Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[paulb]

would not want to depend on russia for our power. they do have the habit of turning things off whenthey get annoyed.

turbines like those in power stations have improved. a little like moving from a shetland pony to a race horse. build the power stations but urainium is not that easy to get.

[Ghostrider]

Considering China has 72+ GW in new hydro production in well advanced stages of construction and due to come onstream within the next 5-6 years, with more to follow, it puts VE's claimed potential maximum of less than 0.5 GW in to perspective, and places it very near the bottom of the totem pole.

 

The chinese folk could no doubt make very good use of it all as soon as its up and running, but considering China is already selling electric well in to western Europe, and has been doing so for some years, I doubt they'll see much of it. Us decadent westereners can and will be willing to pay more for it than your average breadline chinese Joe Public can hope to afford.

 

More importantly, as their new production is guaranteed and constant, unlike ours, which like ships of old, only moves when the wind blows, and has to run for shelter when it blows too strong, and they are utilising a generation method which minimises running costs, which has been built by cheap labour (relative to western European labour charges), they can, if they so wish, undercut us.

 

Parts of continental western Europe are already relying on exported Chinese power, there are numerous subsea interconnectors in place already, with more planned. The very same interconnector which is vital to making VE viable by exporting anything it does produce, has the potential of being the downfall of the whole scheme.

 

All it takes is for a power starved UK to link in to the already existing western European chinese supplied network, and the chinese to start trimming their price (which they can afford to given their choice of generation method and far lower initial investment costs) so that they increase their market share, and the chinese will be the Tesco of the western European power market, undercutting the competition until it is forced out of business.

 

Its plain to see what the chinese are up to, they've done it already. They quietly over a period of time bought up so much of the American national debt, that now the Yanks are in such deep hock to them that they have no choice but sing whatever tune the chinese play. Europe is too fragmented with numerous national governments all singing different tunes for the chinese to get that level of leverage, even if the level of national debt was sufficient and they could buy it, however if they position themselves so that if western Europe as a whole doesn't sing a chorus along with them at their command, a frightening percentage of the lights across the region suddenly go out, it amounts to the same thing. They're well on their way to achieving that level of control already, and what they have due to come onstream will just increase it.

 

The ultimate scenario will see folk as far as Skaw, Unst boiling their reestit mutton on a stove powered by water from where some coolies paddy field used to be half a world away, and if VE has been built, it'll be standing idle, as the juice coming up the cable is being sold for less than VE can make theirs. Face it, windmills that are already up and producing, or are nearing commission may just make a few folk rich for a short time, mainly due to an extortionate tax on the consumer making an unviable enterprice in to a lucrative one. Any, like VE, which have not yet gotten further as pretty pictures on paper are never going to earn what figures drawn up right now say they will, and very probably will struggle to earn at all. Someone else caught on to where things were headed long ago, the chinese, and are so far ahead of us in the game there's no chance of taking them on.

 

If SSE are so sure VE is a goer, let the CT lease their 50% stake to SSE for X number of years at an agreed annual payment, and let SSE take all the risks. My conclusion is that if such a proposal were put to SSE, they'd dissolve and terminate the VE parternship agreement quicker than you could draw a line across the written agreement in red ink, and therein lies the answer to VE's viability. Its a whole different thing playing around with outher folks money as well as your own, than taking the full risk of something on the nose.

[Ghostrider]

would not want to depend on russia for our power. they do have the habit of turning things off whenthey get annoyed.

 

The chinese are worse, the Russki is at least generally direct and open in their retalitory acts, the chinese prefer to be covert and devious. Observe how the tail which is China, wags the dog which is America these days, its more like a Mason's meeting than international diplomatic business.

[Gorgonzola Butt-cheese]

A friend pointed out that if the numbers of the windfarm protest march were projected out to the whole of the UK.

It would have been a march over 1 million strong on the streets of London.

 

What with the general nature of the local population to just grumble amongst themselves about the big issues with out speaking out, the march on saturday does demonstrate a massive opposition.

 

I know many people opposed to V.E. who did not attend the march.

[Ichorus]

A friend pointed out that if the numbers of the windfarm protest march were projected out to the whole of the UK.

It would have been a march over 1 million strong on the streets of London.

 

What with the general nature of the local population to just grumble amongst themselves about the big issues with out speaking out, the march on saturday does demonstrate a massive opposition.

 

I know many people opposed to V.E. who did not attend the march.

 

350 out of a 700 strong membership of Sustainable Shetland? Hardly a good comparison. I'd like to know how many are not members of Sustainable Shetland.

 

As I have said before, I must have missed the protests against Total digging up 236,000 cubic metres of peat from Sullom Voe.

[JGHR]

But 15 years is still too late to make a difference to Climate Change.

My personal feeling is that we will see 4th generation reactors in service well before 15 years from now. No amount of wind, wave and solar power alone will ever make any significant difference to climate change.

 

So you are advocating a complete shelving of the planning approval process in order to ram through these new nukes? Good luck with that.

 

Eh? Sorry but you've lost me, what planning approval process are you on about? If there is indeed some approval for something somewhere which states that nuclear generation should not be considered then yes I advocate that it be shelved.

 

Oh, and there's another point at which your nuclear pipe-dream falls apart. We can't just start building these nukes tomorrow, we don't have the engineering base in this country to do so. Thatcher destroyed it, remember. So we've got to start building the engineering base from scratch and training the people who will operate this engineering base. How many years will that take? And you can forget about buying this expertise in, because the few countries which still possess it are using it themselves.

 

Climate change is a global issue which is not going to be tackled in the UK alone, or perhaps even by the UK at all. The technology and skill to build and operate nuclear generating facilities has been around for years and we should be expanding that with haste.

 

We don't just have to build nuclear power stations (45 of them just to satisfy our current power needs*), we have to build an entire nuclear industry first, from scratch. And we have, at most, 10 years to do all of it! Dream on.

 

What exactly do you think is going to happen in 10 years time? And how exactly will windmills prevent it, whatever it might be? As I pointed out previously the timescale for building windfarms does not appear to be much different to a nuclear facility.

 

Windmills and waterwheels are already obsolete technology IMO

This is just wrong. Hydro is a mature technology which already makes a significant carbon neutral contribution to our power needs, and wind power, solar, tidal and wave just need the grid to be re-designed to accommodate them and they will do the same.

 

Hydro is an excellent idea and I favour that before nuclear wherever there is physically enough room to construct the necessary infrastructure.

 

Just the small matter of re-designing and re-constructing the national grid then? Do you see that happening within your stated 10 year timeframe? I respectably suggest it is you who is dreaming sir.

 

* Britain currently has 19 operational nuclear reactors in 9 stations which provide 20% of our power, but these are all nearing the end of their useful lives and need replacement. To supply all of just our current needs this adds up to 45 nuclear power stations, all of which need to be built simultaneously.

 

Oh so we do already have an existing nuclear industry then, that saves us building one from scratch at least.

[unlinkedstudent]

A friend pointed out that if the numbers of the windfarm protest march were projected out to the whole of the UK.

It would have been a march over 1 million strong on the streets of London.

 

What with the general nature of the local population to just grumble amongst themselves about the big issues with out speaking out, the march on saturday does demonstrate a massive opposition.

 

I know many people opposed to V.E. who did not attend the march.

 

350 out of a 700 strong membership of Sustainable Shetland? Hardly a good comparison. I'd like to know how many are not members of Sustainable Shetland.

 

As I have said before, I must have missed the protests against Total digging up 236,000 cubic metres of peat from Sullom Voe.

 

I couldn't go. I was ill. I'm not a member of Sustainable Shetland. If I had not spent half the weekend on the bog I would DEFINITELY have gone on the march. If I lived in Lerwick I would have risked going on the march. On top of that, I've got a dog recovering from an operation but did check with the vet who said I could have taken her (He was on the march).

 

My understanding is that Sustainable Shetland have voiced their reasons as to why they didn't protest about the Total Project. As a comparison, Friends of the Earth don't join in and support every Greenpeace activity.

[JGHR]

but urainium is not that easy to get.

 

That is a good and valid point. The extraction process for uranium is not currently a carbon friendly one. However this is a short term problem. 4th generation reactors can use spent fuel from earlier generation reactors as their fuel source. These reactors are so much more efficient at 'burning' uranium that we have already extracted enough from the ground to power all of the planet earth for the next 1000 years or so. Also we will continue to extract uranium until all of the worlds second and third generation reactors have reached the end of their useful lives. By that time enough uranium will have been mined to power earth for about 10000 years. We also need to look at other sources of uranium such as harvesting it from the oceans. The worlds river systems regenerate around 30000 tonnes of uranium into the oceans every year, so if we dont extract more than that there is a never ending supply of the stuff, equally as renewable as wind wave or sun.

[ArabiaTerra]

Where does this fighure of 10 years that we must save the planet come from?

In light of the rest of the human civilisations continuing consumption of resources what exactly are you saving?

 

It does not address the problems you claim what so ever

 

And the wealth generation is a complete fallacy, if they cant maitain finance for schools and hospitals etc etc then how can they sudsidise electricity generation on such a vast scale?

 

In fact what the pro windfarm are claiming is this will maintain our wealth of the oil boom era !

 

Wealth for what I ask?

 

To maintain our buying power to keep on consuming !

 

I note you ignored my last post about planetery resource consumtion figures, whats wrong ? Do these facts not fit with this "10 years to save the planet"?

 

Sorry about that, Gorgo, I'm not ignoring you, I've just been busy with some other stuff these last few days. I do mean to respond to your post, hopefully in the next couple of days.

[ArabiaTerra]

I notice a number of people are questioning this 10 year thing I've been going on about, so I will explain what I mean, but I'll do it on the Global Warming thread as that's where it belongs. Unfortunately I've got some other stuff on at the mo' so it might be a couple of days before I can get to it.

[Ghostrider]

350 out of a 700 strong membership of Sustainable Shetland? Hardly a good comparison. I'd like to know how many are not members of Sustainable Shetland.

 

If you're going in that deep, maybe finding out how many of the SS membership through old age, disability or ill health simply couldn't be there, then find out how many through either work committments, their location etc couldn't be there....

 

Had I had the ability to be there, I would have been. I am not an SS member, for although I share their opposition to VE, its largely for other reasons than they do, and there are some things they do stand for, that I do not feel I can support.

 

Does it really matter to what organisation the protesters belonged, if any? 300-350 of the adult Shetland population, as has already been said, actually turning out and making noise on a pretty crappy winter Saturday morning is a significant achievement by any standard. Even if none of them were SS members, SS at least facilitated some of the motivation and means by which those who did turn out exercised their democratic right to protest.

 

If we're going to get critical about turn outs though, lets get critical about one that was worse. At least with circa 350 protesters on the street SS had a number there equivalent to 50% of its membership, the council, who with others hats on are both part site owner and part developer, could only manage to muster nine from 22 (equivalent to 41% of its membership) to turn out and toe the party line and support it.

[Skunnered]

As a matter of interest, how many pro-VE supporters turned out on the day?

[paulb]

? turned out for an anti rally.

[Skunnered]

^^How many is "?" ?

[Infiltrator]

I'd like someone to explain the below quote from Erik's letter on the SN letters.

 

'They don't mention the fact that the 45 per cent community share of this windfarm will bring in more money than the vast Sullom Voe oil terminal ever did'

 

This is quite a claim given the VE income will be based on current government policy.

 

SVT has probably had an average of 3-400 local staff for the last 30 years, all of whom have ploughed much of their income back into the local economy. VE will employ a fraction of this in full time local staff.