The Great Wind Turbine Scam is not the only means whereby canny businessmen are rushing to cash in on the "green energy'' bonanza: subsidies offered by our Government in its desperation to meet an EU target, by more than trebling the energy we generate from "renewables'' in just five years.

In Devon, residents are outraged by a pounds 43 million scheme to build "the biggest biogas power station of its type in Europe'' on a former airfield at Winkleigh, fired by locally grown willow and elephant grass, and municipal waste.

The Department for Trade and Industry has promised pounds 11.5 million for the scheme, promoted by Peninsula Power, the brainchild of three businessmen. The DTI told the National Audit Office that an additional pounds 21 million was promised by an international bank. But Peninsula Power's most useful ally so far has been the South West Regional Development Agency, which has already shelled out more than pounds 600,000, including pounds 412,00 to buy the airfield (it took three parliamentary questions for the SWDRA to admit an accurate figure).

What initially baffled residents was that the site, accessible only by narrow Devon lanes and without natural cooling water, seemed totally unsuitable. The fuel would have to be trucked in from miles away, because local land is unfitted to grow it. The developers claimed that their "FERCO Silvag'' process was tried and tested in the US. But it emerged that the only company which tried it, in Vermont, went bankrupt, when it caused serious problems with noise and dust and was found not to work.

Planning permission has been sought from Torridge council, supported by 1,000 pages of documents which contain, so the protesters say, much that is "waffle and nonsense''. English Nature, English Heritage and Devon county council have been almost equally critical.

The financing of the scheme is also mystifying. When the protesters approached the bank that, according to the DTI, had promised pounds 21 million, its managing director replied that no such pledge had been given. Yet on this basis the SWRDA has already given pounds 600,000 of taxpayers' money, with another pounds 11.5 million on offer from the DTI - and all because the scheme seems to offer the Government some hope of meeting a wildly unrealistic target. All one can say to those gullible officials is, how green can you get?