The real culprits in this story are the entrenched energy interests controlling the fight against onshore development, and pulling government strings.

strings that want nuclear power, correct?

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty

IMHO an approach such as that of Maitland Mackie which is along Danish lines of a myriad small developments is both more achievable, and also consistent with a decentralised economy.

Solveig and I had a really interesting afternoon with him, but he was already set on a conventional (Victorian era) Cooperative model using genetically modified companies and failed in his ambitious (but perfectly achievable) strategy.

He ha d already installed off his own bat 3 Vesta V52s - Margaret, Matilda and Mirabel.

If locals genuinely share in the benefits and cash flow - rather than developers giving them a new bus shelter and fucking off with the loot - then we would get somewhere.

IMHO the Vesta workers should do a bit of Venture Communism solve their quality problems with some expert help, and participate in creating a network of a few hundred local Community Energy Partnership schemes.

"The future is already here -- it's just not very evenly distributed" William Gibson