I've not really made up my mind about WIND FARMS. Do we need to care about climate change? If so, is Nuclear a better option than wind? Here's some good and bad points:
Arguments in favour of wind farms
- The UK needs to meet a target to generate 15 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020 as part of global plans to fight climate change.
- The technology produces no greenhouse gases once it has been installed.
- Wind farms will decrease reliance on volatile energy supplies from abroad.
- Manufacturing and installing wind farms in the UK will provide ‘green jobs’
- The technology is becoming cheaper as wind farms are built around the world.
Arguments against wind farms
- The turbines usually have to be sited in isolated windy spots, that are also often areas of outstanding natural beauty.
- The noise from wind turbines has been blamed for health problems including stress and insomnia.
- Wind turbines only work at maximum capacity for a third of time, meaning they have to be backed up by other technologies such as coal and nuclear.
- The inconsistent power generated by by wind farms requires the grid to be upgraded to cope with the surges in power.
- Wind farms are expensive to build and only last up to 25 years.
WHAT DO YOU THINK?? There's a poll on right for your votes. Comments as usual are very welcome.
29 comments:
Many years ago I had a conversation with a chap from KPMG, he was the companys expert on the economies of wind-power generation. At the end of our chat I asked him if he would want a wind turbine at the bottom of his garden, he responded
"No".
The UK needs to meet a target to generate 15 per cent of energy from renewables by 2020 as part of global plans to fight climate change. Do we fuck, it's a figure plucked out of thin air and they can fuck their targets anyway. We could achieve that needed target by harvesting the rotting corpses of enviroloons who kill themselves to save Gaia.
The technology produces no greenhouse gases once it has been installed. But vast amounts during contruction and installation plus half the energy is lost in transmission since the lest worst place to put them is remote windy places.
.
Wind farms will decrease reliance on volatile energy supplies from abroad.
That's probably Racist but we can pass on that. The Telegraph reported yesterday that the North Sea is good for another twenty years and requires more investment. Peak Oil eat my pants , and it's your dreams of independence put on hold too DL.
Manufacturing and installing wind farms in the UK will provide ‘green jobs’ Yes, in Germany and Denmark which is where these fanciful windmills are made even though those two countries have given up on wind power and build them just to sell to mugs like us.
The technology is becoming cheaper as wind farms are built around the world. Trash economics, economies of scale do not apply for installations, indeed as more and more of these things are built supply and demand would suggest they would cost more.
I voted bad. But not as bad as green cars, the technology not the paintwork, which are paid towards with cash from some type of buy back or 'cash for bangers' scheme.
Can someone tell me the mathematics behind 'throw away perfectly good vehicle + purchase new vehicle = green'?
Banned, the pros and cons were not mine but plucked from somewhere, however I would say.
The UK obviously does not have to generate renewables if there is no climate change and like you, I am not convinced there is.
Probably does generate gases during manufacture.
World Peak oil was in 1970 and with supply falling by 9% per year and demand rising by 30% per year, we are fucked for oil. I refer you to a very good buy, 'Confronting Collapse' by Michael C. Ruppert. Well worth buying.
Green Jobs. I don't know.
Technology. There must be some economies of scale even if not in the manufacture in the design and implementation of developments.
Probably on the whole bad, but as I said before it depends on how you view climate change.
Bad idea. And you don't even need to know anything about the technicalities DL. Just look at the examples of countries who went down the wind farm route 10 years ago.
Denmark - 6,000 windmills, subsidies recently stopped so building stopped, no power stations closed, CO2 emissions rose by 40% ( irregular wind means conventional power staion output ramped up and down to balance the power generation).
The pro agw 'experts' are all at sea and are easy to discredit.
Today Lousie Gray in the telegraph was back spouting nonsense about windmills and as a warning she showed a picture of 6 cooling towers. Seeming oblivious to the fact that the cooling towers are pumping out steam ( hot air - although not as much hot air as her)
Hydro and nuclear are the only viable options unless we want the lights to go out.
Groompers, throwing away of cars is done to please the politicians' masters, the bankers who make money out of new cars being financed, whereas 99% of old cars are paid up.
No. No. No.
I used to be all in favour of them, but that was an opinion based on emotion (and to my eyes they are rather elegant, especially on the rare occasions they are in motion).
I am all in favour of recycling where possible, and not polluting the air, earth and water. However, first-hand experience shows they simply cannot provide the necessary power. Day after day over this particularly cold winter (and previous ones) I have looked out over a glassy sea and land on which not a twig stirred, the temperature being several degrees below zero. Not even one of these http://www.maglevwind.com/ could have provided the power required to heat my house.
I'll leave it to experts to go into the technical flaws in the pro-windmill argument.
The fucking things don't work when they are needed most.
Stood stock still ALL through the last cold snap and shut themselves down during the past four days of wind.
No problem with reducing pollution but my god why can't fold realise CO2 is just a bloody plant food?
If they're so good & so "beneficial", how come every taxpayer in the land contributes to the massive subsidies needed to encourage their installation?
You're too kind when you state they only work 1/3rd time.
The telling statistic is that they operate at only about 1/50th capacity when they're most needed. [Remember how windless it was when the snow was on the ground last December.]
@Mr Tom, ta for pointing out the Poll as it wasn't obvious in the original post, that DL is such a slacker.
I've now voted but I won't tell you how because it is a secret and many a man has died for the principle of Secret Ballots.
@DL "World Peak oil was in 1970 and with supply falling by 9% per year and demand rising by 30% per year" yadda yadda. We've been pedalled that bollox year in year out since I was a schoolboy and as I told my EX-Polytechnic Economics teacher (Commie KerKunt)then and I say now every year they either find more of the stuff or what they already knew about becomes economically viable.
we are fucked for oil.Are we fuck.
A boy I went to school with way back when cannily (Scots geddit!) did his Uni thesis on the oil baring shales off the Northumberland littoral; It wasn't economic then but
C'MON EVERYBODY
it is now!!!
I refer you to a very good buy, 'Confronting Collapse' by Michael C. Ruppert. He can fuck off too, Malthusian wanker.
I don't know why we can't just stick a hose into every cow in the lands arse and plug them into the gas supply lines as it would solve two problems at once.
Actually we could probably be having free energy just now as per Dr Judy Wood and the Twin Towers only our governments would rather be wasting this technology on weapons - This also includes Cold Fusion.
They are having to go deeper for oil now re BP rig explosion in the US because the oil is running out and demand is hugely increasing with China and India and South America growing and using the stuff quicker than we ever did in the west
All the electrical stuff we have use too much power, it's like a one bar electric fire round the back of my laptop! They could run us on a lower voltage (or ampage or wattage, not sure which) and make goods that worked on those specs.
I'm a believer in necessity is the mother of invention and we will come up with something if the oil runs out. How about reverting back to steam power?, if the market demands electricity and there is no oil or gas available to power generators plenty of inventors will be working on other ways of supplying it.
I'll even let you have a go on my lightning powered tricycle when I get this battery charging lark sorted out.
Tcheuchters, I thought I was the only one who actually like the look of them. I personally think if you take a bleak moor like the Fenwick moor near me and stick some pylons on it, the view is greatly improved.
Now as to whether they actually work, well, that is debatable. One thing I would say though, is that we use electricity in the summer as well as in the winter. Take my word for it as someone whose livelyhood was governed by how much wind there was, that the wind equalizes itself out over the year in general.
Canof Miller, sorry seem to have missed you there.
Aye Denmark seems to have cooled on the idea as does Germany. I think a mix of all would be the best. I don't have a problem with nuclear apart from the terrorism angle if MI5 and Mossad decide to blow one up. But, that would be state terrorism, so that's ok then.
Hydro certainly is a good way forward and I believe they've just developed some new pump or some such that makes the whole process more efficient. But the question to ask is, will it make our power and cheaper? We are currently paying over a £100 per year each sponsoring green electricity. I bet there not in China.
Willy, there certainly seems to be issues of efficiency. No one has mentioned wave power yet, which would seem to me to be the way forward as there are always waves, regardless of the weather.
Publes, there is certainly a lot of our money in tax and directly through the subsidies that the power companies have to pay, which of course are passed on to us, re a post I did a few days ago about OFGEM.
Banned, because I am an educated cunt who is well read, allow me to tell you about shale oil.
The problem with shale oil is there is no oil. It is a material called Kerogen. The shale has to be mined, transported, heated to 4500 degrees C an have hydrogen added to make it flow. It takes 4 barrels of oil to produce one barrel of oil and the residue is considerably larger in volume due to popping. It would take one ton of rock to power a car for 2 weeks. Where do you get the water? Where do you dump the residue and where is the energy coming from to actually extract the oil.
Cloud Cuckoo land, mate.
Billy, correct the rate at which oil is being used up is frightening, but these useless fuckers we elect are only in it for themselves. America is fighting wars over the world and pumping oil, here in Scotland, Asia, S. America and elsewhere when they are sitting on their own stocks which they haven't allowed to be touched.
One problem with deep oil recovery is when it takes more energy to mine, than the energy we get from it, the game's a bogey!
Spackers, hi again. I used to believe in what you do that someone would invent something to replace oil. I don't think so now. Steam is OK for machinery, but what about transport? Remember that it takes 4 barrels of oil to make a tyre. Oil is used in plastics, packaging, materials etc., the list is endless. Even on Top gear on Sunday they were saying that it would take Hammond 6 days to make a journey that he now does in 6 hours if his car was powered by electricity, due to problems with batteries. It's a serious subject which is not being addressed by our politicians, particularly in the States.
Banned, that should be 4 barrels of water to produce one barrel of oil, BTW.
DL
I'm not sure that there are always waves, but there is always the tide which is reliable. 40' rise & fall round the Channel Islands, 6kts at the Kyle of Lochalsh, 8 at Kylerhea.
Tcheuchter, Thanks for that. I said waves because most of the twats that look at this shite, wouldn't understand tide. They think it's an old fashioned soap powder. Do you know anything about how all this tide energy actually works?
" Do you know anything about how all this tide energy actually works?"
It's just another white elephant like windmills.
As the barge bobs up and down in the water it transfers the movement of it's joints into an electrical current. The main problem seems to be the stress on the moving parts and getting the electricity ashore. The technology will never reach a stage where it provides anything of use at a cost we can afford. Like windmills it will be used until the subsidies run out and the next white elephant is introduced. We could become self sufficient in energy through nuclear and hydro if the £20Bn a year put into green energy through the 2008 Climate Bill was diverted to useful energy production through coal, nuclear and hydro.
The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers had a revolutionary concept comprising of the mouse, and drip fed amphetamine wheel, back in the '60s.
Hope this helps.
Fartypants, oh, right. Is there money from Europe for it. We might as well get some back if possible.
If all these new production methods are shit, then we better look to nuclear, because as soon as there's little green apples and no matter what the deniers say, we're going to run out of oil, sooner or later.
Then the politicians will be found out, problem being it's too late for us.
Smokers, your contribution as usaul is welcome and valuable, except I heard it was a hamster.
Sorry DL, I'm not an engineer. Surely, though, it cannot be beyond the wit of man to harness energy so powerful that it can transport a supertanker at 6 kts.
Tcheuchter, well you would think so, but as I understand it, the storage is the problem, but then I am not an engineer either, although I did have a Meccano kit when I was a wean.
DL I'm glad your aware of shale oil/gas and its problems as a lot of people can only see the end product and have no concept in the downsides of these technologies especially EROEI as they think of things in a monetary way.
Re Nuclear where on earth are we going to find the energy to decommission and store its waste when fossil fuel energy worldwide is reducing?
The only short term solution is to use less which means our governments are insulated from the impending crisis until there are real shortages which is why they 'think' that nuclear is the way forward as they can't see the cliff in front of them.
Anyway of harnessing 'free' energy be be it it wind/hydro/wave no matter the cost is the only logical way forward to give us some useable energy in the future.
Highlander, the politicians are being very short sighted particularly in the States about energy. Everyone thinks that we are going to come up with some great new way to produce oil, in particular. We are already seeing food riots in some parts of the world because land has been given over to bio-crops and food obviously isn't being produced and staples are rising. This can only get worse and as the Chinese and Indian economies get larger they are going to demand more and more cars. Never mind the oil used in running them, actually building one uses a large amount of oil in the tyres, facias, seats, etc. The only solution is to buy gold and get a small holding somewhere that you can grow crops on when the food runs out.
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