Lewis Wind Farm

[Nemesis]

Still, it's Lincs. Low grade agricultural land. And piddly little turbines.

 

[skier-hughes]

and if you can get the machinery there to make it, surely you can get machinery there to remove it?
We have the capabilities?

 

[Moo]

If my experience is anything to go by, concrete is much easier to put in than to take out.
Putting in a fence post only involved digging a hole and pouring the stuff in. Easy.
Removing the remains of a rotten post meant digging a huge hole and then trying to lift the solid lump out. Not so easy (and in my feeble case, impossible).

 

[skier-hughes]

I never said it was easy, adn take your point that it will be harder than making it, but I still think that it could be removed totally - look at Penners' 2nd car!!

 

[biffvernon]

it's Lincs. Low grade agricultural land.

Eh? That's an oxymoron.

 

[piper]

With the greatest respect, this discussion has become unreal. Theoretically, perhaps many hundreds of thousands of tons of solid (re-inforced?) concrete could be broken up and removed from the Lewis moorland (small tactical nuclear weapons would do the job quite nicely - the islanders don't matter, though it might frighten the birds too much), but to quote someone earlier in this thread, in the real world it's not going to happen. The M1 motorway is reversible in the same way. However - compared to a nuclear station, wind IS reversible. That really is a clinching argument.
Biff's dear little wind farm at the end of his lane is not remotely in the same league as Lewis though (and I'm not suggesting you think it is, Biff), so please let no-one think all wind turbines are like his pictures. We have similar nice little ones round here, and I quite like them, they quite nicely enhance the views of the Lake District fells in places - far better than Sellafield does. Developments like that in Lewis, Harris and the Uists would be quite reasonable.

Whatever intelligent life-form eventually evolves long after we have suffered our Permian-style extinction will have an interesting time developing a theory to explain many hundreds of vast circular, apparently artificial mineral masses, connected with thin strips of the same material, in an area with very few human fossilised remains. But strangely, and unlike many other remains of the same material elsewhere, they will not be radioactive. That's a comfort anyway.

I have spent far too much time reading and contributing to this thread, Thanks to all for the intelligent and stimulating debate. I think I will now have my last word on it. I still don't know the answer, apart from an emotional gut-reaction to what the proposed development could do to Lewis. I urge everybody here to read all the on-going reports, full details of the schemes, and arguments (on both sides) reported or linked to on http://www.mwtlewis.org.uk/ and not just to think "Global Warming Bad - Wind Farms Good". Perhaps go to Lewis as well, before it's too late, find out something of the history and culture of the place and the people. (I recommend "Children of the Blackhouse" by Calum Ferguson, Birlinn 2005). At the end of all this I just don't know. Perhaps we really will have to have the Lewis moorland - and eventually perhaps all the much more obviously beautiful parts of the Western Isles - covered with vast turbines. In the second world war, in proportion to the population, the casualty rate of men from the Western Isles was twenty times higher than the UK as a whole. Perhaps this is another sacrifice they will have to make for the rest of us. Perhaps on the other hand, it will bring work and prosperity, and industrialising that landscape will seem as necessary and inevitable as the other industrialised landscapes in Britain and elsewhere. And in reply to another earlier comment - I certainly don't think that the island and highland landscape has always been the same, or can or should always remain the same. That was at the root of my remark about how offensive the word "wilderness" always is, when used of the ruined and depopulated Scottish Highlands.
Given suitable winds, would the same scale of development be put all round Lincoln (for example) - dwarfing the cathedral? Will the nuclear power stations be built around London? No to both questions. Small populations where there is not much work can be relied upon not to protest if the carrot of economic development is offered - most people in West Cumbria support nuclear, as it provides work.
A serious question - in response to the challenge to come up with another scheme to provide the same output - how would a massively decentralised approach in the UK work? Could the same output be provided by very many smaller local generation facilities, of a variety of types depending on local conditions? The wave generator on Islay is a fine example of one which does not "desecrate" the landscape. Imagine that multiplied many times around the coast. Once again, I guess we are up against the reality of economics. Huge investment by large companies, concentrated in one place, is possible. Decentralising both funding and provision is not going to happen so easily.

 

[Nemesis]

I'm busy fighting something else elsewhere, and I hope it might have more effect than anything posted on PPUK will, so I don't any longer get terribly involved in the 'debates', other than to post information, because mostly it's pointless, but my view is that we have opened Pandora's box on the issue.

The government did not draw up any long term, strategic overarching plan of where to put these, and where not to put them. We have the emotive 'we are doomed so we need to put them anywhere' approach, although I suspect many of those who say this in theory won't want them in their backyards in reality either.

The issue was handed over to the private sector. Those willing to sell land did so, (and of those not all live near the land they flogged) those willing to make cash will do so, and b*gger the consequences. Thus consciences at government level were eased, and money was not put into developing alternatives.

Hard to put those back in the box and start again.


I don't want nuclear either.

But using less may ease the situation in some small way. That seems to be an unpalatable truth.

 

[biffvernon]

The government did not draw up any long term, strategic overarching plan of where to put these, and where not to put them. We have the emotive 'we are doomed so we need to put them anywhere' approach, although I suspect many of those who say this in theory won't want them in their backyards in reality either.

We don't have a command economy, which, on balance, is probably a good thing. In this sort of free-ish market economy, the most effective way of building renewable generating capacity right now is wind.

I take issue with your descriptor 'emotive'. 'Evidence-based' is more appropriate.

I for one welcome the "dear little wind farm at the end of my lane", but it's not so very little. It's Ecotricity's biggest so far and will provide enough power for the whole of the Lincolnshire marsh's population. It's been great watching the work. Being a German company doing the construction, they sensibly all had a month off over Christmas but they're back on site now. Yesterday there were eight, today there are nine. Wonderful.

The much larger windfarm being constructed just off our shore, but well within view of our beach-hut, will be exporting a lot of power to the rest of the nation.

They are just so beautiful.

 

[Nemesis]

I find them ugly, disturbing and distracting, beauty being in the eye of the beholder I guess.

 

[biffvernon]

I find nuclear power stations ugly and the thought of 7 million Chinese coal miners with a terrible safety record in their industry deeply disturbing.

 

[Nemesis]

Oh, so do I. I just wish we would have some national policy for where to put wind farms, instead of which it seems to have been left to 'market forces'. When there's cash to be made... I also wish we had given a great deal more cash to developing alternatives.

I also can't see what's wrong with being a tad more frugal with what we have, but maybe I'm simply mean.

Howver, I suspect globally me switching of lights is p*****g in the wind.

 

[Flyfisher]

But using less may ease the situation in some small way. That seems to be an unpalatable truth.

I suspect the unpalatable truth is that using less will only ease the problems in such a small way as to be effectively meaningless.

I also suspect that it's not a case of singling out places like the Western Isles for wind turbines (although the nature of the wind is clearly an important factor) - we're going to need them everywhere, i.e a distributed generating capacity as piper suggested.

Biff's got them at the end of his road, we've got a dozen or so just a few miles from us. I accept that beauty is in the eye of the beholder but, frankly, if windmills all over the place will keep the lights on then I'm all for it. Nothing NIMBY about that. My real concern is that windmills alone won't be enough - but that's another topic.

 

[piper]

They are just so beautiful.

I said I was having my last word - but I've been reading the http://www.mwtlewis.org.uk website.
Please everybody, especially Biff, read it, especially the page called "community", look at the picture galleries, and read about the political and profit aspects. Read the statistics on the impact of construction.
Offshore is fine, a view of turbines far out at sea from the Lewis cliffs probably would be even more beautiful than the view from Biff's beach hut. People on Lewis are generally in favour of smaller, community controlled wind generation. This is different. End of argument.

 

[biffvernon]

There's a similar discussion going on over at PowerSwitch

 

[Nemesis]

http://www.mwtlewis.org.uk/



[Open Image] [Hosted by PhotoGalaxy.com]



[Open Image] [Hosted by PhotoGalaxy.com]


http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~hills/cc/gallery/index.htm


I would like to think that the 'corridor' around Hadrian's Wall World Heritage Site would have some protection from this desecration. There are already small clusters of turbines in the area, but nothing on the scale planned.

http://www.persona.uk.com/tynedale/written_objections.htm

This is the church Martin Roberts refers to in his EH evidence:
http://www.chollerton-churches.org.uk/thockrington.asp

 

[Nemesis]

However:

http://www.persona.uk.com/tynedale/Gen_docs/X-17.pdf

Date today.

 

[Flyfisher]

Very nice photos Nemesis, but you forgot to include the one that shows the area as frozen tundra if the gulf stream shuts down because of climate change.

Change is going to happen and I doubt that we can stop it. We might be able to influence the nature of the change though. It would be ironic if the resistance to wind turbines resulted in even greater destruction of the environment.

 

[Nemesis]

I am aware of the possibilties. I am also aware of alternatives to siting these things anywhere businesses desire.

http://www.northumberland-cam.com/photo-of-the-week/2007/march-17-2007.htm

The photos are from the website to which I posted a link, they are not mine.

Maybe you have some points to make to piper?

 

[Flyfisher]

I didn't think they were your photos but the implication seemed to be that wind turbines are going to spoil the view without considering the other threats to the landscape.

We seem to be discussing this issue as if only one windfarm is needed whereas I suspect we're going to have to cover the entire country with them, and then it might not be enough.

Getting all concerned over the fact that landowners and business might make money out of such things seems, to me, to be missing the bigger picture.

 

[Schoolmarm]

We seem to be discussing this issue as if only one windfarm is needed whereas I suspect we're going to have to cover the entire country with them, and then it might not be enough

If this is correct then it is even more tragic.