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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted -  15/12/2007  :  07:03
I thought it might be a good thing to have a topic devoted to this important subject.


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk
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catgate
Senior Member


1764 Posts
Posted - 22/10/2010 : 10:58


quote:
Tizer wrote:


....they are getting worse to for the same reason and we saw the effecst when thousands more people died in a heat wave than would have done in the past. Swings and roundabouts.

They will always die if they go playing on swings and roundabouts  when the weather is so hot.


Every silver lining has a cloud.


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 23/10/2010 : 09:36
Tiz, one thing that has struck me of late is that there has been an accidental beneficial spin-off from the leaked emails affair. We were hearing a confused debate because three things were being conflated, Cimate change, carbon emmissions and availability/type of power generation. We now only have two, climate change seems to have dropped out of the debate. I think people are less sure of their ground. I believe that it is happening but should be treated as a separate subject than power generation.

At the moment we are being treated to triumphalist statements from successful objectors to a wind turbine in the letters page of the local paper. I wonder, will the same people still be as sure they were right in twenty years? I don't see why people get so exercised about the turbines, first because I think they have a beauty of their own and second because in 50 to 100 years they will almost all have gone, overtaken by the new technologies of fusion and solar generation.


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 23/10/2010 : 11:00
I was surprised to hear that the proposed Severn Barrage has been dropped. I think people here living near the proposed site were mostly in favour of the barrage in principle but were concerned about the design, not just because the estuary is one of the world's most important wetland wildlife sites but also because of dangers from flooding and to shipping. There were other designs which could have been adopted.


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panbiker
Senior Member


2300 Posts
Posted - 23/10/2010 : 12:25
With respect to the wind turbines, I'm with you all the way on this one Stanley. You can decommision a turbine and return the land to it's former state without much problem. The same cannot be said for nuclear or huge carbon or gas powered generators. Windscale is still burning in it's concrete capped tomb. It's over 50 years since the worlds first nuclear power generation accident and they still don't know how to fix it.


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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 23/10/2010 : 15:06
Everybody whinges about the negative aspects of modern living - phone masts, wind turbines etc etc. Nobody wants to live without their benefits. Mobile phones and Electicity. 

Several years ago there was somebody stood outside Day and Night (or whatever it was called then - I lose track) wanting signatures for a petition against building a mobile phone mast.  I refuseed to sign because I had a mobile phone and signing a petition seemed hypocritical.  She looked at me a bit strange.......

I'd have no objections to a wind farm just outside Barlick. If they had a gimmick (painting them in pretty rainbow colours for example) it might bring a few visitors to the old place. 

I have read up on Wind power generation in places like Denmark where the have huge wind power capabilities.  They produce a signifcant proportion of their electricity needs, but much of it is exported because demand is not linked to supply - the wind blows when it feels like it, not at commercial breaks during popular soap operas.  It can have a negative effect on spot electricity prices as well which can disrupt the economics of power generation and supply.  The price of electricity varies (like pretty much everything else) on a minute by minute basis depending on whether thay have a glut of the stuff or they are struggling to meet demand.  The wind blowing in Denmark has huge repercussions outside its own borders.   


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Tizer
VIP Member


5150 Posts
Posted - 23/10/2010 : 15:50
I'm not fully convinced about wind turbines. I have to admit I find them ugly beasts but even if I liked the look of them I would still be unsure. Denmark is ideal for them - a flat country with wind forever blowing straight across from one side to t' other (I've experienced its unsettling effects in a high rise hotel there). Too often here I seem them stationary. Also, the indirect one-off environmental effects are substantial, all that metal and the concrete bases that go down deep, especially in the ones out at sea. The tips of the rotors are spinning at about 120-150 mph and I wonder when we will see the first accident due to disintegration and shrapnel flying everywhere, e.g. the one beside the M4 at the Reading brewery site and those alongside the A30 in Cornwall. Will we look back one-day and realise there have been more deaths from wind turbines than from nuclear power? I prefer solar, wave and hydro and I've nowt against the small wind turbines.


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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 23/10/2010 : 17:13
Just been reading a paper on the Danish wind industry.  In 2009 they introduced a negative spot price capability because as most of the thermal power generation in Denmark is CHP they are obliged to keep producing power to keep district heating systems alive whist being legally bound to let wind power have precidence when its being produced.  This often results in Denmark paying for neighboring countries to take their electricity away, this is on top of the Danish householder paying for the most expensive electricity in Europe (Private electricity is about 250% more expensive than business electricity). Its a hugely complex subject and the high production of wind power is a result of government policies and is only possible becuase of the high capacity of inter-country power ducts.  Much of the time the Norwegion and Swedish power companies are the main recipients of "foreign aid" from the Danish taxpayer.  30 pages of facinating reading for those with a geek streak.

 http://www.cepos.dk/fileadmin/user_upload/Arkiv/PDF/Wind_energy_-_the_case_of_Denmark.pdf

 

 


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catgate
Senior Member


1764 Posts
Posted - 23/10/2010 : 17:21
How many thousands per windmill is the UK government giving to electric companies in subsidy? Or is it not industry wide, just to Gordon's brother's company?

 

ps Just found this:-http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/7061552/Wind-farm-subsidies-top-1-billion-a-year.html

Edited by - catgate on 23/10/2010 5:27:11 PM


Every silver lining has a cloud.


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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 23/10/2010 : 17:49
Wind power is only economically viable because of subsidies.  You can be on the receiving end of the subsidies if you generate your own electricity. Its more luctrative for solar PIV than wind though.....


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catgate
Senior Member


1764 Posts
Posted - 23/10/2010 : 19:08


quote:
pluggy wrote:
Wind power is only economically viable because of subsidies. 

So now that the money has run out what are they going to use to subsidise this pie in the sky nonsense. It is always the same tale with politicians.


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pluggy
Geek


1164 Posts
Posted - 23/10/2010 : 20:09
One reason I decided against installing PV panels on our roof.  It would need the "pay in tariff" maintaining through 12 years to make it worth while.  In this economic climate its a long shot......... 

8 grand installation and the somewaht paltry amount of electric they were expected to produce in their lifetime meant they would never pay for themselves.  The government subsidy of 41.5 p per kWh was what made them viable. Much the same situation as wind turbines in Denmark.


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 24/10/2010 : 05:15
I've never quite understood why people like old windmills but hate the new turbines. One of the things I learned when I was researching water-power in the Lake District was that there are scores of large turbines sat there doing nothing. The reason then was the charges imposed on borrowing water by an Act of Parliament, that's all changed now, I wonder how many have been coupled to an alternator? My mate Robert at Masson Mill has a big turbine running night and day producing power and putting it in the grid. Leaving subsidy on one side, it's clean power. He once told me that the subsidy was a good thing for him but it would have been an earner without subsidy. Mind you, he had all the infrastructure in place.


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
wendyf
Senior Member


1439 Posts
Posted - 24/10/2010 : 07:55
There are planning applications starting to go in from farms around us for single 20k turbines on 18m high bases. Broom House Farm have got an application in for one on Bleara, and our neighbours want one on Burnt Hill.
I see from the planning application that the Ramblers Assoc. are amongst the groups being consulted...it will be interesting to see the outcome. I have no objection.


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catgate
Senior Member


1764 Posts
Posted - 24/10/2010 : 11:17


quote:
wendyf wrote:
 
I see from the planning application that the Ramblers Assoc. are amongst the groups being consulted...it will be interesting to see the outcome. I have no objection.

Well that should scupper them all. The R.A. would even object to an application for someone to break wind.


Every silver lining has a cloud.


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Stanley
Local Historian & Old Fart


36804 Posts
Posted - 25/10/2010 : 07:09
Did you see the snippet that the Crown is the owner of the seabed around the coast so they get the benefit from renting turbine sites? I wonder if they get the subsidy as well?


Stanley Challenger Graham




Barlick View
stanley at barnoldswick.freeserve.co.uk Go to Top of Page
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