Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[ArabiaTerra]

Paulb, "sustainable" Shetland are running out of time to prove they aren't rank hypocrites.

Shetland Times[/url]"]If Shetland Islands Council nods the development through its planning board on Wednesday work on building the access road and clearing peat from the site could get under way as soon as April.

You must be really busy with that last-minute objection of yours.

 

You are, aren't you?..... ,aren't you?

[POB]

Orkney is about to see the largest deployment of marine energy over the next ten years than anywhere in the world. This will be announced by the Crown Estate on the 16th of March.

This will bring huge investment and jobs to the islands and the surrounding areas of the Pentland Firth. This will only be possible due to the planned upgrades to Orkney's subsea cable connection to the National Grid.

 

Without an interconnector to the mainland, such as the proposed 330km Shetland to Keith (Aberdeenshire) 600MW subsea cable it will be almost impossible for Shetland to cash in on its significant wave and tidal resource.

Even the proposed 20MW Vattenfall/Pelamis project on Shetland is dependant on the interconnector being in place. With the Scottish Government offering 5 ROC per MWh for wave and 3 for tidal energy projects Scotland is the most attractive market of marine energy in the World. The Western Isles are already linning up to cash in on its interconnector and its fantastic wave resource.

The only hope of this being put in place is the VE project. If anything, the community of Shetland should be calling for SSE and the Shetland Trust to put in a larger capacity cable to enable future wave and tidal projects of scale to be added to the energy mix in the Shetlands within the same timescale as the Orkney projects. Otherwise you will watch the development of this new sector on Orkney, with the billions of investment that will accompany it, and wonder why Shetland missed out.

 

Who will champion Shetland's right to be included in this marine energy bonanza?

[paulb]

Paulb, "sustainable" Shetland are running out of time to prove they aren't rank hypocrites.

Shetland Times[/url]"]If Shetland Islands Council nods the development through its planning board on Wednesday work on building the access road and clearing peat from the site could get under way as soon as April.

You must be really busy with that last-minute objection of yours.

 

You are, aren't you?..... ,aren't you?

it really is odd that they are flapping about viking. they get their knickers in a twist over sea power but they don't comment about total. maybe sustainable have been getting support from total.

what income is total offering to the local community and what are the other schemes.

 

the idea that such a large building is just going to walk through planning without the same grumbling as other schemes.

 

i think that all these schemes need to be treated in a simular way. has anyone else noticed the increase in small turbines quite a few places having two. if this continues is that not going to impact just as badly on the enviroment.

 

if the viking plans were to suggest storing a 1/4 of a million m3 of peat behind concrete how would billy fox react. what happens if this stored peat escapes the earthworks. if the peat turns up to not be usable they are claiming that they are going to import peat to restore it rings a few warning bells with me. but once its done and finished with i bet they will find some way of avoiding doing it.

 

come on sustainable you must comment. after all your even bothered about how the trusts are run.

[ArabiaTerra]

it really is odd that they are flapping about viking. they get their knickers in a twist over sea power but they don't comment about total.

Well, this is the thing, paulb. "sustainable" Shetland never gave a damn about the peat. They've proved this by their silence here. All they ever cared about was the fact that they didn't like the idea of having to look at windmills. They didn't want their precious view spoiled.

 

Unfortunately for them, spoiling your view is not adequate grounds for refusing planning permission, so they kicked up all this stink about the environment and how it would be destroyed by a few roads and windmills. But all that was just a smokescreen as has been revealed by this.

 

This is why I have no time for "sustainable" Shetland. Their entire campaign has been dishonest from start to finish.

[KTL]

Why Orkney and not Shetland? The clue is in the 330km cable.

Orkney is very close to the mainland, Shetland is very far.

There is a fundamental problem of geography here!

Getting power from Shetland to mainland grid will be very expensive, cost of big connection from Orkney to mainland, much cheaper. Sullom Voe terminal was chosen for closeness to oilfields, but for big power generation projects you need closeness to customer.

No amount of huffing, puffing and lobbying behind closed doors will change this basic fact of geography.

BTW, it is Shetland, not "Shetlands".

[paulb]

if orkney is close to scotland then we just need to run the connection via fair isle and orkney. a lot less that 330km.

[justsomeguy]

Sustainable Shetland's silence over the proposed peat disturbance in Total's plans speaks volumes to be honest and surely most people must be beginning to notice this?

[Skunnered]

^^Surely there's going to be a lot more peat disturbed by the VE project than there will be by the Total project. Does anyone know the figures in terms of m3?

[Carlos]

Is this one still up to date?

http://www.shetland.gov.uk/vikingenergy/files/Volume%204a%20Appendices/Appendix%2014.4%20Peat%20Volumes%20and%20Reuse.pdf

Page 9 - 878,000m3 of peat to excavate, hoping to reuse 321,000m3 of that.

 

Assuming all those numbers are right that's the Total proposal dealing with a between a third and a half of the peat involved in the VE works.

[paulb]

agreed they are shifting a lot more. its the silence of the antis that is surprising. i am in favour of both plans thou worried that the SIC have anything to do with it.

[Skunnered]

Apart from the difference in peat volume, the other main difference between them is that the VE project is being undertaken to reduce CO2 emissions (presumably) whereas the Total project is not.

 

And yet VE's latest estimate (as far as I know) is that it could take anywhere between 3 and 14 years to break even on CO2 emissions. Now that's a shocking wide range considering that it's the main reason for building the windfarm. And if it turns out to be anywhere near the upper end of that estimate, then that means they're going to release up to 14 year's worth of CO2 into the atmosphere during the first few years of construction. That's causing MORE emissions in the short term, and I would have thought that any project for this particular purpose should only go ahead if they can show that there is a much shorter CO2 B/E point, something in the order of 5 years max.

 

I think it's fairly clear that the reason for the VE project is purely financial. It's hard for them to argue that it's to help "save the planet" with this sort of wide ranging B/E estimates.

 

These criticisms cannot be levied at Total, which may be the reason that Sustainable Shetland hasn't raised any objection.

[ArabiaTerra]

Edit: Carlos beat me to it.

[ArabiaTerra]

These criticisms cannot be levied at Total, which may be the reason that Sustainable Shetland hasn't raised any objection.

No, that's got it backwards. "sustainable" Shetland's case was based on the fantasy that if you dig up a million cubes of peat it will magically evaporate into the air causing climate change.

 

Leaving aside the fact that this is complete rubbish, if they are opposed to peat removal, then they are opposed to peat removal. It doesn't matter what the reason for the peat removal is.

 

They should be opposing any and all projects which involve a significant volume of peat. And especially any proposal with a payback time of never, like the total project. If they are, as they claim, concerned about climate change.

 

Any other response makes them hypocrites.

[Grafter]

The peat issue is just one of many grounds for objecting to VE proposals. It is of course not ideal to have to disturb peat but there aren't really any other significant grounds for objecting to Total

Wind power is so unreliable it is essential to have back up resources. Gas is one of these and if non-nuclear options are the only choice using gas is essential for the country to have stability in energy supply. The potential is also there for some of this gas to be used to supply local demand.

[Skunnered]

Wind power is so unreliable it is essential to have back up resources.

As I understand it, that's not entirely true. I believe the recommendation is that a grid cannot have more than 20% from wind power, otherwise the grid becomes unstable. As Shetland will be linked to the UK grid, that doesn't become an issue, so long as the entire UK grid doesn't have more than 20% from wind power.

Having said that, I believe that SE are still planning to build a new power station in Shetland, even if the wind farm goes ahead. I'm not sure why exactly, perhaps it's in case there is no wind, and if the cable to the mainland breaks down at the same time. Back-up for the back-up in other words.

We shouldn't complain, it means we'll NEVER have power cuts again!