I'm not quite clear, from media reports, who exactly is funding the proposed wind farms - we taxpayers or big/foreign private industry? Ideally they should be built and run entirely at the expense of private industry, which can then sell electricity to our grid. Our grid may thus eventually have a mixed source of electricity generation - wind farms, local power station (possibly running on gas rather than oil), and via cable from the European grid.

Arnold Cassola of AD castigates Germany, Italy and Poland for wanting to water down Europe's efforts to reduce carbon emissions. In the worldwide recession now underway, Silvio Berlusconi may have a point in asking why Europe has to virtually go it alone to reduce emissions, when manufacturing giants like China seem uninterested in global warming. It is also understandable that Germany and Poland want to use their vast coal reserves, in spite of the fact that this is the dirtiest fuel. Germany claims it will use carbon capture technology to diminish coal's negativity, but we still need to see whether this theoretical novelty actually works in practice.

Dr Cassola also raves and rants against nuclear energy, which provides the cheapest and the only emissions-free electricity. Apart from Germany (which is decommissioning its nuclear power stations in favour of coal), countries all over the world (even currently oil-rich ones) are planning to invest in nuclear electricity generation. People like Dr Cassola are still trying to frighten the ignorant with the dangers of nuclear electricity generation - he should get himself invited to the French nuclear electricity set-up so that he'll learn about the safety of modern nuclear electricity generation and its reprocessing and safe-keeping of spent nuclear fuel. French electricity (80 per cent nuclear generated) is half the price of Italian electricity, and also supplies most of southern England.

Finally one trusts that our government hasn't forgotten solar power. Apart from telling us how much money is needed for wind farms, what incentives will the next Budget provide to encourage investment in solar electricity generation?