terryW Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 For anyone contemplating a visit to beautiful mid Wales, then now is the time to do it before it's too late and it's turned into an industrial landscape. Extract from comments made by By Lord Thomas of Gresford - 9th November 2011 outlining the potentially "devastating" impact of wind farms on the countryside of Mid Wales and Shropshire. "The KPMG report, 'Thinking About the Affordable', published this week, says that government plans for wind farms are too expensive and should be shelved in favour of cheaper nuclear and gas-fired power stations. Wind farms do not operate to full capacity for most of the time, by reason of the laws of nature. Schemes have been proposed in Montgomeryshire for 800 turbines, each up to 600ft tall, violating the uplands. Since there are no connections to the National Grid, these schemes require a network of electricity pylons, all running to a 28-acre substation, itself linked by a chain of 154 feet tall mega-pylons across into Shropshire, to a connection at Telford, some 45 miles away. The impact on the people and the beautiful countryside of Mid Wales and Shropshire will be devastating. 800 of these structures in the area proposed is completely and wholly out of proportion. If localism means anything at all, the ruination of the hills should be taken by bodies accountable locally. The macro-economic alleged advantages are, as KPMG point out, a total illusion." Full version: http://www.epolitix.com/latestnews/article-detail/newsarticle/economic-advantages-of-wind-farms-a-total-illusion/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave225 Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 It is not just windfarms. A complete line of pyl;ons oand wires will traverse Scotland from north to south through some of the most scenic parts. Lost of protests but all overruled. The energy Company was reeatedlky asked to bury the lines at some of the most scenic bits, but no way as too expensive. The only possible 'laugh' we can have is Donald Trump bulldozed his way to built a golf course and lots of expensive houses on an area of natural scenic beauty, but is now complaining that an offshore windfarm will adversely affect his 'scenic beauty'. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Tracker Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 I don't mind what they build as long as the lights stay on and as long as it's mainly in Wales! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Colin Leake Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Personally I tend to be more in favour of Necular or moderm carbon capture coal fired power generation and reckon wind farms to be a very costly and inefficient way of generating power but I have no objection to wind farms with their futuristic and aesthetically pleasing windmills if that's what we are forced to have. Most of all I just want the lights to stay on what ever it takes. We will still be left with plenty of unspoiled wild countryside to enjoy. Windmills and power lines will only occupy a small fraction of the land available. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
art338 Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 Whatever anyone thinks we don't own the The British Isles, we are only here taking part for the duration of our lives and unless the breeding of humans and the import of all peoples' is stopped, many instalations of varying sorts will be built. art Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terryW Posted November 9, 2011 Author Share Posted November 9, 2011 Colin Leake - 2011-11-09 8:35 PM . Windmills and power lines will only occupy a small fraction of the land available. In this case not quite so. Our village already looks out on one windfarm in the proposed area and I have to say that the impact can be lived with particularly as the power cables are underground. What is now proposed is a further 800 turbines with 600 ft pylons taking the power away. It's the shear scale of this that takes the breath away. The other aspect is employment in the area, with little to no industry and one man farms the only other income for the area is tourism. Within a 6 miles radius there are 7 holiday parks open 10 months a year, not that you would know because they are all well hidden from view. The spending power of all these visitors could well be lost to the area when the views and walks are lost. A further problem is created by the huge concrete bases needed in the upland wet lands, these wet lands act as a giant sponge slowing the flow of water into the river Severn. If this is reduced further I feel very sorry for those with houses down river. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malc d Posted November 9, 2011 Share Posted November 9, 2011 I think the march of windfarms is inevitable, but would suggest that as most of the power is used in cities, that's where they should build most of the windfarms. It would save a fortune in cabling costs. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terryW Posted November 9, 2011 Author Share Posted November 9, 2011 It has been estimated that the subsidy provided to support windfarms is costing each of us £550. One newspaper has reported that our PM's farther-in-law is set to make £3.5 billion out of wind turbines A lot more about this on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/MontgomeryshireAP Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Living two miles from Ironbridge power station (coal fired small station with two 500 MW generators) and seeing and hearing it and its transport systems (up to 20 1000 Tonne coal trains a day inbound and a constant stream of 30 Tonne trucks carrying the ash out) on a near daily basis I would personally prefer to see wind farms. They are much less obtrusive both visually and aurally than traditional power stations. D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Newell Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Just to illustrate my point here's a photo of Ironbridge power station and a wind farm, which would you rather have? D. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terryW Posted November 10, 2011 Author Share Posted November 10, 2011 I don't have a problem with wind farms we already have one like the one illustrated and I walk my Grandchildren up the hill towards it. You can't actually get to the hill top as it is fenced off with warning signs on the danger of flying ice and lightening strikes. The real problem is the scale, if you take the picture of the wind farm shown and add a further 800 turbines on the same hills and then add the 600 ft pylons you start to see a different picture. The illustration is very much like what has been built in the past but not this time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
malc d Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 I'm not against windfarms themselves, I would much prefer this country to be independent of other countries for our power supplies. My concern is more about how many there are and where they are put up. I just can't help feeling that there is a giant 'con' going on. How many of them are just money making schemes by land owners ? :-( Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pepe63xnotuse Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 We do hear an awfull lot of NO..NO..NO...nowadays,don't we(...No to coal..No to nuclear..No to wind.??.) Where DO people expect power to come from in the future? (...Oh,I forgot..the gas pipeline from Russia..*-) ) I'm not for one minute saying that we should be bulldozing anciet woodland etc(..far from it,as I'm a bit of a "tree hugger" (lol) ).. but It's a good job we didn't have this, "..No..because I'll see it from my front window!?!.." appoach, during "olden times", otherwise we wouldn't have had any resevoirs,viaducts,railways...... ;-) Sorry,back onto the OP's topic..So I assume it too expensive for them to just bury the cables then?.... :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terryW Posted November 10, 2011 Author Share Posted November 10, 2011 pepe63 - 2011-11-10 9:04 AM Sorry,back onto the OP's topic..So I assume it too expensive for them to just bury the cables then?.... :-S They quote 10 times more expensive, other sources say 3 times. I suspect the true problem is that the developers have to pay to lay cables under ground while overground they are not responsible for the cost. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pepe63xnotuse Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Oh I see..well even if it is,say 5-6 times more expensive,surely once they are laid,that's it...? No need to fly the lines..or risk of ice bringing the lines down...etc They're only going to be laid once,so why not do it "right" to start with..... :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CliveH Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 I only caught a bit of the Panorama programme covering this - but from that and what I have read, it seems to me that whilst gas fired power stations are ugly, they are reliable given a good supply (Russia????) are able to provide consistent power to the grid. Wind farms are unreliable such that you need back up gas fired power stations or similar for when the wind does not blow 8-) Wind farms are also considerably more expensive than other energy sources But hey! - they may kill birds and be virtually useless for much of the year but they are "green" so that makes it all OK :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinhood Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Dave Newell - 2011-11-10 8:14 AM Just to illustrate my point here's a photo of Ironbridge power station and a wind farm, which would you rather have? D. ....well, given that the average maximum output from a wind turbine seems to somewhat less than 5MW, you'd have to magnify the effect of the second picture by a factor of at least 30 to get equivalence. Unfortunately, as wind-power is notoriously fickle, you'd also have to keep the traditional power station to cover for the interim shortfall (or alternatively cover most of Wales and Scotland with pump-storage schemes ;-) ). Neither would you be able to make huge savings, since your traditional coal-fired power station can't simply be turned on at the touch of a switch, but needs to be operating at least on standby most of the time (gas-turbine is a bit more responsive). Much though it pains me to say it, I think nuclear is currently the only viable option to protect the future - though on safety grounds, clean coal research would be something this country ought to find very attractive (both from a point of view of our latent reserves of fuel, and for export opportunities now the world's bigger economies are looking twice at nuclear). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave225 Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 "Unfortunately, as wind-power is notoriously fickle, you'd also have to keep the traditional power station to cover for the interim shortfall (or alternatively cover most of Wales and Scotland with pump-storage schemes ). " What do you mean Wales and Scotland. Personally I feel the best thing to do is cover the whole of the Southern England Yeh! Yeh! A bunch right in the middle of London for starters and work outwards Bet that would produce a lot of murders in Midsomer. It is ironic that we in Scotland had, and still have significant quantities of oil and gas, huge reserves of coal, Hydro electric schemes that when introduced in the 60's were designed to provide 100% of Scotalnd's needs and now.........we have the highest prices in Europe. We have wind farms up here but..........they don't work in wind. Or at least anyhting over a gentle breeze, of which we have a lot. When they are shut down which is over 60% of the time, what then Sherlock??? Anyone got a match and bit of wood?? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinhood Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Dave225 - 2011-11-10 5:23 PM "Unfortunately, as wind-power is notoriously fickle, you'd also have to keep the traditional power station to cover for the interim shortfall (or alternatively cover most of Wales and Scotland with pump-storage schemes ). " What do you mean Wales and Scotland. Personally I feel the best thing to do is cover the whole of the Southern England Yeh! Yeh! A bunch right in the middle of London for starters and work outwards Bet that would produce a lot of murders in Midsomer. ...well personally, I've not got much against the Celtic Fringe (apart from the fact that being there does seem to have a deleterious effect on some of the posters on this site B-) ); the problem with pumped storage schemes, however, is that they require big, big, hills, and lots of water. That's why Cruachan and Dinorwig exist, and Wales and Scotland are the prime suspects. So, a growing industry coming to a hill near you.......soon! :D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Collings Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and the majority of wind turbines to my mind are not ugly. The latest designs of pylons fall into the same category. I do appreciate the beauty of the great outdoors but the attitude of some objectors seems very extreme. In any case wind power is the totally wrong answer and and almost total con. The worse case scenario for the Uk is to have a major area of high pressure sat on us in mid winter. Clear skies and light or no wind minimise output while very low temperatures give maximum energy demand. The lights and most everything else will go out unless there are billions of pounds worth of back up generating capacity. Wave energy is slightly better but still unpredictable for much more than three to five days ahead. Tidal power is at least predictable. Most of the technology can be adapted from the shipbuilding and oil industry. It does not take much imagination to devise ways of meeting conservation concerns. Cages could keep whales etc away and my guess is the smaller marine mammels are bright enough to work out the damgers for themselves. A 20m diameter tidal turbine only needs about 60m depth of water to get it down out of the way of shipping. Unlike the wind most tidal flowis only in two directions. Compared with the offshore oil its ought to be a doddle. They might be dearer to install in the first place but deep enough to avoid waves unlike wind power there is little danger of an extreme storm wrecking a significant chunk of capacity. The trouble with electricity is is difficult to store in quantity but there are already examples where excess nuclear generating capacity at night is used to pump water up to reservoirs from where it can be runthrough turbines to meet daytime demand. I doubt renewable energy will ever be the total answer for the UK but fresh research seems to be tackling ways of using existing coal reserves in a hopefully less damaging way. Meawhile does anyone know where I can find a cheap sheepskin overcoat t. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
terryW Posted November 10, 2011 Author Share Posted November 10, 2011 George Collings - 2011-11-10 5:50 PM Meawhile does anyone know where I can find a cheap sheepskin overcoat t. At the moment there are seven wondering around in the field at the bottom of my garden (lol) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
George Collings Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Keep them talking. I will get my coat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Robinhood Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 George Collings - 2011-11-10 7:34 PM Keep them talking. I will get my coat. .....if you're off to Wales to chase sheep, you'd better make sure no-one misinterprets your intentions. :-S Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
art338 Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Stretch a series of wave generators between Wales and Ireland, that should solve everything. art Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest pelmetman Posted November 10, 2011 Share Posted November 10, 2011 Seems to me these wonderful wind generating oikes are missing the point*-).................Most of the power goes to the cities........they have very tall buildings, stick a wind turbine on top of each one and power them selves;-)................ or am I being simple again?:D Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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