wind power

[Hugh Spencer]

One of the greatest scams of our age.
Wind turbines ludicrously inefficient.
Save less than one jumbo jet flying to USA every day.
Heavy price we are paying over the past two decades.
The government want us to spend £100 billion to build 10,000 more turbines plus £40 billion to connect to the grid.

[Hugh Spencer]

Very few of us have access to all the figures without others help. Christopher Booker has been writing about wind farms for 9 years so, I think, we can assume he knows a lot about them. We need more independent scientists who are given the opportunity to publicise their findings without prejudice against them.

[chakka35]

So-called renewable sources of power (of which shore-based windmills are pretty useless and off-shore versions unreliable) are predicted to supply about 30% of our energy needs, which means that 70% must come from power stations.

In powering them we have the choice between fossil fuels (which are environmentally damaging and will need to come increasingly from other countries) and nuclear power.

I haven't the slightest doubt that nuclear is the only viable answer available from modern technology and we will become more and more sorry that we did not start building nuclear stations a decade or two ago, instead of fooling about with silly windmills.

[Khandro]

"Predicted to supply about 30% of our energy needs", - I can't image what the British Isles would look like to achieve this. Germany, particularly in the north, Schleswig-Holstein and Baltic areas are covered in these things. There is a total of 21,000 plus, of them, and they altogether are producing only 6.5% of the country's power requirement. So in this case, to benefit from a 30% contribution, over 100,000 units would be needed - unthinkable!

[Davethedog]

I write from no standpoint at all but can I ask the following:

1) Isn't this a fledgling industry that will improve over time? i.e if all those people hadn't bought the Spectrum 48's and Commodore 64's would we have 1tb hard drives today?

2) Given that fossil fuels are going to finish sooner or later, would you trust so much nuclear power in the hands of so many?

[Davethedog]

It may have been used for years but isn't the pressing need driving the technology forward?

[jomifl]

Hi Khandro, I didn't say the financial cost of installing a wind tubine was £1.5million, I said that a 1.5 megawatt wind turbine was £1.5 million, Installation cost and infrastructure would be extra and depend on the location. The costings I gave are fairly accurate, you could quibble over the load factor and the price per unit but it wouldn't make a huge difference. I suspect that megawatt for megawatt and considering all factors nuclear and wind cost the same when the nuclear stations are not subsidised by the nuclear weapons industry. I am not averse to Nuclear power as I have worked on nuclear power stations intermittently most of my working life and have found them to be a darn sight cleaner than coal fired power stations.

[ixion]

The future has to be a mix of different energy sources including windfarms(on land and off-shore)tidal,solar, wave power, and geothermic as well as nuclear from existing power stations.
Nuclear isn't cheap and suffers from the seemingly insurmountable problem of waste that can never be safely dealt with.

[Davethedog]

I appreciate that but the technology will change. Look at it from a different standpoint if it was the only game in town youd take it.

In terms of the global order it might be part of this whole "global warming" conspiracy but as a stand alone is it not a way forward.

[jomifl]

Regulo.. Your point about when the wind doesn't blow is a valid one. However that is partly taken into account by the power factor (ie. actual power generated as compared with potential) Also the wind will be blowing somewhere, hopefully where ther are wind generators. Hydro and pumped storage schemes would be necessary to make up a shortfall as well as nuclear and geothermal.There doesn't seem to be a one source solution to our power requirements.

[jomifl]

237sj.. Wind turbine noisy..? I've worked on them and they ain't. When the wind doesn't blow they are silent and when it does blow all you can hear is the wind. I have stood under the rotating blades and all you can hear is a quiet swish as they pass over your head.

[jomifl]

Scotman.. So you would prefer your power from a convential power station? would you mind if it replaced the wind turbines on the hillside. Most conventional power stations are a blot on the landscape and a lot nearer peoples homes than wind turbines, I know I used to live next to one. I hope you enjoyed the electricity that it supplied to you .