not to want 40% of my county covered in windfarms and 150ft pylons????

[ohanotherone]

I thought windfarms were okay until I realised that 40% of upland Powys will be covered in 600- 800 turbines the size of the London Eye and that a spider web of massive electricity pylons some 150ft high will be put through valleys to connect with the national grid in Shropshire.

Then I though, ahh but we need electricity from renewable sources don't we??? But then find out that the windfarms are only 20% efficient and that the entire lot will produce 11% of the output of ONE coal fired power station WHEN THE WIND IS BLOWING!!!!

On the coldest days of winter, the wind doesn't blow and so we need to have conventional power stations ANYWAY!!!

They will need thousands of tons of concrete pouring into the hills to site these things and make new roads to the sites which will destroy peat bogs and natural habitats and actually the result will increased flooding.

Not to mention the Red Kites (were rare now increasing in numbers, bats (protected) curlews (protected) and buzzards??

Then our electricity bills will increase because all of this costs more AND we pay subsidy to the wind farm developers aswell because without the subsidy they wouldn't bother doing it????

Has the world gone mad?????? [buangry]

I'm just ranting now.....www.facebook.com/#!/MontgomeryshireAP

You own the country?! Wow, how exciting!

YANBU. These eyesores are being foisted upon us, and we should not accept them lightly. Make it absolutely plain to your local councillors that their votes on windfarms will swing your vote on them.

So you thought windfarms were okay until you realised one might be built near you? Jesus wept!

I completely agree with you, ohanotherone.

I could rant on for hours about wind turbines and how useless, expensive and ugly they are.
Our community fought a long and bitter battle to stop these going up but we were over ruled by the scottish government.

The local road has been blocked off for months while the parts are lorried in. It has led to a huge loss in business (plus a very near miss involving a school bus full of children).

They are supposed to be environmentally friendly or something but tons of concrete, new roads over virgin ground, hundreds of lorries travelling up B class roads, the ruination of the water table........It is all a huge con.

Ooh look, it's a NIMBY :)

We have to get energy from somewhere y'know.

This is not NIMBYism, these huge structures are affecting local income in many ways as well as messing with our water supplies.

The winners are the wealthy landowners and energy companies.

(by which I mean, I know they're not perfect but we have to do SOMETHING about renewable energy)

Offshore windfarms are preferable though imo

I totally agree with the OP and Gentleotter.

It is a lousy source of power, completely inefficient.

I would protest wildly if there were any proposed in this area. And it is not nimbyism, I couldn't care less about noise, I live with the west coast mainline at the bottom of the garden. But wind farms are a completely crud idea, and the idea that protests against them are by NIMBYs/stupid people against green prinicples is completely insulting.

Why are they crud though? What are the alternatives? (genuine question I'm not being arsey)

Nuclear power stations are the only feasible answer.

Complaining about the efficiency is a bit of a red herring to be honest. It just means that only 11% of the wind that goes through them is converted to electricity, just as with a coal fired power station only about 30% of the energy in coal is converted to electricity.

Winners in this scenario are also the people who use lots of electricity, i.e. everyday consumers. We need to reduce our reliance on fossil fuels but very few seem to want to make the sacrafice of reducing consumption even when it will save them money and actually not reduce the level of electricity services they receive (people who are too lazy to switch things off standby I'm looking at you).

They are ugly and not particularly efficient - we have them near us too.
But - we need to generate energy somehow and all renewable sources have a trade-off too whether it's wave, wind, solar, hydro-electric, biofuel or whatever.
I'm not sure what the answer is apart from "a little bit of everything" and we sure as heck need to be doing something because oil only has about 100-200 years left and coal about 50 years if memory serves correctly.

It doesn't help that we have such a high consumption rate of energy either because for every household that saves energy when they can, that will be offset by those who are wasteful.

Bet you still want to have all the benefits of electricty, etc. though.

Nuclear power stations are the only way forward. You can have something 'friendly' or something that works. Not really a choice.

Aside from the drawbacks already mentioned (not least that you have to have the conventional power stations anyway for when the wind is not blowing) what about maintenance?

I couldn't find anything about maintenance before when I looked. Everyone seems to talk as though you put up a turbine and it stays there forever.

Do they work for decades without help or will there be people working on these structures day and night (floodlights perhaps?) to keep them going? Will there be a constant flow of heavy equipment through the streets? What about long term environmental costs of the maintenance. Will we hear perhaps that only a percentage are in working order at any given time so the efficiency is even lower.

Where will the metal and other materials come from to build/maintain them. Has that cost in monetary terms and in cost to the environment been factored in or conveniently forgotten?

princessparty - Nuclear power isn't something I want to see burgeoning in the UK. Yes, it may be efficient but try asking the Japanese or Russians how they feel about it at the moment.

Knew someone would mention the Japanese, but ask them what their plans are and I think you will hear that they will build more nuclear plants. It's less ideal in an earthquake zone, but they won't want to go back to the dark ages.

Scotland has enough hydro electricity generating power to supply not only all of Scotland but the excess is exported to England and France.

If you look carefully at the financiers and ultimate beneficiaries from the profits from wind generated electricity, you will find American multinationals as the profiteers.

Out of interest, do cities like London, Birmingham etc have wind farms near them?

But onagar I do worry about Nuclear power generation - until they can be 100% sure that there are no leakages, accidents or other risks of exposure I wouldn't want the risk.
Just my view.

I agree about Scotland's Hydro Electric power GentleOtter but it also has an environmental impact - nothing is without it's disadvantages.

Same here salmo. I like the little of everything idea, I think. It is such an uncertain time and it'd perhaps be unwise to put all our eggs in one radioactive basket.

Btw I was being slightly Tongue in cheek with the nimby comment - sorry that didn't come off did it!

The dams vary in age, Salmotrutta but there is not a single body of water here which is not controlled - all the rivers and lochs are linked and managed accordingly.
The excess electricity is fed into the grid so I fail to understand why areas of outstanding natural beauty are used as industrial sites for needless and ineffectual turbines.

Salmotrutta, you are right to be concerned. I'd much rather they found a better safer way. I'm just not convinced that they have yet. In any case wind power is not a replacement, but in addition to the main sources of energy so we still need something to replace those with. We need them now too. There's no more time to waste.

It seems to me that nuclear power stations could be much safer than they are. They seem to plan for a medium problem and not for the worst. When designing the place we should be saying "okay what is the worst that can happen and what would I want to have handy if it does"

Just for example I saw in the Japanese disaster they were using water cannon. Maybe they should have included a circle of giant water cannon in the original design?

In the case of Japan I would think you'd want to put the reactors on small islands away from population centres. In fact you'd always want to surely?

I wonder if one problem is that when applying to build these places it doesn't help politically to harp on about dangers. Perhaps you can't include too many safety features if you want it accepted.

I can't blame you, I am really scared to look at wind farms, it must be a new phobia. But.... saying that we in the city have a lot of horrible looking things to put up with.

I know it's all controlled and managed but the dams didn't come without a price - flooding valleys, diverting rivers, and the power stations themselves impacting on the landscape etc. which affected people and wildlife. I'm no expert though but there is always a tradeoff.