"VAIN the ambition of kings", says one of Webster's characters in The Duchess of Malfi, "who weave but nets to catch the blowing wind."
No sense of this futility can be detected here in Ballybofey, Co Donegal at the annual conference of the Irish Wind Energy Association. On the contrary, the technical optimism is almost palpable, the environmental friendliness pervasive, and an enthusiasm that is almost evangelical resounds through the crowded halls.
Wind, as we know, sometimes to our cost, is a commodity that Ireland has in abundance. Along our western and northern coasts the average wind speed is the highest in Europe, and yet we have been slower than most to harness this potential energy.
This may be due in part to an ethnic reluctance not to be "the first by whom the new is tried." But there are also technical and organisational difficulties. Our energy requirements ebb and flow in a regular pattern throughout the day and year, but the rise and fall of wind is much more random.
Music to the ears of the assembled enthusiasts, however, was the announcement at the beginning of the conference by the Minister of State at the Department of Transport, Energy and Communications, Mr Emmet Stagg, that he would be introducing measures to cope with this integration problem later in the month.
Ostensibly, as has been pointed out repeatedly in Ballybofey, wind provides an environmentally friendly way of coping with a significant proportion of our energy needs. It is clean, efficient, and infinitely renewable.
But there are problems too. Antagonists deplore the effects on our most scenic landscapes of a proliferation of wind turbines. Birds are chopped to pieces by the whirling blades. And many say a high-pitched whine pervades the neighbourhoods of turbines.
But the advocates claim that any of these problems that have not been solved are relatively minor.
The negative impact, they say, can be reduced by judicious siting. As machines go, they argue, turbines nowadays are quieter, and again careful siting should ensure they interfere with nobody.
And any harmful effect on wildlife is far outweighed by the benefits to birds and other animals of reducing acid rain, open-cast coalmining and oil spills.
In the longer term, they argue, possible climate change brought about by burning fossil fuels is a much more serious threat to wildlife.
You can learn a lot about windmills at a place like this. They have come a long way since Don Quixote tilted at his enemies on the bleak La Mancha plains, and since the old "wind-chargers" on trestled pylons were a familiar feature of the Irish landscape in the post-war years.
Today's streamlined wind generators are 100ft high with blades over 50ft long. They do not, as one might think, spin faster the stronger the wind blows: they are computer-controlled to after pitch with variations in the wind so that they spin at a constant 30 rpm.
A mere 1,000 of them would be able to produce 10 per cent of Ireland's electricity demands.
The first wind farm in Ireland was installed at Bellacorick, Co Mayo, in 1992. Its 21 turbines have a total capacity of 6.45 megawatts and produce about 17 million units of electricity per year. Instant calculation shows this to be enough for more than 3,000 households.
The experts have costs worked out precisely in milli-ECUs per kilowatt hour and are very persuasive that wind power is the best value in energy anyone can find.
It is proposed that it should be allowed to provide a proportion - even 5 or 10 per cent - of our energy needs.