Windmills, the original power stations, are making a comeback. Thousands of them used to dot our countryside, harvesting the breeze and turning it into energy to grind grain or pump water. Gradually, coal, oil, gas and nuclear energy made the windmill redundant, and those that survived stood as picture postcard relics of a pre-industrial age. But as these energy sources became exhausted, their use too polluting or their disposal too hazardous, people began to look for new ways of fuelling their lives.

The answer was blowing in the wind. The same invisible force that drove the New World discoverers on their voyages hundreds of years ago is being harvested on this wind farm in the Californian hills near Palm Springs. Wind remains a constant and virtually untapped resource that will never run out. It is created by variations in temperature and air pressure on the Earth’s surface, and is clean and safe.

On average, the energy used to build one of these turbines is recouped in three to four months of operation, and a single 600 kilowatt turbine can provide enough electricity for 400 homes.

But for all its green credentials, wind power has its opponents, principally - and ironically - on the grounds of its environmental impact. Traditionalists might love the old-fashioned functionalism of the broadsailed windmill, but are much less enamoured of the sleek 21st-century turbines that bestride the horizon.

Despite being the windiest place in Europe and having 40 per cent of Europe’s most suitably exposed sites for wind farms, the UK still lags behind Denmark - which gets 15 per cent of its power from the wind - Spain and Greece.

But the Government has pledged that 10 per cent of our power needs will come from renewable sources by 2010 - the current proportion is nearly 3 per cent - and wind power will be one of the main contributors to that target. A 250-turbine, 600-megawatt wind farm planned for the Hebridean island of Lewis at a cost of pound;500 million would more than double the output of the 880 turbines on Britain’s 69 existing wind farms. The project, yet to be formally announced, would be connected to the national grid by a 350-mile underwater cable.

Smaller collections of lofty propellers are likely to become a common site in the British countryside as wind farming supplements the conventional sort. To help alleviate the farming crisis, the Government is to subsidise the construction of up to three turbines on suitably windy farming terrain, and hand farmers a share of the profits. Wind farms are also being developed out at sea. Britain’s first offshore wind farm - two turbines at Blyth in Northumberland - will be followed in three years’ time by a 30-turbine development five miles off the north Wales coast, and another 12 are being planned.

In time, opposition to wind farms may fade as people come to see their true beauty. Which is that for every one, the need for carbon-burning, conventional power stations decreases, and the air that we breathe becomes cleaner.

HARVEY McGAVIN

WeblinksBritish wind energy association: www.britishwindenergy.co.uk Danish child-friendly website (in English): www.windpower.dkenkidsindex.htm Main UK wind turbine company: www.natwindpower.co.ukhomepage.htm UK’s first offshore wind farm: www.blyth-offshore.co.uk