The beauty of windfarms – in pictures

Thanet offshore windarm near the city of Ramsgate Photograph: Antonio Zazueta Olmos/Observer

A new industrial revolution with a difference. While the great achievements of 18th- and 19th-century British engineering filled the air with carbon and laid the foundations of man-made global warming, this is a benign revolution Photograph: Antonio Zazueta Olmos/Observer

As we sail through the middle of the farm, they recede in regular rows across the sun-silvered water. This regular grid arrangement – interrupted at three points because of underwater worm colonies and a shipwreck – is minimalist in conception, as is the regular, unfussy design of each turbine Photograph: Antonio Zazueta Olmos/Observer

This is an image of the future in which the energy needs of a modern society are provided responsibly Photograph: Antonio Zazueta Olmos/Observer

Two hundred years ago, British engineering bestrode the waves. The easy way the technicians climb this maritime tower makes me think of sailors in Nelson's navy, at home in a sailing ship's rigging Photograph: Antonio Zazueta Olmos/Observer

The blades whisper a low but powerful note – the sound of technology in tune with the natural world Photograph: Antonio Zazueta Olmos/Observer

The turbines rise above the waves to a height of up to 115 metres. That's just a number in the brochure of Vattenfall, the Swedish energy company that built and runs the Thanet offshore windfarm, but looking straight up from the boat, I feel every metre bearing down on me Photograph: Antonio Zazueta Olmos/Observer