David Bellamy Talks Windfarms

[Tilter]

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.

[JAWS]

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.

[MadPict]

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 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 .


MadPict

[Goodwill]

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?

[Rheghead]

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.

[Goodwill]

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.

[Rheghead]

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.

[JAWS]

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!"

[Goodwill]

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.

[Rheghead]

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

[Goodwill]

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.

[Rheghead]

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?

[JAWS]

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.

[Rheghead]

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.

[Tilter]

So what did everyone think about the Bellamy/Graham meeting last night?

[Viva Diva]

I thought it was excellent, very informative and actually entertaining.
It sent me from neutral to a decisive no!

[Green_not_greed]

What an excellent evening. 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!

[zeus]

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

I'm sorry that Rheghead didn't go!

[Rheghead]

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.

[Green_not_greed]

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?