Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[Guest CyprusPluto]

Totally opposed to the windfarm. Scale is too vast and it's ugly. There are not many beautiful places left, so why ruin ours.

 

There are other more efficient ways of producing power, clean or dirty.

 

The only scaremongers are those terrifying the worlds population with fables of man-made climate change in order to line their own pockets.

[sjeunson]

There are other more efficient ways of producing power, clean or dirty.

 

Like?

 

Also JustMe suggested on the last page placing turbines at Gremista. Why put a highly engineered device designed to take power from the wind in a sheltered hole?

[shetlandpeat]

Yup, the site they want to put them on is a place of natural wonder and beauty.

[ArabiaTerra]

Quite by chance I recently saw some windfarms and although I am still convinced that renewable energy including but not limited to windfarms is a good idea I am now convinced that situating them in industrial areas and on brownfield sites is far better than ruining the view of our wild places. So I guess in Shetland terms that means places like Gremista.

The problem here, JustMe, is energy density. The blades of a wind turbine cover a certain area with each revolution and they can only extract energy from the volume of air that passes through that area. The amount of energy in the wind is limited, so you need to cover a large area and "process" a large volume of air in order to extract a useful amount of energy from the wind.

 

The same limitation applies to tidal turbines and solar panels. They are all fundamentally limited by the low energy density of the environment around them. This means that you need lots of individual energy extraction units, which is expensive. So it makes sense to put them where the energy density is highest. Solar panel where the sun shines, tidal turbines where the tides are concentrated by the land, and wind turbines where the wind blows. Otherwise you will end up with many more turbines running at sub-optimal efficiency, and much more expensive electricity.

 

Also, with many more turbines, all the associated objections by the nimby's are increased.

 

The only scaremongers are those terrifying the worlds population with fables of man-made climate change in order to line their own pockets.

And with this statement, you reveal why you are not qualified to express an opinion on this subject. AGW is real. Deniers are living in a fantasy world. When you decide to grow up, ditch your ridiculous conspiracy theories and come back down to Earth, we can have a meaningful discussion.

 

Yup, the site they want to put them on is a place of natural wonder and beauty.

Hardly, large parts of the proposed windfarm area consists of damaged, degraded and eroding peat which is already releasing large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. The site chosen was picked because it has no SSSI's, significant archaeology or other sites of note within it. (Or am I missing a note of sarcasm here?)

[shetlandpeat]

[Guest Anonymous]

[mod]Removed for being an attack - please refer to T&Cs[/mod]

[shetlandpeat]

The above post should be reported

[JustMe]

ArabiaTerra wrote

The problem here, JustMe, is energy density. The blades of a wind turbine cover a certain area with each revolution and they can only extract energy from the volume of air that passes through that area. The amount of energy in the wind is limited, so you need to cover a large area and "process" a large volume of air in order to extract a useful amount of energy from the wind.

Well someone thought it worthwhile to install lots of wind turbines along the industrial coastline of Cumbria. I am sure they were a lot smaller that those at Burradale so I can only start thinking that the cost of installation compensated for the lower output. Also saw some offshore ones on the Scottish side of the Solway Firth (viewed from Cumbria) and I can honestly say that viewed from a distance they did not seem that disruptive to the environment.

 

Also I think it is time to remember that no matter what global warming may or may not mean for the future the world is starting to run out of known and available deposits of coal, oil, gas and so on so alongside more research into nuclear energy it surely has to be right to develop renewable resources wherever it makes sense to do so.

 

This of course leads back to Shetland. Does it really make sense to develop a big windfarm on Shetland or is the enthusiasm for this really just a way to get an interconnector installed so that Scottish and Southern can close down the Lerwick power station?. Critical issue for me is how reliable the interconnector would be as a failed interconnector could leave us with widespread power cuts.

[ArabiaTerra]

quote AT

 

and with this statement blah blah blah

 

so only folks that agree with you are allowed an opinion you nazi AT

 

 

Everyone's entitled to their own opinion, including you.

 

But you are not entitled to your own facts.

 

Global warming is a fact.

[Guest CyprusPluto]

 

The only scaremongers are those terrifying the worlds population with fables of man-made climate change in order to line their own pockets.

And with this statement, you reveal why you are not qualified to express an opinion on this subject. AGW is real. Deniers are living in a fantasy world. When you decide to grow up, ditch your ridiculous conspiracy theories and come back down to Earth, we can have a meaningful discussion.

 

I'm very flattered you would wish to have a meaningful discussion with me, but if aggressive attacks regarding my personal opinions is your idea of a meaningful discussion, I'll talk to someone else. Goodbye!

[euripides]

There's one rule for AT and another rule for other contributors on this thread it seems. He generously allows others to have opinions but doesn't allow them to present their own facts, while he continuously presents his own opinion as fact. " Large areas of the windfarm consist of eroded or degraded peat" etc. according to AT. Just how large are these "large areas"? Where exactly are they? Are the degraded areas vegetated? If so, to what extent? How much carbon do they emit p.a.? etc.etc. Please enlighten us, so we can all enter into "meaningful discussion" with you.

Earlier on in this thread AT stated that the windfarm site is a net carbon emitter - presented as a fact, not as an opinion. I've asked him to provide me with scientific evidence for this. I'm still waiting.

Get your facts right AT and if you can't then at least have the decency to present these "facts" as your opinion.

I'm getting a little concerned about you. Given your recent post script disclaimer on SN, it seems even your WSG friends are getting concerned about you.

[Ghostrider]

Global warming is a fact.

 

Its fact if you believe the "scientists" who have "proven" it to be so are being totally objective in their work, are infallible, unbiased and have flawless integrity. Unfortunately I am too cynical to have that amount of faith in them, especially when world governments and big business are swarming to it like vultures.

 

I'm not denying global warming is possibly happening, despite the fact we have just had the coldest winter for 10-15 years and are having a relatively cold summer as well, and that nothing, despite a significant amount of things in Shetland being very close to sea level, has vanished beneath the waves. It just seems highly suspect to me that the vast majority of land based "evidence" of global warming is located at places in the world where few if any folk live, or even many folk have been in the habit of passing on any kind of regular basis previously, so "proving" or "disproving" anything is vague at best.

 

Personally I've heard one too many doomsday predictions from "scientists" over the last 20-30 years, swine flu, bird flu, holes in the ozone layer, AIDS, Mad Cow Disease, the list goes on. All have certain common factors, the "expert scientists" on each of them were as convincing with their "facts and figures" and accompanying rhetoric of probable outcome, as the "expert scientists" "of "global warming" are being right now, and to that end why should I believe for one moment that this buch have gotten it any more right than the legions of doom mongers who preceded them, all of which got their chosen subject so very wrong its now the stuff of comedy.

 

The "scientific" community have cried wolf more than one time too many for me to believe anything they predict, and lets face it, 99.9% of what "global warming" scientists are spouting are predictions, as there's very little actual physical evidence of anything to point at so far.

 

I'll just keep on doing what I've always been doing, and wait and see what happens. Yes, I know, the "doing nothing is not an option" mantra comes in to play. Well, sorry, I'm still a long way from being convinced of the truth of that one, I'm more inclined to stand behind a "doing nothing is the ONLY" option, as I'm yet to be convinced the "experts" know what they're doing, or talking about.

 

If it turns out in the long run that "doing nothing is not an option" was right for this moment in time, and greater chaos ensues as a result of me and folk like me having done nothing, well, too bad. I reckon I can live with that more easily than I could live with doing something now, that I am unconvinced is going to be necessary or helpful, and find out in the long run that it was pointless, or worse, made an overall negative contribution.

[Carlos]

The "scientific" community have cried wolf more than one time too many for me to believe anything they predict, and lets face it, 99.9% of what "global warming" scientists are spouting are predictions, as there's very little actual physical evidence of anything to point at so far.

Bare in mind the differences between what has actually been said by scientists on past issues and on how politicians and the media have run with things for their own means......

[justsomeguy]

Reading through the recent comments here, one thing jumped to mind...

 

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law

 

 

 

 

 

sad it reached this stage!

[Ghostrider]

The "scientific" community have cried wolf more than one time too many for me to believe anything they predict, and lets face it, 99.9% of what "global warming" scientists are spouting are predictions, as there's very little actual physical evidence of anything to point at so far.

Bare in mind the differences between what has actually been said by scientists on past issues and on how politicians and the media have run with things for their own means......

 

Exactly. While what "scientists" said may well have been far enough askew in the first place, by the time politicians had picked over it, regurgitated it with the spin of their own bias added, and then the media did much the same before the public were fed the jumbled twisted remnants, it had more to do with those handling it playing games with it for their own ends than any relevant facts.

 

Anything Government(s) and media both seize hold of becomes an incestous little cartel with one feeding off the other, and any other party that is involved is inevitably drawn in to the silly games. With, like war, the truth becoming the first casualty.