waste incineration?
“No, I’m worried about health risks, traffic con-
gestion, dust and noise.”
Hydroelectricity?
“Yes, but not big hydro – that harms the environ-
ment.”
Offshore wind?
“No, I’m more worried about the ugly powerlines
coming ashore than I was about a Nazi invasion.”
Wave or geothermal power?
“No, far too expensive.”

After all these objections, I fear that the maximum Britain would ever
get from renewables would be something like what’s shown in the bottom
right of figure 18.7.

Figure 18.8 offers guidance to anyone trying to erect wind farms in
Britain. On a map of the British mainland I’ve shown in white a 2-km radius
exclusion zone surrounding every hamlet, village, and town. These
white areas would presumably be excluded from wind-farm development
because they are too close to the humans. I’ve coloured in black all regions

Figure 18.8. Where the wild things are. One of the grounds for objecting to wind farms is the noise they produce. I’ve chopped out of this map of the British mainland a 2-km-radius exclusion zone surrounding every hamlet, village, and town. These white areas would presumably be excluded from wind-farm development. The remaining black areas would perhaps also be largely excluded because of the need to protect tranquil places from industrialization. Settlement data from www.openstreetmap.org.