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micmacmoc 288 posts |
May 02, 2006, 20:14
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theres a lot of anti wind farm people down west here...I assume we are not alone in the nimby attitude. Perhaps I'm wrong in thinking they are good for us all? Despite my best attempts to get a reasonable argument from the nimbys they seem to be anti-blair/labour or just mis-informed? One of the sites even ended up being a david irving platform! I am not particularly well informed, so please help! My favourite is a sign near Constantine (mid-west cornwall, good whisky shop in the village though) which reads 'No Monster Wind Farms!' ...........I'm just dying to get the bottle up to paint out the 'wind' bit!!
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anthonyqkiernan 7087 posts |
May 02, 2006, 20:35
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Yeah, but then what would they do with all that monster wind? I like them. Aesthetically (which seems most important to these people) as well as ideologically. I'll leave the relevant arguments to the many that know more about it here. But, that doesn't help you much with your neighbours.
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tucker lyons 93 posts |
May 02, 2006, 20:40
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i saw a sign on the big slopey road leading down to kirkby stephen from scotch corner that says 'Madness' thats all it says. a big red sign with white letters i just took it to be a sign of it the one problem i see with wind farms is that if they put TOO many up, is there a possibility we could take off and bollocks up the lineage of the solar system? tucker
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micmacmoc 288 posts |
May 02, 2006, 20:59
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to quote mr.brock: take a wild endless trip on mother nature's rocket ship or sumat like that. whats this mean tucker: 'Oidche Bha' its a vatersay boys song seriously tho' wheres the ammo for fighting the brain dead antis?
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tucker lyons 93 posts |
May 02, 2006, 21:10
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as thats scots gaelic i am assuming that its their version of Oíche Mhaith...which simply means 'Goodnight' - Oíche meaning night and maith (or mhaith in the adjective sense) meaning good. so roughly it actually does translate as nightgood but celts were a funny lot..they wore skirts tucker
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
May 02, 2006, 23:36
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> > seriously tho' wheres the ammo for fighting > the brain dead antis? > Well that depends very much on exactly *why* they are anti-windfarm. Most of the arguments I've heard boil down to "Well, I don't like the look of them" and there's really nothing you can say to that. I always point out that precisely the same objections were made with regards to electricity pylons, and very few people seem to even notice them anymore, let alone object to them. And aesthetically speaking, I personally really like both windfarms and power pylons which I guess puts me in a minority. But ultimately if someone is saying: __Don't build a windfarm there because it'll "spoil my view"__ then there's just no 'ammo' for fighting that. There are bad sites for windfarms (from an ecological standpoint) with at least one instance of a peat bog being drained in order to build a windfarm (a mind-numbingly weird decision for all sorts of reasons). And each potential site should be evaluated on those grounds. Whether or not you take into account the desire of the local people "not to look at them" is ultimately a political policy decision. Me? I say "screw 'em". We want windfarms!
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Bonzo the Cat 138 posts |
May 03, 2006, 07:53
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Much as I am green, wind farms are indeed no pretty sight, and while that may be no strong argument, it seems equally bizarre to argue that because the planet has been already littered with electricity pylons, we might just as well litter it some more. The truth is, wind farms are ridiculously inefficient, and the only viable solution currently still is nuclear energy. You're going to stone me right here, but instead of just not hearing, read on. Nuclear has waste (little, but extremely contaminated), but in terms of greengases its outlet is nil. Even if we'd build wind farms all along the coast, this would make up for a futile amount of nuclear energy daily consumed. I mean, here in Belgium they want to step out of nuclear energy. What to replace it with? Beer gas? They'll probably do like Italy: refuse nuclear plants on their own territory, but get most of their energy from France, a country that does get the bulk of its energy from nuclear power. True, it dumps its waste far away from its unspoilt countryside, but in the end the real consequences are minimal compared to other non-renewable sources - if you look at Britain (or elsewhere), there's still a lower life expectancy in once-, and still-industrialised areas, nOt due to nuclear energy. Now nuclear energy sucks MAjor ass, obviously, as it's non-renewable, produces waste, and hence is devoid of any long-term thinking. But in the meanwhile the truth is that, as wind farms are inefficient, dams are ecological disasters, solar energy wildly expensive and no-no for northern countries, the only obvious solution is use of tidal currents, but the development of that is still far off. In the meanwhile, it is testimony to an equal amount of short-term thinking to already go ahead and litter the planet with inefficient windfarms you *know* will *never* make up for any significant part of non-renewable energy. And we need to reduce these greenhouse gases NOW. Biodiversity is about to implode. And windfarms will do NOthing to stop that from happening. They only keep your conscience clean: "ah look at that, we're willing to spoil our coast and countryside to save the planet, aren't we righteous dudes!" Well, talking about conscience, the core of the problem is, we're consuming way too much energy. Too much for there to be a viable (ecological and economical) alternative to nuclear power, and should we want to abandon that, as a result people will turn to on energy sources that are even less clean. Although, with peak oil selling now, this would just mean the financial end of the line for most families. Now there will be a lot of people saying that they could do with less energy, but in the end they're just underestimating what they consume. I mean, Sunn0))) would be no more... The thing is that, due to unpopularity of nuclear energy, aided by minor an major disasters, the research on it - how to reduce waste, how to improve safety, etc. - has been put way back. Currently, as a result, the top technology on nuclear energy is located in China (where they're currently working on some hydrogen-based form, called pebble-bed reactors http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.09/china.html), while here in the west we're struggling with peak oil, fighting wars over oil... sad, really. Now, I am highly suspicious of these ecolo.org dudes. In fact, I'm suspicious of anyone being so unequivocally pro, minimizing risks and waste, and trying to make us forget entirely about the core idea: renewable energy. But still it's not entirely a bad read: http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/Nuclear_lifeline_en.pdf If anyone can correct me on this view on windfarms, pleas do so immediately. The idea is to keep my info updated :-) -arf
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micmacmoc 288 posts |
May 03, 2006, 08:53
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thanks all, wow bonzo....takes some doing to argue the nuclear energy side these days! Its potential seems only to be matched by its risks. Thats the shortest way I can put it! Oh tucker....'they wear skirts'....says the man wearing a tea towel (and its false) oidche bha! thanks for the links too, better informed, ta moc meva
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Bonzo the Cat 138 posts |
Edited May 03, 2006, 09:16
May 03, 2006, 09:12
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>Its potential seems only to be matched by its risks. Indeed, but the thing is, with nuclear we're still talking about risks, while with other non-renewables, we're always talking about certain damage (despite the enormity of Chernobyl or other leakage sites, overall the actual damage is minor). You've got to pit the non-renewables against each other, as currently it's clear that no non-renewable will be able to take over, at least not to a degree that would justify either its cost or its aesthetical damage. And, if hypothetically speaking wind farms could ever become viable (which I think they won't and can't), that point is so far in the future that ecological meltdown will be not only under way (which it is now), but over. Letting this happen while there is an alternative technology staring us in the face is an atrocity. The only really HUGE risk of going for nuclear, is that research on renewables will suffer the same fate as reserach on nuclear has... and thàt would be short-sighted. For the furure is either in less dependency on energy or renewable sources. And since the first won't happen... -arf
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grufty jim 1978 posts |
Edited May 03, 2006, 12:42
May 03, 2006, 12:40
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Bonzo, nuclear energy is a non-starter unless you can tell me where we get the uranium from. According to the Australian government (who possess the largest reserves of uranium ore) there's less than 50 years of the stuff left at current consumption rates. As for "hydrogen" based stations... where do you get the hydrogen from? 98% of the world's hydrogen is produced using a technique called "steam methane reformation". The word "methane" gives it away somewhat... it's a product of natural gas. It makes percisely zero sense to convert natural gas into hydrogen (incurring energy losses) and then using the hydrogen to generate electricity; given that you can use the natural gas to produce electricity directly. The reason we face an energy crisis is because we are reaching a point where demand for fossil fuels (oil and gas) is outstripping supply. The decision to go nuclear involves switching to another resource which is rapidly depleting. The decision to convert to hydrogen is merely a decision to use our remaining fossil fuels in a less efficient way. Neither seem like sensible suggestions to me. As for wind-farms... it's certainly true that they are inefficient, but they are energy-positive and they are renewable. According to the IWEA (Irish Wind Energy Association) in a report called "Geographical dispersal of wind power output", the total output of Irish windfarms never falls below 60% of rated output (with farms in Donegal taking up the slack on calm days in Cork and vice versa). This simulation was based upon a data-set containing ten years of wind-speed and direction information. The full report (PDF) can be accessed here: http://www.iwea.com/publications/Ecofys2.pdf Wind power is the fastest growing method of electricity generation in the United States. Sweden currently generates over 25% of its electricity using a combination of wind and tidal power (mostly wind) with Norway quickly gaining ground. If a modern western government like Sweden (paricularly one with a harsh climate) can generate more than a quarter of its power using the wind and tide (and plan to have 100% of the grid supplied from these sources by 2020) then there's clearly no engineering problem involved... merely a political one.
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