The Britian From Above website was developed by the BBC to provide information about Britian using a novel web interface. This interface is currently getting some buzz in the Rich Internet Applications (RIA) community.

One of the video-clips that the site hosts concerns the Black Law Windfarm, located in Scotland, which is the largest windfarm in Britian (serves around 200,000 homes). What I found interesting about this project was the idea of putting windfarms on the site of old mining operations. Before the Black Law Windfarm project could proceed they needed to "reclaim" the land so that the wind could blow unobstructed over grasslands into the propellors. This is what they have today and, to me, this seems a much better outcome than the "reclaiming" the mining companies would have done.

Siting a windfarm on the site of old mining operations is a win-win proposition but it seems like you can never please some people who will always object to having windfarms as the dominant feature of a landscape. The ugliness objection in this case is weak because the alternative is a blight on the landscape as well. At least this blight provides clean energy to 200,000 homes in Britian and is producing a highly significant reduction in green house gas emissions in a country that still uses alot of coal to produce electricity.