Worlds largest windfarm off Lowestoft!!

[lyc]

Lunchtime news today - Windfarm's £2bn contract signed

The world's largest offshore windfarm is to be built off the Suffolk coast in a contract worth almost £2bn.

The Greater Gabbard scheme, to be sited 23km (12 miles) off the coast, will have the potential to supply power to 415,000 homes, the government said.

Power from the 140 turbines would help cut carbon dioxide emissions by 1.5m tonnes a year - equivalent to taking 350,000 cars off the road.

The windfarm will be placed close to two shallow sandbanks - the Inner Gabbard and the Galloper.

 

[Phoenix of Hamble]

Oh Goody.... that'll make the Oostende trip a bit more scenic!

 

[johnalison]

And how long do these things have to operate for to repay the energy cost of building them? I believe they can only be expected to give about a third of their rated output.

 

[Habebty]

Personally I think the whole windfarm thing is almost total bollox. Looking at the Scroby Sands windfarm most days, more than half of the windmills seem to be not turning - therefore not effective.
Does anyone know the lifespan of a marine windmill (15-20 years?)
How can they possibly be cost effective enough to recover the building and ongoing maintenance costs.
I would love to see some (factual) figures on the economics of these things.
As for the visual impact, I think a small number or the odd one like at say Lowestoft or Swaffham can be attractive. But to fill the Thames Estuary and the Norfolk Suffolk coast or every windswept hilltop, fell, and moor is not the way to preserve a beautiful coastline/country.

To be honest I don't think we have a way to generate power without further shagging the planet from radioactive waste or other man made pollutants, so we might as well build more coal fired powerstations and invest the money spent on windfarms in scrubber technology for removing sulphur dioxide and possibly even CO2 to keep the carbon footprint idiots happy. (I am all for protecting trees, the "environment" and our biosphere but not in a phoney political way).
The best way we could help the planet recover would be be to make plastic packaging almost illegal in supermarkets and anywhere else for that matter.
You are probably ingesting plastic in fish and meat now, as it is not the bottles and cotton bud sticks you see on the beach you should be worried about, but the ones that were on the beach and are now ground down to dust size and at the bottom of the food chain. And no, not all plastic is inert stuff that just sits there harmlessly.
If you see the book "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman read it, very scary in a fascinating way.
Having read it, I would be more worried about radioactive, agro-chemical, and petro-chemical pollution than I would be about CO2.
Still, thats politics for you.

I'm off sailing in my plastic boat with plastic sails past the container ships full of cheap crap from China to fill the shelves of B&Q and homebase with more garden furniture and shoddy barbeques etc.

Perhaps the best option is to say sod-it, lets enjoy ourselves and go out with a bang. /forums/images/graemlins/shocked.gif

Thats it....finished now.....can I have my medication???
/forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[bastonjock]

it might also provide somewhere to hide from heavy weather,sit at anchor in the lee of the storm,it will also give fish a place to hide from the mechanised fishing boats,25 years ago during june/july the rigs would be teaming with cod,great big woppers,there were so many that you sometimes had to push them out of the way(used to be a rig diver),these days there are very few fish left.

they will also provide employment,in an area that needs it,as for the wind farms themselves,i question as to why they cannot manufacture some sort of hydro-electric turbine that uses the tide,that way if you have the windmill on top,you would be generating from two sources.

and i agree with the statement about plastic bags and bottles,i remember the days when i would scrounge around for old lemonade bottles so that i could claim the threepence back and buy my self some toffie /forums/images/graemlins/ooo.gif

so why cant we go back to glass bottles? the plastic ones are useless in a pub fight /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif