Clarkson Caught the Eco Virus — How Britain’s Biggest Petrolhead Ended Up With a Wind Turbine on His Own Farm
Green energy entrepreneur and Ecotricity founder Dale Vince has once again found himself at odds with motoring provocateur Jeremy Clarkson, reigniting a long-running public sparring match between two of Britain’s most outspoken figures on opposite sides of the environmental debate.
The latest exchange began when Mr Vince recalled a pointed slight from years gone by, claiming that Clarkson had once dismissed him in a column written for The Times, referring to him dismissively as “the man whose name he can’t be bothered to remember.” The slight, Mr Vince suggested, came in the wake of his development of the Nemesis — widely regarded as Britain’s first electric car — a project that at the time drew little admiration from the famously fossil-fuel-loving television presenter.
But time, it seems, has a way of making for strange bedfellows. Mr Vince was clearly relishing the irony when he pointed out what happened next. “Fast forward a little over ten years,” he said, “and Clarkson has been so infected with the eco virus — we built a windmill on his farm.” The revelation raised eyebrows and no doubt a few smiles, given Clarkson’s long-established reputation as one of the most vocal sceptics of green energy and electric vehicles in British public life.
Clarkson, never one to let a jibe go unanswered, responded on X with characteristic brevity and dry wit: “Yes. And I believe it’s been taken down now.” It was the kind of deadpan one-liner that his fans have come to expect — conceding the point just enough while subtly reclaiming the upper hand.
Mr Vince, however, was quick to fire back, clarifying that the turbine’s removal was never permanent and offering a tongue-in-cheek olive branch: “Yeah it is down now — just there for the Show — but shout if you want it back.”
The backdrop to all of this, of course, is Clarkson’s Farm, the hugely popular Amazon Prime Video series that follows Jeremy Clarkson’s frequently chaotic and self-deprecating attempts to run Diddly Squat Farm, his sprawling estate nestled in the Cotswolds. The show has, perhaps unexpectedly, earned Clarkson considerable goodwill among rural communities and given him a platform that goes well beyond his years on Top Gear.
Dale Vince, meanwhile, remains one of the most prominent and outspoken figures in Britain’s renewable energy sector. Based in Stroud, Gloucestershire, he built Ecotricity into one of the country’s leading green energy suppliers, pioneering wind power at a time when it was far from mainstream. Beyond his business endeavours, he is perhaps equally well known as the chairman of Forest Green Rovers FC, the Nailsworth-based football club that has become a globally recognised symbol of environmentally conscious sport, powered entirely by renewable energy and operating on a plant-based diet for players and fans alike.
The two men may disagree on much, but their ongoing public exchanges have become something of a spectator sport in themselves — a battle of wits between the green visionary and the petrolhead, fought out one quip at a time.