Thames Windfarms - Locals Views?

brianhumber

brianhumber

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Flew out over Kent last week on clear day.

The new windfarm looks impressive if that is the right phrase and to be at the blade errection stage. It covers a big area. How restrictive will this be to people ?
All the turbines in the Rhine valley were dead this weekend due to no wind and the power stations smoking merrily ( yes I do know the differnece tween cooling tower plumes and flue smoke) . As they have to be retained on hot standby for windless days makes me wonder if it really as ecofriendly as it is promoted.

Rhine was really low level so they need lots of rain higher up the river but so do we looking at our reservoirs as we flew over.

Brian
 
Not a Thames-ite, so not qualified to comment, but I've seen similar sights in Mainland Europe. If we want continuous power, and we want to use "sustainable" sources for generation, we will always have to maintain some redundant capacity.

At the risk of encouraging thread drift, there's an interesting article in The Grauniad today about where our energy will come from in future. Suprisingly un-Guardianish about nuclear power, but apparently the future lies in coal. Thatcher would be spinning in her grave if it weren't for the fact that she's still alive...........
 
Oil is now at the peak of production, its all down hill from here. With the way oil is being used in Asia now, someone better start doing and stop talking a bit quick.

Love it or hate it Nuclear or wind farms, they better start building.
 
as lovely and fluffy and green as windfarms are, they are crap when it comes to sustainable energy!

!When the wind don't blow, the lights don't glow!

Each windfarm is only about 40% efficient, and over the life of a turbine, it will only just breakeven on energy required to manufacture,develop,site and run these things!

I am not against them, but to run the UK with wind turbines is impossible, not only would we need millions of the things, but on every windless or slow day all industry would have to pack up!, no heating, power or light!

Fossil fuels are not an option as we are running out, North Sea Gas has gone and we are now buying Russian supplies, hence price rises we have seen. Oil markets are very volatile as everyone knows and each hurricane pushes up the price!

The reason some EU states (and the USA) want Turkey in the EU is to be able to run an oil pipeline from Israel/Jordan/Syria etc through a "friendly" country to stabilise supply. In less than 5 years, 98% of all the worlds oil will come from Muslim countries, and the EU will have to import ALL its requirements.

For UK power there are only two options, Nuclear and Biomass!

Nuclear everyone knows about!

Biomass will not get off the ground till we are in crisis, then it will be too late! Biomass is things like Willow coppice, hemp, elephant grass, straw etc that can be burned in powerstations replacing coal and gas. It is the ONLY carbon neutral fuel as it requires the same amount of assimilated CO2 to grow as it will release when burnt!

This would be better for the UK environment, countryside economy, wildlife and UK inhabitants and would replace the wretched set a side currently spreading thistle and ragwort seeds!

At the moment we IMPORT over 1 million tonnes of biomass per year from Germany to burn in our powerstations!

The government will not give Biomass in the UK a tax break because the Petro-Chemical lobby is so strong and fossil fuel taxation is such an earner.

Yet again the UK is the impotent man of the world!!!!!!
 
The mix is the solution

Like it or not, we need sustainable power sources.
Wind turbines provide power when the wind blows.
Nuclear also provides power, but no solution has been found for the waste and decommisioning is also prohibitive.
Germany is promoting renewables by offering a guaranteed price for renewable energy (known as the feed-in tarrif). Britain has no such policy and will not meet it's own CO2 targets.
I personally am concerned about the costs of fueling my boat, which has resulted in less trips for me (BTW I own a moter sailer).

We all need to be thinking about reduction and alternative sources now.
 
Kentish Flats windfarm not really in the way of sailing - it's in a kind of no-mans land north of the inshore route along the coast, and south of the main shipping channels. All blades in place and all up and running so far as I can see.
 
[ QUOTE ]
In less than 5 years, 98% of all the worlds oil will come from Muslim countries, and the EU will have to import ALL its requirements.

For UK power there are only two options, Nuclear and Biomass!


[/ QUOTE ]

Three options actually, we could invade the Middle East...

...Oh yeah, we already did that /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
I used to buy diesel at 10.5d a gallon.

(4.5 pence per gallon)

I remember the 70's.

There is wave power research going on in Blyth. The tide goes in and out quite reliably. We have some windmills on the harbour wall. They make quite good indicators of which way the wind is blowing locally. I cannot remember seeing them all working at once. When they go wrong which happens fairly frequently it takes a crane on a floating barge to repair them. Rather expensive I expect. /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

Blyth Harbour
 
I seem to remember that someone said that putting a 2 meter wind turbine on the top of a house will only generate about 15% of the house demand. So by my reckoning if we all fit two two and a half meter turbines to our roofs we'll generate about 60% of the average domestic requirement. add on solar - which can deliver 15% of the domestic requirement and put in the severn barrage - which would deliver about 20% of the domestic requirement and by my reckoning you would get an average of 95% of all domestic demand from renewable sources. Add on a requirement for community scemes and you get an additional 20% leaving some take up of industrial demand.
Then introduce a maximum engine capacity of 2 litres for petrol driven cars and boats or two and a half litres for diesel engined cars or boats you get a Further net reduction in fuel consumption of roughly 5%(you do this to boats by increasing the tax on fuel for personal marine purposes to twice that for cars and four times that for businesses which own pleasure motor craft)


Hey presto lots of fuel saved less high speed wakes, lower bank erosion..

Unless of course you know different!
 
As the price of oil goes up, so does the amount that is economically viable to produce from mines that were previously not viable. Also offshore windfarms are grest nurseries for our depleated fish stocks! It stops those french and spanish bug*ers decemating our breading stocks.
 
Ah yes, but as soon as we start getting the majority of our energy from wind power and not fossil fuels the government will slap a massive tax on it to make up for lost revenues.

Then you raggies will know what it feels like /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

I believe draft proposals are based on taxing according to sail surface area.
 
[ QUOTE ]

Biomass will not get off the ground till we are in crisis, then it will be too late! Biomass is things like Willow coppice, hemp, elephant grass, straw etc that can be burned in powerstations replacing coal and gas. It is the ONLY carbon neutral fuel as it requires the same amount of assimilated CO2 to grow as it will release when burnt!


[/ QUOTE ]
Actually, thats not quite true.... in hot years, plants actually generates more Co2 than they consume.......

So potentially, as global warming accellerates, then biomass could make matters worse. not better....

The only totally predictable green energy source is tidal power..... solar is affected by cloud cover, wind power is affected by, well... wind, and water turbine power is affected by rain fall.....
 
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