Wind turbines ... not all they're "cracked" up to be!

[simoncc]

Windscale - an inevitable part of our nuclear industry - has killed hundreds if not thousands.

What's for darn sure is that wind turbines will never have to be bankrolled in the fashion (if £70,000,000,000 can ever be fashionable) that this government intends.

Wind power could give us 20% of our electricity by 2015. Nuclear might give us one power station in 2017. Given that we're in a hurry...

Hundreds if not thousands killed? Where is the evidence?

Wind farms are built using a government subsidy called The Renewables Obligation. Electricity suppliers are obliged to build a certain amount of renewable generating capacity in return for government cash to make them economic to the companies. Otherwise they'd be a waste of time and money to the companies and they would just not be built. Wind power never will be bankrolled by the taxpayer to the same extent as nuclear has or will be. That's because wind power is at best going to be an expensive minor contributor to our energy needs whereas nuclear power could easily provide nearly all electricity, just as it does in France.

 

[GaryA]

Windscale - an inevitable part of our nuclear industry - has killed hundreds if not thousands.

QUOTE]
Statistical deaths only, I'm afraid Simon...several hundred million less real rather than statistical deaths that breathing in that nasty long-term carcinogen called Oxygen

 

[wafflycat]

In the days before Windscale had a visitor centre, as yours truly was doing a surveying course, those of us that were doing it, had an invite to Windscale. We got taken all round the site, through the reprocessing place and to see various reactors. One of the party ended up with residual radioactivity on him and had to go through more thorough cleaning. I was stood on top of the concrete housing of a reactor, and a fuel rod housing thinggie (technical term there) was loose and rattling about in the concrete. There were large cracks in the concrete housing (ongoing) which had glass telltales on it (can't remember if any were broken or not). In one of the control rooms, there was a reactor warning light going mad - this was a tad disconcerting as it was shortly after the three-mile island incident.

The visit put me off nuclear power for life.

 

[User482]

In the days before Windscale had a visitor centre, as yours truly was doing a surveying course, those of us that were doing it, had an invite to Windscale. We got taken all round the site, through the reprocessing place and to see various reactors. One of the party ended up with residual radioactivity on him and had to go through more thorough cleaning. I was stood on top of the concrete housing of a reactor, and a fuel rod housing thinggie (technical term there) was loose and rattling about in the concrete. There were large cracks in the concrete housing (ongoing) which had glass telltales on it (can't remember if any were broken or not). In one of the control rooms, there was a reactor warning light going mad - this was a tad disconcerting as it was shortly after the three-mile island incident.

The visit put me off nuclear power for life.

I did all that when I was a student! I was studying radioactivity so we went for a look round up there...

What I remember is the room where they reprocess the spent fuel rods - I was watching it through lead lined glass that was 13 feet thick, yet there were still above background radiation levels where we were standing. I found the place to be stunning and frightening in equal measure.

I also recall there being raised radioactivity levels in the shellfish in Morecambe Bay - just along from Heysham...

 

[jashburnham]

On-shore wind power in this country will never amount to anything more than political tokenism I'm afraid, and the sheer hypocrisy of it makes me very angry. Case in point: my Dad is a former farmer turned conservationist (and was awarded an MBE for his services to nature conservation in 1999). One of his nature reserves on the Kent Marshes has been earmarked by the government as a preferable site for a wind farm. Now this is an SSSI and the home of several rare bird species including the bittern. Despite protests from the RSPB, English nature and objections from all 3 local councils the wind farm has got the go ahead and is now under construction. So for the sake of the environment we deface an SSSI, put rare breeds at risk and damage fragile marshland by pouring tons of concrete into foundations - concrete of course is responsible for 7-10% of CO2 emissions worldwide. Not to mention the destruction caused by heavy lorries and earthmoving equipment. The whole thing is a total farce.

 

[Pete]

On-shore wind power in this country will never amount to anything more than political tokenism I'm afraid, and the sheer hypocrisy of it makes me very angry. Case in point: my Dad is a former farmer turned conservationist (and was awarded an MBE for his services to nature conservation in 1999). One of his nature reserves on the Kent Marshes has been earmarked by the government as a preferable site for a wind farm. Now this is an SSSI and the home of several rare bird species including the bittern. Despite protests from the RSPB, English nature and objections from all 3 local councils the wind farm has got the go ahead and is now under construction. So for the sake of the environment we deface an SSSI, put rare breeds at risk and damage fragile marshland by pouring tons of concrete into foundations - concrete of course is responsible for 7-10% of CO2 emissions worldwide. Not to mention the destruction caused by heavy lorries and earthmoving equipment. The whole thing is a total farce.

NIMBYism, I'm afraid. You need to either (a) use no energy, or ( suggest alternatives which are environmentally less damaging on a global scale. You don't ever get something for nothing: everything has a price. Personally, I find that wind farms, whilst never being as aesthetically desirable as the same tract of upland would be without the turbines there, of course, are a reasonably tolerable proposition even on one's doorstep. I have walked around one (a large one) and not found it an unpleasant experience. The impact on birds is, I think, over-stated. Birds have learnt - through Darwinism maybe - not to perch on national grid lines. Perhaps they will likewise evolve not to fly near turbine blades.

 

[jashburnham]

NIMBYism, I'm afraid. You need to either (a) use no energy, or ( suggest alternatives which are environmentally less damaging on a global scale. You don't ever get something for nothing: everything has a price. Personally, I find that wind farms, whilst never being as aesthetically desirable as the same tract of upland would be without the turbines there, of course, are a reasonably tolerable proposition even on one's doorstep. I have walked around one (a large one) and not found it an unpleasant experience. The impact on birds is, I think, over-stated. Birds have learnt - through Darwinism maybe - not to perch on national grid lines. Perhaps they will likewise evolve not to fly near turbine blades.

I'm sorry but you cannot dismiss this as NIMBYISM, it is an issue of balance and in this case the balance is wrong. Why not spend the money ensuring that all new builds in the Uk have solar panels for example? We could cover the UK in turbines and we still wouldn't provide all the power we needed. The money would be better spent on education and nuclear. I have no problem with wind but it should be sited off-shore; prime locations on-shore are nearly always in areas of natural beauty and it seems absurd to despoil vast swathes of the environment for the sake of the environment. You might like the look of them but remember the environmental cost of their construction and of course removal. As for your point about birds and power lines - I'm lost, they can sit on power lines, their bodies are poor conductors. In fact you or I could sit safely on a power line if we chose!

 

[Jaded]

I'm afraid I lose any respect for a view/industry whose opponents are dismissed as NIMBYs. It is lazy, incorrect and shows the paucity of counter arguments. ad hominem, anybody?

The largest wind farm in the UK, if it goes ahead, will only deal with the INCREASE in electricity demand that will occur during the time it is built. What a waste of a peat bog.

 

[Canrider]

One presumes you've lost all respect for:
Airports
Prisons
Army barracks
Mental hospitals
etc, etc.

Sorry, but NIMBY is a perfectly acceptable statement when people are opposing something on the basis that they wouldn't mind except it's on their doorstep.

Or, to perhaps put your example in sharper focus, we could swap the wind farm-on-peat-bog for a nuclear plant built in the same location, would you prefer that?

 

[Jaded]

One presumes you've lost all respect for:
Airports
Prisons
Army barracks
Mental hospitals
etc, etc.

Sorry, but NIMBY is a perfectly acceptable statement when people are opposing something on the basis that they wouldn't mind except it's on their doorstep.

Or, to perhaps put your example in sharper focus, we could swap the wind farm-on-peat-bog for a nuclear plant built in the same location, would you prefer that?

One of the errors people who shout 'Nimby' make.

 

[Canrider]

So not a NIMBY but a BANANA, then?

 

[Jaded]

So not a NIMBY but a BANANA, then?

No, just stop using silly acronyms and respond the the points made properly.

 

[Canrider]

Here's something I want to know: concrete production causes CO2 emissions, partly because you're driving CO2 out of the lime, and of course there's the attendant emissions of producing enough heat to drive off that CO2 as well.

But concrete as it sets absorbs CO2. Now what I want to know is this: is that absorption being included in the calculations for how much cement production contributes to greenhouse emissions, or not?

 

[Canrider]

No, just stop using silly acronyms and respond the the points made properly.

Could I start by pointing out the...oddness? Hypocrisy perhaps? of using a bright orange blimp as part of a campaign aimed at 'saving our unspoilt landscape"?

A case of 'we had to destroy the view to save the view', perhaps?

 

[Jaded]

Could I start by pointing out the...oddness? Hypocrisy perhaps? of using a bright orange blimp as part of a campaign aimed at 'saving our unspoilt landscape"?

A case of 'we had to destroy the view to save the view', perhaps?

Ah, I see, orange balloons make it OK to call people NIMBYs then?