Getting energy from the wind is a great idea. What a pity that in the Hong Kong context it is totally unrealistic. To make any significant contribution to our ever-increasing hunger for electricity we would virtually need whirling blades atop every building in the city. It's never going to work.
The concept is appealing. Stick up a few windmills and, hey presto!, all your energy needs are solved. It's a notion that has hard-core environmentalists trembling with excitement, until they take a harder look at the cold facts and hard figures. Then they discover it is totally unviable.
Proposals by both power companies to build wind farms out to sea is a public relations sham. These would create a visual ecological nightmare that would also be a crippling financial disaster, all in return for a phoney cuddle-me payoff to blind idealism. Examine the facts. CLP Power envisages sticking a bunch of wind towers off the Ninepin Islands. Blades would whirl prettily over the waves and undersea cables would carry ashore electricity for about 75,000 small households.
Nonsense. First of all, they have to build the towers. This would mean an armada of barges and floating cranes moored there for months so massive underwater excavations could be dug into the living seabed.
From huge concrete platforms, towers would rise at least 25 metres to reach the surface. Then they have to soar another 80 metres higher to give the blades room to spin above stormy waves.
The structures would be incredibly expensive. The tiny amount of power generated would not pay for them in a half century. So who is going to foot the bill? Two guesses, and you are right first time. It is Mr Average Hongkonger, who will dig deep to pay for this feel-good frippery.