Wind turbines

Jon_Tiffany

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

I think that the point was that a windfarm cannot be claimed to be 'non-polluting', not that they are a comparitively 'low-pollution' energy source ...... remember also that pollution has many forms ......

Pollution from a coal (just an example) fired power plant is measured in the amount of CO2 and various other nasties (mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, soot etc) released into the air when the fuel is burnt. The construction costs are largley ignored and the main focus is on the pollution caused as a result of burning the fuel, hence the desire to burn less fuel and why everyone is insulating their homes to reduce our energy demands.

If you consider wind power in the same way then the only pollution generated in operation is that caused by maintenance which is very minimal. The 'fuel' source for wind turbines is totally non polluting.

zeupater

Jon_Tiffany wrote: »

Pollution from a coal (just an example) fired power plant is measured in the amount of CO2 and various other nasties (mercury, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, soot etc) released into the air when the fuel is burnt. The construction costs are largley ignored and the main focus is on the pollution caused as a result of burning the fuel, hence the desire to burn less fuel and why everyone is insulating their homes to reduce our energy demands.

If you consider wind power in the same way then the only pollution generated in operation is that caused by maintenance which is very minimal. The 'fuel' source for wind turbines is totally non polluting.

Hi

Exactly the way I look at cars too ...... if you amortise the CO2 involved in the manufacturing of the vehicle over a longer ownership period they suddenly become a little greener .....

I agree, everyone seems to consider only operating pollution and tend to ignore the environmental impact assessment pollution analysis, or at least treat it a different way, sometimes because it's convenient to do so ....... it's my opinion that the manufacturing or build impact should be included in the overall impact of everything, perhaps our consumer-based society would then demand that the operational design life for everything is extended ........

There is very little which is done which creates no pollution at all, it's just an issue of minimising that which is necessary ......

Z

PeterZ_2

"MPs have urged ministers to admit they are tacitly subsidising nuclear power despite promising that the industry would not receive such support."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-13393732

I am actually in favour of subsidising nuclear if thats what is needed to get them built. However, I am very much against this if the plants are to be built and maintained by a forgiegn company. More than happy for some of my tax money to suppurt UK jobs, but I just have this horrible feeling that we will end up paying the French....

Cardew

zeupater wrote: »

Hi

Exactly the way I look at cars too ...... if you amortise the CO2 involved in the manufacturing of the vehicle over a longer ownership period they suddenly become a little greener .....

I agree, everyone seems to consider only operating pollution and tend to ignore the environmental impact assessment pollution analysis, or at least treat it a different way, sometimes because it's convenient to do so ....... it's my opinion that the manufacturing or build impact should be included in the overall impact of everything, perhaps our consumer-based society would then demand that the operational design life for everything is extended ........

There is very little which is done which creates no pollution at all, it's just an issue of minimising that which is necessary ......

Z

At the risk of offending a solar panel owner;) can you think of anything more inefficient and wasteful of resources than having scores of thousands of installations on roofs dotted about the country.

Labour, scaffolding, small inverters, meters, accounting etc etc for all these tiny systems.

Paying massive subsidies to owners and venture capitalists, when the economies of scale in solar farms(in SW England) would reduce the cost of solar PV by a huge factor; and thus reduce the subsidies that we all pay.

celerity

(I'm playing Devil's Advocate here, as Cardew definitely has a point)

Cardew wrote: »

At the risk of offending a solar panel owner;) can you think of anything more inefficient and wasteful of resources than having scores of thousands of installations on roofs dotted about the country.

Yes, pushing domestic wind turbines!

Labour, scaffolding, small inverters, meters, accounting etc etc for all these tiny systems.

Labour: OK, I'm not averse to boosting the local economy by providing jobs for people, so this is not a negative for me.
Scaffolding: Speaking personally, this was a tremendous use of resources. First, the great people from Cambridge Solar fixed two (previously unknown) holes in my roof for no extra charge. Much more importantly however, the scaffolding was erected over the weekend before my installation, allowing me to spend many happy hours using it as an archery platform for my English longbow. I had great fun!
Small inverters: This helps boost the global inverter industry, bringing the price down for future solar customers. In fact, didn't someone recently post that SMA have announced the next gen of inverters will be considerably cheaper? This is the whole point of the FiT by the way, to boost the domestic solar market and therefore reduce costs for people in the long term.
Accounting etc: not sure what you mean by this, but I will repeat that providing paid work to our local economies is a Good Thing.

So, rather than nitpick over a few man-days of paid work to install a solar PV array, it would be fairer to consider that each installation will (hopefully) be generating energy for well over 25 years, and thanks to the FiT scheme, tens of thousands of homes in the UK are likely to benefit from cheaper, more efficient installations well beyond this point - hopefully even after all of us on here are dead and buried :A.

If we could sneak a peek at the future and see the majority of suitable roof space for homes, offices, factories etc completely covered in stupidly cheap panels (or roof tiles with solar generators built into them) then gifting early FiT adopters £10-£20K of profit over 25 years is a small price to pay.

How's that for devil's advocacy?!

/\dam

zeupater

Cardew wrote: »

At the risk of offending a solar panel owner;) can you think of anything more inefficient and wasteful of resources than having scores of thousands of installations on roofs dotted about the country.

Labour, scaffolding, small inverters, meters, accounting etc etc for all these tiny systems.

Paying massive subsidies to owners and venture capitalists, when the economies of scale in solar farms(in SW England) would reduce the cost of solar PV by a huge factor; and thus reduce the subsidies that we all pay.

Hi

I think that utilising energy as close to the source of generation is a reasonable solution for an increasing proportion of the national energy requirements as it significantly reduces transmission losses. The main inefficiency as I see it is the way that the projects are currently planned and the use of the limited funding to launch renewables .... more money is inefficiently flowing into installer's, supplier's & 'scheme operator's' pockets than necessary, whereas it should be better targetted at generation capacity growth through better cost control measures.

Regarding transmission efficiencies, I think that this is also likely to be neglected when various forms of generating capacity are compared & costed ... comparison should only be made on the cost of generated power which is actually consumed, not the pure cost of generation .....

Z

keith_r59

Cardew wrote: »

At the risk of offending a solar panel owner;) can you think of anything more inefficient and wasteful of resources than having scores of thousands of installations on roofs dotted about the country.

Labour, scaffolding, small inverters, meters, accounting etc etc for all these tiny systems.

Paying massive subsidies to owners and venture capitalists, when the economies of scale in solar farms(in SW England) would reduce the cost of solar PV by a huge factor; and thus reduce the subsidies that we all pay.

I agree but we are where we are and I can't see the current government, or any subsequent ones for that matter, changing their policy of pushing small scale Solar PV for domestic customers.

So, from my point of view, I can sit here and carry on paying the environmental taxes on my electricity bill for the benefit of others or I can have my own system installed and benefit from it myself.

I chose the latter option.

Cardew

Are you lot fans of Mandy Rice-Davies?;)

keith_r59

Cardew wrote: »

Are you lot fans of Mandy Rice-Davies?;)

They would, wouldn't they.