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Post by benjiesmum on Mar 20, 2007 7:17:20 GMT 1
Gosh! Heated debate indeed!! Can anyone tell me why no one has proposed that the wind farm is not constructed into the sea rather than onto the land? See my previous posting piccie.
I also refer to an earlier posting too where I mentioned Lanzarote as being one of those places where windfarms and tourism seem to live together quite well. Some windfarms do consider themselves to be a tourist attraction too, offering the general public guided tours of their "farms."
As for the concrete - this would be a great worry. Although maybe in the past it would last twenty five years, these days it would be crumbling within five years!
I know that it is sadly the case but it seems wrong that we seem to always put profit before people.
The wider picture to me includes saving energy as well as generating clean energy. There's been a lot in the news about stand-by buttons, light bulbs and gas-guzzling cars. New houses should be insulated and fitted with solar panels - I believe Switzerland is streets ahead of the UK in this respect.
As for cars - I drive through a place called Wilmslow on the way back home each night. The place is a well-heeled, suburban/countryside type town. Nearly every car is a black 4X4 including those great big "Hummer?" things. I often spot Wayne Rooney, Ken Barlow in their enormous vehicles. Surely it is here we should be targeting change. Without their excesses with sensible new builds and grants for existing households we maybe wouldn't need to keep putting up all these windfarms. I don't know......I've had my rant. ;D Please forgive me - it's still early and I haven't had my coffee yet!
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Post by bonna on Mar 20, 2007 9:38:11 GMT 1
Benjiesmum, I'm not ignoring your worthy contribution from this morning, and I'd like to comment later on some of your points, but firstly I must return to the "spin" which another contributor persists in placing on construction activities.
Derrybrien - yes, having researched many web references to the incident, there was certainly agreement that construction activities were a major factor in causing the landslide. However, and it's a big however, I quote from the Irish Times report of a resulting court case:
"Sub-standard construction techniques and inadequate drainage on the site of the €60 million wind farm at Derrybrien in Co Galway led to the major landslide there just over a year ago, a court heard yesterday. Director of services for roads and transport with Galway County Council, Mr John Morgan, said construction techniques on the site were "fraught with danger and should never have been allowed"." There is considerable expansion of this statement in the report, all in the same vein.
I cannot believe that Viking Energy would consider, or be allowed to consider, using such cowboy construction techniques. I stand my my earlier posting to the effect that sensible and reputable construction techniques need cause no increased landslide risk.
By the way, most sites relating to the Derrybrien incident appear to apply quite a lot of emotive "spin" (for want of a better term) to it - finding impartial reporting on it was difficult, but not impossible.
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Post by bonna on Mar 20, 2007 10:44:28 GMT 1
Benjiesmum, you're quite correct about home energy saving - something we're probably all guilty of not doing enough about. Perhaps in these cold isles we're a little bit more aware of house insulation needs than the bulk of the UK public? - but then we need it more!
While I also agree that "urban" 4WD's are a nonsense (leave them to those of us who actually need them), they don't use electricity and don't really make any difference to the pro/anti windfarm debate. Even if Wayne Rooney bought a tiny 70mpg diesel runabout tomorrow, we should still be trying to reduce the size 10 carbon footprint of electricity generation. And we have the technology for that right now, whereas we're still struggling a bit to find a good alternative on the automotive side.
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Post by maree on Mar 20, 2007 15:55:19 GMT 1
mhay - an individual turbine may only have a 25-year life (I widna keen da exact span), but I very much doot if da concrete base will only last dat lang - so you can bolt on anidder een - and anidder! Dir some lumps o concrete here at da Traecle Works a lot aalder dan dat, an by God dir still braaly solid..... .. My concern is no dat the concrete base will disintegrate after 25 years......it's dat the turbines may be obsolete! We may have moved on to tidal/wave generation by then or an alternative form of renewables and we've expended so much energy/environmental works into the formation of the bases for a relatively short period of use. Denmark, the world leaders in wind energy production, are already starting to remove turbines. I suppose the miles of tarmac will be handy for da crofters....... imagine feedin sheep in your smucks! ;D As for da concrete at da Traecle Works Bonna............I'm blyde something is haddin weel taggider
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Post by bonna on Mar 20, 2007 19:57:29 GMT 1
Yes, if da pipes wis only made o concrete we wid be laughin.....instead o laekin!
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Post by benjiesmum on Mar 20, 2007 21:09:02 GMT 1
No, I know 4WDs don't use electricity, I was just having a rant about all the energy that is wasted by all these people who don't need such vehicles, but they all contribute to the overall energy deficit that we are marching towards. Hence the need for alternative energy supplies.
It seems so selfish (or am I just jealous as I travel through Wilmslow in my S reg Astra!!!) Today I saw 3 Aston Martins, 4 Cayennes (?), tons of Mercs and BMWs not to mention Land Rovers and Range Rovers by the score and that was just at the primary school I pass. All there to pick up their little darlings who would be better off walking home. All this adds to our great big Carbon footprint which must resemble a giant Doc Martins boot by now.
Like you said in your posting - some people actually need these cars to pull trailers full of sheep or bring hay home etc. But....they all seem to be in Wilmslow, Chelsea etc.
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Post by Pat on Mar 21, 2007 9:36:11 GMT 1
I am following this debate with great interest . Good to see jac online and welcome by the way.
Let me know your thoughts on this? Can't we just build enough turnbines for our own use and have some excess power which we could put into some type of industry which makes a big profit? Perhaps that way we save our landscape while generating that much needed income?
Just a thought.
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Post by bonna on Mar 21, 2007 23:48:26 GMT 1
I think the problem is that we already have almost as many turbines (Burradale) as our local grid can stand , for stability purposes. As jac said, the reason for the size of VE's proposal is to make it worthwhile for a connector to the UK to be installed - any less just wouldn't be attractive enough. The connector then enables us to develop any other forms of green generation (the much-vaunted wave and tidal, etc) once these technologies become commercial. Without a connector we can never develop a power generation industry.
The only other way I can think of would be to scale-up the PURE concept to large industrial scale, storing excess wind-power as hydrogen. I know nothing of the technical and / or economic problems of doing this, but someone else might?
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peterj
Peerie Magnie
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Post by peterj on Mar 22, 2007 11:10:15 GMT 1
Just a couple more thoughts. First on the windfarm lifetime. Having spent 20 odd years working in the electricity industry, I've yet to meet a major piece of infrastructure - be it a power station, distribution or transmission line, substation that was retired at the end of it's initially projected lifespan, unless the fuel had disappeared/become uneconomic in the case of generation, or the load had grown to the extent that it was no longer economic to reinforce a line or substation. Wind generators have been replaced early elsewhere because the turbines are a comparitively small part of the overall infrastructure, and the cost of upgrading has been economically sound.
On the tourism front, I feel for the very small group of tour operators whose businesses may be affected by a large scale construction project during the construction phase. However, thinking of the general benefit to the community of tourism - that is that folk arrive for a short time and spend money on local goods and services like accommodation, food, transport, entertainment etc - I can't help feeling that a major construction project offers very similar benefits to the community. I would guess that the number of imported workers would very probably outweigh the average number of tourists at most points during a major construction project. Different businesses might benefit though.
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Post by Pat on Mar 22, 2007 13:24:12 GMT 1
The only other way I can think of would be to scale-up the PURE concept to large industrial scale, storing excess wind-power as hydrogen. I know nothing of the technical and / or economic problems of doing this, but someone else might? Likewise, I know little about the hydrogen side of things and would welcome anyone out there who knows about this to enlighten us.
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peterj
Peerie Magnie
Posts: 53
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Post by peterj on Mar 22, 2007 16:44:17 GMT 1
I really wish PURE well in their business, but they (and the large number of other players in the H2 experimentation/development business) still have huge hurdles to overcome in the safe and economical storage and transport of Hydrogen. A good read on the subject here, more balanced than most of the stuff you find on the subject www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4199381.html?page=1I was particularly interested to learn how old the basic fuel cell technology is.
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Post by bonna on Mar 22, 2007 22:35:50 GMT 1
It's a great pity that some people see windfarming and tourism as mutually exclusive - I'm sure they're not - but if they do prove incompatible I know which economy I'd rather live in. The totally tourist-dependant areas on the west coast of Scotland are beautiful to visit, but no way would I want to live there. Contrast them with Faroe, for example, where tourists are welcome enough, but not fawned over or bent over backwards for, and you soon realise that this is a community earning it's living by other means.
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Post by maree on Mar 22, 2007 23:23:52 GMT 1
The totally tourist-dependant areas on the west coast of Scotland are beautiful to visit, but no way would I want to live there. Contrast them with Faroe, for example, where tourists are welcome enough, but not fawned over or bent over backwards for, and you soon realise that this is a community earning it's living by other means. Perhaps we should be encouraging a diverse range of peerie businesses, instead of constantly putting wir eggs in one basket?
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Post by bonna on Mar 22, 2007 23:45:43 GMT 1
I couldna agree more - but I don't think we are, nor do I think it hurts ta hae a few "big" businesses as well. Not everybody wants ta be, or is able ta be, an entrepreneur, so it's fine ta hae some potentially bigger employers in a place as weel. Dat's aa.
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Post by maree on Mar 26, 2007 14:14:31 GMT 1
I note a group of students have been here in Shetland looking at whether localised wind turbines would be suitable for community use. This seems like a great idea.......many areas of Shetland do not have the required infrastructure to feed into the National Grid and if the Viking Energy (VE) goes ahead there will be no need for companies such as SSE to upgrade rural infrasture to help feed the NG. If the VE plans do not get off the ground we will not receive da interconnecter, so again there would be no incentive for SSE to upgrade rural areas. www.shetland-news.co.uk/pages/news%20stories/03_2007/study_sees_support_for_local_windfarms.htm
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