View Full Version : David Bellamy Talks Windfarms
Don Quixote
11-Nov-04, 20:39
Professor David Bellamy OBE, renowned botanist, environmentalist and respected conservationist, will be visiting Caithness and has kindly agreed to give a talk on the subject of windfarms.
Accompanying Professor Bellamy will be advocate Bob Graham, who will also be making a presentation.
A question and answer session will follow with John Thurso MP in the chair.
The talk will take place in Thurso High School on Tuesday 23 November at 7:30pm.
Are you pro windfarm, anti windfarm or sitting on the fence?
Come along and hear what Professor Bellamy has to say, have your questions answered.
What do you think about up to 600 wind turbines dotted over the Caithness countryside?
Come on, don't just sit there, get those keyboards warmed up and let's hear your opinions!!
I'm definitely going to see the Prof.
Wind Farms are terrible things, they are inefficient, ugly, don't reduce Co2, noisy and are associated with health probs . In fact there's nothing green about them.
I know that some councillors on the planning committee think wind farms are great. I wonder if they will be going along to the talk.
hey zeus
you are ignorant of the facts
Rheghead
Give me 'your' facts and i'll give you marks out of ten and explain exactly where your misconceptions are coming from
I did a dissertation on wind energy for my degree, which involved quite a lot of research at the county records office, and some of the claims of the 'wind energy objection lobby' were silly. E.g. Some people with Light sensitive epilepsy will get fits from looking at the blades. How silly is that?Is this one of the health problems you mention?
You say they are inefficient, well a coal fired power station is less than 30% efficient, wind farms as i remember are around 40-50% efficient.
You say they are ugly, well i don't think so (i can only speak for myself) but i have seen jigsaws with them on the box cover and clips of them are shown regularly on tv eg BBC 2 weather report (i have yet to see a coal or nuke power station on the tv!)
Noisy? well I wouldn't want to live under one, though 300m away I would struggle to hear them and it is not an electric humming but it is a wind swooshing sound
Reduce CO2? here is where eventually zeus is correct. They do not reduce levels of carbon dioxide but they provide an alternative energy source that does not produce CO2.
To reduce CO2 you will need a Lithium hydroxide scrubber on a global proportion.
I gained a Bsc (hons) for my efforts...
Oh, wow, it is possible that we might be about to witness an informed windfarm/power debate by two or more people who have actively researched some of the issues? I very much hope so. With a bit of luck it won't turn into a slagging match. Fingers crossed...
Now, now DrSzin, sensible discussion with me around? That will be the day!
The answer to reducing the CO2 in the atmosphere is to cease destroying the rain forest and to replace all the thousands of square miles of pine forest planted for timber with deciduous trees whose leaves will return the carbon to the ground. Of course, they take longer to grow so the returns are not as fast and we would have to pay more for timber and we can't have that can we!
We are quite happy to point the finger at the people who live in the rain forest for "slash and burn" when we did exactly the same thing centuries ago.
We also destroyed all out hard wood forests and now encourage others to do the same so we can destroy theirs also!
The fact that the Earth is invariably a lot warmer than it is in the current era and that it is still coming out of the last unusual Cold Era, i.e. the ice ages is also conveniently over looked.
The latest piece of scientific information I heard was that the Sun was showing a steady increase in temperature since around 1970, but that had nothing to do with Global Warming either.
The Computer Models used to predict temperature increases work well for areas of land within coastal areas.
When the same Models show predictions for the centres of Continental Landmasses it would appear that unless the Models are changed then none of the people using them can explain the unrealistic figures produced. When the Models are changed to get sensible figures for the Continental Centres then the Coastal Areas show outlandish figures. (Could that be what they call GIGO?)
As long as small fortunes are handed out studying the "phenomena" the problem will continue to exist.
All that is happening is a variation of that well known scientific law, "Work expands to time allotted!"
First let me explain my position. I have, in the past couple of years observed an onslaught of planning application for wind power stations to be erected across this county and in fact across the whole of the rural British countryside. I did some homework as to why all of a sudden the mass of applications are being sought. My understanding of it is:
*An alternative energy has to be found before fossil fuels are depleted.
*The government have signed the Kyoto agreement to say they will try to reduce global warming, ie reduce CO2 emissions. Our government has agreed to produce renewable energy (Scotland 18% by 2010 and 40% 2020) to counteract CO2 production but of course in Rhegheads (BSc don’t forget) words “windfarms do not reduce carbon dioxide”
I agree beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Personally, I wouldn’t want to look at turbines 24/7.
I’m not sure where you got the 40% - 50% efficiency from, but I assure you that even the power companies admit that wind turbines work at approx 25% efficiency. This is due to intermittent wind speeds, and transmission losses in transferring power from source to users many miles away. It is known and accepted that off-shore wind power is the least efficient way to produce power and on-shore wind power the second most. The Royal Academy of Engineers produced a paper in April 2004 quoting off-shore wind as the most expensive form of power produced in the UK, and on-shore wind as the next most expensive.
Noise, there are so many documented cases of noise pollution from the turbines, I can’t even begin to start to tell you. However, 1 case is that the wind turbines at Nympsfield in Gloucestershire described by the developers as the quietest available emits sound at source of 99dB(A) measured by the German Wind Energy Institute ( DEWI ). The noise that it emits, a mixture of whooshing, whistling and humming, can clearly be heard 1000 yards away. One turbine manufacturer states that dwellings should be 2km away.
Health, I’m glad you mentioned epilepsy, you’re obviously not aware that recently in Argyll a planning application had to remove 6 turbines because of a light sensitive epileptic sufferer who lived 5km from the site! I understand the 2 turbines at forss Business Park are causing severe health problems, in fact so much so that 1 is shut down every afternoon. A light sensitive sensor has been fitted to stop the flicker/shadow factor.
Do you want to bring into the equation reduction in house prices, tourism, ornithology and other environmental consideration from construction of huge concrete based structures that need transported across the country before erection.
I don’t have a BSc (hons) or even written a dissertation on wind energy, but I have done my homework!
Zeus,
Yes - Councillors will attend this talk. They are concerned about what Caithness wants/doesn't want. There's a thing called voting. Let's hope all sides to this controversy attend this meeting. It looks like it will be a very interesting evening - major entertainment - and maybe we'll see from the turnout what we in Caithness really want - wind turbines or no wind turbines.
Forgot to say - if there's any argument about noise - let them speak to someone living within 2 km of the Causewaymire wind farm for the full story. The noise is very difficult to endure 24/7.
A lot has been written about windfarms in this forum and I believe there are some valid points raised and so would suggest reading back through them to gauge the opinion of forum members on this topic.
Two of the longer threads -
Wind Farms in Caithness (http://www.caithness.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=1466)
No, I don't want a windfarm at Borrowston Caithness (http://www.caithness.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=2858)
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/flaminmad.gifMadPict
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/gruff_ext.gif
I suspect that the sudden rash of applications for windfarms has more to do with politics and money than anything at all to do with the environment.
The Scottish Executive, as with one or two other things, are in a rush to "Show Westminster the Way!" so they can gloat "We did it first so we are best!"
There is nothing so cynical than a politician on an ego-trip (Not even me, before anybody else says it! :D ) and nothing quite so dangerous.
The Power Companies are, I understand, financially benefit from handouts from Government in various forms to go "Green". Not only that but very soon, and a market is already being set up, they will be able to sell part of their quota for Carbon Emissions. (I can't just bring to mind the official term used).
Put simply they will get a quota for the Carbon Emissions they can produce to provide power. Any shortfall in the Carbon they produce below their quota they can trade to any Company which is exceeding it's quota. The Company producing excess Carbon above it's quota buys the unused part of the selling Companies quota for it’s own use. (At the going price of course)
Result, the selling Company makes money, the Buying Company continues with excess Carbon production and the Environmental Benefits are absolutely Zero. But you are not meant to notice that!
The prospect of a windfarm on my doorstep (well OK, before JAWS says something, at the bottom of my garden... ) the topic has taken on a new 'urgency' for me -
http://www.stopcambridgewindfarm.org.uk/
We already have one turbine within 10 miles of us - it is 43.5m high one and is sited on the Wood Green Animal Shelter. It is a reasonable sized device and doesn't intrude that much on the surrounding countryside.
The ones being proposed for the site alongside one of the busiest roads in the south east are 100m high - comparison (http://www.stopcambridgewindfarm.org.uk/documents/scaleofturbineshtm.htm).
The local action group has also managed to sign up David Bellamy News story (http://w3.cambridge-news.co.uk/opinions/letters/story.asp?StoryID=57131) so it would seem that we have something more in common than just wind turbines....
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/flaminmad.gifMadPict
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MadPict, make sure you are sitting, make sure you are well supported at the sides, and prepare yourself for a huge shock. I agree wholeheartedly with you! (Mind you, that might be the kiss of death)
The article you mention just confirms my last post about the Government handouts. And the off-hand way the objectors are brushed aside also says a lot about the attitude of the Companies, "Who cares provided we get what we want!"
When I pointed out that Windfarms in the Highlands would be visible for miles I was told by the Power Companies PR Man from the Midlands of England that it would not be a problem because you can very rarely see that far in Caithness. I'm still not sure if he was talking about the weather conditions or the horrific industrial pollution which restricts the view in Caithness. (And I promise I had nothing to do with his training)
With such attitudes I suggest that the attitude is "like it or lump it" because we are going to do it anyway.
And don't fret about the Councillors going to the meeting because in Scotland they have no say in the final outcome. The final decision lies with the Ego Tripping Scottish Executive, they say where they will be sighted, they made sure of that!
JAWS,
I nearly choked on my cocoa there. I will have to read it again in the morning just to make sure I am not dreaming this ;) [lol]
thickrodney
13-Nov-04, 18:49
I suspect that the sudden rash of applications for windfarms has more to do with politics and money than anything at all to do with the environment.
Result, the selling Company makes money, the Buying Company continues with excess Carbon production and the Environmental Benefits are absolutely Zero. But you are not meant to notice that!
Spot on. This is all about money. say no more.
What is wrong about making money out of windfarms? Money makes the world go round! Nobody complains about multinational companies setting up gaudy petrol stations with big 'in your face signs' in local areas -and ripping off us all!
Come off your pedastals and get real. Everything is about money and if people can make it out of setting up windfarms then good for them!
Rheghead , well done, you've just confirmed what everyone thought. You're in on it and your actually mad! BTW very bad analogy.
Rheghead, if Petrol Stations, or anyone else for that matter, were putting up gaudy 100 meter high signs by the hundred that could be seen 20 miles away I would think there would be an outcry and rightly so too.
If McDonalds or Walkers Crisps wanted to put adverts of that size up in the Highlands what would happen then?
ok zeus & jaws
I am obviously not going to change your minds about windfarms because you have obviously got so entrenched into your own version of how we should go forward to confront the present energy crisis. So lets discuss the broader picture on these points:-
a. Should we keep on burning fossil fuels regardless of what the scientists tell us?
b. If yes, then how do we account for our actions under the Kyoto agreement?
c. If no then how do we as the people of caithness help a global crisis that is threatening our planet.
My last word on this is that we have great wind conditions here, and good human skills so why don't we build/invest in windfarms and export clean energy to the rest of the country. We could do this by getting together and forming our own company and get cheap lecky for ourselves. And do you know what?, the government will even subsidise us for doing so. How often does our generous Government give us something for nothing?
We can always pull these things down until an energy source comes along that satisfies everybody' needs, maybe a nuclear fusion plant on the Dounreay site?
Rheghead,
Should we keep on burning fossil fuels regardless of what scientists tell us? No, and I maybe don't agree with Prof. Bellamy on climate change - but the talk is on windfarms - a separate issue. Instead of putting money into development of the many other, less intrusive, more people-friendly forms of renewable energy currently becoming available, the government is pouring money into huge on-shore windfarms which, if half the current proposals go through, will carpet Caithness in 360 foot turbines. Given our geography, there will be nowhere to stand in the whole county without sight of a turbine.
If a developer wants to sell me a micro-turbine for the roof of my house - I'll buy it.
If a developer wants to sell me a solar panel for my roof - I'll buy it.
If a developer wants to put up a small on-shore windfarm approved of by the community, I'll support him.
If a developer wants to pursue wind, wave, biomass etc etc etc development, I'll support him.
If I'm offered more efficient cars, more economical fridges, whatever, I'll do my best.
But I cannot support the carpeting of rural Caithness with hundreds of turbines with no regard for other people, birds and mammals, all for the sake of money. Not when there's so many other ways to stop burning fossil fuel.
There, had my rant. Happy now. :lol:
Tilter, I agree wholeheartedly but that way won't make megabucks for the Government and that's the aim of the exercise!
Kyoto was more to do with politics than the environment, that's why most of the world was exempted.
Off shore wind farms may be more expensive to establish but they are a lot less of a blight to the sight than they are on land. In fact they seem to sit more naturally in the ocean, at least to my eye they do.
There are no problems with communities railing against them, no real planning problems and set out to sea they are more likely to catch a decent breeze than here on shore.
We have a wind farm off the Norfolk coast at Scrobie Sands - LINK (http://www.offshorewindfarms.co.uk/sites/scroby-sands.html) and I have no objection to them.
But then then who owns the bit of seabed they stand on?
Certainly not hard up farmers or greedy landowners who decide that growing 300 foot structures is more profitable than more organic crops or entertaining the Chelsea Tractor brigade on a huntin' shootin' fishin' weekender .
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/flaminmad.gifMadPict
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Reghead – I have also undertaken a fair amount of research into the current wind energy frenzy but I seem to have interpreted my findings rather differently from you – OK I admit to not possessing any certificates as a result of my efforts.
You ask if we should just continue burning fossil fuels. Sadly Reghead, even if we were to cover this entire county in 300 foot turbines we would still need to burn fossil fuels. In fact our government are currently looking into opening 6 MORE coal fields to meet demand. We could of course look at cleaning up our emissions from coal fired power stations – costly but effective and not considered a priority.
Our commitment to Kyoto is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 12.5% below 1990 levels by 2008-12. Keep in mind that UK emissions of carbon dioxide account for only about 2% of the global total.
The DTI Energy White Paper – The Low Carbon Economy – clearly states that the cheapest, cleanest and safest way of addressing our energy policy objectives is to use less energy. Energy efficiency in households is considered to have the potential to reduce emissions by around 4-6 MtC (a quarter of the total required). The following are examples taken directly from the paper –
• Unlike wind, - biomass and waste generation is flexible – it can be generated at any time. A strong biomass supply chain can also revitalise rural communities offering job opportunities – (unlike wind???)
• Solar PV is a potentially very large market
This one is interesting –
• We remain committed to a target of 10GWe of Combined Heat & Power capacity being installed by 2010,
(Powergen’s CCGT plant has reduced emissions by 11 million tonnes of CO2 a year – equivalent to the savings met by around 15,000 wind turbines. However a recent article in The Financial Times suggests the governments target of doubling CHP capacity to 10,000 MW by 2010 is going to be missed by an embarrassingly large margin. Development of CHP was halted in 2002 due to lack of investment and Powergen have now moved over to wind turbines)
So how can we as individuals and as a county tackle the problem of our changing climate and the need to identify alternative and effective cleaner methods of electricity generation.
It’s CRUNCH time –
1 Do we want to address the problems detailed above?
OR
2 Do we want to cash in on the wind frenzy and the MONEY?
If you choose the 2nd option it’s very straightforward and requires zero input. Just keep blindly following the dictates of our MP’s, Scottish Executive, MSP’s, Councillors, Wind Energy Companies and all the others with a vested interest in wind power.
However, Option 1 is far more complex and demands extensive research, a completely new approach to our future energy production, conservation and consumption and an energy policy which reflects these requirements. Are you willing to rise and meet this challenge?
Or is it Option 2 for you?
It sounds to me as if the anti wind energy lobby has their way, then we will have a runaway greenhouse effect. The seas will rise, the ice caps will melt, the flora will change,floods will occur, the air will choke up with fumes, wild storms will destroy our homes, the gulf stream will change course, we will all freeze.
There is one small silver lining to all this, and that is we can look at our unspoilt Caithnes counryside and be satisfied that it is devoid of those terribly intrusive windfarms!!!
I recognise they are not as good as a conventional power station but changing power generation to a carbon free one is all about small steps. Which includes heat conservation, wind, solar, hydro, wave, tiidal and getting out on your bycycles.
How on earth can anyone conclude that if you don’t embrace wind energy as the only solution to our changing climate problem it somehow means that you don’t acknowledge the problem of global warming??
It appears that anyone who so much as questions windfarms is immediately labelled as being anti wind energy, anti renewable and concerned only with visual impact – including the DTI??
Maybe in the future when there is an Energy Policy in place to drive renewables, windfarms will have a part to play.
Blanketing Caithness in wind turbines is NOT going to solve the problem – whether you find them stunning pieces of architecture or great hulking eyesores. If this could indeed solve the problem and save the planet then we would not be having this debate. We would be urging everyone to develop windfarms!!!
Let’s join forces and urge our politicians to revisit their renewable policy and give the energy requirements of this country some serious consideration. We must ensure that a rational, measured and strategic approach is employed by government to meet our future energy requirements.
Finally, relax a little. There is still time – the rush for wind energy is caused not by concern over our warming climate but by our old friend, the one that makes the world go round – MONEY.
Nothing will be done unless it is profitable, why not make some money out of windfarms?
These windfarms pay for themselves in 5-10 years. Their life expectancy is 20-25 years so there is good profit in it especially if you take any subsidies into consideration.
We should buy into the prospect of making clean energy at a profit.
Whatever happened to Acid Rain and the destruction of all the forestry? There seems to be a lot still surviving and thriving.
The sudden increase of the rise in temperatures since the 1970s coincides exactly with all the clean air acts which allowed more sunlight to penetrate the atmosphere. The simple answer is to burn more coal and smoke emitting fuels, abolish all the systems for cleaning up smoke and create as smoggy and atmosphere as we used to prior the 1970s.
That would stop global warming as soon as it was carried out and we could all stop worrying!
Mind you, it would stop all the Jeremiah's of Doom from enjoying themselves with their ever increasingly hysterical Old Testament cries of, "Behold the End of the World is at Hand!"
People have been "predicting" the end of the World since the written word was invented and probably long before that, yet we are still waiting.
I'm sure that when the first person made a camp fire there was somebody muttering, "Just you watch, I'm telling you, if we don't stop him then everybody will get roasted to death! You'll see, he'll burn the whole World, there'll be nothing left!"
Take a look at this article taken from The Times -
November 22, 2004
Clean-coal technology could cut CO2 bill by £3 billion
By Angela Jameson, Industrial Correspondent
BRITAIN could cut the cost of reducing greenhouse gases by £3 billion if it fitted clean-coal technology to its ageing power stations, rather than building wind farms.
Some 2,000 wind turbines will be put up in Britain over the next six years at a total cost of approximately £9 billion as power companies seek to comply with a government demand to increase supplies of renewable energy.
NI_MPU('middle'); However, Mitsui Babcock, the British-based power station manufacturer, is urging the Government to invest in clean-coal technology, which it argues could be fitted to the UK’s 16 coal-fired power stations for only £6 billion.
Iain Miller, chief operating officer of Mitsui Babcock, said: “Coal will continue to be a critical source of power in the medium term but has been largely ignored since the introduction of the energy White Paper last year.
“The UK Government must take the lead on delivering a balanced energy policy which recognises the importance of coal to achieving security of energy supply and of clean-coal technologies in reducing carbon emissions to meet current targets.”
Coal provides about 32 per cent of Britain’s electricity, but that proportion could halve after 2011, when new emissions legislation comes in. To fill the gap the Government is encouraging billions of pounds of investment in onshore and offshore wind farms by requiring that each power company produce a proportion of its electricity from renewable sources.
However, Britain may be in danger of missing the demanding Kyoto targets and risking future power shortages if it continues to rely on wind energy to replace both ageing coal plants and decommissioned nuclear power stations. At best, the detractors argue, wind turbines produce on average a third of their maximum power capacity.
“The cost of installing clean-coal technology across the coal-fired fleet could be achieved at almost half the cost of achieving equivalent reductions using renewable sources,” Mr Miller said.
Mitsui Babcock wants the Government to introduce a form of incentive, similar to the renewable obligation certificate, for power generators to invest in clean-coal technology.
“Solutions are available now that will allow us to secure our electricity supply and cut emissions but the industry will not commit to carbon-abatement improvements without active leadership from Government,” Mr Miller said.
Green coal technology could cut carbon dioxide emissions by 50 per cent to 60 per cent from current levels, Mitsui Babcock says.
Mitsui says that its technology , applied across the existing fleet of UK coal-fired power stations, would be similar to the impact of erecting 7,000 to 10,000 wind turbines.
According to Mitsui, wind power is six times more expensive than its technology in delivering the same CO2 reduction throughout the life of the power station.
This organization has some interesting ideas about renewable energy in caithness and claims to be independant of Government and Energy companies.
http://www.cref.co.uk
Thanks for that but I'm a member of CREF already. In fact quite of few of the people you labelled as anti wind energy (due to the fact they question large scale wind developments) have a great interest in renewable energy and would like to see renewable energy independant of the grid becoming accessible for households and businesses.
Why would you like to see renewable energy independant of the grid becoming accessible for households and businesses.?
Surely it is households and businesses that are using up energy?
Because Renewable Energy produced on site and therefore independent of the grid save even more resources because there isn't the same need for the massive waste of resources cluttering the Country up with even more pylons and power-lines and all the ancillary bits attached thereto which all entail people running round in vehicles and flying round in helicopters and running big buildings full of large offices full of heating and lighting and air-conditioning and add fifty more ands pluses as many more that come to mind after a little thought and the answer becomes obvious.
The more people using their own renewable eco-friendly power might just mean we could get rid of fossil fuel power stations completely.
What is it the Government keeps saying about "thinking outside the box, or is it envelopes or perhaps they latest is parcels" I can't keep up with which is the current meaningless jargon.
All Governments and Huge Corporations can do is think BIG! That's why they are so prone to making such HUGE mistakes.
I won't be at the meeting tonight because of work commitments, but it would have been interesting if he gets into a q and a session.
So what did everyone think about the Bellamy/Graham meeting last night?
Viva Diva
24-Nov-04, 22:05
I thought it was excellent, very informative and actually entertaining.
It sent me from neutral to a decisive no! :evil
Green_not_greed
25-Nov-04, 17:11
:p What an excellent evening. :p The large turnout (400 people or so) shows the local strength of interest in the subject. The evening was well planned and seems to have been a big success. I was delighted to see several of our elected councillors in the audience - those that didn't turn up clearly are not interested in one of the biggest threats to our County at this time. The same goes for Rob Gibson, who tried to make some political capital for himself out of David Bellamy's visit. Remember this at the next elections! I thought that John Thurso was a very good and fair question master. Look out Anne Robinson! :D
I thought the evening went very well. A good mix of pros and antis in the audience. Bellamy was passionate and incredibly energetic. Bob Graham's presentation was to the point and presented in layman's terms, which was exactly what was needed! John Thurso did a great job as chairman.
Funniest comment of the night came from someone obviously in favour of filling the county in wind power stations. He thought it was worth building them because it would create jobs in 25 years for the decommissioning of the turbines. LOL [lol]
I'm sorry that Rheghead didn't go!
Some of us have to work for a living!
Did you get any free gifts? At the Caithness Renewable Energy Forum meeting 2 weeks ago we got wine,snacks and as many energy efficient light bulbs as we could fill in our pockets!
At the very least, I went to a meeting where the general intention was to save their planet, not like at your meeting where the general intention was all about saving the view out of their back kitchen window!
"We few we happy few, we band of brothers... our cause is more noblest ." Shakespeare Henry V
Even if you didn't get anything, I am glad you all had a nice time. [smirk]
Green_not_greed
26-Nov-04, 15:28
Rheghead
At the Bellamy meeting, 400 people went along because of their interest in the subject and also because of their concerns over the effect of 100m+ high structures on the landscape and economy of Caithness. Organisers didn't have to offer free handouts just to get people in the door! CREF were hacked off because even with their funding sources they couldn't pull a crowd like CWIF did on a shoestring. Unfortunately, CREF lost a lot of face through their pet viking, who wants to cover Caithness in turbines in order to save Danish jobs. That's a shame as I believe that CREF offer an excellent chance to get the public genuinely involved in small projects which they themselves can benefit from.
As CREF claim to be AGAINST large wind turbines, and in favour of smaller, more publically acceptable forms of renewable energy, then CREF and CWIF should surely complement each other very well? As you are obviously a member of CREF, perhaps you'd like to offer comments on the latter point?
I was not attracted to the CREF because of the free gifts, only out of my concern for the environment. I didn't even know they were going to be on offer. I think the others there felt the same.
I think there is a need for large scale windfarms and small scale windfarms. I even share peoples concerns over the siting of them.
The causewaymire farm produces power for 2500 homes. How many objectors to it should lead to its dismantlement? 1? 10? or 2500?
Out of those objectors, how many live near to them and have the potential for light sensitive epilepsy, noise problems and other related reasons for objection.
A lot of protest will come from people who just spend 2 minutes a day driving past them eachday or even 2 minutes once a lifetime as many people from Thurso never seem to want to head south out of the County!
So a balanced approach should be taken that takes in the views of the few against the needs of the many. But I find it disgusting when a small group of well motivated individuals will use their publishing talents to deny the silent majority something that can benefit their lives and planet.
Ok Rheghead very quick question, you say you are concerned for the environment and we now know you now have in your possession 1 energy efficient light bulb. Apart from that, what are you personally doing about it?
I believe we as a nation don’t actually have to go down that road of ruining our heritage by covering our countryside with wind power stations. I think the government could handle this whole CO2 emission problem in a completely different and cheaper way.
Don’t you think if energy efficiently light bulbs were subsidised by the government and made free to everyone, (not only those who attended a CREF meeting). Make them available at supermarkets, DIY stores etc. That alone would have a huge impact on the CO2 releases.
Don’t you agree that if every new house that was built had incorporated into the roof a couple of solar panels and a ground source heat pump that would too have an impact?
I’m sure you agree that the government should be subsidising the installing of any micro renewable power system for personal use in private homes and businesses. I am seriously considering installing a micro wind turbine and although there are grant for doing so, I still have to pay for the majority of it myself.
If we tackle this problem from a different angle the whole CO2 problem can be sorted without desecrating our countryside.
Incidentally, you talk about not trying to be a great man and letting history make its judgement. How will the history books refer to this era and the rusting hulks that will be left lying all over the county to rot because the power companies have gone bankrupt as has happened in California?
The best way to reduce CO2 emmissions is to reduce the usage of power. Taking into account the losses in ANY form of generation and then add on the losses from transmitting the energy around the country (remember that Scotland is a net exporter of energy) generation away from the point of use is always a poor choice. Reducing energy usage by better insulation, energy effiecent appliances and lighting and the installation of small scale renewable energy sources to replace oil, gas or electric heating will help more than building large scale wind farms across the country. As was said at the Bellamy talk if we are seriously at risk of killing ourselves by the production of CO2 lets take drastic action to save our lives, lets force people to use less energy and better insulate our homes - our lives are at stake. The problem is that all politicians of all parties are scared to take a real decision becuse it will upset the ship and they may lose their seat at the next election. To much of todays decisions are made by short term looking accountants and not long term thinking engineers and academics. Britian needs a BALANCED energy policy. This means horses for courses - large clean coal for big steady base load, hydro for short peak demand, dare i say nuclear for steady base load, suitably located and designed wind to complement hydro, tidal, wave, solar, biomass etc but it needs to be a balanced system or problems will occur. A few years ago we saw the dash for gas as cheap north sea gas and also cheap power stations were built to meet the energy needs of Britian. Todays gas prices show how a short term fix doesnot work in the longer term. Gas is great for combined heat and power CHP where the efficency can be up to 70% and can reduce the site total energy usage, sort of like a household fitting a solar water heater etc.
So the sooner that the Gov etc wake up smell the coffee and take real steps to reduce energy usage and really provide adequate research funding for all forms of renewable energy so that a balanced energy policy can be set up the better. At present it is soley money that is driving the system and the worst bit of it all is that it is OUR money they are using.
Green_not_greed
26-Nov-04, 22:32
Spot on jb - absolutely spot on!!!!
Rheghead said
The causewaymire farm produces power for 2500 homes. How many objectors to it should lead to its dismantlement? 1? 10? or 2500?
Can you please tell me what kind on energy unit a "home" is? Even ignoring SI units and going back to imperial, I can't find a home. Can we have some FACTS please???? And I thought you had a degree....
Rheghead also said
Out of those objectors, how many live near to them and have the potential for light sensitive epilepsy, noise problems and other related reasons for objection.
I would speak to anyone in the general area around Causeymire Power Station about noise. There have been complaints from over 2km away. Check it out with the Environmental Health Office. It won't give names, addresses or instances, but will confirm if noise is under investigation. Which is the way to go.
PS You still haven't answered the question re CREF and CWIF.
Why don't the Government remove the VAT on energy saving products and also on the cost of installation. That would remove nearly one fifth of the cost immediately and make them more economical to use and more likely to be installed.
How much energy is wasted by having streetlights blazing away all night. Drive down to the central belt at night and you can see the "glow" in the sky from 40/50 miles away and that goes for all the large conurbations. Just how long would it take the average home to use that much power.
How many traffic-signals and lighted street signs are needed 24 hours a day? Outside of the working day most could revert to being normal junctions with "Give Way" on the lesser used of the roads.
A quick look round in most towns will show you how much energy is just burning away doing nothing at all and absolutely nothing is being done about the waste. How much of that energy is completely wasted lighting up the sky and of no use to anybody?
And you are paying for it all in your taxes. Will the Governments do anything about that? No, they would rather make you feel guilty and think it's all your fault!
That way they just hope you will believe what you are told and that they can just do as they wish. And if you dare suggest any different then you will be responsible for the destruction of World!
"Behold! The End of the World is at Hand!" Any Old Testament Prophet was willing to tell you that. It's just that it's a long time coming!
David Bellamy does Drugs!!!Are you sure he wasn't still on the LSD at the meeting?
I was almost giving into the learned Prof's superior intellect, but no! He has lost all credentials now I know he is an ex druggie!!
http://www.ananova.com/news/story/sm_766576.html?menu=news.quirkies
Green_not_greed
27-Nov-04, 11:11
Rheghead
How low can you go? Apart from being a Sun reader, you are also attempting to discredit a great man.
In the 1960's drugs were part of the culture, much as alcohol and ecstacy are today. Most people tried it. It's no big deal. Prime Ministers and US Presidents even did it!
The only person who appeared to be on any drugs at the presentation was the bowtie and earing clad man who stood up, made some very strange quotes, then sat down again. Now what was HE on, I wonder?
PS You're still avoiding the question.......
In a recent article in the New Scientist it reported that Windfarms drove up temperatures an average of 0.6C in the local area, maybe the Professor was worried to the local ecology in and around windfarms?
I can see his new tv programme now, it may start like this:-
Director: Stand up straight Professor Bellamy! Are you ready? OK, ACTION!
Bellamy: Allau voowers, Oim Dayveed Bellamie, an Oim ere on Cozzymoyer Cayfness. Dese big poylongs ore dwoyin aut the soil here doo too raised tempwichers. Batt ere in between the evver and stwagglin to suvvoyve, is moi fwayvewet plont ov auwl toim, its the majic mashwoom!!!
Director: Ok CUT! Sit down Professor, you look as if you could do with a rest!
[lol] [lol] [lol] [lol]
Dragging something up from 40 years ago is a sure sign that the argument is being lost.
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/flaminmad.gifMadPict
http://app100828.applicabroadband.net/BumperStickers/Offshore.jpg
Green_not _greed wrote
Can you please tell me what kind on energy unit a "home" is? Even ignoring SI units and going back to imperial, I can't find a home. Can we have some FACTS please???? And I thought you had a degree....
I am sorry but I have not got any up to date figures but bear with me!?
According to Whitaker's Almanak 1999, the Gross Annual UK Energy Production and Import level for 1996 was 364,046 GWh.
To calculate the power needs of an individual person I assumed a UK population of 55,000,000.
Therefore, a UK person power requirement is calculated as
=364046E9 / (55E6 x 365 x 24)
=756W
I assumed that the average family home contained 2.4 persons
Therefore the average home occupants require 756W x 2.4 = 1.8 kW.
So the 'Home' unit of energy requirement is 1.8 kW.
According to CREF the Causewaymire Windfarm produces 48 MW of power. So the
Causewaymire Wind farm produces enough power for 48000kW / 1.8 kw = 26,469 homes or 63,526 people!!!!!
That is 6 towns of the size of Thurso!!
Facts and figures are there for your perusal, pick the bones out of them!
Windpower insignificant? I don't think so...
Rheghead, but did he inhale?
If he's honest enough to admit that then he is far more honest and trustworthy than 90% of the top people who are about his age and many of those who are a lot younger as well!
And for heavens sake, don't lake a close look at our top politicians of the moment. The ones who didn't must have been completely out of touch with reality!
Where do you think they got some of their ideas from? Answer - It was called "Contact Happiness". And no, it had nothing to do with sexual harassment!
madpict wrote
Dragging something up from 40 years ago is a sure sign that the argument is being lost.
Just refer to my calculations and see if the arguement is lost.
I quoted
We few we happy few, we band of brothers... our cause is more noblest ." Shakespeare Henry V
I seem to be outnumbered here just like at Agincourt by the same ratio.
England wiped the floor with the French! :cool:
Rheghead, don't stzart giving up now.
Even if you are outnumbered there's nothing wrong in fighting a good rear-guard action.
I also was my county of birth's Junior Chess Champion 1981.
My chess motto is "The Best defence is a good counter attack!"
Just as in life really!
********************Election Bulletin************************************
CREF Party in power! Professor Rheghead is Minister of State for Energy!
Here is my manifesto.
On a windy day I want the whole of th UK supplied with energy which is generated by Large scale windfarms similiar to the Causewaymire windfarm. Peaks and troughs in demand will be met by exports to France and other renewable forms of energy.
Existing coal, gas, oil and nuclear plants are to be decommissioned.
What a beautiful Utopia?
No more acid rain, no more co2 emissions from power gen.,no more anti nuke demos and risk of accidents, no more unsightly power stations, no more problems!
Ok back to the sums to prove how I am going to do it,
The number of Windfarms is calculated as =(55E6 x755W) / 48E6 = 865 windfarms.
A 20 pylon windfarm on a 4 X 5 grid spaced 200m apart will have an approximate radius of 400m. But I dont want any NIMBYs complaining so add on 2km giving a windfarm with an affected zone of 2.4 km. Pi r squared gives an area of 3.14 x 2.4 squared=
18 sq km.
So the total area affected by windfarms in my Utopia is 865 x 18 = 15,645 sq km. across the UK
As the area of Britain is 244,110 sq km (Encyclopedia Britannica CDROM 1998) the percentage of Utopic UK that is affected by Windfarms is 15,645/ 244,110 x 100= 6.4%!!
That means if Mr Spock was to beam down in random places to study our energy solution, it would take Mr Scott on average 14 attempts to get Spock to see a windfarm,let alone hear one!
Seriously though I will not be in power, and we are only bound by international agreement to get 10-20% of our energy from renewables.
The 755W per person figure is based on 1996, a time where we have come along way from, both politically and approach to the environment.
If we implement all the other ways of saving energy like everyone keeps telling me then we can reduce the figure by any percentage that we want.
Interesting post Prof Rheghead. I like it when we have something concete to discuss and I have a little time to join in.
Let's assume we are on the same side of this debate, and let's try to convince our constituents that we mean business. I haven't checked your figures, but I will later.
We still have a few things to do...
Today is a bit of a problem. There is barely a breath of wind where I am sitting, but it's a nice sunny day, so we should have a proposal for photovoltaics in the roof. Yes, I know we can import a steady supply of cheap electricity from France, but it's nuclear-generated, and therefore doesn't really fit in with our grand plan. We should investigate wave, tidal, hydro, etc, too.
An alterative is to overbuild capacity in wind, and to store the excess energy for peak times and windless days. I recently had the opportunity to discuss these things with an acknowledged world-expert on windpower. Believe it or not, he claimed that the best way to store excess energy is in giant flywheels. I am not kidding!
We also need to rebuild the National Grid -- almost from scratch. It seems that we need a completely different type of Grid when our electricity is generated by distributed non-steady renewables. Our expert thinks this rebuild will be more expensive in Scotland than it was in Denmark, but I didn't pick up why.
We also have problems with price. He says that the minimum cost of wind-generated electricity is roughly double that of gas-generated electricity, so electricity bills will at least double unless we do something clever. If we include subsidies to the producers, then this doubling turns into a factor of three increase in cost to the consumer.
In order to avoid the NIMBY's, we must at least consider moving our windfarms offshore, but this form of generation has been estimated to be three times as expensive as coal or gas-generation, so perhaps we should steer away from that idea unless we wish to increase fuel bills fourfold.
Clearly, this increase in fuel bills will not do, so we will have to subsidise by top-slicing from the public purse. We can probably get away with this by convincing the masses that we are saving the planet. After all, the nuclear-fission -power generators got away with doing precisely that for several decades. In fact it still does to some extent. We will at least have the advantage of not leaving behind a legacy of radioactivity. We should play that political card very forcefully.
At this point, I should remind our constituents that this information comes from a strong advocate of wind power, not an opponent, and that's why I tend to believe it,
In case anyone reading this thinks I am having fun at their expense, I can assure them I am not, I suspect that wind-generated electricty can be made to work but it will require enormous political will, enormous political skill, and it will be expensive.
I am told by the experts that it won't get cheaper. They say that wind turbine technology is regarded as fully-developed, and that future research funding into renewables should be directed into marine energy, namely tidal and wave power. But we didn't discuss the new personal wind turbines that you put on your house roof and which might generate a kW or so on a windy day. I am kinda intrigued by that idea...
Green_not_greed
28-Nov-04, 15:23
Rheghead
Please check your figures. 1.8kW per house? Do you mean kWhr or kW per year (not enough to run lightbulbs)!!!!
Not slagging you here as I want to get the facts right up front. Please what are the real requirements per house per year to exist? Then please compare against the Causeymire which has a nominal output of 48MW - per hour if the wind is in its favour and its working at 100% efficiency. The current UK estimate is that it will operate at 24.1% load factor (different to efficiency) due to the wind uncertainty. So 48MW needs to be divided by 24.1/100........
Green_not_greed wrote
Please check your figures. 1.8kW per house? Do you mean kWhr or kW per year (not enough to run lightbulbs)!!!!
You check your figures
Power= Energy / Time ie Joules per second = Watts
kWhr= Power x Time =Energy
I have never heard of kW per year that would be Power/ Time or Energy/Time squared which would be an expression of an acceleration of the change in energy supplied?
If I divided 48MW by 24.1/100 that would mean Causewaymire size windfarms will produce 199MW.!!!!
Again you check your figures!!!!!!
I am sure Rheghead means 1.8kW average power consumption per house. You are being rather sloppy in your units Green_not_greed, even more sloppy than Rheghead was!
So the 'Home' unit of energy requirement is 1.8 kW.
I suspect this was a simple typo and he meant:
So the 'Home' unit of power requirement is 1.8 kW.
Don't you want to multiply the Causewaymire's nominal output of 48MW by 24.1/100, not divide by it?
I too want to get the facts right. I don't know whether or not an average power consumption of 1.8kW per house is realistic. I would guess it's on the low side, but I would also guess that it's in the right ball-park.
By way of explanation for anyone that's lost:
The Kilowatt (kW) is a unit of power. Power is the rate of generating or consuming energy,
The Kilowatt-hour is a unit of energy. It's the amount of energy consumed by (say) a 1kW electric fire if it's switched on for one hour.
If you run a 1kW fire for a year then you need 1 x 24 x 365 kilowatt-hours of energy to do so, ie just multiply the power consumption by the number of hours in a year.
Apologies for the elementary physics lesson.
------
Whoops, Rheghead beat me to the physics lesson. I should have checked for recent posts before clicking on submit. What he says is right.
Double whoops -- missed one:
Green_not_greed, you can't say that the Causeymire has a nominal output of 48MW - per hour. That doesn't make sense for the same reasons as Rheghead has already explained when commenting on your kW per year.
Perhaps your 48 MW - per hour was just a typo too?
DrSzin
I am sure Rheghead means 1.8kW average power consumption per house. You are being rather sloppy in your units Green_not_greed, even more sloppy than Rheghead was!
Rheghead wrote:
So the 'Home' unit of energy requirement is 1.8 kW.
I suspect this was a simple typo and he meant:
So the 'Home' unit of power requirement is 1.8 kW
It was a typo error, I didn't think anyone would pick me up on it, valid point and well spotted! :)
Sorry I can't help with the maths DrSzin, I'm afraid it would be beyond all your comprehension. I know this because my Maths Master who had a very good Mathematics Degree told me that I had invented a whole new form of Maths which was well beyond his comprehension. I thing the term he used was "absolutely and totally unique!".
I would suspect that the cost difference of replacing the Grid in Scotland compared to that in Denmark would be caused by the terrain. I would think that most of the materials for Pylons and Power-lines would have to be helicoptered to the sites.
With respect to the storage problem there is a power station in Wales which uses a dam and two lakes. during periods of low power usage the excess power is used to pump water to the higher lake for storage. When power usage is high the water in the upper dam is released to provide an additional source of hydro-electricity.
I would think that this would be one way of storing any excess from wind power when wind speeds are high and usage is low.
I have no idea of the economics of creating such a system or even if it would work using wind power.
The theory seems fairly sound but one problem, of course, is who's valleys do you drown?
I must confess that on that matter I am definitely a NIMBY!
Vote now on my Wind Turbines in Caithness Vote below.
Two to One the Field!
Where do Turbines stand with respect to the new laws concerning "Spoiling the Landscape".
Rheghead - would you consider slightly rewording your question? I think what you're really asking is -
'Do you support large scale windfarm developments across the length and breadth of the county?'.
I cast my vote on the premise that you were not merely asking if I supported wind turbines in Caithness. I have no problem at all with a wind turbine or two if it humours those people who are still under the illusion that turbines will save the planet. I'm also very interested in small scale mini turbines but you didn't mean them did you?
I am still waiting for a refutation of my calculations and claim that to meet our obligations under the Kyoto agreement then we only have to make a 'windfarm visual impact' of approximately 2.7% on the UK.
My calculation was that 6.4% 'windfarm visual impact' would be needed to supply all our energy on a windy day. However all that is required is 10% supply from renewables,
so if it were to come from wind then:-
6.4/(10 x (24.1/100)) = 2.66% is the 'Windfarm Visual Impact' that we would have to suffer inorder to meet the requirement of the agreement, where 24.1 is Green_not_greed's efficiency factor.
I have used the 'anti windfarm protagonists' data to make my claims so this is accurate and impartial information, if anything it errs on the anti-windfarm arguement.
(e.g. the 2km distance claim, and as already stated the 24.1 efficiency)
Open your minds and think about it for a change!
Green_not_greed's signature read 'Green but not brainwashed'.
Is he entirely sure about that?
Have you excluded the areas taken up by urban conurbations where the wind-power industry cannot put their turbines?
Have you excluded the National Parks where the turbines cannot be sighted?
Have you excluded the areas taken up by water etc?
Have you excluded the areas where they cannot be sighted for inadequate ground conditions.
Have you taken into consideration the areas where wind conditions would make them unviable?
Have you excluded the areas where they cannot be sighted for economic reasons?
Have you taken into consideration the visual impact of the extra power line and pylons required?
What per-centage of Caithness will be subjected to the "Visual Impact"? A little more than either 2.7% or 6.4% I would suspect.
Figures are fine, you can use percentages all you like, but as your plane falls from 40,000 feet with no wings I rather suspect that reminding yourself that "Flying is the safes form of transport" will make you feel a lot safer!
Jaws wrote
What per-centage of Caithness will be subjected to the "Visual Impact"? A little more than either 2.7% or 6.4% I would suspect.
Again lets calculate the visual impact on Caithness,
We want 100% self sufficiency from our windfarms, the population is 30000ish and the area of Caithness is 3152 sq km.
So calculating
755W x 30000/48MW x (18 x 100/3152) x100/100 x 100/24.1 = 1.11% !!!!!!
So the visual impact of getting all of Caithness' power from wind is 1.11%?
Slightly less than what you imagined eh?
Jaws wrote
1.Have you excluded the areas taken up by urban conurbations where the wind-power industry cannot put their turbines?
2.Have you excluded the National Parks where the turbines cannot be sighted?
3.Have you excluded the areas taken up by water etc?
4.Have you excluded the areas where they cannot be sighted for inadequate ground conditions.
5.Have you taken into consideration the areas where wind conditions would make them unviable?
6.Have you excluded the areas where they cannot be sighted for economic reasons?
7.Have you taken into consideration the visual impact of the extra power line and pylons required?
These are all political questions, they are all quite valid and should be asked and answered but here I don't have the luxury of hiding behind hard facts and figures.
I will attempt to answer them all but only a feasibility study and various objection lobby groups can decide on each windfarm planning application.
1. I have considered this and it can be mitigated by possible use of smaller windfarms on brown filled sites.
2.Yes I will exclude them they are beautiful. :p
3.If you are referring to the Lake District, Wales and vast swathes of our bonny loch country then read answer 2.
4.I will have to exclude that cos if you can't build it safe then don't build it. Don't forget that mires or boggy ground can be built on. (e.g. Causewaymire)
5. I will have to exclude them because where there is no wind there should be no windfarms, logical I think?
6.I guess you are talking about tourism here. You are frightened that people won't come to Caithness due to windfarms? Do you honestly think that a 2.7% visual impact would deter visitors from coming here? There have been windfarms visible from the Lake District National Park for 15 years now, nothing is more precious to the people of Cumbria than the beauty of their countryside. If visitors stopped returning after the erection of such, don't you think they would be taken down by now?
Also, windfarms are going to be more ubiquitous, where are they going to go on holiday to escape? Orkney? No they've had windfarms for 50 years now. Other Kyoto signataries? No escape there I think. The only place is the U.S. and Australia but only while they refuse to sign the Kyoto agreement!
7. This can be mitigated by Dounreay does not produce power anymore so its supply line can be taken down. Unless I am wrong about that and/or it is used for something else? I will be the first to admit I am wrong (I will always admit that if I think I am as well :o) )on this. Also I dont see massive pylons and stuff around windfarms that I have been to so far, I guess they must put the supply line underground and then rout to the nearest national grid substation or something of the like.
Are you suggesting that conurbations, National parks, lakes , rivers, land unsuitable to get foundations in and sleepy windless hollows constitute more than 97.3% of the country side ? If you do then you haven't thought of all the farmland that covers this country. After, BSE, Foot and Mouth, and the fall in livestock revinue, don't you think farmers will be clambering for a slice of the cash? Easy money if you can get it!
Jaws, you mentioned flying and questioned whether it was a safe form of transport if a plane lost its wings.
Did the Wright brothers (before they designed their aeroplane) consider that their invention would be used as an effective killing machine? No. How about the impact it would have on sheep at lambing season? No. Did they consider the effects of air pockets? No. How about urban noise pollutiom? No. How about the effects on morality due to the activities of the Mile-high club? NO!
So before you say 'It cannot be done' you firstly have to say 'Can it be done?'
I personally, am a 'glass half full' person, I guess you are 'glass half empty'?
Oh and by the way, it is thrust that makes an aircraft fly, so if it loses its wings and has enough thrust then I am not bothered!?
It is the loss of undercarriage that I cry about. But if I worried about that then I wouldn't go anywhere.
Sorry I can't help with the maths DrSzin, I'm afraid it would be beyond all your comprehension. I know this because my Maths Master who had a very good Mathematics Degree told me that I had invented a whole new form of Maths which was well beyond his comprehension. I thing the term he used was "absolutely and totally unique!".
JAWS, I have deciphered more "absolutely and totally unique" forms of Maths than there are posts on this thread, so one more probably won't cause me too much problem. [lol]
I would suspect that the cost difference of replacing the Grid in Scotland compared to that in Denmark would be caused by the terrain. I would think that most of the materials for Pylons and Power-lines would have to be helicoptered to the sites.
I dare say that is true, but I don't think we are just talking pylons and power-lines here. We are talking about the whole infrastructure: distributed generation, substations, transmission lines, hardware, software and even middleware -- you need to know about the other "Grid" to appreciate that last one -- sorry.
With respect to the storage problem there is a power station in Wales which uses a dam and two lakes. during periods of low power usage the excess power is used to pump water to the higher lake for storage. When power usage is high the water in the upper dam is released to provide an additional source of hydro-electricity.
I would think that this would be one way of storing any excess from wind power when wind speeds are high and usage is low.
That's what we thought, but our expert says otherwise. Perhaps it's because flywheels can be set (and kept) in motion by transferring kinetic energy directly from the windmills, whereas the hydro solution would require you to generate electricity first, transmit it to your favourite pumping station and then pump a viscous fluid back up a hill through a pipe. All these processes can lead to significant energy loss.
Rheghead, don't despair, I will check your figures. I have done similar back-of-the envelope calculations in the past, and, to be honest, I don't think the visual thing is windpower's biggest problem -- unless you happen to live near a windfarm, that is. I live in a city, but putting wind turbines on our nearby hill would be silly, so I would say that, I guess. On the other hand, just because it's silly doesn't meant that it won't happen. :eyes
I think the cost of generation, the sophisticated distribution network required, and the need for large-scale efficient backup generation are much bigger hurdles that large-scale windpower faces. It's an interesting problem and it may not be insurmountable.
Pardon my stupidity but what exactly is the 'visual impact' of a windfarm as a percentage - of what? I don't get that at all. Please help.
DrSzin, the problem is that my maths leave even me confused, or should that be more confused than normal?
Thinking about it, I would think the main problem would be to find a suitable definition of what would be considered "Normal" in my case.
No, definitely one for the "To Hard to Do" file. :D
The number of Windfarms is calculated as =(55E6 x755W) / 48E6 = 865 windfarms.
A 20 pylon windfarm on a 4 X 5 grid spaced 200m apart will have an approximate radius of 400m. But I dont want any NIMBYs complaining so add on 2km giving a windfarm with an affected zone of 2.4 km. Pi r squared gives an area of 3.14 x 2.4 squared=
18 sq km.
So the total area affected by windfarms in my Utopia is 865 x 18 = 15,645 sq km. across the UK
As the area of Britain is 244,110 sq km (Encyclopedia Britannica CDROM 1998) the percentage of Utopic UK that is affected by Windfarms is 15,645/ 244,110 x 100= 6.4%!!
That means if Mr Spock was to beam down in random places to study our energy solution, it would take Mr Scott on average 14 attempts to get Spock to see a windfarm,let alone hear one!
Ok, Prof Rheghead you can do arithmetic. But let me redo your analysis with a slightly different spin. For the purposes of illustration, I will accept your figures for household power needs, etc.
I think your definition of an "affected zone" is used for two different things, and you should revisit this. You define an affected radius as being 2km around each 5x4 windfarm. For some purposes (such as noise and stroboscopic flashing) that is arguably a reasonable definition.
But then you claim that, on average, Mr Spock would have to beam down at 14 random places before he sees a windfarm. You are now assuming that (again in some sort of average sense) he wouldn't be able to see a windfarm if he was more than 2km away from it. At this point your claim falls down. I would be willing to bet that most windfarms can be seen from a much greater distance than 2km.
Indeed, let us turn your argument on its head. If we have 864 windfarms uniformly distributed on an approximately rectangular grid throughout the 244,110 km^2 of Britain, then the distance between windfarms would be approximately 17km, and thus apart from the occasional accident whereby a hill or mountain gets in the way, then I would conclude that from each windfarm you would be able to see four other windfarms -- and that is just including the nearest neighbours on the grid! This figures rises to eight if you include next to nearest neighbours and so on. Furthermore, it makes sense to build windfarms on the tops of hills where it's windy and they would be visible from an even greater distance.
Does that mean windfarms are out? No, of course not. It simply means that building them in a regular grid of 4x5 subgrids is not a good idea because it maximises the number of farms you can see. The obvious thing to do is to cluster many windturbines in huge subgrids in out-of-the-way places with some hills and lots of wind, like, er, er, ..., er, like Caithness! Or you can put them in huge farms offshore as MadPict suggests. That gets rid of the visual-impact problem but at a premium in cost.
Note also that Caithness would only require two such windfarms, so the 1% visual-impact figure is also a little naive. The lesson: don't ever use statistics when discussing a number as small as 2!
To be honest, when I thought about doing the above calculation I didn't realise that the visual impact of a regular grid would be as bad as it seems. I would be grateful if someone would check my calculations and conclusions!
Ok, so wind won't solve our renewable energy needs without significant visual impact and enormous expense, and we still have the problem of nuclear or coal backup, so where do we go from here?
I guess I agree with jb's thesis that we need a balanced spectrum of energy generation. We can't burn oil -- it's much too precious, we need to make plastics out of it -- so we have to obtain our balance from all the other sources. It seems that some large-scale grid-feeding wind-generation capacity will definitely be around for a while because the Scottish Executive has said so, so let's make the most of it but without destroying the entire country(side).
I still can't get those itsy-bitsy roof-mounted personal windmills out of my head. It can't be that easy, surely? At first, I didn't believe they would do anything useful at all, but sticking the numbers into "1/2 I omega^2" suggests the idea is not as crazy as I first thought.
Then there's marine energy. It has an inbuilt advantage over wind. Think kinetic energy density. Think 1/2 rho v^2. Think how many times bigger rho is for water than for air, and you are away, at least in a fundamental physics sense. But water is cold. And wet. And offshore. And, yeah, we could just import tidal energy from France like we could do with nuclear.
Of course, many or most nuclear-educated bods will tell you that the real long-term solution is to build the successor to ITER on the cliffs near a certain beach at Sandside, but that's a different story for a different day...
Maybe I'll wait until Einstein year for that one.
Goodwill wrote
Pardon my stupidity but what exactly is the 'visual impact' of a windfarm as a percentage - of what? I don't get that at all. Please help.
No problem at all, the 'Visual Impact' is the percentage of land of a given area of Land which may lead to problems associated with windfarms.
In my calculation I assumed that any land outwith a radius of 2.4 km from the centre of a windfarm will be free of problems.
Sorry but I still don't understand why you've termed this 'visual impact'? For example the visual impact of the proposed turbines, if viewed from one of the very, very few hills in Caithness that peak at more than 240m, will be of a far greater percentage than your calculations allow. In fact from the top of these hills you will have the opportunity of viewing every single windfarm and wind turbine in Caithness and North West Sutherland. Have I still got the wrong end of the stick re. your 'visual impact' definition?
Sorry but I still don't understand why you've termed this 'visual impact'? For example the visual impact of the proposed turbines, if viewed from one of the very, very few hills in Caithness that peak at more than 240m, will be of a far greater percentage than your calculations allow. In fact from the top of these hills you will have the opportunity of viewing every single windfarm and wind turbine in Caithness and North West Sutherland. Have I still got the wrong end of the stick re. your 'visual impact' definition?
True, you would be able to see them then, but would you hear them or would you suffer any neurological effects outwith of 2.4 km.
When I lived down in Englandshire, I lived in full view of 2 windfarms from my house, they were more than 2.4 km away. One was about 3 km away and the other was about 15 km away across the bay. I was was not aware of them on a daily basis.
DrSzin, thank you for your analysis. I quoted 865 windfarms, that number would meet the 100% of the UK needs on a good windy day.
According to the RSPB (who welcome the careful planning and siting of windfarms BTW), the Governments proposal is to supply 15% of the UK's energy needs by 2015 from renewable sources.
It would be foolish to expect all of the 15% to come from Windpower, wouldn't it?
I think we all welcome a balanced energy strategy, but lets say for arguement sake that 33% of that 15% would be expected to come from windpower.
Using my formula the number of windfarms required would be 180 giving a 'Visual Impact' of 1.33%. How many km would that be between each one?
My formula is just modelled on supplying windpower from Causewaymire size windfarms.
Other areas will have individual needs and should be addressed as such. Everyone must agree with me there?
The fact that I have given some figures and everyone has agreed with the maths demonstrates we are eventually striking some common ground on this issue, instead of rubbishing windfarms per se, like what the venerable Professor Bellamy did?
DrSzin, thank you for your analysis. I quoted 865 windfarms, that number would meet the 100% of the UK needs on a good windy day.
You are most welcome Prof Rheghead.
I would like to say that I subtracted one windfarm from your stated figure of 865 in order to preserve the view of a substantial fraction of Caithnessians with NIMBY tendencies. Unfortunately, it was simple typo.
I have no idea whether anyone would be affected by a windfarm that's more than 2km away, but I am sure I could see the thing, barring hills or the like.
Dunno about you, but I have found this exercise quite useful. I still don't know whether or not your estimates for household power consumption are accurate, or whether your assumed efficiencies of windturbines are reasonable, but assuming that we didn't screw up our arithmetic, then it has been a useful exercise.
I dare say some experienced power engineer will come along and point out some glaringly obvious practicality that I've missed. But, hey, that's ok, I will learn something else then!
Rheghead, When I mentioned economic reasons to exclude sites I was thinking more of situations where the cost of the actual erection and connection to the National Grid would render the actual installation uneconomical.
With respect to certain areas where placing them is deemed unacceptable is not a purely political decision unless you consider the fact that not putting them in peoples gardens is a purely political decision. The distances at which they are placed from dwellings would automatically render large parts of the Central Belt and huge parts of Northern, Central and South-East England totally unsuitable. With respect to windy hollows I would consider that placing them in the valleys in large parts of Wales would fall very much into that category as well as many of the Glens in Scotland. Of necessity these things must be placed on either fairly high or fairly open ground where the wind direction would remain fairly steady otherwise why bother to bring them all the way to Caithness w if any odd piece of land would do? How many Wind Sites are there going to be in Caithness? One, two, five, a dozen, twenty? The last map I saw with sites already suggested and likely or suggested was covered in markers, certainly too many to number without counting them, far in excess of the numbers I have mentioned, and those were only the ones that that particular Power Supplier was aware of. They were unable to say if any of their competitors had more in mind that they were not aware of.
My point about the aircraft was that whilst figures are spread nice and evenly over a large area they might sound fine but, as I am sure you are aware, things do not work like that. Otherwise people who did the Lottery would take out large amounts of insurance for the five times they will be killed by lightning before they win.
One Island out West is already fighting proposals for in excess of a thousand Turbines! I think you mentioned a figure of 20 per farm as a reasonable suggestion for a site. That would mean 50 Wind Farms on that Island alone and I would not think that many of them are much larger than Caithness. What would be the visual impact of 50 such Farms in Caithness? A little more than a couple of per cent I would guess.
Many of the areas I mentioned in my previous post were not where I thought they might be avoided for political reasons but more where they would not be considered either safe or economical as sites. Whilst it might be a political decision to decide they might no be pretty or might upset the neighbours is rather different to because, for example, the ground might suffer subsidence and the whole Turbine might fall down.
I agree with you that it is better to think in terms of 'can do' rather than 'can't do'.
In fact that is exactly what I am inclined to do. I keep thinking that we can do without them rather than just accept the panic that we can't do without them or we will destroy the World.
When I am told that the reason that everything was done before anything was said was so there would be something concrete to tell people then I'm sorry to say that I immediately smell a rat. I take that to mean nothing was said until everything was cut and dried so it could be pushed through before people understood what was happening and would have no time to object.
Not that I have a nasty suspicious mind, honest! But how long ago was it since the existing site was first mentioned? Two, Three, Four years? Can anybody remember as a matter of interest?
At last, I've got it now. Your calculation concludes that the 'Neurological Impact' of getting all of Caithness' power from wind is 1.11%?
You therefore admit there is a neurological impact for those people living within 2km or is it 2.4km of wind turbines - unlucky for them, eh? I'm fortunate in that I am one of the lucky ones -(I'll be able to see a hundred or so at varying distances) but for those people living in the following areas in Caithness -
Causeymire, Forss, Boulfuich, Baillie Hill, Lieurary Hill, Bilbster, Stirkoke, Shebster, Broubster, Reay, Ackron, Melvich, Dunbeath, Spittal Hill, Scoolary, Stroupster, Camster, Yarrows, Strathy etc -
It's just their bad luck.
As was mentioned previously if this was the only answer to the problems we are facing then we would have no option but to accept the inevitable. However, that is not the case. I'm currently working on some rather interesting figures on alternatives to your one-legged, non-imaginative approach. Turbines are the easy answer but by no means the best.
I realise that anyone who views the countryside, we have been charged with stewarding and protecting, as a precious commodity is accused of being loopy environmentalist, Nimby, anti wind, anti renewable,etc, etc - but, here goes, I have an enormous respect for this county and the countryside we are so fortunate to live either in or alongside.
There I've said it - and to make matters worse I'm not saying that because I can make some money out of it.
So if you can discount all other options for reducing CO2 emissions - backed up by calculations with a bit more substance than your 'Visual Impact' calculation then your argument will be won.
BTW the Scottish Executive target for renewable energy is 40% by 2020.
It is possible to put a windfarm on Bein Ratha, Drum Holliston or on other parts of the flow country without any houses being at a close distance to them.
Will people then be concerned about stroboscopic effects on Red deer and foxes for a platform to object?
I do really think the anti wind lobby will be clutching at straws with that one?
The poll currently stands at 68% against, more hearts and minds need to be won then?
DrSzin wrote
Dunno about you, but I have found this exercise quite useful. I still don't know whether or not your estimates for household power consumption are accurate, or whether your assumed efficiencies of windturbines are reasonable, but assuming that we didn't screw up our arithmetic, then it has been a useful exercise.
I dare say some experienced power engineer will come along and point out some glaringly obvious practicality that I've missed. But, hey, that's ok, I will learn something else then!
I agree wholeheartedly with you, it is a refreshing change to discuss something that can be disproved. Usually in these forums, the opinions expressed are purely that..opinions.
If I have have got my figures wrong then they were given in good faith rather than given in an attempt to hoodwink you all.
However, I gave figures from 1996, referenced them and used figures given by my 'arguement opponents'. All other figures I have assumed but declared so. These can be disproved by just looking them up, black 'n' white eh? :)
To be honest, after you all went to the Bellamy meeting I thought I was beat, I agree that I went low by rubbishing Bellamy over the drugs thing. (I am not a Sun reader).
It just goes to prove that even though I have got all the facts and figures into the open, it is the role of the politicians to interpret them.
According to an advert on the TV by I think Toyota (Somebody correct that if it's another Company please) 25% of energy in the USA is used lighting offices during the day! (They don’t say if they also mean factories)
Even assuming that the Americans are very wasteful and we only used half the power then that would be an immediate 12.5% saving. Ceasing to build workplaces which are so huge that the centres are without sufficient daylight would solve that particular problem here, unless the "Mine's bigger than Your's" is so important for the ego!
Turning off the air-conditioning and opening windows would save even more energy than lighting. Unless somebody can convince me that the heat in Britain is always so oppressive that it is a necessity! How much energy is wasted travelling to and from Office Factories because of the need for gossip and office politics when much communication and work could be carried out from home? Does the Boss really need the pretty secretary to keep popping in and out of his office to boost his ego? Does he really need to be on view in his office to assert his position. If he can’t trust his staff to get on with their work then he has picked the wrong staff.
Surely it's time we got rid of the modern ideas of Richard Arkwright and the Factory Prison with one entrance and the bosses office overlooking it to make sure the workers didn't escape before their fourteen hour day was complete to the last second. Are we still two centuries behind the times.
Do we really need large cities with people travelling in and out in the "Rush Hour".
What a stupid name for tens of thousands of people spending hours getting nowhere! Ever evening on the Road Reports, same time, same places, same delays, every day, every week, every year, and still we don't learn!"
Wind Farms are just a convenient excuse for continuing to waste energy of a greater and greater scale.
Heads in the Clouds of Heads in the Sand, it’s still the same.
The only real solution is to take a long hard look at how we got into the position we have. When you are upto your neck in the swamp then it’s time to turn back and find another route. Seeing how much deeper it gets is not the wisest move, even if you have found a straw to breathe through for the time being!
Sorry just to offer an opinion without figures but when my fingers don’t work and I shiver uncontrollably and icicles are forming on my clothes I do not need to consult a thermometer to see if I am cold!
Did you know the Flow Country has been nominated as a World Heritage Site? You excluded National Parks as suitable sites for windfarms as you considered them beautiful but now you suggest a potential World Heritage Site as suitable for windfarm developments????
I think you are giving the talk by David Bellamy rather too much in the way of credence. For many people who attended the talk we heard not one single new piece of information. Those people who were interested in global warming and renewable energy generation had already carried out the necessary research to educate themselves PRIOR to coming to a conclusion or expressing their views. Personally, I didn't agree with everything said by the speakers but that's what information sharing and debate is all about.
If I were you I wouldn't be patting myself on the back just yet.
So far you have
- provided an 'interesting' calculation on the 'Neurological Impact' of windfarms
- suggested a potential World Heritage Site as the perfect place for windfarms.
- completely ignored the opportunity to discuss any alternatives to wind
You've not even scratched the surface yet.
I suspect that Windy Miller, oops sorry Rhaghead, has a deeper involvement in the wind farm indusrty than he lets on. But then I'm a cynical old git who has a deep seated hatred of anything with numbers or percentages in it. And of Star Trek.
I just think he (Rhaghead) will not be happy until he sees the whole of Caithness covered with chuffin' wind turbines.
Tell you what, just so he can go to sleep happy tonight with the vision of a landscape smothered by legions of blade twirling monpods -
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/madpict/images/Windfarmhell.JPG
http://app100828.applicabroadband.net/images/CaithnessWind.gif
Sleep tight Rhaggy
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/flaminmad.gifMadPict
http://app100828.applicabroadband.net/BumperStickers/Offshore.jpg
Goodwill & MadPict, according to Rheghead's figures for the power generated by a 20-turbine windfarm (48MW), together with his estimates for the average power required (755W) by each of the 30,000 people in Caithness, and the "efficiency loss" of "100/25.1", ie a factor of 4, then one only needs TWO such windfarms in order for the whole of Caithness to be self-sufficient on a sufficiently windy day.
Who's got it wrong? Rheghead, or the guys who panic over mass windfarms? Who is being "had"? Probably not the developers...
IMHO anyone who can't (or won't) listen to (or understand) figures is always susceptible to being had by anyone who wants to "have" them.
Did you know the Flow Country has been nominated as a World Heritage Site? You excluded National Parks as suitable sites for windfarms as you considered them beautiful but now you suggest a potential World Heritage Site as suitable for windfarm developments????
I think you are giving the talk by David Bellamy rather too much in the way of credence. For many people who attended the talk we heard not one single new piece of information. Those people who were interested in global warming and renewable energy generation had already carried out the necessary research to educate themselves PRIOR to coming to a conclusion or expressing their views. Personally, I didn't agree with everything said by the speakers but that's what information sharing and debate is all about.
If I were you I wouldn't be patting myself on the back just yet.
So far you have
- provided an 'interesting' calculation on the 'Neurological Impact' of windfarms
- suggested a potential World Heritage Site as the perfect place for windfarms.
- completely ignored the opportunity to discuss any alternatives to wind
You've not even scratched the surface yet.
If the Flow country is a world heritage site then I would not want windfarms there, please refer to my answer to Jaws' comments.
I did not suggest that people do develop neurosis that is associated dirctly with windfarms, I want to suggest that people may develop a neurosis due to windfarms because they develop an over reaction to their siting near their homes. In the same 'tone' that people can develop an abnormal fear to spiders or sharks because they see them crawling across thir kitchen floor and they have watched Jaws the movie the day before and they have to go in a boat!?
Are you suggesting that we kill all spiders and sharks now because of a minority that have developed an abnormal fear?
There are a lot of people who live within sight and sound of windfarms that do not object to them and have no cause to.
I have not failed to suggest other forms of renewables should be persued.
I think we all welcome a balanced energy strategy, but lets say for arguement sake that 33% of that 15% would be expected to come from windpower
Have you been reading the views expressed or just been butting in blindly?
Goodwill & MadPict, according to Rheghead's figures for the power generated by a 20-turbine windfarm (48MW), together with his estimates for the power required (755W) by 30,000 people in Caithness, and the "efficiency loss" of "100/25.1", ie a factor of 4, then one only needs TWO such windfarms in order for the whole of Caithness to be self-sufficient on a sufficiently windy day.
Who's got it wrong? Rheghead, or the guys who panic over mass windfarms? Who is being "had"? Probably not the developers...
IMHO anyone who can't (or won't) listen to (or understand) figures is always susceptible to being had by anyone who wants to "have" them.
Aha, but Dr Szin, we know that just TWO windy farms would not be enough - the greedy landowners/developers would not be happy with just making Caithness Self Powered, they'd want to be able to build even more, because it's sooooooo windy up there, and so barren, and so sparsely populated that all the protests and NIMBYism and BANANAism down in the more populated south would make Caithness the ideal dumping ground for all the wind farm developers.....
Oh dear, perhaps I have been partaking of the same drugs as deal old DB!!!
Hang on a mo, how many turbines could we fit onto Stroma? Now there is a good idea. Nobody lives on that barren outcrop any more. The sheep wouldn't mind the whoosing of the blades - in fact they might even appreciate the ability to get a blow dry when they have been rained upon. And it might bring even more tourists to J'O'Groats....
...whoa, that is some strong "stuff" you had there Davy boy!!!
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/flaminmad.gifMadPict
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madpict wrote
I suspect that Windy Miller, oops sorry Rhaghead, has a deeper involvement in the wind farm indusrty than he lets on. But then I'm a cynical old git who has a deep seated hatred of anything with numbers or percentages in it. And of Star Trek.
I just think he (Rhaghead) will not be happy until he sees the whole of Caithness covered with chuffin' wind turbines.
Tell you what, just so he can go to sleep happy tonight with the vision of a landscape smothered by legions of blade twirling monpods -
It seems I have evoked a deep and abnormal emotional response from you.
Do you live within the affected area of a wndfarm? If not then how have they affected you so? Could it be that you are suffering an abnormal fear of windfarms?
It is easy for me to ridicule you when I do not have the same fear, there are people who have genuine fears about the number 13. You and I probably think that is ridiculous and we are right, Tridekephobia can be treated with various forms of therapy.
Yuor picture of all the turbines though looks fake. In fact the turbines that are behind the ones in front (by several layers I might add that is evident in the photo) will perform more inefficiently to the point of not working at all by the 89th row. Are these the inefficient turbines that people are worried about?
nite nite Mad
Rheghead, I have live closer to a huge Coal Fired Power Station and Coal Mine than I am ever likely to be near to a Wind Farm here and give me the Col Power Fire Station any day. At least it did not dominate the scenery for miles around and before they stopped it putting Black smoke into the atmosphere there was no more Global Warming than previously. They "cleaned it up" in the 1960s and shortly after from 1970 Global Warming escalated. Perhaps a study to find why Global Warming was only on a slow increase until the "Dirty" Power Stations were "Cleaned up" and "Smokeless Fuel" became the norm might show exactly where the problem lies. Cleaner air, more sunlight, more heat, rising temperatures. Seems quite simple unless you develop an neurosis about Pollution! What was the old saying? "A little dirt never harmed anyone!" Now it would appear that No Dirt harms everyone!
Stay out of the sun and avoid Skin Cancer! You will probably get Rickets but not Cancer.
(Yes there is an increase in Rickets in America where Cancer is the major cause of panic)
Solve one problem and you cause another! But there again, it only gives you something else to cause a fuss over. Just keep the money rolling in until I find another cause for panic! I'm sure that given enough time and money we can find another panic to relace it! Oops, sorry, I mean a solution. Honest I did!
Rheghead's Energy Razor:
All things being equal, the most non polluting, proven and profitable one is correct.
Wind of course
Deep and abnormal? You trying to insult me?
I do not have a fear of wind turbines. I think they can be quite impressive.
IN THE RIGHT PLACE!
I have a strong chance of being affected by a farm of 18 300' turbines if the developer gets the go ahead. So I have some interest in the topic.
13? That is the number between 12 and 14 isn't it? That is all it means to me.
The picture is not fake - it is of an actual windfarm in California, if I recall correctly. If I can find the site I got it from I will post a link. It really is that big!
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/flaminmad.gifMadPict
http://app100828.applicabroadband.net/BumperStickers/Offshore.jpg
Madpict wrote
I do not have a fear of wind turbines. I think they can be quite impressive.
IN THE RIGHT PLACE!
We are actually agreeing with eachother then?
Here you go - "Take a tour through a forest of windmills..."
http://www.windmilltours.com/index.htm
How quaint......
Only in the good ol' US of A
"FEEL THE WHOOOSH"
As the wind rushes through the fabled San Gorgonio Pass, stupendous wind turbine blades are silently spinning overhead, with a rotor sweep half the length of a football field. WOW! These aren't the windmill we used to see on grandpa's farm. Traveling 90 minutes along the Colorado Desert terrain, visitors explore a forest of technological wonders. Enthusiastic tour guides discuss the international history of wind energy, current utilization of wind power, and provide an informative glimpse into the future of the electric industry. Spectacular mountain vistas are also part of this brilliantly narrated tour. When you stop to take a closer look at the giant towers, blades and desert plants, you might even glimpse a jackrabbit, shy rosy boa or a coyote in the distance.
The San Gorgonio Pass near Palm Springs hosts the third largest concentration of wind turbines in California. There are more than 3,500 wind turbines located in the pass, many massed on the floor of the Whitewater Wash (an ephemeral stream) against the dramatic backdrop of Mount San Jacinto.
Wind Turbines on Whitewater Wash
Many of the wind turbines on the Wash were installed during the height of California's great wind rush in the early 1980s. The wind turbines in these wind plants were installed much closer together than in modern arrays, creating a veritable forest. These older turbines are also less reliable and operate less frequently than contemporary designs.
Some of the older turbines have already been removed as wind companies begin to repower the aging wind plants with newer more cost effective wind turbines.
Only two hours east of Hollywood, the wind turbines near Palm Springs have appeared in several movies, including Rain Man.
http://www.ilr.tu-berlin.de/WKA/windfarm.html
Pass me the sickbag......
Madpict wrote
I do not have a fear of wind turbines. I think they can be quite impressive.
IN THE RIGHT PLACE!
We are actually agreeing with eachother then?
I doubt it.
The right place for me is about 10 miles off shore......
http://app100828.applicabroadband.net/BumperStickers/Offshore.jpg
or do you think I just like the picture?
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/flaminmad.gifMadPict
Successful offshore wind farm bids raise serious concerns for birds
The Crown Estate announcement (Thursday 18 December 2003), detailing the locations of successful bids for the second round of offshore windfarms, raises serious concerns about their potential impacts on birds and important marine wildlife habitats.
The RSPB supports renewable energy - including the large-scale development of offshore wind power - as part of a range of measures to reduce the extent of climate change.
However, the RSPB is calling on Government to ensure that the location and scale of any individual windfarms that are given consent under Round Two do not pose a significant threat to birds.
The RSPB's Conservation Director, Dr Mark Avery, is deeply concerned: 'An initial analysis of the proposed sites suggests there could be serious problems for birds. We already know that large numbers of red-throated divers congregate in the Greater Thames and off the north Norfolk coast in late winter'.
While we are keen to see more energy generated from renewable sources, we certainly don't want this to be done at the expense of large numbers of birdsDr Avery continues: 'Given that most of the earmarked sites are in areas identified by English Nature as potentially being of international importance for wildlife, it is quite possible that detailed surveys could reveal conflicts.
Dr Avery is clear about the Government's responsibilities to birds: 'It is vital that Government collects more detailed data about bird numbers and movements this winter to inform any final decisions. The RSPB expects Government to stick to its stated commitment to resolving uncertainties about potential impacts on birds before going ahead with consents.
'Equally, developers have a responsibility to ascertain the use of these areas by birds as part of their environmental impact assessments. While we are keen to see more energy generated from renewable sources, we certainly don't want this to be done at the expense of large numbers of birds and important wildlife sites.'
Also, the Yacht club has expressed similiar concerns due to collisions.
Where does the stream of petty but probably genuinely felt objections stop?
When do we get serious about a renewable energy strategy. The day will come when the Government will just intervene and plonk windfarms willy nilly anywhere without listening to us. We have got to COMPROMISE!
The day will come when the Government will just intervene and plonk windfarms willy nilly anywhere without listening to us. We have got to COMPROMISE!
That day already exists - Prescott can overule any objections without any consideration to the old system of planning procdures and objections.
And if yachtsmen can't find their way around objects at sea like a mass of wind turbines, which no doubt will be on all charts and be festooned with warning lights, then frankly they shouldn't be allowed out of the harbour.
If you take "your" view on this subject then the RSPB is making a big fuss about the danger of wind turbines to birds. According to some pro-wind farm stats I have read (don't ask me to link - I'm sure you can find it if you want it) the high incidence of bird deaths caused by blade strikes is vastly exaggerated. They may find the odd bird but nowhere near the 100's quoted by the RSPB. And I believe that collison avoidance is already in use in some countries.
Off shore windfarms make sense. The strongest winds are out to sea. As soon as they hit the land they are slowed down. The majority of wind farms are located inland, admittedly on top of hills, but they are not achieving full output as they would in the wide open spaces of the briney. I do believe that the Danish (leading experts in wind turbine technology) are now trying to place windfarms away from populated areas - preferring marine sites to land ones. They made the mistake and have learnt from it - looks like we're going to make the same mistakes.
Dr Avery is clear about the Government's responsibilities to birds: 'It is vital that Government collects more detailed data about bird numbers and movements this winter to inform any final decisions. The RSPB expects Government to stick to its stated commitment to resolving uncertainties about potential impacts on birds before going ahead with consents.
Laughable - what about the impact on humans? What about their responsibilities to people?
Don't get me wrong - I think we should consider wildlife whenever we do anything to the planet but the only birds Prescott is worried about is the turkey on his plate.
Madpict wrote
Off shore windfarms make sense. The strongest winds are out to sea. As soon as they hit the land they are slowed down. The majority of wind farms are located inland, admittedly on top of hills, but they are not achieving full output as they would in the wide open spaces of the briney.
I agree with you! But I am not convinced that offshore technology is completely with us at the moment. That does not mean that the Government should not experiment with offshore or any other forms renewable energy like offshore tidal for that matter. What it does mean is that the Government should persue onshore wind projects as they have been proven on the field.
My calculations show that if we were to meet our Kyoto obligations through putting up large scale windfarms then there would be only 5 red spots on your map NOT completely covered. So stop whipping up groundless prropaganda when you don't even live Caithness!!!
....there would be only 5 red spots on your map NOT completely covered.
If you had paid any attention to the previous threads on windfarms you would realise that the map was a joke.
So stop whipping up groundless prropaganda when you don't even live Caithness!!!
So, just because I have moved away from Caithness I am not allowed to show concern for a county where I spent the first 20 years of my life? I suspect I care more for Caithness than you do judging by your determination to establish wind farms there.
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Madpict
I have been looking at the StopCambridgeWindfarm website. There is no mention of the power rating of the proposed windfarm.
Don't you think this is odd?
To put out information don't you think it should inform wholly and accurately?
However, I did find some information in your local newspaper, the Cambridgeshire news.
If the plan gets the go-ahead, the turbines will provide enough energy to supply 20,000 homes - 37 per cent of the domestic need for South Cambridgeshire.
So we know what a 'home' is in power it is 1.8kW
So the farm should produce 20000 x 1.8kw = 36000kW of power
The pdf report on the SCW website states that the cost of wind energy is 5.4p per kWh.
So the total annual income from sale of electric is 36000W x 24 x 365 x 0.054p =
17 million pounds !!!!!
So how come on page 6 of the SCW pdf report the projected annual income of the farm will be 1.3 million pounds, a bit of a difference wouldn't you say? 15.7 million pounds?
It also goes on to mention that the operator will receive 4.4 million pounds in subsidy, I do not deny this, but SCW use this subsidy to justify windfarm profitability,'the 'spin' being, it is the Tax payer who is footing the bill for renewable energy!
If you have been taking in all this propaganda from SCW then I don't blame you for being anti land based windfarm.
madpict wrote
If you had paid any attention to the previous threads on windfarms you would realise that the map was a joke.
I suppose StopCambridgeWindfarm is a joke as well?
Madpict
I have been looking at the StopCambridgeWindfarm website. There is no mention of the power rating of the proposed windfarm.
Don't you think this is odd?
To put out information don't you think it should inform wholly and accurately?
If you have been taking in all this propaganda then I don't blame you for being anti land based windfarm.
madpict wrote
If you had paid any attention to the previous threads on windfarms you would realise that the map was a joke.
I suppose StopCambridgeWindfarm is a joke as well.
Well if nothing else you enjoy immersing yourself in the topic. To the people whose lives are going to be affected by the Cambridge Windfarm it is not a joke. It is deadly serious to them and I would not make light of their predicament.
I am deeply suspicious of land based windfarms because they are always built on someone's land, who is no doubt going to be rewarded handsomely for their 'sacrifice' in the name of the environment.
To sort out the point behind my 'map joke' it was in response to a post by JAWS in the thread "No, I don't want a windfarm at Borrowston, Caithness"
Posted: 09 Jun 2004 15:24
Somebody must have the figures ablut how many there might be.
How many have been applied for, how many are in the planning stage, how many are passed, ready for construction, how many site have anemometers checking for suitability?
The figures ought to be somewhere and published. (I know, the figures are "Commercially Sensitive". A good hidey-hole for for unscrupulous politicians to hide in!)
The last map I saw at one of the indoctrination sessions was covered in pretty different coloured little circles all showing a site at various stages. And they were only the ones that one particular Company knew about. They volunteered the fact that there were probably more that they weren't aware of.
Each dot showed a possible site there was nothing to say how many Turbines were proposed for each. If half of them came into being there would literally be thousands of Turbines.
Hence my map here (http://www.caithness.org/phpBB/viewtopic.php?p=28295&highlight=#28295)- when viewed after the above post by JAWS it is in context.
Certainly your figures do make me even more suspicious - I will have to send them to the SCMF.
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/flaminmad.gifMadPict
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/gruff_ext.gif
OK! I would very much like to hear their response.
I do not mind people putting a different 'spin' on the facts but telling big porky pies that are out by a factor of 10? Allistair Campbell and Peter Mandleson can't even get away with that one!
Here is a picture I took of MadPict campaigning at a recent windfarm protest meeting in California.
http://therionarms.com/pictures/livermore009.jpg
After a few more decades of global warming, the Causewaymire will look like this unless we do something about it.
Mr P Cannop
01-Dec-04, 20:25
Here is a picture I took of MadPict campaigning at a recent windfarm protest meeting in California.
http://therionarms.com/pictures/livermore009.jpg
After a few more decades of global warming, the Causewaymire will look like this unless we do something about it.
where is the pic ??
Not sure if you 'found' this page - the tabbed style of the main page doesn't make it obvious.
http://www.stopcambridgewindfarm.org.uk/Pages/yourenergy.htm
Some facts about 'Your Energy':
* They have yet to produce a single watt of electricity.
* Their first successful planning application for a 4 turbine wind farm in the Orkneys was sold to Southern and Scottish Energy prior to construction. The cost of the wind farm was reported in the Scotsman (7/02/2004) as £8.3m
* Their second and only other planning permission for a 10 turbine wind farm near Kettering has been transferred to Mistral Invest, a company registered in the Bahamas. The directors of 'Your Energy' regard this company as their immediate parent company according to 'Your Energy's' Annual Report (31/12/2002).
* However, their ultimate controlling party, through a further company in the Bahamas appears to be Consolidated Navigation Corporation, a company incorporated in the Marshall Islands, a well known tax haven! This is a very complicated ownership structure for a U.K. energy company.
* There are only around 12 employees of 'Your Energy Ltd'.
* They admit that they carry out no research into developing renewable energy technology.
It remains to be seen whether 'Your Energy' are serious about operating wind farms in the U.K. or whether their business model is based on obtaining planning permissions for wind farms and then selling them on for a very lucrative profit. This would be a cynical exploitation of the Renewable Obligations Certificates subsidy system put in place by the government to encourage the development of renewable energy technology.
However, with these subsidies accounting for 76% of the income of the Cambridge Wind Farm Ltd., which is estimated at £148m over the 25 year life of the project, the estimated £90+m profit that will result does lead to the thought that the driving force behind this application in a totally unsuitable site might be more greed than green!! Indeed one of the Directors of 'Your Energy' at their exhibition said , when asked how much money they would make out of the scheme, said "It's the stuff dreams are made of."
Here is a picture I took of MadPict campaigning at a recent windfarm protest meeting in California.
Ah, damn - found out as the Global Warrior I am.... [lol]
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/flaminmad.gifMadPict
http://hometown.aol.co.uk/MadPict/images/gruff_ext.gif
madpict quoted from SCW
However, with these subsidies accounting for 76% of the income of the Cambridge Wind Farm Ltd., which is estimated at £148m over the 25 year life of the project, the estimated £90+m profit that will result does lead to the thought that the driving force behind this application in a totally unsuitable site might be more greed than green!! Indeed one of the Directors of 'Your Energy' at their exhibition said , when asked how much money they would make out of the scheme, said "It's the stuff dreams are made of."
I read that as well but my calculations seem to rubbish that claim. I am not very impressed with their estimation qualities.
It just goes to show that anti windfarm lobby groups will make up anything!
I have never read such ludicrous drivel before in all my life!
http://www.stopcambridgewindfarm.org.uk/documents/REASONS%20WHY%20NO%20TO%20THE%20WINDFARM.pdf
http://therionarms.com/pictures/livermore009.jpg
DrSzin wrote
After a few more decades of global warming, the Causewaymire will look like this unless we do something about it.
It looks as if there is extensive desertification going on, could be a picture of Madpict in the future advertising windfarms because successive Governments have left it too late?
I have never read such ludicrous drivel before in all my life!
Please expand.
Overnight I have had time to think about the facts and figures that I have been giving you.
And I have had a complete rethink, but to effectively show how much I have rethought the subject I need to start a new thread. Because this thread is no longer about David Bellamy, it is about the sordid truth about Green energy, big business, mislead lobby groups and 'spin' from my calculations.
So in my new thread I will rip into my own calculations (something everyone has should have done and missed) and start afresh.
Green_not_greed
02-Dec-04, 11:42
Been internetless for a few days - wow, this has been a bit lively.
Going back several pages, yes there were some errors in my "post" re units. Fingers too fast and brain too slow...
What I'd like to know is why I can't vote on Rheghead's site. It says I've already voted. This is not possible. Comment/help, please?
GNG, Rheghead,
I can't vote either, even though I'd be tempted to vote for 'large scale wind turbine' (singular) rather than 'large scale wind farms' (plural)! Anyway, says I've already voted. Again, not possible.
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