MoneySaving Poll: Are wind farms an aye-aye or an eyesore?

zag2me

I think they look great... far better than a Coal Powerstation anyway!

DMACB

zag2me wrote: »

I think they look great... far better than a Coal Powerstation anyway!

It's such a shame that no amount of wind turbines will be able to replace even one single coal power station.

cepheus

DMACB wrote: »

It's such a shame that no amount of wind turbines will be able to replace even one single coal power station.

That's untrue since conventional power stations have to be shut down for maintenance and these can be timed at peak wind periods. Most thermal power stations, such as coal, geothermal and nuclear power plants, have availability factors between 70% and 90%.

You're looking at them piecemeal rather than as part of an interconnected generating system with demand management, continental wide coverage (the wind is always blowing somewhere) and storage via hydro.

However, even that's conventional and unambitious. Wind power should have be used as a means to supply space heating via heat pumps and passive solar gain with simple gas heating as a back up during less windy periods.

Mark_Beech

I actually don't mind the look of trubines ... they can look quite majestic .... but I have to agree with the better informed more sensible types on here who have pointed out just how inefficient and costly wind farms can be.
They fall under the category of "seems like a good idea until you actually look at the figures".
In reality wind farms in the UK have significantly contributed to the deaths of many thousands of people in the UK.
Every year 30,000 people die from the cold during the winter in Britain. Most of these deaths can be directly attributed to the massively increasing costs of heating the average home. This in turn is because of the last Labour government's insistence on enormous "green" subsidies for renewables including wind turbines.
Still think they are a good idea?

cepheus

Mark_Beech wrote: »

I actually don't mind the look of trubines ... they can look quite majestic .... but I have to agree with the better informed more sensible types on here who have pointed out just how inefficient and costly wind farms can be.
They fall under the category of "seems like a good idea until you actually look at the figures".
In reality wind farms in the UK have significantly contributed to the deaths of many thousands of people in the UK.
Every year 30,000 people die from the cold during the winter in Britain. Most of these deaths can be directly attributed to the massively increasing costs of heating the average home. This in turn is because of the last Labour government's insistence on enormous "green" subsidies for renewables including wind turbines.
Still think they are a good idea?

Which figures have attributed green subsidies to these deaths?

What contribution did fuel prices, lack of insulation, greedy energy companies and shareholders make?

How did you distinguish between onshore verses offshore turbines, or the other extortionately expensive but highly popular domestic rooftop solar power? Or did you lump all these together in some sort of 'lunatic green' agenda?

Have you allowed for the environmental costs of coal pollution?

What about nuclear? In 2011 onshore wind costs at 8.3p/kW·h had fallen below new nuclear at 9.6p/kW·h,

What about the future costs, don't we have to invest now as turbine costs come down?



How have you separated all these factors out? Perhaps onshore wind isn't that bad after all?

If you wan't an informed opinion go to page 67 in this report then you will see a graphical comparison of the costs of all the main generating techniques available in the UK

Mark_Beech

I didn't split onshore and offshore (they are both subsidised)and I accept that other renewables have also contributed to the "green premium" .... but my logic is still sound ..... and generally accepted. Higher fuel prices are driven upwards by green subsidies .... thats the point. Most of the deaths would be pensioners on low incomes. Many of them may indeed have had insulation ..... but trying to pay for heating on £140 or so per week would still be hard. Yes ... energy companies make profits .... but their margins are not huge ... its their sheer size that makes for good business.
I obviously didn't allow for the "environmental costs" of coal "pollution" as you put it ..... but it rather depends what you are attempting to achieve (or avoid). Even the very worst doomsday scenarios for deaths in the UK which might be possibly attributable to climate change by 2030 amount to 5000 per year ..... and many fewer than this in all likelyhood given that warming seems to have stalled and projections may have to be recalculated.
Set this against 30,000 deaths from cold and its just simple maths. More than 300,000 people have died unnecessarily in the UK in the last decade alone in the period that energy prices have rocketed.
We are killing huge numbers of people in the name of supposedly saving the planet from climate change. It makes no sense.

diesel47

I can't see why all the fuss. Whether they are efficient or not is an argument I choose not to enter but as regards the, "They are an eyesore" debate, I remember as a kid watching the first electricity pylons being erected on a hill overlooking our house. To my nine year old mind they looked like aliens marching to conquer the earth. Very ugly and quite frightening to a nine year old imagination. I still think they are ugly and always have done, but why have there never been any protests about thousands of miles of these things defiling our countryside and beauty spots? I suspect it may be because the alternative is living in the cold and darkness, beating your carpets over the clothes line and doing the family washing with a scrubbing brush and a block of soap. Very few people are completely dependant on wind turbines for their power supply and that makes them an easy target. What would you rather look at, a wind turbine or an electricity pylon? No contest in my book.

Murphybear

I have noticed that whenever we drive into Cornwall there are more of these but I don't think they are unattractive and are surely preferable to the alternatives. Judging by how many cars/caravans on M5/A30 in the past 2 months it has not affected tourism. We visited St Ives in June, it was so busy you could hardly move!

I've just had a few more thoughts. We live on a small island and two things we have plenty of are wind and waves. We need to utilise both. There is also an unlimited source of energy in the form of a giant nuclear reactor only a few million miles away. Here in the West Country there are quite a few fields covered in solar panels, is that less of an eyesore?

Maybe the human race needs to use less energy, but can't see that happening. I remember as a child in the 1950s how low electricity bills were because usage was so low - lighting, tv, cooking and hot water. Very little else.