Humid.

We had a little rain in the night while today has been humid with the threat of rain that never quite arrived. My day has flown by. I was a little apprehensive about the maths I had planned for the morning as I wasn't sure if the levels were right (have to differentiate for 4 groups), but it was fine. I stayed on until 5.00 getting myself organised for the morning and mounting some art work they had made last week. By the time I went to the shop and the petrol station I got home with just an hour before I have to go out to a meeting regarding a local planning application for a wind turbine.  While utilising renewable energy is a good thing it is another thing when a big company wants to put up a turbine with 15m blades on the highest hill less than 1km away.  10 properties lie within 1km of this proposed turbine and we would all be affected by the constant noise (similar to a concrete mixer or industrial tumble drier at 35dbs), the closer properties would suffer a flicker effect of sunlight flashing off the vanes and we would all be affected by this large industrial structure in a largely unspoiled rural landscape.   And all the properties would drop in value by up to a third for which there would be no compensation. The turbine will produce roughly 10x the amount of electricity the farmer uses and it is the big company (based elsewhere in the country) who will be making massive profits from govt. subsidies. They applied 2 years ago and it was thrown out so now they have applied for a turbine with a lower tower but bigger vanes. We have 2 weeks to get as many objections as possible lodged with the planning office and hopefully it will be refused again. There has been some legislation only last week which puts more weight on local objections.

I've just come back from my meeting and I need to amend the size of the turbine. The central tower is 35m high and the blades are a further 26m. In the whole of Devon and Cornwall it will be the turbine with the longest blades and spin the fastest.  The blades will come to 9m above ground, our bats fly at around 10m and the danger to them comes not from being hit by the blades but the air pressure vortexes will cause them to explode. And financially although the build cost is just over a million pounds they will recoup that in 3 1/2 years.