Couldn't agree more.
Would you agree that there are places, especially almost wild places, where turbines just don't belong?

I tend to have the same view on turbines as I do on most planning, if there is essentially a "built environment" then adding a few turbines is neither here nor there, if there's vast swathes of nothing, then it should remain as such. What makes no sense to me is building them in "relatively windless locations".

The best place to build a lot of them near us would be on the site of former pit heads, brown field sites and clear of trees all around, strangely enough, none of the residents want that to happen.

I did, I was questioning the article, not the poster there.
that persecution complex is coming along nicely I see...

if you say so, you've got the green username and the "ban" button afterall.

I'm one of those strange people who don't find wind turbines to be a massive intrusion on most landscapes and can even see some majesty in them. The array at Middelgrunden on the approach to Copenhagen looks fantastic as your plane is landing, also the ones on the shore at Rotterdam couldn't be classed as intrusive.

The fact that this proposal comes from private enterprise suggests to me that someone has done their homework and won't be looking to sink £millions into a venture that is never going to offer a return, especially given the insecure nature of government feed-in subsidies

I think they are amazing constructions, I just wonder about having to build oversized ones because it's not a windy place. The feed in tarriffs are quite robust for wind aren't they, thought it was solar that was questionable?

They're building oversized ones [iprecisely [/ibecause it's a "relatively windless" place (at ground level at least). Wind is more persistent as you gain altitude and therefore to tap into the prevailing winds they need to elevate the turbines.

A private enterprise will not invest millions in such an enterprise before carrying out exhaustive research and testing. Someone at the top will want evidence they can deliver a product that can satisfy their customers and bring in profit. An investment on that scale that doesn't deliver could mean the end of the company.

Windmills can be an eyesore but you get used to them. There are plenty around where I live, and you barely notice them after a while, in fact they're quite impressive. The boglands of central Ireland are pretty sply populated, probably another reason they've been considered as a location. I don't buy the argument "wild areas should be left alone". How much of the UK and Ireland is truly wild? Very little, and those areas that are probably have the weather best suited to wind turbines. Numbers of urban and city turbines are growing, but if we want affordable electricity on demand we can't worry too much about a few ramblers and sheep complaining about the view.

I've been occasionally banging on for years how the energy needs of this country could be solved by the fluke that we sit right in the middle of absolutely gigantic tidal ebbs and flows, and if we simply harness the power of the tides, then job done. I read somewhere last month that finally some plans that are more than pipedreams are actually afoot. Not before time. Sounds plainly obvious that it would be a lot more productive and effective than wind turbines.

I do in general agree with the plan, though. I wouldn't want them literally all over the place, but by the nature of the beast, they are best sited in higher and windier, and therefore wilder, places and inevitably that means some wild places must be "spoiled" by a windfarm. The fact that it may be hard to decide which, doesn't to me mean the decision shouldn't be taken.

[url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1345439/Customers-face-huge-wind-farms-dont-work-cold.htmlWIND TURBINES[/url by the very nature of their designs are neither able to produce instant nor economic energy. Too much wind/too little wind, and they are switched off. Two warm they break down/two cold they freeze up completely. Were it not for the massive Government subsidies, no sane business would be involved with them.

This bloggers name raised a smile, however this one appears to talk [url=http://toryaardvark.com/2011/08/13/wind-turbines-epic-fail-when-it-is-cold-epic-fail-when-it-is-hot/some sense[/url

I tend to agree - they have a rather elegant appearance that makes them, in my view, a not unnattractive addition to the lanscape; as for the noise - I'm baffled by that objection, as I've stood right underneath a working example and the noise, even that close up, was minimal.

I'm healthily sceptical about their efficiency, but I have to make an assumption that a private business wouldn't invest the multi-millions of £ required to get them up and running, if the evidence for a RoI didn't exist.

For me, if they work and genuinely produce renewable energy, it seems churlish for anyone who uses electricity to argue against them; I gather there are a number of offshore farms in the offing, under the stewardship of the rather marvelously monikered 'Dong Energy.'

Where does it say they break down or freeze up? A turbine's efficiency is reduced in periods of hot or cold weather simply because those usually coincide with periods of high pressure: i.e. when winds don't blow



Talks sense?

This si how he describes himself: "Conservatve Political Blogger, Climate Realist, Tea Party supporter and NRA member. I dont buy into the Man Made Global Warming Scam, science is never settled"

why didn't he just call himself a prat, would have saved a lot of effort.

Why would he call himself a prat?

It could happen, in a rare if unexpected moment of insight and self-awareness...

Like you calling yourself mad?

[url=http://www.thejournal.ie/ireland-to-export-wind-energy-to-britain-766937-Jan2013/The Irish perspective[/url

30,00 new jobs and €18bn investment

For less than half the cost of the Olympic games to the nation a tidal barrage over the Severn Estuary could have built giving the UK 7% of its daily electricity needs for the next 120+ years.
Gordon Brown and his cronies dismissed the idea despite the huge subsidies given to non UK companies to help them make profits and little of it being taxed.
The next lot with their back handers from the wind companies are no fecking better.

Basically were are ed ernergy wise in this country and at the mercy of companies who cannot and will not be tempered by the toothless OFGEM with regard to pricing.
Windfarms are really inefficient, the turbines last around 20 years max and given the 100% subsidy for onshore/200% offshore the companies are laughing all the way to the bank never mind the landowners who have them.
Jobs are being lost and despite the 'green' energy cry the money would be better spent elsewhere to reduce CO2 SOX NOX emissions. On top of that people are being effected health wise when near to the turbines.

An example below re the inefficiency/costs:
North Kent coast, the operator, Vattenfall, said that its capacity was 300 megawatts.
Its measured output has been an average of 80 megawatts.
This is one tenth of that of a typical gas-fired power station.
The turbines cost 780 million to build. They will receive subsidies of 60 million per year (for the next 20 years) and will receive 30-40 million for the electricity they produce.
For that amount of money, you could build a new gas fired power station which would give 1000 megawatts of power, continuously, 24 hours a day.
The wind power is therefore about 12 times the price.

[url=http://toryaardvark.com/2011/02/17/green-industry-the-epic-fail-of-the-wind-turbine/FROZEN[/url and yes, wind is an essential part of the equation in getting some uneconomic electricity out of a wind powered turbine.....

Who would have thought that?

Apart from the visual intrusion on the landscape, [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/9653429/Wind-farm-noise-does-harm-sleep-and-health-say-scientists.html#NOISE[/url is another of their disadvantages. Even the [url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2100259/Wind-turbines-public-menace-wind-efficient-renewable-power-National-Trust-says.htmlNATIONAL TRUST[/url has seen the fallacy of supporting them. And the [url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2111303/Wind-turbines-Green-energy-cost-120billion-2020-say-researchers.htmlCOSTS[/url would have even the most fanatical crustie choking on his muesili.

If I remember from that scheme there was a huge concern about the effect of a Severn barrage on the wildlife that inhabits the tidal shoreline (a huge tidal shoreline) as that shoreline would disappear for much longer periods of time, basically the tides above the barrage could be almost man-made rather than natural.

I'm all in favour by the way, I saw the one at St Malo when I was a kid in the 1970s, its still working.

A research paper also concluded that the water in the Severn would have been much clearer with bacteria killed off quicker increasing the amount of river life. Whilst concerns regarding the shoreline, a couple of papers suggested this wouldn't be as bad as some made out and could in fact benefit in places more than previous.
Still governments from all parties are happy to leave joe public hanging in the wind (pardon the pun) and care not a jot about the massive increase in energy costs that put tens of thousands more people in energy poverty year on year.

Any suggestions as to what we do with gas-fired stations when the gas runs out or the nations that we are buying it from (not noted for political stability) decide they ain't going to sell us any more of it?

Your earlier cost analysis also conveniently omitted the cost of gas from the equation

no not convenient at all and was just one comparison, when you calculate the cost of wind energy being at least 12 times the price that still makes gas burning stations far far cheaper even over the next 20 years when the wholesale price of gas will go up without a doubt.
Obviously the point was to show that wind turbines aren't this manna, cost free bounty that the proponents are making it out to be.
If you're referring to the Russian/Ukraine issues of 06 & 09 then clearly that was a blot but unwisely investing in such massively costly & innefficient renewables is a ball & chain around the UK publics' neck pretty much forever.

There's absolutely no point in arguing with clueless idiots like you, who have a very clear, luddite attitude.

Harnessing and distributing any new form of energy carrier has always been initially more expensive that what had previously prevailed. Coal was more expensive than wood, gas more expensive than coal and electricity more expensive than gas. Some of us are old enough to remember the promises of "free nuclear energy" and look just how "free" that turned out to be.

Unlike you, I have worked with companies who have suggested alternative energy carriers and have seen the novel (good and bad), proposals and improvements to existing carrier or transmission systems. We are only now processing oil sands and shale because the price of oil has increased to a point where it then becomes economically viable. Similarly with gas fracking.

The economic arguments against any alternatives such as PV or wind are invariably flawed, especially when there's talk of "subsidy". Anyone would think that there have been no subsidies applied to oil, natural gas or, worst of all, nuclear over the years, especially in their early development.

The reality is: we cannot continue to consume fossil fuels at the current rate. No gevernment has yet come clean over what the real cost of nuclear is. We have to continue to invest in alternative systems and that will take government subsidy to develop.

The Severn barrage has been opposed for many reasons and there are alternatives: I remember writing an article on a sub-sea array of tidal turbines that would have nothing like the ecological impact that a barrage would. The wind and PV decryers cite aesthetics, unfair subsidies, fictitious health problems etc without ever offering an alternative to the status quo, even though the status quo is patently not sustainable.

Interesting [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01q8mqhCosting the Earth[/url programme on Radio 4 this afternoon. Especially the bit about Feldheim, a small town that is not only self-sufficient in energy but manage to export most of what it produces.

Well worth waiting for it to appear on iPlayer