“An ineffective form of renewable energy… carpet-bombing the countryside… irreversible damage.”
These are the noisy, angry and organised campaigners against onshore wind in Wales.
Dozens of new projects are set to sweep across the rolling hills of Cymru as the government races to hit its clean power targets.
It says it is willing to take on the “blockers” to build hundreds of these soaring steel giants, aiming to make energy cheaper, cleaner and more secure.
But in Wales, these “blockers” see themselves as environmentalists too: nature lovers who fear the plans will mar their countryside and culture forever.
They are convinced there are better ways for Wales to go green.
The Pen y Cymoedd wind farm in South Wales, which has 76 turbines
So who is really saving Wales?
“No more pylons” chant a few hundred protesters outside the Welsh parliament on a cold – not to mention windy – February lunchtime.
Many at the protest distance themselves from Reform UK politicians, who have vocally opposed onshore wind because they question the extent to which the climate is changing at all.
“Very few of us are climate deniers,” one protester says in Cardiff. “We all realise there is a problem… the question is: how do we resolve it?”
The answer, they say, is with a mixture of offshore wind, community projects and rooftop solar, arguing these can meet Wales’s needs without building turbines that will also send power to England.
For they are irked by a sense that history is repeating itself: another Welsh resource – following water and coal – harvested to keep England’s lights on.
But with electricity demand due to at least double in Wales by 2050, and 60% of it still coming from gas, Labour say doing without onshore wind is a luxury it cannot afford.
Welsh Labour told Sky News it would be “challenging to deliver the scale of electricity required at the pace needed for a climate emergency, if we were to rely wholly on community owned generation”.
Locals have been scarred by the Hendy wind farm that was never connected to the grid
The ghost of Hendy wind farm
The shadow of the Hendy wind farm looms large over the debate. Seven “ghost turbines” in Powys built despite the council’s objection, which were never connected to the grid.
While the industry calls Hendy an anomaly, locals see it as a cautionary tale of broken promises and reckless haste.
It’s why they are digging in against the proposed Nant Mithil energy park. The project would plant turbines 220m high – twice the height of Big Ben – on the peaceful hilltop of Radnor Forest.
While the site could power 130,000 homes, campaigner Nigel Dodman sees only “ecological disaster.”
“Because of the industrialisation, the 27 kilometres of roadways they’d have to build, all the construction work that goes on,” he says.
“Do we ruin this landscape and its ecology,” he asks, “or do we preserve it for generations to come?”
Nigel Dodman fears the Radnor Forest would lose its tranquility
What does the majority say?
While the protest is loud, the data suggests they are swimming against the tide.
Nearly 80% of Welsh citizens are comfortable seeing turbines, versus 22% who aren’t, according to polling by thinktank More In Common.
A UK government survey finds more people in Britain would be happy to host onshore wind in their area, than those who would not.
But support waivers at a hyper-local level, with widespread local opposition to Nant Mithil and another planned for Powys called Garreg Fawr.
And these vocal minority know net zero policy is on the line at the Welsh elections in May.
Nant Mithil would be one of more than 200 existing and planned onshore wind farms in Wales, should all those in the pipeline go ahead
They have also won the support of the Campaign to Protect Rural Wales (CPRW). Its trustee Jonathan Dean says: “Onshore wind is quicker and easier to build, but we do have time to do this properly.”
He says Labour cannot take public support for its clean power push for granted.
“If public displeasure continues to increase, and a political party intent on ‘cancelling net zero’ gains any power, we get the worst possible outcome. Net zero needs to maintain its ‘social licence’.”
Meanwhile, the industry itself is attempting to sweeten the deal, offering above-average, though voluntary, funding for local communities hosting energy infrastructure, on top of jobs and training.
Jess Hooper from trade body RenewableUK Cymru said: “For the areas around the wind farms themselves, there’s community benefit funds, in excess of £6m being realised annually.
“There’s then the economic opportunity from jobs and economic growth that comes with it and investment into our rural heartlands that haven’t seen such investment in many, many years.”
‘Next, it might be you’
Wherever the energy comes from, an explosion of new projects are in the pipeline to meet soaring demand.
This fact, combined with the upcoming elections, ups the stakes for the government to persuade people that the trade-offs are worth it.
As for the NIMBYs, one protester in Cardiff says: “Yes, we are NIMBYs, but also we don’t understand why when there are so many alternatives they have to start destroying, basically un-messed with areas of countryside.”
Nigel Dodman tells me: “I say that there’s a new definition of NIMBY which is… ‘Next, it might be you’.”
