Hot air and windmills from labour.

Hot air and windmills from labour.

According to the media 7,000 wind turbines are to be erected on the hills and around the coasts of Britain by 2020. Apparently they will be the highly visible symbols of what the Prime Minister called "the most drastic change in our energy policy since the advent of nuclear power" – a shift to producing at least a third of Britain’s electricity from carbon-free renewable sources, compared to under 5% cent today. That, of course, is the government spin – with the actual number being built likely to be considerably less than that.

The objective, as set out in a consultation document that claims to lead to a formal new strategy, is to cut down the greenhouse gas emissions from conventional power stations that are causing climate change, reduce Britain's reliance on foreign energy supplies, and meet the demanding climate target agreed by EU leaders last year, of providing 20% of Europe's total energy use from renewable sources by 2020.

According to the experts, Britain's share of this works out at a 15% renewable energy target, split between electricity, heating and transport, with electricity being the largest element: This means that between 30% and 35% of Britain’s power will need to be renewable by the target date, compared with a mere 4.5% today.

But even those naïve enough to accept government proposals at face value concede that the investment programme and timetable needed to achieve this in a mere 12 years are demanding.

Realistically, hitting these targets means at least trebling the current scale of wind-farm construction, adding 4,000 more onshore turbines to the 2,000 already in place, and installing 3,000 turbines in the sea, at a rate of two every three days between now and 2020, Christmas and bank holidays not excepted. Questions were raised as to whether or not Britain has the manufacturing capacity, or the number of engineers necessary to carry out the installations.

Yet the Government claims it can be done – the same Government that promised us a referendum on the Lisbon Treaty that is!

It was clear from his speech recently that after a long time being more or less apathetic about renewable energy, Gordon Brown has himself, it would appear, undergone a damascene conversion to the real merits of the wind turbine and its related technologies.

And there would appear to be two reasons for this.

One is growing concern about the security of Britain's energy supplies, thrust into sharp focus by the soaring oil price in the past six months, which Brown reminded the country was worse than the two oil shocks of the 1970s. Britain needs to kick its coal, oil and gas habit, and Brown reminded everyone that he also feels nuclear power sits alongside renewables as the way to do this.

The other is the realisation that the development of low-carbon energy technology, which is taking off across the world, represents a potential employment bonanza for Britain. Calling it "a green revolution in the making," Mr Brown said it could provide 160,000 new jobs – a figure he has yet to explain!

Suddenly, jobs and a stable economy, with which Mr Brown has always concerned himself, fit into the scheme of things alongside helping the environment – and they all go forward as one package.

Yet, like most things Labour turns it hands to, the most likely outcome will be a failure to meet targets – hence, who can blame the sceptics for believing that this is just so much more hot air pollution from Labour?