Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 49 total)
  • Wind farms = MTB trails
  • tonyg2003
    Full Member

    Well according to the BBC today. Another trail for Afan – what do we think, reshuffling of funding for already planned new trails to make news?

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-south-east-wales-17990930

    Although £380K does seem like something of a bargain!

    grahamh
    Free Member

    “What we have got here is perfection, unspoilt landscapes.”

    Umm, is this area not an industrial landscape??
    Or was coal some how extracted with out any changes to the land at all 😕

    allthepies
    Free Member

    Asked how he felt when the wind farm was approved on Tuesday, Lindsay Milsom said: “In a word, disappointed. We’ve campaigned for 13 years against wind farms and their development.”

    He said the new wind farm would “devastate the way of life in Glyncorrwg,” adding: “It’ll be visually unacceptable to most of the people living here.

    LOL, Has Lindsay ever walked around Glyncorrwg ? 😯

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    wrecker
    Free Member

    Should have negotiated up to two trails and a nightclub 8)

    tonyg2003
    Full Member

    I did laugh at the unspoilt part. Have they been to Glyncorrwg. It sort of defines a post industrial revolution landscape. Never mind the chic charm of the village itself.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    devastate the way of life in Glyncorrwg

    Lol! Can’t beat a bit of ludicrous exaggeration eh?

    Nipper99
    Free Member

    This won’t be another trail for Afan at all: say bye bye to Whites Level and to Skyline – might get a replacement trail in goodnes knows how many years time – look at what a fist the useless to**ers at the FC and NPTC have made of things like Penheyd (spelling) back in 12 months they said but now gone for ever.

    Skyline is one of my favorite days out on the mtb and it will be sad to see it lost for good.

    In case you didn’t know coal stopped quite some time ago in the area – sit at the top of the runway on skyline on a sunny evening and look down the valleys – a great view.

    Nipper99
    Free Member

    @ all of you above – any of you live in the afan valley or in any of the s.wales valleys for that matter.

    stumpyjon
    Full Member

    You wait until the Rossendale wind farm on Scout Moor doubles 😯

    kaesae
    Free Member

    Why is a foreign company doing this and will they put it in writing that the existing trails will not be destroyed and any that are will be replaced?

    Nipper99
    Free Member

    @kaesae – sent an email to Cognation (s.wales l.a. mtb hub) asking the same question.

    hh45
    Free Member

    I always cringe at the post industrial awfulness of Glycorreg – pebbledashed terraces, self evident poverty with grassed over slag heaps for neighbours, dead end valley, clearly sod all jobs, best thing is road down the valley to the outside world. It needs wealth creating jobs period and whilst I doubt a wind farm will create many jobs it will hardly ruin unspoilt countryside.

    tonyg2003
    Full Member

    Nipper99. My in-laws family and extended family live in Blaenavon, Merthyr and Brynmawr. I know the valleys and they can be grim, sticking wind turbines on them won’t ruin them.

    MTBers bring plenty of money into the economy. How many of my Surrey audi driving MTBer friends would ever have visted, stayed and eaten there before without Cwmcarn, Afan etc…

    jonahtonto
    Free Member

    my dad lives quite close to Glyncorrwg, in Bryn. those villages- cymer, glyncorrwg etc are the mother of all post industrial shitholes. the only reason the residents didnt flee 3 generations ago is that they are too thick to realise there is no point in living there. 5 yrs ago there were ex council houses for sale for £3k – and still i wasnt tempted. why would you live there? there isnt even any farm land since the FC planted

    jonahtonto
    Free Member

    i had a local tell me, at a community consultation meeting thing, that the reason the government wants to build wind farms is to burn off the excess energy produced when nuclear power stations are over demand…. he honestly thought that wind turbines are big fans running on electric!

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    It’s called being in the single market of the EU, and UK companies can walk into other EU countries and do the same. And often do, so don’t be daft about that. Best bid wins, simple.

    Nipper99
    Free Member

    there won’t much left worth doing at afan by the time this lot get through and the country around afan may not be the lakes or n.wales but it is not a lunar landscape either and it certainly won’t be improved by these eyesores. shame.

    wallop
    Full Member

    It’s called being in the single market of the EU, and UK companies can walk into other EU countries and do the same. And often do, so don’t be daft about that. Best bid wins, simple.

    +1

    OJEU

    jonahtonto
    Free Member

    it is a lunar landscape nipper, it is a slag heap, more or less the whole valley. japanese larch? cos its the only thing that will grow there

    totalshell
    Full Member

    big supporter of wind farms but the increase in size of scout moor has really effed things up for the areas oldest motorcycle trials venue. the enviros have insisted that acess is via an at present unmade road that we use to get to the moors. the wind company is going to remake re surface etc so the lorries can get up.. great you might think but no we cant use it whilst they do. and then when the work is complete the route has to be returned to natural habitat.. with no unmade road..

    allthepies
    Free Member

    I thought there were moves afoot to cut down large areas of forest in the area due to a tree disease ? If so then it’s about to get a whole load more lunar.

    scruff
    Free Member

    Until someone invents that BackTotheFuture Power Cell on the futures Deloreon its either windfarms or nuclear power.

    igm
    Full Member

    scruff – Member
    Until someone invents that BackTotheFuture Power Cell on the futures Deloreon its either windfarms or nuclear power

    Biomass is quietly starting to rack up the MW – I’m aware of about a GW or so in planning, much of which is converting old coal plants.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    5 yrs ago there were ex council houses for sale for £3k – and still i wasnt tempted. why would you live there?

    I’d have been tempted to buy a few and make them into self catering accomodation for MTBers, to be honest.

    IGM – interested in the biomass. Is it crops, or waste?

    coffeeking
    Free Member

    Biomass is quietly starting to rack up the MW – I’m aware of about a GW or so in planning, much of which is converting old coal plants.

    I was chatting to a coal fired power plant manufacturer the other day, they’ve been using a large percentage (20% in some areas) biomass for a decade. The biggest issue is that the fuel requires more prep (drying and different milling) which makes it not overly economical. Though I guess that’ll change with time. But im not sure there’s a supply big enough to meet demand. As with many things, it’ll be a case of we need either a lump hammer nuclear solution (fission, or fusion would be nice!) or we’ll need a piece by piece renewables solution.

    konabunny
    Free Member

    Why is a foreign company doing this

    Because the local companies were too inept?

    molgrips
    Free Member

    I think that the worlds govts should club together and put trillions into fission research. If it works, then we’ll end up with as much power as we can use. I can’t think of many current environmental problems that wouldn’t be solved by the introduction of plentiful cheap clean power.

    If it doesn’t work then consider it Keynesian stimulus.

    mrlebowski
    Free Member

    Im not sure how they think its going to devastate Glyncorrwg..

    If anything it’ll help the place by bringing in some work.

    This mans thinking is back to front for sure.

    If hes talking about the visual aspect then I think hes being msleading as it looks like from the map the turbines will quite possible be out of sight from the village.

    Sounds a lot like NIMBYism to me..

    edit: regarding turbine height Ive seen various estimate at between 110 & 145m & the number of turbines between 76 & 96…

    igm
    Full Member

    Molgrips – the 400MW site I’m thinking of it shipped cropped timber based fuel. There are 2-20MW sites based on waste, but the big stuff is generally crop. I make no comment on whether this is good or bad.

    konabunny
    Free Member

    Im not sure how they think its going to devastate Glyncorrwg..

    If anything it’ll help the place by bringing in some work.

    I’m not an expert but I was in and around Pathhead when they put that wind farm in at thingy, and the installation was mostly done by nonlocals, and once they’re in they don’t need much work.

    mrlebowski
    Free Member

    I’m not an expert but I was in and around Pathhead when they put that wind farm in at thingy, and the installation was mostly done by nonlocals, and once they’re in they don’t need much work.

    Fair enough.

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    molgrips – Member

    I think that the worlds govts should club together and put trillions into fission research. If it works, then we’ll end up with as much power as we can use.

    if you mean ‘fusion’ – then your wish has been granted.

    http://www.iter.org/

    only, they don’t need trillions, just a few billion.

    gwaelod
    Free Member

    unlimited free energy….

    ..lets sit for a minute and think through the consequences for planet earth of the unlimited consumption that will unleash.

    We’d have to expand off world pretty fast

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Sorry yes, I do mean fusion. And ITER has been going on forever and is still a long way off. I’m sure if enough money was thrown at it it could progress.

    .lets sit for a minute and think through the consequences for planet earth of the unlimited consumption that will unleash

    Ok.. but how much consumption is currently down to energy demand? I think that a lot of things that are currently not economically viable would end up being so with free energy. I’m sure most materials could be recycled into raw materials.

    konabunny
    Free Member

    mrlebowski – and I’m not saying that they’re a good or bad idea because of that, and tbf the local pubs/cafes made some ones while the guys were there, but I don’t believe it had a very big lngterm impact on local employment.

    konabunny
    Free Member

    Molgrips: the pub is up for sale if you’re still interested in the local leisure market: http://www.rightmove.co.uk/commercial-property-for-sale/property-30024797.html

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    Sorry yes, I do mean fusion. And ITER has been going on forever and is still a long way off. I’m sure if enough money was thrown at it it could progress.

    they only started building it about a year ago, give them a chance…

    edit, they started building in july 2010 – would sir like the moon on a stick also?

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Ok I was thinking of fusion as a whole. ITER does look good, but assuming it does meet the suggested 450MW surplus, what then? Just build more of them? How does the cost stack up against renewables?

    ahwiles
    Free Member

    what then? Just build more of them?

    (after a great deal of re-jigging, development, research, and a few dozen phd’s)

    more or less.

    from the iter website:

    The objective of the ITER project is to gain the knowledge necessary for the design of the next-stage device: a demonstration fusion power plant. In ITER, scientists will study plasmas under conditions similar to those expected in a future power plant. ITER will be the first fusion experiment to produce net power; it will also test key technologies, including heating, control, diagnostics, and remote maintenance.

    thisisnotaspoon
    Free Member

    big supporter of wind farms but the increase in size of scout moor has really effed things up for the areas oldest motorcycle trials venue

    Power for 200,000 homes or somewhere to ride trials bikes…………….

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 49 total)

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