The Great Global Warming Swindle?

gromituk

Lynwen wrote: »

I know, as I say I have been studying windfarms for 3 1/2 years

It seems you have been busy accumulating myths rather than studying. (And why do you have to write in bold, as if your postings are more important than anyone else's?)

Windfarms will never ever in the whole wide world save ANY CO2

Won't they? Where's your evidence for that? One extremely skeptical document says 3.5 years worst case (when built carelessly on peat bogs); the industry claims 6 months. No-one except you seems to be saying that payback never happens.

neither will they produce enough electricity to suppy the UK

Erm, that's because they aren't supposed to! Just like no one form of power generation produces electricity to supply the whole of the UK (which is presumably what you meant, for what you are saying to make any sense). Your favoured options of tidal and solar certainly couldn't. Hydroelectric schemes suffer from the same disadvantage, and have a massive environmental impact. And no-one wants us to rely on one form of energy supply anyway.

If you want to argue against wind farms, please stick to the facts. Otherwise, no-one will take you seriously. It seems plain to me that, however much you claim the contrary, you are arguing from a NIMBY point of view, and letting your emotions get in the way of these facts. I simply don't have another explanation for the peculiar things you are saying. I'd bet you'd be dismissing solar power if there was a plan to put acres of solar cells 800m away from you. I'd be quite happy to have a wind farm 800m away from me, however rural my circumstances. I would enjoy watching those graceful machines turning, knowing they were going some way to offsetting man's greedy overconsumption.

The government are dragging their feet in giving people like you and I grants to put in solar.... why???? think about it!!!! if we suppy our own energy, they will loose [sic] out on taxes!!!!!!!!

I just had to put that in as a prime example of pointless arguments about tax. When it comes to raising and spending revenue, the government is damned if it is, and damned if it isn't.

west_is_best

the industry claims 6 months

What industry claims this????

I'd be quite happy to have a wind farm 800m away from me, however rural my circumstances. I would enjoy watching those graceful machines turning, knowing they were going some way to offsetting man's greedy overconsumption.

ok love, your very welcome to buy my property then.........

I can see that you have no comment regarding the prices per MW??? so is it right that the tax payer pay's for these subsidies and have to pay more for our electricity???

I would advise you to look into the details and the technical side of wind developments, as it goes to show you have no idea of whats happening to the countryside.

Your very welcome to call me a NIMBY, because I only started looking into wind developments when we had a proposed one up the road, but as I said, I have stuided both sides of the argument....... and it did take a lot of looking into companies and the government before I realised that its just a huge scam.....
One day, in the near future, we will be able to end this conversation in very interesting light.

Take 1 particular company, (I will not name them) they promote and build wind developments all over the country, the same company (under another name) is the contractor in Sellafield Nuclear Power station.......... thats a fantastic advert for being a greeny!!!!! wouldnt you say???

I write in bold because I like writting in bold.... have you got a problem with that???

All I say, look into both sides of renewable energy, because it certainly is interesting...

kittiwoz

Lynwen, I only studied wind power for one year, and I studied a lot of other subjects too, so I wouldn't claim to be an expert as you seem to feel you are. However what I did learn about renewable energy systems in the final year of my masters degree in mechanical engineering contradicts or undermines a lot of the things you say.

Lynwen wrote:

Wind Farms are only a money spin for the Government and huge developers. When developers say it will produce enough electricity for a certain amount of properies, when they state this propery, the amount of kw is only enough to boil a kettle for 6hrs solid...... this means, everytime you boil a kettle, there wont be enough electricity for your freezer, TV, Fridge, radio, dishwasher, washing machine etc etc etc etc.....

a)Only enough to boil a kettle? Since when did a kettle become a low drain appliance?
b)Who the hell boils a kettle for 6 hours solid?
c)The electricity from the turbines would feed into the national grid which works to average-out demand out across the country so it does not mean that when you boil a kettle there will not be enough energy for your other appliances.

Lynwen wrote:

If people really looked into windfamr's, its an eye oppener, when theres over 30 loads of ready mix for each base (300m square), not counting the 60 tonnes of steel barsl...... each turbine requires at least 50 lorry delivery loads....... Imagine the CO2 produced by these huge, and I mean huge lorries!!!!!!!!!!

The biggest CO2 polutants are steel and cement!!!!!!!! Now tell me, does it make sense????

Do you think building coal and gas burning power stations does not use a large amount of concrete and steel?

Lynwen wrote:

As I said I could go on and on, theres just one more thing that I would like to say is............... We were in the Ice Age many years ago....... the climate got warmer (without CO2) I have asked many a developer for this answer, None have been able to give me a reliable answer... if theres anyone out there who can answer me, I would like to hear it...

It all boils down to Taxes and politics!!!!! this is all it is..... its snowing here in Wales now, golbal warming???
Weve had a wet winter, golbal warming? we had a dry winter last winter, global warming????

Surely it is worth reducing our dependence on finite resources and our production of environmental pollutants regardless of whether human acticity has an effect on global warming or not? Also I would be inclined to argue that while there is a possibility that human activity impacts on global warming it would be wise to assume that it does and act accordingly simply because the stakes are so high.

Lynmwen wrote:

Windfarms will never ever in the whole wide world save ANY CO2, neither will they produce enough electricity to suppy the UK...

a)Yes they will
b) They are not intended to but about 1/3 could be possible. That's pretty significant.

Lynwen wrote:

so why give these developers huge subsidies when they could be investing money on tidal, hydro, solar........ wave is a very powerfull source which could supply energy 24/7..... solar is too a fantastic sourse.......

Because the UK is quite windy. We are a small island and have a lot of coast for our land mass. That means a lot of sea breezes. It also means some capacity for off-shore turbines although lot of our coast is too craggy.

Solar power on the other hand is not a fantastic source of power for the UK at all. Solar cells are currently only around 12-15% efficient and require very large areas of direct sunlight to be effective (i.e. deserts). The UK is neither a sufficiently sunny climate, nor does it have large enough unshaded areas to make the best use of solar energy. Yes you can fit solar panels to roofs in the UK but it doesn't produce a great deal of energy or make most effective use of the technology.

There is investment and research going on in other areas of renewable resources as well as wind. You mentioned wave power. The technology in this area is still developing and it is extremely challenging to build an effective wave power generator because of the unpredictable and hostile conditions it will have to face. However development in this area is ongoing and a lot of new designs are being produced, many within the UK. This has been encouraged by establishing the European Marine Energy Centre which is a research centre in the Orkneys used for testing wave and tidal power generating devices and which has been funded from the public purse. On February 22nd the Scottish executive announced a £4M grant to develop the UK's first wave farm as part of a £13M funding package for marine power in Scotland. The following have all been granting some public funding: Ocean Power Delivery's Pelamis, Aquamarine's Oyster, Ocean Power Technology's Power Buoy, AWS Ocean Energy's sub-sea devices, ScotRenewables floating rotor device and Wavegen's wave energy harnessing breakwater project for Lewis. So far from your implication that there is a lack of investment in wave power in the UK the UK is in fact leading Europe in this area.

Edit:

I write in bold because I like writting in bold.... have you got a problem with that???

Well, if you can't find a green crayon...

gromituk

Lynwen wrote: »

the industry claims 6 months

What industry claims this????

The British Wind Energy Association, and the first hit when I Googled for "wind farm CO2 payback time". Actually, they claim less - 3 to 5 months. I'd have thought that someone who had studied wind farms for three years would have heard of them...

I can see that you have no comment regarding the prices per MW???

I have no obligation to comment on everything you wrote - it would lead to a posting so long that no-one would read it. But as you ask:

so is it right that the tax payer pay's [sic] for these subsidies and [we?] have to pay more for our electricity???

Yes! We've had energy from fossil fuels far too cheaply for far too long, and we can see the damage it's doing.

I would advise you to look into the details and the technical side of wind developments, as it goes to show you have no idea of whats happening to the countryside.

Why should I make the effort to go up what seems to me a blind alley, considering that the advice is coming from someone who thinks that wind farms never recover their embodied CO2, that unless they can provide all the UK's energy they're not worth bothering with, and that (for instance) solar energy will solve all our problems? Do you have any idea of the cost per kW or the embodied energy in photovoltaic cells?

and it did take a lot of looking into companies and the government before I realised that its just a huge scam.....

See above - I'm very confused as to what information you have been looking at. The Daily Mail?

I write in bold because I like writting in bold.... have you got a problem with that???

Erm, yes, or I wouldn't have commented on it :rolleyes:. There's a certain etiquette to using an internet forum, and formatting your text differently from everyone else while using a perverse method of quoting just makes you stick out like a sore thumb and distracts people from the message that you are presumably trying to get across.

west_is_best

ha ha ha........ I couldnt find a gree crayon!!!!!!!!!

It has been proven by REF that the wind farms in Mid wales, where there are 6 wind farms, one is the biggest in uk (as yet), only produce 23% of its output......... what do we do for the other 9 months of the year????

The thing is, you can cover the UK with windfarms, from John O Groats to Lands end, you will never ever shut a single power station.......
Denmark have been the leaders of wind developments for the past 30 years, not 1 single power station has been shut down........ Denmark have not put up a single turbine in the past 3 years, they are stopping subsidies this year.... Denmark are now removing turbines, as people are finding it difficult to sell properties that are close to wind farm developments...

The same thing will happen in this country, so whats going to happen, we shall all end up with huge turbines that have ceased producing electricity, getting rusty and blotting our landscapes.....

I have it in black and white here, that if the local council who grant planning permission do not ask for a bond to remove the turbines, it will left to the landowners to pay to do so...... Not all council's ask for this bond.... I cant see who on earth is going to afford a crane and lories to remove these 100 metre high turbines from their land..... one single blade weighs 6 tonnes.....

kittiwoz

Presumably what you mean to say is that is that wind farms in mid Wales only produce of 23% of their maximum rated output. This seems a not unreasonable number, the figure (capacity factor) across the UK as whole is around 25-30% with higher production in Scotland, sometimes exceeding 30%. What you need to understand is that wind turbines are not designed to produce their maximum power constantly since the power available in the wind varies cubicly with wind speed. If a turbine were operating with a high capacity factor it would imply that it was maxing out at low wind speeds and so wasting the extra energy available in higher winds.

The figure you give implies that the wind turbines in Wales are producing approximately the amount of power that the designers expected. They will be feeding that power into the national grid to supplement the power produced by other fossil-fuel power stations so that we are less reliant on them and mitigating the need to build more new gas fired power plants to meet our growing power needs or to replace old power stations as they reach the end of their life.

kittiwoz

Re. The price of energy and subsidies for wind farms: I just read a news item on the Danish Wind Energy Association website (which has a fantastic technical guide to wind turbines that I can't recommend strongly enough) which said that they had reached a point where the reduction in the cost of energy caused by harvesting it from a free resource now outweighs the initial cost of the subsidies. So it is a short-term cost for a long-term saving in economic terms though it is the long-term environmental savings that are normally seen as most significant.

daymo

gromituk wrote: »

What is the way, then, bearing in mind that your belief that this is a purely natural cycle is a minority one and shrinking, and by the time you accept that it is man-made it may be too late? Wouldn't you rather you were forced to be green and you were right in your beliefs than everyone carried on just as before and the climate reached a tipping point of no return?

How can being taxed to the hilt under the pretence that it is saving the planet,stop a natural cycle?, my main gripe is the demonization of people who aren`t mad about being green,by people who stick their fingers in their ears and shout everytime someone suggests that the whole climate change thing isnt man made,we all have our thoughts and opinions but forcing them onto other people is a sure way to cause resentment,it doesnt help when swivel eyed green activists seem to get more of an airing in the press than people who suggest otherwise.The news today thatr 4 x 4s will be taxed up to £400 is a point worth noting,don`t these people already pay more fuel duty than normal car owners? The green activists were not happy as they wanted charges of £1000 +,is that reasonable . . . NO,it is all getting blown out of proportion and we will all be taken for a ride. BTW has anyone noticed that SW trains have introduced fare increases of up to 20% for those who travel just outside of peak times? That will get people out of their cars......:rolleyes:

west_is_best

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a)Only enough to boil a kettle? Since when did a kettle become a low drain appliance?
b)Who the hell boils a kettle for 6 hours solid?
c)The electricity from the turbines would feed into the national grid which works to average-out demand out across the country so it does not mean that when you boil a kettle there will not be enough energy for your other appliances.

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Boiling a kettle is just an example of how much electricity developers state when they say "enough electricity for 11000 homes"... another example then, if it makes you feel better, its enough electricity to keep a 1 bar electric heater on for 12 hrs..... this is "Per property".

Ken68

Considering the strong foundations, and the 100% grant why would a wind turbine be de-commissioned ?
Apparantly, havn't done any research, California is littered with derelict wind turbines. Perhaps they are waiting for a
grant to get rid.