Green light for biggest wind farm in the world

[Jenny W]

Originally Posted by Rich_

do we really need dishwashers, and automatic washing machines & powered lawnmowers, tumble dryers etc, for our continued survival? My grandparents didn't have them,(they did have a TV, though)

I don't have a dishwasher or a tumble dryer or a powered lawn mower (and I'm definitely not a grandparent!) I do have an automatic washing machine though

Yeah, I agree with you that people may have to sacrifice some things as I accept the fact that wind farms aren't as energy efficient as coal fired power stations - 'energy efficient' isn't the right term is it - I think I mean they dont' produce as much energy as a coal power station relatively (or something like that!). I do reckon though that renewables can provide the majority of our energy needs - people just need to realise that it's gonna have to happen.

[blacknest]

Originally Posted by Rich_

Neither shallow nor naive, Jenny. I'd say most people would agree with you.

Too right! Nobody keen to go back to Black Death, dying at age 50 of physical exhaustion due to grubbing miserable existence off a tiny patch of land etc etc
But you CAN do with very little . People WON'T do with very little through regulation and hectoring. It needs to be substantially voluntary.

I'm of an age now where I'm starting to think back and say to myself how did we manage? I mean with with no car/one car/one fridge/no freezer/having to buy veggies in brown paper bag, not loads of packaging/no buckets of fast food and microwave meals and hot instant latte available in every petrol station/ only one phone & no mobile/no PCs or DVDs or camcorders or even a hifi/not being able to fly to Australia EVER let alone twice a year /a phonecall to Italy taking all day to connect and costing a fortune. That was in the 1970's...not the 1870's! We were hardly living the life of medieval peasants! And we seemed as happy as anyone ever is.

Collective/Government/Inter-Governmental action IS needed to tackle our unsustainablly energy-dependent , consumption-based "must-grow" economic system. But it's also a sledge hammer to crack a nut.

It's more about "us" than "them".

Something of a personal transformation or waking up is required ...This requires reflection and effort.But when it comes it's suddenly so easy to appreciate the pointlessness of much of our ever-spiralling consumption and lack of even fleeting satisfaction which comes from many of our compulsive "must have" habits. And with that comes a bit more determination to adopt "yes I CAN and WILL make a difference" responsible habits.

So we CAN go without. But to HAVE to, by forced necessity make do with very little is a different thing.

As for offshore windfarms...? BRING 'EM ON!!

Cannot believe so many are questioning this!!

Not the solution to everything but a big part of the solution.And I grew up on the Essex Coast and know very well the value of the Thames Estuary for migrating geese, waders etc. Compared to the loss /degradation of their mudflat , marshland habitats and coastal farmland & pollution windfarms really not a big issue and certainly careful design ,siteing can ameliorate such problems as there are.

It occurs to me (anyone else?) that a few large, dense concentrations of windfarms in shallow offshore waters like Dogger Bank etc might prove an extremely good environment for fish etc, a useful impediment to seafloor-dredging mega-trawlers and even an area free of the constant dumping of plastic waste etc by passing merchant ships.

They might even make good MARINE RESERVES like the Government thinks we dont need!

[Rich_]

Originally Posted by Jenny W

I don't have a dishwasher or a tumble dryer or a powered lawn mower (and I'm definitely not a grandparent!) I do have an automatic washing machine though

It's the same in our house too, which proves they are not all essentials, but the problem is now, that whole economies and peoples livelihoods depend on the sale & manufacture of luxury items, and this will be very hard to confront . Look what happened as soon as the sale of new cars collapsed , after years of persecuting the motorist and allegedly wanting to cut the number of cars on the road for environmental reasons, the government has bent over backwards to help increase the sale of cars in order to protect jobs & the economy, & I think this will always be their priority.

I totally agree with Blacknest, but I think when the coal powered generators are gone consumerism will possibly be fueled by Nuclear power, & I think it will be "them" that decides this. I don't think they really want "us" to stop buying anything.

[blacknest]

[quote=Rich_;485211
I totally agree with Blacknest, but I think when the coal powered generators are gone consumerism will possibly be fueled by Nuclear power, & I think it will be "them" that decides this. I don't think they really want "us" to stop buying anything.[/QUOTE]

Hopefully if we can bring carbon capture to commercial usefullness coal will be a big part of the solution...we have 100's of years' worth in Britain alone. IF it happens (Rather than, as you say "them" just making nuclear a subsidised foregone conclusion) it will be China of all places that drives it. They are dependent on filthy coal power stations but they're waking up to the damage to their ECONOMY at the highest level: they know 3bn people in China & the Indian Sub-continent are dependent for water on the Himalayan snowfields that are meling now in front of their eyes. And they're not keen on 153,000,000 hungry Bangladeshi muslims literally walking into China when their homes become uninhabitable due to rising sea levels. Let's hope the Carbon Capture magic bullet is not a delusion!
In the meantime ...let's eat less, buy less, warm our houses less, drive less etc..every little helps and makes you feel empowered rather than hopeless.

[grymalkyn]

Originally Posted by Mick_S

The biggest Fartfarm in the world and it's going to supply just a quarter of the homes in one city and then only when the wind is blowing, Friends of the earth are delighted, just what earth are they friends of I want to know.
Disclaimer:- wretched thing is in my backyard so to speak.

Mick

I completely agree. FOE spells foe to me . Wind farms are not the answer - however individual generation of wind energy for each home, building, maybe even factory, is another matter and far more efficient. Does nobody think of the fact that the longer the wre the more electricity you lose down it afore it gets to the thing it's supposed to power ??? And that's just one spanner in the works. Fartfarm is about it.

And - here comes the cat amongst the pigeons - what is wrong with nuclear energy? How many millions have died from nuclear power station trouble (not bombs!)? How much problem do they cause to wildlife? How many hillsides or horizons on the sea do they ruin?

Our problem is what to do with waste uranium and plutonium ... but there are other ways to generate nuclear energy than uranium. There's even a way that eats plutonium and reduces it to almost harmless waste.

And much trouble ave the French had with their nuclear power? And do remember that we already power oursleves with a large wallop of this now, coming from France, so much of it, at such high power there's relatively little loss down the wires.

And windfarms do chip birds. They do deny hunting space below them to raptors and such. they are ugly, inefficient, not long lasting, can't feed easily into the grid because they don't provide constant power, etc, etc, etc.

Yes, I would far, far rather have nuclear power. I'm not afraid of it and wuld even countenance one in my back yard - rpovided the architects did a good job and it wasn't any more intrusive than the satleite dishes I currently have there.

But there are other ways to go as well, and micro-generation is one that can work but needs a lot more committment and funding help from the Govt. Along with serious grants for photo-voltaics, insulation, capturing power from rubbish, etc, etc.

[blacknest]

Originally Posted by grymalkyn

How many millions have died from nuclear power station trouble (not bombs!)? How much problem do they cause to wildlife? How many hillsides or horizons on the sea do they ruin?

Our problem is what to do with waste uranium and plutonium ... but there are other ways to generate nuclear energy than uranium. There's even a way that eats plutonium and reduces it to almost harmless waste.

OK it's definitely a good thing to debate these points and not just say " The eco types must be right and nuclear must be automatically totally evil"
....BUT...

I'd say the fact that "millions" have not yet died is hardly a recommendation! Anyway Quite a few HAVE died or have suffered horrendous long term damage in Chernobyl. The eventual toll from accelerated cancers in Belarus and Ukraine is of course debated, but the absolute minimum estimate is around 4,000 directly attributable deaths and some estimates are as high as 250,000
Remember Three Mile Island? Nobody at all was allowed to enter the facility for two years...how close to absolute disaster was that? Enough for a mass evacuation! Would Pakistan or one of the Central Asian former-Soviet republics have managed to avert a disaster as close as that? If a few hundred thousand people got soaked in radiation do you think their Governments would admit it?
Winscale/Sellafield in Cumbria has a lot of questionmarks over it's safety record : both the damage to marine life in the Irish Sea and (less clearly proven) people.

It's subjective but personally I think windfarms look cool, nuclear power stations are much smaller in their area but certainly not a compliment to the landscape (I used to live near Bradwell ...you can see its monolithic grey blocks for miles and miles)

The waste is not a minor problem. Nor are risks like natural disasters (eg Bradfield is built above a geological fault...not a very active one but it did go off in Victorian times causing the worst earthquake ever recorded in Britain ,demolishing many buildings all over Essex: not a risk I'm comfortable with)

And what about this "almost waste-free" option???: it's theoretical, not commercially practical yet. And even the dirty current methods have to be massively subsidised: were the eventual costs of decommissioning & storage taken into account it would just make no sense economically ,let alone ecologically.

And how do we feel about Iran , North Korea etc openly proliferating nuclear weapons: all from an originally "peaceful energy research programme"?: Remember the Israelis bombing one of Iran's "peaceful" nuclear fuel processing facilities a few years ago? That sort of thing gets out of hand very easily!

So while wind farms not the complete answer I'd say the proverbial "Nuclear Power? No thanks!"

[Ed Tyler]

Some interesting points being raised here.

Personally I'm not against wind farms but I think someone needs to have a very good look at their operation.

Sorry can't use it today not enough wind (okay I buy that one), sorry can't use it today its too windy (for heavens sake this is what they were designed for). I understand that they actually take more energy from sitting there not being used than what they actually produce, so you do have to question there existence.

My sister has been campaigning about one being sited close to where she lives and apparently the gear boxes on these farms can cause depression via the harmonics they transmit through the ground.

As for location, well I think out at sea is the best place for them. What gets my back up is the railroad attitude of government, it seems that once planning has been put forward for a farm/windmill it will happen regardless of what local residents say.

My alternative would be to use the power of water, look at the Severn estuary and the Menai Straits for to ideal locations for generators in the water and with the huge changes in water levels and strong currents twice a day.

The added bonus is that they would be underwater so no unsightly structures.

Ed

[cutecoot]

I have to say I actually love wind farms, I think they look beautiful, and is probably the one thing that I would not mind at all 'in my back yard'. I'm not fully 'up' on the effect they have on wildlife though, so can't really comment on whether they really are that detrimental, but I don't actually think they are ugly at all.

I agree with the poster above about nuclear energy, I don't think that in the future, any other kind of way of providing the sheer volume of energy that most people nowadays seem to crave, is going to be adequate. Unless people really start to take note of just how much of the earths resources they are using, which they won't, then I can't see any other way? (I only use the barest minimum, myself! .. and the great thing is my bills are so low )

[blacknest]

Originally Posted by Ed Tyler

well I think out at sea is the best place for them. What gets my back up is the railroad attitude of government, it seems that once planning has been put forward for a farm/windmill it will happen regardless of what local residents say.

My alternative would be to use the power of water, look at the Severn estuary and the Menai Straits
Ed

Definitely the potential of windfarms is really for massive ones out at sea. I tittered a bit about the planning permission point. I guess local residents all welcomed the building of nuclear and coal-fired power stations, or for that matter motorways, airports, open cast coal mines, giant pylons etc etc?

Tidal power: for sure but then again the Severn Tidal Barrage would have a massive ecological impact: so no easy answer there either.

There are dozens of possible sources like anaerobic fermentation of sewage & organic farm waste, hydro, tidal, wind, solar, geothermal, wood fuel, wood-derived biofuel . All have a role: some big some as little local sources at the individual household/street/town scale. There seems to be some consensus on that and also that energy conservation has barely begun and there's far more we can do in our homes, offices, shops ,public buildings etc to reduce wastage of energy.

The real "big wins" are developing commercially viable large-scale carbon capture from coal-fired power stations....and creating a really efficient super-grid to improve efficiency of distribution. The current grids are incredibly "lossy" and were designed by national governments with very poor country to country links. A European super-grid with the latest technology would allow far more of the hydro power of Scotland, Scandinavia etc (hardly utilised today) to reach the populated industrial centres of Europe. Similarly solar from Spain , North Africa would be massively more important if only we could get the power to where it's needed.

Finally in yesterday's Telegraph a nice wake-up call for the "Nuclear will be OK" side: the last leak at Sizewell in Suffolk was VERY nearly a full scale disaster. An employee noticed completely by chance that water was leaking out of the tank which cools the fuel rods. The alarm was not working. Even if it had been it would have been ignored because other alarms were going off so often the staff were routinely just ignoring them. If much more water had run out, the rods would have suddenly got incredibly hot and igniting , creating a full scale reactor fire like Chernobyl. How do we know? Someone got all this info via Freedom of Information Act because it was all hushed up at the time.

Complaints about turbines spoiling the view and birds being hit ( Errrr like they are 1000's of times every day by cars!!) are just so trivial compared with the whole bunch of cataclysmic risks that are inherent in reliance on nuclear.

[Country lover]

Originally Posted by blacknest

Finally in yesterday's Telegraph a nice wake-up call for the "Nuclear will be OK" side: the last leak at Sizewell in Suffolk was VERY nearly a full scale disaster.

Complaints about turbines spoiling the view and birds being hit ( Errrr like they are 1000's of times every day by cars!!) are just so trivial compared with the whole bunch of cataclysmic risks that are inherent in reliance on nuclear.

There was a similar near miss at the plant in Annan a few years back ... I'm sure there are so many we don't hear about. However, nuclear power is still in it's infancy and the waste is a big problem but hopefully we will learn quickly.

The point about migrating birds is the one I wanted to make reading this thread. If people are going to campaign about wind farms then I hope they also campaign about cars, lorries, airoplanes, uncovered chimneys, glass windows, electricity cables, etc .... oh and I hope none of them eat non-organic free range poultry.

I'm in the wind farms are beautiful camp, we have a lot in Cumbria and they are much more attractive to look at than concrete buildings or even brick houses. Out at sea would be better but of course that will add massively to maintenance costs.