A local council, cwac, has decided to refuse planning permission for a few wind turbines on elton marshes,Cheshire, near Runcorn, despite being next to the largest petro chemical site in the uk, the largest and only Chlorine production plant is across the manchester ship canal and river mersey, as is a major airport a few miles away.Previously nearby where a coal burning power station and then a oil burning one.

One of the excuses they use is it may scare the birds., and looks unsightly, off the coast of the wirrlal, we have 2 huge wind farms and the local docks has about 10 wind turbines, and they look cool and work well.

Discuss.

From http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c10/page_63.shtml
Do windmills kill “huge numbers” of birds?
Wind farms recently got adverse publicity from Norway, where the wind turbines on Smola, a set of islands off the north-west coast, killed 9 white-tailed eagles in 10 months.

I share the concern of BirdLife International for the welfare of rare birds.
But I think, as always, it’s important to do the numbers. It’s been estimated that 30 000 birds per year are killed by wind turbines in Denmark, where windmills generate 9%E of the electricity. Horror! Ban windmills!
We also learn, moreover, that traffic kills one million birds per year in Denmark. Thirty-times-greater horror! Thirty-times-greater incentive to ban cars! And in Britain, 55 million birds per year are killed by cats (figure 10.6).
Going on emotions alone, I would like to live in a country with virtually no cars, virtually no windmills, and with plenty of cats and birds (with the cats that prey on birds perhaps being preyed upon by Norwegian white-tailed eagles, to even things up). But what I really hope is that decisions about cars and windmills are made by careful rational thought, not by emotions alone. Maybe we do need the Windmills!

Good site that IanMunro, was reading it the other day.

I like the way they look, in much the same way as I like the industry waste littering the cornish coast that is now sold as tourist attractions. I’m for them, and if you want to put one in my back yard you can (and i might get one anyway!)

The important bit (well, if you’re not a bird) is what the bird is and the relative effect on it’s population, rather than birds as a flat figure. Raptors are at the top of the food chain and relatively few in number, so turbine kills are probably disproportionatly high. I’d guess pheasants might be a lot of the uk road kill, at least part of the year, but since their numbers are higher to begin with the relative loss to their population is probably lower.

It depends on where the turbine’s sited of course – move ’em a handful of miles in one direction away from habitat/sources of food, and that might be enough for it not to be a problem.

But I think, as always, it’s important to do the numbers. It’s been estimated that 30 000 birds per year are killed by wind turbines in Denmark, where windmills generate 9%E of the electricity. Horror! Ban windmills!

looks like they have

Unfortunately, Danish electricity bills have been almost as dramatically affected as the Danish landscape. Thanks in part to the windfarm subsidies, Danes pay some of Europe’s highest energy tariffs – on average, more than twice those in Britain. Under public pressure, Denmark’s ruling Left Party is curbing the handouts to the wind industry.

“Since 2005 alone, 5.1 billion kroner [£621 million] has been paid to the wind turbine owners. That cost has been borne by businesses and private consumers,” says the party’s environment spokesman, Lars Christian Lilleholt. “It seems to have become a political fashion to say that there should be more support for wind. But we have to look at other renewables. We cannot go on with wind power only.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/7996606/An-ill-wind-blows-for-Denmarks-green-energy-revolution.html

RSPB back windturbines. end of.

I think they’re ugly and ruin the countryside in which they’re erected. They’re also innefficient and make no significant contribution to the grid that’s of any use.

I would go for a complete overhaul of our present nuclear power stations and also build new ones, enough to supply our current needs and future needs whilst put maximum effort into 1: nuclear fusion and 2: efficient and sustainable energy technology.

This would give us enough time to develop it, the raw materials for providing nuclear (fission and fusion) power is going to run out eventually, but not for a very long time.

One of the excuses they use is it may scare the birds., and looks unsightly, off the coast of the wirrlal, we have 2 huge wind farms and the local docks has about 10 wind turbines, and they look cool and work well.

Discuss.

it’s next to a highly protected habitat (yes really) for wetland birds, they get excited if you want to anything near it

they obviously should have hired the same survey team as the adjacent non UK manufacturer and their new factory

Windmills = are mills for grinding stuff not many new ones have been erected. The problem with Wind turbines is that you can’t store the electricity and it’s not on demand. I think Denmark exports 40% of the electricity from turbines to Sweden.

Unfortunately, Danish electricity bills have been almost as dramatically affected as the Danish landscape. Thanks in part to the windfarm subsidies, Danes pay some of Europe’s highest energy tariffs – on average, more than twice those in Britain. Under public pressure, Denmark’s ruling Left Party is curbing the handouts to the wind industry.

“Since 2005 alone, 5.1 billion kroner [£621 million] has been paid to the wind turbine owners. That cost has been borne by businesses and private consumers,” says the party’s environment spokesman, Lars Christian Lilleholt. “It seems to have become a political fashion to say that there should be more support for wind. But we have to look at other renewables. We cannot go on with wind power only.”

Danes pay some of the highest in Europe for everything, cars, beers, clothes, cameras etc. So I don’t know if their high energy bills are directly due to the windfarm subsidies or just the way things are in Denmark. Also worth noting that Denmark is (or was) probably the number one global producer of wind turbines, and a high %age of the private sector workforce are directly and indirectly employed in the industry. Due to the economic collapse,investment for windfarms has been slow for 2010 and one of the biggest WT manufacturers in Denmark has just laid off 3k people in Denmark. At the beginning of the year the compaines forecast was relatively rosey and it took a lot of people by surprise. Political discussions in Denmark are on the rebound of this and there’s some backlash towards the industry.

No more ugly than an electricity pylon. Much nicer to look at than Hinkley Point.

People complained when Pylons first went up, now they barely notice them.

I love seeing them on the A30 going into Cornwall- they’re as much a symbol of progress as anything. Yeah, maybe they are not the total answer, but to my mind they are a step in the right direction. And they can always be taken down again when we find something better.

I like ’em. I think they look very elegant. But then I like pylons too, perhaps I’m just weird.

Big and Daft you mean the glass bottle plant that was built without planing permission by an irish company.

But it provides a lot of work, and is a nice green coloured block, next to the factory that makes fertilizer, and spews out steam and smell every so often.

I can5 see any problem at all with the turbines, they look col and will amtch the 2 rows of pylons running parallel to the motorway.

Strange the birds avoid all these.

I wouldn’t be against them if I thought that they made any real, reliable contribution to our energy needs.
They’re breeding like crazy off the coast of the Wirral, often totally becalmed; meanwhile the tide flows in and out with predictable regularity. Discuss.

http://www.inference.phy.cam.ac.uk/withouthotair/c14/page_81.shtml

Windfarms? I’m a big fan

IGMC

Local council justifying their existence…. If ever there was a good spot for some turbines, that piece of ‘land’ would be it.
I too rather like them and even quite like Stanlow at night – looks like a space station off the telly!

I like them. As long as they are not somewhere scenic eg the peak. but they actually make semi-industrial places look better and add interest to places like Lincolnshire.

They’re a symbol of blind optimism over scientific reality.

Whether you find that heartening or not depends on your point of view.

Last time I looked at the sums the UK wind lobby were admitting that you tended to get 30% of a turbines rated power out of it, and you got it in gobs and spits. Add storage losses and you’re looking at less than that.

Then look at the average turbine’s rating – it’s in the single figures of megawatts. Then look at what a powerstation pumps out – thousands of megawatts. The idea that wind turbines are anything but urinating in the wind at the moment is just daft.

Forecast for tomorrow for the Runcorn area. A whole 3-5mph wind generating bugger all electricity whilst the country is experiencing sub zero temperatures. Such a practical power source.

Lesanita2 – Member

RSPB back windturbines. end of.

HorseShite

lobby_dosser
The problem with Wind turbines is that you can’t store the electricity and it’s not on demand.

Agreed, but, half of Scotland’s hydro power stations sit dormant waiting to fulfill peaks in demand. So wind and hydro could actually make quite a good mix.

i like them. surely the whole point about a grid is that electricity gets shifted easily to where it is needed? obviously they need to be part of an energy mix that will include wind, wave, nuclear and maybe some coal and gas.

Big and Daft you mean the glass bottle plant that was built without planing permission by an irish company.

But it provides a lot of work, and is a nice green coloured block, next to the factory that makes fertilizer, and spews out steam and smell every so often.

sorry not talking about them

the place I’m talking about is the only large site in Cheshire with no great crested newts or their habitat……. so their environmental report states

amazingly large stickleback population though 😉

There’s large potential in the UK for wind generation, but it will never be fulfilled, and as mentioned, leccy is only generated about 30% of the time, plus they need replacing within relatively short periods of time (20 years).

Re Scotland’s hydro – the power available for peak loads is from pumped storage, where water is pumped from a lower reservoir to a higher one and run through the turbines. There’s not a natural flow for this hydro, or they’d be running constantly, so you couldn’t really combine them with wind to get 100% leccy.

Re Scotland’s hydro – the power available for peak loads is from pumped storage, where water is pumped from a lower reservoir to a higher one and run through the turbines. There’s not a natural flow for this hydro, or they’d be running constantly, so you couldn’t really combine them with wind to get 100% leccy.

I didn’t mention pump storage, because its not really significant (its only one power station). Someone from the Hydro Board should be able to back me up. Most of Scotland’s hydro power is not utilised as its left as an “on tap” reserve. Now there’s a lot of energy backed up in those Lochs…..is it enough to compensate for the “no wind days” ?

Inseed they’re fairly inefficient and sporadic at the moment. However there’s plenty of storage options associated with them, several of which are being actively researched and could provide a very reasonable efficiency.

Ultimately, on their own, they appear to be a poor choice. But combined with other options and as PART of the solution they have their place, which will be increasingly important. As for lifespan, equipment efficiencies etc – it’s not exactly a mature technology, it will only mature with installations and improvements. However I think they’re often a blight on the landscape and much better suited to offshore locations for both operational reasons and landscaping!

The load factor of a windfarm is about 30% of it’s rated capacity – that’s not the same as saying they only generate 30% of the time. Very different statements.

Given we live in country with a pretty strong grid, the lack of wind in any one location is less of a problem than you might think. One of the people who did some of the statistical studies on that works for one of my colleagues.

Nuclear does base load very well, but is not so good at coping with fluctuating demand. It is unlikely to be the answer without storage or fast response generation.

Electricity (or at least energy from electrical sources) can be stored – it’s just expensive at present (it may always be so).

Hydro can be both storage and fast response (j_me – not enough for what you want to do yet if I recall – and not that much potential with our small hills).

Interconnecting to a wider area (Europe, Scandinavia) has advantages as our high levels of wind resource might complement French nuclear and Alpine / Scandinavian hydro potential quite nicely.

If we don’t think big like that, the south east (where they consume vast amount of power in relative terms, but have little energy resource – hot air perhaps?) is in trouble.

These are thoughts and facts, I don’t know the answers – but then no one else does either (that last one was a fact).

Of course every one is qualified to say whether they like the look of something or whether they care about something, but there are a few people on here in and around the industry and who actually understand it – listen to them and you may learn something.

I didn’t mention pump storage, because its not really significant (its only one power station). Someone from the Hydro Board should be able to back me up.

UK wide, 1,500MW installed hydro, with an additional 2,788MW of pumped storage. Of this, Cruachan account for 400MW (i.e. 14% of pumped storage in entire UK) (http://www.british-hydro.org/hydro_in_the_uk). I’d say that’s probably significant in the Scotland only context! And do you know where it says that most of Scotland’s hydro is untapped? I’d be surprised if this was the case, given the government’s strong commitment to renewables.

My tuppence… (and points I think David Mackay touches on)

penny one – talking about electricity infrastructure we’ve got to bear in mind the energy system as a whole. France being an 80% nuclear grid is actually only getting about 23% of its total energy demand that way IIRC. Current govt policy is to decarbonise the grid with a combination of renewables, nuclear and (fingers crossed…) CCS, then move heating and transport onto it. Which will require a lot more juice.

penny two – demand for energy and energy efficiency still only get lip service. If we can cut demand we can scale back the infrastructure and likely have a more resilient grid. Prices are somewhat effective at reducing demand but product standards are a more effective approach. If all new cars were required to perform like the new BMW 3 series diesels we’d knock 30% off our road emissions by 2020. Its not rocket science.

And do you know where it says that most of Scotland’s hydro is untapped

At no point did I say that Scotland’s hydro is untapped. I said it is used “on tap” to fulfill peaks in demand. Many stations remain dormant generating no power until there is a spike in demand. I think the reasoning behind this is that you can start them up and shut them down really easily, where as an oil/gas/nuclear power station has to run pretty much constantly. Sorry I don’t have a link to this info as this is only from conversations I’ve had ….. and is why I asked if anyone from the (ex) Hydro board could back me up.

Yes if those figures are right then that’s a lot more pumped storage than I was aware of.

There is a possibility that we could see a massive wave of additional Hydro schemes in Scotland. I predict several protests from the outdoor fraternity.

In general, I think windfarms have their place. Despite some larger schemes being knocked back, Scotland has already reduced carbon emissions by 21% since 1990.

For all of those out there saying they make next to no contribution and they don’t last long think about the economics of it. They must actually produce more energy over their lifetime than they cost to make otherwise it would cost more to make them than they produce in revenue. They are not the only answer but they are a a definite part of the answer. I like the idea of distributed renewable power. Much more difficult to shut down all power generation as an act of terrorism or war and the more renewables we have the less chance we’ve got of getting dragged into the energy wars of the future.

As for the way they look, I have two major windfarms and a third small within f miles of where I live. I have two rows of pylons running over the hill behind my house, I’d gladly swap them for more turbines within a mile of my house in driect site.

It’s unusual for the blades not to be turning in any of the local windfarms (odd turbines may be off line but to see the whole windfarm stationary is very rare).

It’s unusual for the blades not to be turning in any of the local windfarms (odd turbines may be off line but to see the whole windfarm stationary is very rare).

just becuase the blades are turn it doesn’t mean they are generating

I can see England’s largest on shore site from my street, it’s common for the turbines not to be turning. When running 2 out of 26 usually aren’t turning.

if wind was so good they would put into the public domain the power actually generated by each scheme as live data rather than the standard figures used! Do they have something to hide?

Where can I find the live generation figures for nuclear, coal and gas?

Where can I find the live generation figures for nuclear, coal and gas?

I imagine the station efficiency figures will be lurking out there in the PPC report or othr documnt,the difference is the figure is pretty fixed and they generate when you turm them on.

wind is different it doesn’t generate when you turn it on it only generates when the wind blows as the right range of speeds and the turbine hasn’t got a fault. The subsidies that fund it come from everyone’s bills ergo the figures should be publically available (power generated at 30min intervals and subsidy paid). I mean if they worked as well as touted around surely they would be publisising it to everyone:- “Hey come and see how well we are doing”, or is the performance less than stated (pants) and we are being shafted by financial speculators who fund the capital and suck in the subsidies?

or are you going tell me it’s commercial info? or to complex to get? to complex to show live on a website?

the easiest way to defeat the naysayers is to put real live data out, surprisingly real live data seems to be impossible to find….

your thoughts

In general, I think windfarms have their place

I agree, although I do feel that certain “wild places” should be spared from development. There’s plenty of scope for developing wind farms without impinging on Scotland’s wilderness.

Nuclear is also subsidised, but I don’t see any live data for that either. All we ever seem to get is some generic figures occasionally. Do they have something to hide?

visually I like them.
I suspect I am one of the few on here who has ever lived solely from either wind or solar [12 volt] it has some serious practical issues
Solar is superb in summer but you use more electricity in winter- still easily self sufficient for 6 mths if you are very careful about everything
Wind is brilliant and if you look at the averages it can produce all your needs. Unfortunately it will give very little for 15 days then enough for the next month on one day – how do you store this?
When they are turning slowly they produce next to nothing in terms of electricity – well small scales ones do so I assume that the large ones are the same.
Required supplemental power – generator at least weekly in winter
As tidal is regular and predictable I think this must be a better long term option – dealing with peak demand will still be difficult.

We currently have 2 local renewable energy schemes in planning.

One for 4 turbines on a worked out gravel pit near an army training area at Bovington that may possibly annoy the residents of 6 houses.

Another for a plant on Portland that will burn palm oil brought in from Indonesia, where it is currently being planted on freshly cleared areas of ex-rain forest that is annoying a large % of the world’s remaining population of orangutans.

Guess which one is likely to get the go-ahead.

druidh – Member
Nuclear is also subsidised, but I don’t see any live data for that either. All we ever seem to get is some generic figures occasionally. Do they have something to hide?

still waiting for live wind farm data from a real UK site…

better not hold my breath