Lewis Wind Farm

[Johneds]

Wind turbine techonology has developed rapidly over the last 15 years and in another 10 to 15 years might be able to produce useful electricity at a reasonable efficiency. The question is, will there be any good sites left by then?

In the shorter term it would be more efficient to provide real money subsidy for individual solar generation and local wood powered stations. Research and development in hydro generation must also continue because this is where the real possibilities are.

 

[Moo]

I caught part of an interesting programme on Radio 4 the other day about solar energy. They were in Egypt, where a huge enterprise is being built that will provide electricity for a sizeable town, I believe.

Did anyone hear it in its entirety?

 

[biffvernon]

You can listen again from http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/costingtheearth.shtml

If we do make it through the next decade without the mother of all economic recessions, then I would expect to see solar power, both photovoltaic and concentrated thermal steam generation, from southern Europe and North Africa, supplying a large part of European electricity. We need to build a high voltage direct current(HVDC) grid, to make long distance transmission losses negligible, stretching from Iceland to Morocco.

Britain's windy, wavy, tidey position should ensure that the UK is a net energy exporter and the interconnects will ensure grid stability in all conditions.

Transport will be dominated by electric plug-in vehicles.

Unfortunately, while we still have energy ministers like Malcolm Wickes (as featured on the radio programme) intent of burning coal and uranium we will all be off to Hell in a handcart.

For those interested in watching a 58 minute film of a lecture on Anthropogenic Global Warming take a look at this:

http://www.uctv.tv/search-details.asp?showID=13459

Naomi Oreskes is American but took her first degree in geology at London's Imperial College. She is now Professor of History and Science Studies at the University of California San Diego.

The lecture first looks at the history of our understanding of climate change, from the 19th century work of Tyndall and Arrhenius, through the 20th century. She shows how the science was established in the 1950s and 60s and accepted by leading politicians but then she goes on to show how doubt was cast by precisely the same people and organizations involved in covering up the health problems of tobacco, and the political motivations of these people.

 

[Nemesis]

how doubt was cast by precisely the same people and organizations involved in covering up the health problems of tobacco, and the political motivations of these people.

But but but ... when I said that not so long ago I was sorta vilified... you don't mean there might have been some truth in it?


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That at times people have vested interests? That scientists are at times paid by multi zillion pound corporations and are not entirely neutral? That smoking was, after all, bad for the health?

It's not only the green lobby (not sure at all what vested interest the green lobby has, but I have no doubt the usual suspects will now leap up and tell us)?

Right.


Never mind. Here's that nice Mr Bush:

http://thinkprogress.org/2006/06/26/bush-debate-climate/

 

[Flyfisher]

What's the informed view on this research Biff?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/7231372.stm

 

[middi]

Nothing is more dpressing than that b***dy monkey smoking.

I felt so humiliated and depressed. (I had to go outside for a fag !!!).

 

[Nemesis]

Drinking is so much more sociable (at least until you fall over and become incoherent). I had hoped that monkey would have scared you off the evil weed but...

Never mind. Here are a few chuckles about global warming:

http://www.extremeskins.com/forums/showthread.php?t=187217

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/44676

 

[Flyfisher]

Nothing is more dpressing than that b***dy monkey smoking.

Beagles are worse.

 

[biffvernon]

What's the informed view on this research Biff?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wales/mid/7231372.stm

Well, all the ice eventually ends up in the sea. The concern is whether it goes there faster than it builds up. Here's the press release from the National Snow and Ice Data Centre (NSIDC):

A new study co-authored by NSIDC Research Scientist Ted Scambos and published in Volume 54 of the Journal of Glaciology sheds light on the 2002 collapse of a massive Antarctic ice shelf.

Lead Author Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University in the United Kingdom said, “Ice shelf collapse is not as simple as we first thought. Because large amounts of meltwater appeared on the ice shelf just before it collapsed, we had always assumed that air temperature increases were to blame." The study identified additional factors leading to the demise of the ice shelf.

Researchers found that rifts on the ice shelf had been growing for up to two decades before the sudden event of the summer of 2002. The indications are that the ice shelf was stressed as glacier flow began to increase over the 1990s.

Scambos said, “It's likely that melting from higher ocean temperatures, or even a gradual decline in the ice mass of the Peninsula over the centuries, was pushing the Larsen to the brink.”

Scambos pointed to studies that have measured warming of deep Southern Ocean currents, which increasingly brush against the Antarctic coastline. "This led to some thinning of the shelf, making it easier to break apart," he noted. "The unusually warm summer of 2002, part of a multi-decade trend of warming clearly tied to climate change, was the final straw," Scambos said.

Scambos added, "Knowing how these complex, large events work together helps us understand the potential for the collapse of another major ice shelf, such as the Larsen C."

 

[Flyfisher]

Yes, I agree the end result is the same but this work seems to be suggesting that the melting is centuries old, the inference being that it is not due to human activity. Or, we might have speeded things up a bit in the last 50 years but it was going to happen anyway - which makes some sense given the wide range of known temperature changes that had no human involvement at all. Last ice-age for example?

 

[biffvernon]

No, that's a false inference. All glaciers flow down to where they eventually melt and the big ice shelves do likewise. Larsen B was ultimately doomed, though the speed of its demise was a surprise and this paper does not suggest that this speed was not linked to AGW.

Latest news from the Antartic reveals increased snow accumulation on the Antartic Peninsular and increased sea ice, both phenomena compatible with the models as global warming leads to more precipitation (it's far too cold for rain) in this region.

 

[Nemesis]

Letter today in Scotsman:

http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/letters/Our-precious-commodity.3773181.jp

Our precious commodity

We add our support to all who believe that the government should not approve the proposed Lewis Wind Power development (Letters, 8 February). The impact of such a development on landscape, wildlife and community interests would not be justified.

We believe it is time for the Scottish government to address some fundamental questions over Scotland's energy strategy. There are increasing doubts as to whether further large scale windfarm projects should be approved before such a national energy strategy has been produced – given the extent of existing approvals and the increasing difficulty of accommodating further massive turbines within the Scottish landscape. That landscape is a resource of outstanding value to outdoor recreation, tourism and the wider economy.

Few people realise how many windfarm projects have already been approved but have not yet appeared in our landscape. For example three separate projects are going ahead in the Ochils, the hill range between Stirling and Perth. When completed 43 turbines, all over 100 metres tall will appear across 12 miles of these hills. Across Scotland as a whole 770 turbines are now operating with a further 918 approved. So existing approvals mean that our landscape already has to accommodate at least double the number of turbines already on the hills. Scotland has already met its 2010 target for electricity generation from renewables and is 66 per cent of the way to the 2020 target of 50 per cent of electricity coming from renewable sources.

The government has time to pause, before granting any more windfarm approvals, to ask whether it simply wants to carry on the policies of previous governments, or whether it wants to demonstrate a better way forward for wind energy development.

New criteria, set by the government, are needed to define the type of landscape within which modern turbines can be accommodated, along with height limits. We cannot depend on simply excluding such large industrial structures from the areas designated for their wildlife and landscape value and their surrounding mountains and moorlands. A new approach is needed in which a world-class energy policy has due regard for a world class landscape, throughout Scotland.

DICK BALHARRY

Chairman, John Muir Trust

PETER BICKMORE-DUNDAS

Vice-convener, Association for the Protection of Rural Scotland

DENNIS CANAVAN

President, Ramblers Scotland

ALISTAIR CANT

Convener, Scottish Wild Land Group

CHRIS TOWNSEND

President, Mountaineering Council of Scotland

 

[Flyfisher]

There was a programme on Radio 4 recently (sorry, can't remember the title) about Eigg finally getting mains power after a £1.6m investment in a combined hydro, wind and PV and diesel-backup generation and distribution system.

It supplies 100 people and 71 properties and people are limited in the amount of power they can use. The radio programme mentioned a maximum of 5kW meaning that people cannot run a washing machine and boil a kettle at the same time.

While this is a great step forward for the people of Eigg it would represent an incredible rationing of power to most households and businesses in the UK. And yet, to scale up such a meagre renewable system for the whole of the UK (assuming it's even possible) would require a phenomenal investment and building programme.

One turbine between 100 people means 550,000 wind turbines around the country, and that's completely ignoring the power-hungry demands of big business, noticeably absent on Eigg.

I don't know about UK household electricity consumption but we use about 25-30kWh per day averaged over a year. An Eigg-type renewable system would therefore supply only about 20% of our current consumption.

It's quite an interesting exercise to think about how to reduce household electricity consumption by 80% and where to build half a million wind turbines without spoiling the view.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7220610.stm