Whichever side you’re on in the changes brought about by the crucial renewable energy developments, wind turbines seem to focus the most vigorous and often blinkered debate.

People who hate them for what they see as their aesthetic interruption of Scotland’s magnificent landscapes are not wrong – but they are doubly blind.

• They somehow don’t see any more the huge and aggressive-looking electricity Daleks marching endlessly across some of most beautiful hills, glens and skylines we have. Walkers pass by these with the same unthinking acceptance that Historic Scotland is sometimes guilty of applying to the preservation of the pointless. They exist therefore they’re good.  
• And they fail to let their eyes fall upon wind turbines objectively. Yes, there are times when these objects are intrusive but there are as many times when they are oddly fitting. There is a curiously easy relationship between the primitive and the futuristic, perhaps because both are almost equally removed from us in time.

Driving the A9 north from Inverness and turning left at Latheron to cross the edge of the Flow Country to Thurso, you come to the Causeymire Windfarm, right at the side of the road, stretching back on to the moor. The slender structures rear up delicately from the mysterious and almost infinite moor and their wings revolve in and out of synch with each other. They are the aliens who’ve just landed They are mesmeric.Their strangeness marries with the strangeness of the place itself.

It’s important to maintain the power of discrimination – to see where wind turbine intrude and to see where they are of genuine visual interest – as Enterprise and Energy Minister Jim Mather has – controversially, just said. In the ire this has brought upon him, people seem to have forgotten that this is the Minister who – equally controversially in our view – rejected the application to build a very extensive windfarm in the north of the Isle of Lewis in the Western Isles. Whether or not you agree with his decision or his remarks, it has to be conceded that his position is a discriminating one.

For Argyll is unequivocally committed to the value of renewable energy development and energised by Scotland’s energetic engagement withits potential. We will have nothing else one day not too far away, so the sooner we develop and use such energy sources the stronger our position. And the sooner we develop the scientific, engineering and management skills and the technical infrastructure to deliver it, the sooner Scotland can reap some of the real economic benefit from leading the field.

We have in previous reports, noted that in the Netherlands wind turbines are sited alongside motorways. We have suggested that there is a value in looking at the siting of windfarms alongside existing built environments, like towns and viillages, to take as many as possible away from the peaceful hills and glens that understandably arouse such passion.

In the end, the key argument is the cliche about there being no such thing as a free lunch. We have no choice but to develop alternative and renewable sources of energy and to do so as fast as we can. The real advantage of wind turbines is that they are clean.

When technology eventually comes up with something better, wind turbines can be removed without leaving a negative environmental impact. How long will it be before, say, Doonreay, is even decommissioned? And the best research has not yet discovered a way to neutralise nuclear waste beyond sealing and burying for potential later  contamination – hoping that this will not be in our time.

The image of wind turbines above is reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.