Windfarm Progress

[brianhumber]

Not sure if this is good or bad news but :

Shell and Powergen are pushing on with the 95 sq miles 300 100m high turbines called London Array said to be only visable from the coast on exceptionally good days.

On shore 26 116m turbines are planned for Rommey Marsh, and 200 140m turbines for Isle of Lewis.

Half of the Scroby sands turbines are now on line.

Ofgem have now allowed the local operators to spend £1060m to upgrade the networks ( ie more Pylons) to take all the this power between 2005 and 2010 and of course this is all recoverable from us as customers.

Looks like we will have a more interesting time when navigating /avoiding these areas are any recognised channals going to be in exclusion zones

 

[halcyon]

They are setting up a test area off North Cornwall for testing wave / tidal power generators.
Could understand seabed mounted one using currents, but they may effect fish. So from the publicity blurb they had on telly, we will be dodging big cylindrical bouys bobing up and down.
So with wind farms and wave farms, it will kill coastal skipper, we will all have to do our offshore !!!!

Brian

 

[AlexL]

[ QUOTE ]
only visable from the coast on exceptionally good days

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah the Dutch coast!
Should be visible from the Kent , Essex coast in all but an overcast, moonless, dark, snowy night.

Most of the aviation met forecasts I get when i go flying give 20-30km visibility on an 'average' day up to 50-100km or more on a good day! anything 100m tall is going to be visible for quite a distance!

Personally I think the tidal power is more promising and I for one would be willing to accept a few compromises for a renewable energy source which may actually work. Unlike the wind, the tide is predictable and constant, so if the generating technology can be developed then the energy source is viable, unlike wind which needs 100% capacity backup in gas powered generation behind it, in case the wind stops blowing.

However rather than spending billions of pounds trying to develop 10% of our generating capacity from renewables, It would be a lot more sensible, as well as a whole lot better for the environment, just to use 10% less electricity to start with.

 

[clouty]

"However rather than spending billions of pounds trying to develop 10% of our generating capacity from renewables, It would be a lot more sensible, as well as a whole lot better for the environment, just to use 10% less electricity to start with."

Do both! And some! Then we will make a difference!

God knows we need to.

 

[roger]

We spent a night in Borkum right under one of the newish type wind generators. It produced 1.8 Mwatts in a reaonable breeze and effectively in silence. An older model generator close by did produce a whine but that was an obsolete type with a gearbox. Later we had Force 10 winds. We certainly were not aware of the generators then.
At that rate of generation with so little noise they seem to me a very good alternative to fossil fuels.
They also are very useful landmarks. In a sea hugging fog of the Swedish Coast the wind generators were the only marks I could see.

 

[LittleShip]

Look on the bright side, the fish will have somewhere to hide /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[Rowana]

It's always been a dream of mine to buy an old water mill and convert the mill wheel to drive a small generator. I think that about 10KW would be enough to provide all the power I would need to give me enough hot water, heating Etc.

There used to be hundreds of these scattered round the countryside, but the vast majority have been either pulled down or "modernised". Shame really.

I firmly believe that all these wind turbines are a waste of time and money. Hydro power is the way to go IMHO, as there is always plenty water in this country. If the pundits are to believed, we'll have even more as a result of climate change! /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Peppermint]

Re: More ways than one to pollute.

I've stated here before that I believe that the only good thing about wind turbines is the political advantage of being able to point at them and say "look at those aren't we green".

We are still pathetic at energy conservation in the UK. If they'd given the money spent on this showboating nonsense to the people to improve energy loss in the housing stock or to insulate business premises a real difference could have been made. If the same money was spent on tidal the visual impact would be lessened and the power delivery would be predictable. Of course the government has spent very little on all of this construction. The power companies are actually paying rent to the Crown Estates for the sites.

We continue to build the hulking great things in places that were considered to be of interest to view or of interest to nature. If we must have them they could be introduced into industrial settings instead of the rural idyl they seem to polluting at present.

Scandinavian countries at least got the basic insulation and distribution works done before they filled the world with the whirling monsters.

 

[DJE]

Years ago the Austrians had a referendum and voted against nuclear power. Since then they have been building hydro-electric schemes everywhere they can (the Danube now flows down a series of steps) and they are still struggling to get enough power out of it. If they can't make it work in the Alps we have no chance. Nuclear is the only rational solution but there aren't many votes in it.

 

[Cantata]

There are rumours of problems with the London Array proposals, because of the navigational impacts.
Also to mention.....the Kentish Flats windfarm (30 turbines, 5 miles N of Herne Bay) will be finished this August. Cable-laying at the moment.

 

[Alastairdent]

Scroby Sands looked great when going past in May. The channel is very close to the windfarm, you get a great view.

I thought it would be a nav aid - the turbines are all on nasty shallows where only a fool would go. However, there was an investigation into the affect on gps - I guess the towers could reflect a signal just like a tall building.

Does anyone know what was the outcome of the investigation?

 

[Peppermint]

Re: It only requires

a bit of engineering to make nuclear safe. Another bit to make the waste safe and about 10k years of PR to get the man in the street onside.

Logic tells me that the engineering problems are not difficult. The waste is just a concentrated problem. So the UK can go nuclear.

Trouble is that to effectivley "save the planet" we have to give nuclear to everyone.

 

[Sybarite]

Re: The future ...?

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3905763

John

 

[Sans Bateau]

Re: The future ...?

Three points

1. What effects do windfarms have on GPS radar etc in Holland

2. Why not stick 100's of them on that industrial wasteland on the A13 near Beckton, there are already 2 or 3 there.

3. I wonder if they had the same public outcries in the 1800 cent when the windmills went up

 

[Rowana]

Go fly a kite !

Gives a total new meaning to the Phrase /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif /forums/images/graemlins/tongue.gif

 

[ZuidWester]

Re: It only requires

Tidal power is still really experimental and limited to areas with strong currents, making costs excessive. Small hydropower is possible but is limited in capacity to supply the energy we demand. Solar PV is and will remain an expensive option and the UK, which is also at too high a latitude for PV to deliver.

Nuclear is not an option as nuclear waste is the most toxic substance known to man, we don't know how to get rid of it and also nuclear fuel will run out in the next forty years anyway.

That leaves biomass and wind. Biomass is also limited, although it should form part of the energy supply in some areas close to production.
Wind is the most economical and efficient method of producing climate friendly electricity in the UK and will remain so in the future. So we should use it. And that means offshore wind farms as the wind at sea is greater and more reliable.

Wind, coupled with massive improvements in energy efficiency offer our only hope, so lets address the issue of better integrating wind farms at sea into our seascape. Or would you rather we suffer black outs and then get flooded by rising seas due to climate change?

 

[AndrewB]

Passed right by the Kentish Flats site last weekend. Less developed than I was expecting by now, but all the bases are in so its possible to get an impression of what it will be like. Actually rather less intrusive than I originally feared. Although its bang on a short cut we often used (Horse Channel), it should be possible to get pass by without much difficulty. We were originally told that sailing between the turbines would be permitted, and they would be high enough out the water not to present a threat, but I don't know if that is still true.

 

[Peppermint]

Re:Blackouts

I'm not sure about your nuclear problems. Yes the waste is toxic as hell but so are a lot of things. As I say thats an engineering problem. A client of mine in the uranium supplying game thinks that fuel isn't likely to be in short supply anytime soon.

I think the problem is that wind isn't the answer. The real answer is as likely as not something that we don't use at all at the minute.

It could be a more local solution rather than a national network is the answer. That gives local areas the chance to use the best thing for them. The trouble is that nobodies going to fund small schemes.

A guy I sail with ran a four bedroom house on a mixture of wind, solar, an oilfired AGA for cooking and a diesel generator. His kids watched TV and used PS2, just like everyone else. He had submarine batteries to store energy and inverters. His oil/diesel costs most years were about £150 to £200. The house is on the mains now and energy costs are nearer to £800 p.a.

Nothing we're doing at the moment is the answer. It's just a stop gap until a new thing comes along. In ten tears we're going to be looking at these windfarms and thinking how outdated they are.

 

[AlexL]

Re:Blackouts

CHP is quite promising (combined heat and power) on a local scale. There is a development in london that has no central heating as the houses are highly energy efficient and the electricity and domestic hot water is generated locally (within the development) by burning surplass woodchip. There is a product for boats which does essentially the same (whispergen?). The main problem with electricity generation is the inefficiency of the distribution network (c 80% losses ISTR from my power electrics lectures at uni). Local generation, coupled with reliable renewables is the answer. Just as converting all our power stations to Gas was a bad idea, putting 100% of our renewable energy faith in wind is also a bad idea. The true answer, when it appears, like most will be a mish mash of allsorts. However the question needs to be worked out first! if the issue is CO2 then nuclear is a major part of the answer.

 

[peterb]

GPS, VHF and radar

No known effects on GPS or VHF, but major effects on radar. The only way to avoid the many false echoes is to turn the gain down to a point at which small craft (such as RNLI lifeboats) disappear. It's an MCA project, which I believe has just been published. Probably available on the web, but I don't have a URL.

CA have asked members to report on any adverse effects. They suggest that anyone finding serious problems should report them immediately to Holyhead Coastguard.