CRI听力:Wind Energy Harnessed in upcoming UK Election

With its 100 giant turbines, Thanet Offshore Wind Farm, around 40 miles east of London, is one of the world's biggest offshore fields.

At peak capacity, it’s capable of producing enough energy to meet the total annual electrical needs of over 200,000 UK households.

Wind power company, Estuary Energy, is now planning to build two new turbines in the area.

The company's David Jackson is trying to promote their plan there.

"You always need a balance, you're always going to need hydro, you're going to need offshore wind, perhaps tidal, some nuclear, some gas, but onshore wind is the most economically viable way of developing renewable energy resources and the UK's got a lot of it."

Besides power, now the booming business of wind energy is generating something else - support for right-wing British political party, the UK Independence Party.
The party's leader, Nigel Farage, is running for parliament in the South Thanet constituency.

And the party has aligned itself with people not in favour of the development.
In Farage's eyes, the turbine is one of the greatest follies ever made in the world.

"If wind energy worked, if it produced reliable electricity, if it didn't need to be subsidized, if the poor weren't subsidizing the rich to make it work, it'd be all for it, I would even accept how ugly they are."

By doing so, Farage's party has attracted some voters less interested in issues associated with global warming.

But meanwhile, their viewpoint is being blamed.

Tim Montgomerie, a columnist for British daily newspaper The Times, is among the critics.

"A lot of UKIP voters would prefer that we still were in the 1950s, without too much housing, without too many wind farms and the whole issue of climate change and the environmental issue feeds into Nigel Farage's narrative."

Under Farage's stewardship, the party, which was founded in 1993, has outperformed both the Conservatives and Labor in the competition for European Parliament seats, and also won its first two places in the British Parliament in special elections.

But it has started to falter slightly in the polls.

Polls show the crucial race for South Thanet is close, with Farage trailing in some surveys.

Political watchers say the winds of change may also play their part in the upcoming UK general election on May 7, one that recent polls show is still too close to call.

The other major parties contesting the election are the Conservative Party, Labor Party, Liberal Democrat Party, and Green Party.

For CRI, I'm Niu Honglin.