Just announced, Strathy North Wind Farm

[ywindythesecond]

Strathy North Windfarm Planning Application details are now lodged in Thurso Library

It is for 35 turbines of total height 110 metres. Causeymire ones are just under 100m. Forss ones are 75m. Latheron ones are 68m.

There are 35 of them. The total connected output is 81MB. The claim is that this will provide power to 40,000 homes (about, I can't remember the exact number)
We already have windfarms providing more than enough for our needs when the wind blows. We don't need more windfarms to provide more than we need.
Is there any good reason for Caithness or the Highlands to carry the burden of power generation for consumption in the more densely populated areas?
The wind also blows there, perhaps not as much but it doesn't need to be sent hundreds of miles to the consumer.

[Bill Fernie]

I still fail to see where you are coming from with this "We already have enough for our needs argument."

Surely the needs are for the whole of the UK.

Anything we manaufacture will normally be for a much greater area than the local one otherwise it would not be cost effective to produce.

By your logic fishing boats in Scotland should only catch enough fish for Scotland and not export any to England or other parts of Europe.

You need to find other arguments than this one to oppose wind farms.

The motive for most endeavours is profit and it certainly looks like wind farms are highly profitable for the landowner, the company owning them, the manufacturers and in some cases the local community via community benefits.

In addition the governments targets for production of alternative sources of energy are driving the process forward. We are going to have many more wind farms and since the far north appears to have the best wind conditions we are likely to have many more.

Some may be placed at sea especially if the two in the Moray Firth are proved to work successfully. It remains to be seen if people will accept two hundred off the Caithness coast any more easily than they might want wind farms.

Since the market has been set by the government and the wind farms look to be almost guaranteed to make profits you will need to find extremely good ideas to stop them being built.

It is possible that developments for other forms of energy production from say the Pentland Firth might be a way forward but that needs some time to develop. If some form of energy from tidal sources does get going in say five years that may start to slow the wind farm developments. By that time however there will be many more in place.

As I say I am still somewhat unsure how your argument that we already have enough output from wind turbines for our own local use does anything to support the slowdown of further developments. It looks like a dead end argument although I am always open to other suggestions to support the theory.

[Rheghead]

We already have windfarms providing more than enough for our needs when the wind blows. We don't need more windfarms to provide more than we need.

The last time I checked, Caithnessians were Scottish, Caithness was connected to Scotland and Strathy is in Sutherland...

[emb123]

The last time I checked, Caithnessians were Scottish, Caithness was connected to Scotland and Strathy is in Sutherland...

An eyesore in a beauty spot. Whoopie-do!

Generating around 70-80 Megawatts - occasionally, on a really windy day.

Really holds a candle to the 4000 megawatts and 8000 megawatts from conventional power stations. And what a great way to fool people into thinking that the UK has chosen the best technology, and sited it in the best place. NOT.

It's an antique renewable energy generation method that is unreliable at best, costly to install and almost worthless other than for the purposes of pretending to be doing something about working towards the required quota for energy coming from renewable sources. Wave power would be much less obtrusive - beauty spot or not - and it generates a whole lot more electricity - even when the wind isn't blowing.

[rambler]

It's an antique renewable energy generation method that is unreliable at best, costly to install and almost worthless other than for the purposes of pretending to be doing something about working towards the required quota for energy coming from renewable sources. Wave power would be much less obtrusive - beauty spot or not - and it generates a whole lot more electricity - even when the wind isn't blowing.

Although the concept of utilising wind energy might be antique, the modern wind turbines are certainly not. The improvements that were made in turbine and blade technology over the last decade have resultet in state-of-the-art machines that are as different to the ancient windmills as a racing car is to a horse cart.
Wave power still needs to be developed to be commercially viable, at the moment it generates (unfortunately) hardly any electricity.

Where do the waves come from when the wind is not blowing?

[emb123]

Although the concept of utilising wind energy might be antique, the modern wind turbines are certainly not. The improvements that were made in turbine and blade technology over the last decade have resultet in state-of-the-art machines that are as different to the ancient windmills as a racing car is to a horse cart.
Wave power still needs to be developed to be commercially viable, at the moment it generates (unfortunately) hardly any electricity.

Where do the waves come from when the wind is not blowing?

I agree that they are a vast improvement on early designs but they are still an eyesore (sure - that's a matter of opinion, you either like them or you don't) and the last I read, wave power technology was similarly coming on by leaps and bounds.

Obviously I appreciate you'll get *bigger* waves when the wind is blowing. But absence of wind in one locality doesn't seem to cause the sea or ocean (Strathy head being roughly where the Atlantic Ocean meets the North Sea) to resemble a still pond. Just makes it less choppy.

It might not be quite so bad (except for despoiling the landscape of course) if nearby residents who had these things within sight and sound of where they live got free electricity as an incentive to be a bit more tolerant
of them, but I just don't see that kind of offer being laid on the table anytime this century.

[Bill Fernie]

Whilst wave power is one possible source of power it remains to be seen whether the technology can withstand the powerful waves of the Pentland Firth. The major power in that waterway would seem to be tidal and current. Whilst turbines are operating on a test basis in thew south and appear to work it will require full scale machinery and no doubt something extremely robust to stand up to the forces in the Petnalnd firth. Some estimates usgggest that if the power could be harness up to at least 50% of allof the UK's power requirements might come from there. Even if that is beyond what might be done and it was only say 25% the investment required would be considerable and take several years to develop.

Would we only invest to supply enough power from the Pentland firth for Caithness and Sutherland. Of course not.

Then there are follow on consequences if the Pentland firth was to be ver ys uccessful as power source supplying the UK. For example would even the new proposals for the Beauly Denny and up to Dounreay even be enough to carry the power out or would yet another massive power line be required.

There would also require to be a huge amount of research carried out to predict some of the consequences of taking power from the Pentland Firth. I am not an engineer but in all probability my guess would be that taking out energy from a particular point in the firth will havce cponsequnces eventually somewhere past the point where the turbines , dams or whatever are located. for example will the current be slowed down or will the tidal race be mitigated as energy is extracted on a massive scale. At what level can power be extracted with no effect further on in the firth or into the North Sea. If the water flow is slowed down will there be negative effects that some over the years. the current etc may have been flwoing for hundereds of thousands of years and we will alter it. We need to have some idea of what wil happen down the line. After all most rivers that are blocked by a dam have a consequence when the river no longer flows as previously. I look at the Aswan Dam in Egypt that was hailed as massive succes when built and now the consequences are coming home to roost they are not so sure. Yes they have the power supply but there are many environmental and ecological consequences that appear to be mainly negative and still getting worse.

If we are to keep suggesting the Pentland Firth as an alternative to wind power we must bear in mind that it is still a long way off and even if a start was made tomorrow we would not see the reults for a few years whereas the wond farms are here and now. It could be that if the firth projects were successful that in 20 or 30 years the wind farms would be taken down when they reached the end of their usefulness. It would appear to be much cheaper to remove a series of wind turbines than to deal with decommissioning nuclear plants albeit that might be much cheaper for future ones than the previous generation that were not designed with decommissioning in mind.

With plans to have several hundred wind turbines in the Western Isles and in the Shetland Isles still moving forward and with small island communities and many mainland communities looking at how they can get their own wind turbines it would seem that many folk see them as an asset for their area despite the opposition they create.

Certainly each proposal needs to be examined carefully and the Highland Council strategy has attempted to bring some suggestions as to how to manage future developments and not allow completely piecemeal development all over the place. It remains to be seen if that will be successful as many developments will be dealt with in Edinburgh.

[fred]

Where do the waves come from when the wind is not blowing?

The gravitational pull of the moon.

[johno]

Sorry Bill i cant relate to your arguement about the fishing boats.
they dont spoil the look of the ocean as turbines do to the surrounding countryside. Im sure that the wind do,es blow just as strong in the more dense,ly populated areas,[ it cerainly is doing that right now].
The same can be said for Dounereay, would that have been built in, say the area surrounding London, No i dont think so. But at least that gave a lot of benefit to the local area where i cant see how wind turbines will benefit anyone but the land owner,s & the comany running them.

[Bill Fernie]

Johno - I don't think I mentioned fishing boats. But yes there mitght be affects on the fishing industry if changes were made to tidal flows and currents.

[golach]

There are 35 of them. The total connected output is 81MB. The claim is that this will provide power to 40,000 homes (about, I can't remember the exact number)
We already have windfarms providing more than enough for our needs when the wind blows. We don't need more windfarms to provide more than we need.

I am sorry but I think your protests are a bit NIMBY'ish.
The point of Wind Power, Wave Power even Solar panels, is to try and save our Planet. That is the main reason for all this, so IMO by your protests, you dont care about global warming, weather changes, holes in the Ozone Layer, the Ice Caps melting.
If the surplus power produced by the Kaitness Wind Farms lights my energy saving lamps in my little apartment in Edinburgh and maybe powers the Air-Conditioning in our Scottish Parliament, I will be very grateful to the county of my birth.
These Wind Farms are not being constructed on arable land, but on land that in the main cannot be used to produce food or timber, so why not let it be used for the benifit of our grand children.

[fred]

I am sorry but I think your protests are a bit NIMBY'ish.
The point of Wind Power, Wave Power even Solar panels, is to save our Planet.

Windmills arn't going to save our planet.

Only people can save our planet and the only way they can do that is to stop confusing needs with wants.

If we just build a load of windmills and screw in a few energy saving lightbulbs then slap each other on the backs glowing with pride in the sacrifices we are making for mankind then the world is doomed.

The modern consumer world is a scam, it works on the same principal as a chain letter or pyramid selling, seems to work in theory, for a while a few people do very well out of it but it can't last for ever and when it crashes everyone loses.

The windmills are being driven by greed, their effect on the environment will be zilch and they perpetuate a system which makes it nigh on impossible for anyone to make a real difference.

[Rheghead]

Really holds a candle to the 4000 megawatts and 8000 megawatts from conventional power stations. And what a great way to fool people into thinking that the UK has chosen the best technology, and sited it in the best place. NOT..

Can you give any examples of 4000-8000MW power stations please?

[johno]

Johno - I don't think I mentioned fishing boats. But yes there mitght be affects on the fishing industry if changes were made to tidal flows and currents.

[fishing boats should only catch fish for scotland and not export to england]
your words . but i get your point. my point is that wind farms would not be tolerated in the most scenic parts of england so why should they mar the beautiful country side of scotland

[rambler]

The gravitational pull of the moon.

Well ok. We get a tidal flood wave about every 12 hours. Although it will be possible to harvest the tidal flow in that wave it is more difficult to harvest the wave element from the tidal waves caused by the gravitational part of the moon.
Wave energy technology tries to capture energy from the swell caused by wind. Swell can travel a long distance, so even if the wind blows somewhere between Greenland and the Azores and not in Scotland, there still might be swell at Strathy Point.

[Rheghead]

Windmills arn't going to save our planet.

Wind turbines are only one part of a multi-discipline strategy to save the planet from climate change. Hopefully we can derive 20% of our electrical power from them. Energy generation is currently responsible for ~30% of the UK's emissions of CO2, 20% of that is 6%, that to me that is a valid reason to invest in Windfarm technology on a macro scale.

Not all countries are best placed for windfarms but collectively the world's community can fight climate change.

The fact that statements are being made like the above just demonstrates how one-sided people have become on this issue...

[Rheghead]

my point is that wind farms would not be tolerated in the most scenic parts of england so why should they mar the beautiful country side of scotland

I think you should take a closer look at the efforts to stop windfarm proliferation in England and see where they are situated. I used to live near one of the first windfarms in England which was on the border of the English Lake District and could be seen from large parts of it.

Your statement exposes a prejudice which is outwith the subject of Wind energy.

[emb123]

Can you give any examples of 4000-8000MW power stations please?

No. Sorry can't take time out to do that (shouldn't be sitting at the computer at all really), I did a google search a couple of weeks ago and came up with what I seem to remember were those kind of figures), I tried one now and it's like pulling teeth trying to extract meaningful results out of google. Could be my memory is wrong - fair enough - I bow to superior information and being corrected. What I can find now without taking the time necessary to find the link I did previously seems to suggest 1500 megawatt to anything up to 4000 depending on the size and technology used would be more approriate figures.

Sorry for confusion.

[fred]

Wind turbines are only one part of a multi-discipline strategy to save the planet from climate change.

A stratergy which includes China increasing their carbon output by over a third every 10 years and India over a half?

If we closed down every powerstation in Britain they would make up the difference in a matter of months not years.

Scotland needs about 6 or 7GW generating capacity and has 9 already, much of the surplus is exported. There are plans for another 20GW from wind power in the Highlands. The power stations are there to make money and they only make money if they are running at near capacity. If the owners of the power stations have to run the generators down to tickover everytime the wind blows they will go broke in no time.

What if in 20 years time the conventional powerstations are still working near capacity, people are making fortunes from new industries fed by the extra power from wind turbines and the government is saying "half our electricity comes from renewables, we did our bit"?

[Bill Fernie]

First apologies to John - Forgot about my fishing reference.

Here is a link to some "Interesting Figures" about which i make no comment at the moment -
http://www.esru.strath.ac.uk/EandE/W...nteresting.htm

Also a list of all of the UK power stations and output capacity might be useful for reference. See this link -
http://www.powerstationeffects.co.uk...ntsMay2004.pdf