Jump to content

Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy


trout
 Share

Recommended Posts

I have held my tongue for quite a while now and have decided it is time to utter my twa-happeny.

 

Some of you seem to think that the wind farm is the only way forward. Cover the island in wind turbines and reap the benefits while saving the world at the same time.

 

Some of you think that the oil will last forever and ever. Sullom will pay for Shetland for ever more and we needn't worry yet.

 

Some of you think that we should hold off until other technologies are proven and will be more beneficial.

 

I think I sit in the last camp. Tidal energy is coming ahead in leaps and bounds and with the tidal waters around Shetland it would be an ideal place to trial and possibly incorporate these technologies.

 

Wind energy is an option but it would be better suited to small scale installations. Power all the country halls with wind energy by all means, but power the whole of Scotland???

 

Sullom will be around for a while yet. I don't care what people say about the oil running out. If it was such a big problem do you not think that the oil companies would have started investing in renewable energy in a pretty big way by now?

 

If I owned a shop selling fish and chips and found out that the worldwide supply of fish and potatoes was going to disappear in the next few years then I would reconsider my business plan and start selling something more plentiful. The oil needed to cook the food would of course be a secondary thought.

 

So. To summarise. Planting lots of oversize wind turbines in what many have called, 'one of the most untouched places in the world', is not going to be a good idea. Not on the scale that VE have planned at least. Relying on oil for ever will not be a good idea. It will run out. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon......... Investing in alternative technology could be the way to go.

 

Why doesn't the SIC bung out a few press reports to some of the more scientific publications offering the waters around Shetland as a 'test bed' for tidal technology? At worst the energy created would be enough to power Shetland. At best? Shetland would be realised as an early adopter and world round figure in tidal energy production.

 

So, let me see...lots of large twirly things blotting the landscape (not mentioning the construction, life span, decommissioning, ladeeda) or a test bed for something that could actually make a difference?

 

The other option is nuclear, which will probably end up being the long-term solution as it is tried/tested and cheaper.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

True, for the moment. But take away the oil industry and all the associated engineering companies and the charitable trust and everything which it subsidises (once the oil money runs out), the bloated (allegedly) council and there's not a lot left.

 

The bloating isn't alleged, I'll find the figures reported but from memory it was something like - the SIC was either 16 or 18%% of the population empolyed by the council, Orkney council was 14%, Western Isles was 11% and the Scottish average was 8%

 

 

I found an "expert" oil industry prediction from 2004 that oil prices would be at worst $36 a barrel by 2020..... Oopps.

 

Wouldn't have been an Oil Industry consultant from Inverness would it? If it's who I'm thinking then they couldn't predict what the day after tomorrow is...

 

Bottom line for the windmills is do the Shetland Population want them - after all the Charitable trust belongs to them. We need a real poll on this, not someone stood in Commercial Street for a couple of hours with a clipboard :roll: If the majority are in favour I'll happily go along with the project - after all it is a democracy we live in, isn't it :?:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sigh... Here we go again,

 

The windmills will not destroy the Shetland landscape.

Here is a point that we will have to strongly disagree on. The wind turbines will massively alter the Shetland landscape. The visual and audio effects of the turbines will directly and measurably affect it. This will be compounded by the additional and substantial infrastructure required to construct and maintain them. Given the flow of the discussion, it would appear that these concerns are at the forefront of many people contributing.

Surely it is not fair for supporters of the wind farm to brush aside what appears to be a significant body of local concern as unfounded as they find the turbines to be pretty.

 

Offshore wind farms will cost twice as much (at least) and generate less power due to the reduction in height.

 

You appear unwilling to engineer out the problems of the onshore wind farms due to cost. DTI figures quote offshore wind turbine installations as being only 30% more expensive to install than their onshore counterparts and these costs can be further mitigated through the use of larger turbines. If community funds are to be used than we must look for an option that is agreeable to the majority of Shetland, even if this costs slightly more.

 

Offshore wind speeds are higher than those onshore (typically unto 0.5m/s higher 10km offshore) and also less turbulent. However, elevated inland sites can have higher peak wind speeds.

 

Again, this is not a new technology, they are produced by the leading manufacturers and there years of experience between them.

 

I'd rather look at a windmill than a bare rock hillside once climate change has washed all the peat off the hills

Please could you provide your evidence for such a dramatic forecast? You are balancing a measurable impact upon our lives and landscape against something you cannot, on the balance of reasonable evidence, show may happen. Given a median level of climate change predicted by the usual bodies, what effect will this realistically have on Shetland? Does this then balance against the turbines?

 

Quote:

Have you even thought about wave energy?

 

Yes, it's not yet ready for commercial deployment, at least not on the scale required and we don't have 10 years to spare to get it to the point where it is. The same goes for tidal and solar power.

This is simply untrue and is being used as a reason to railroad through this particular project. There are many commercial options currently available. Locally, OpenHydro have a sub sea turbine installed off Orkney; their technology has received excellent press from the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and offers 'tidal turbines under the world's oceans - silently and invisibly generating electricity at no cost to the environment.'

 

With regard to the job creation from the project, what local skills base/company will be employed to undertake this specialist and large-scale project? The chosen construction contractor will bring in their equipment and skilled team to undertake the work. Any major maintenance project would be carried out on a similar basis. Even such a large wind farm would only retain a limited number of skilled employees locally. It would appear more than likely that the engineering man force would be UK mainland based and called upon as required.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I found an "expert" oil industry prediction from 2004 that oil prices would be at worst $36 a barrel by 2020..... Oopps.

Wouldn't have been an Oil Industry consultant from Inverness would it? If it's who I'm thinking then they couldn't predict what the day after tomorrow is...

No, it was some annual report from an US oil industry association of the major players.

Of course you can wonder if it suited their interests to pitch it on the low side.... but I think it's safe to say it ended up a lot different than they expected.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There is a further camp.........the one that looks forward to the outcome of the VE investigation into this imporant project whilst also realising that oil won't last forever; are potentially happy to develop a windfarm which we realise won't save the world, yet which also wont 'cover the island in wind turbines' and which will provide community funds for the future.

 

I couldn't agree more about the point on tidal power and I am totally in favour of this being investigated - we have great tidal movements around Shetland but I guess this is not itself immune from the likes of environmental problems, even though they would be largely invisible to the human eye.

 

I think what I am trying to say is that all options should be thorougly investigated as far as is practicable. It is difficult to find any solid information on the VE website on its remit to investigate other potential sources of energy but as technologies advance these should be given serious consideration and added to the mix.

 

I looked at this page which has a fetching picture of Drew Ratter on it: http://www.vikingenergy.co.uk/viking_energy_ltd.asp)

 

 

The danger in always holding off is that you never really grasp an opportunity, however if these technologies are advancing significantly (I have no knowledge of this incidentally) VE could be in a danger of owning a Betamax when what we all really want is a VHS!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

the one that looks forward to the outcome of the VE investigation into this imporant project

This appears to be a stage of the project that has been bypassed.

With the talk of planning submissions, contracts, building of connector cables etc, is there going to be a stage where we review the results of the investigation that has cost a substantial amount of money?

Do we get the chance to say 'no thanks' and look for other sources of income?

Are we to be presented with a range of options?

The flow of information from Viking Energy appears to be solely related to the development of this particular wind farm. The project appears to be at a very advance stage and will soon be looking for the funds to commence its construction. Where was the quantative evaluation of the other options?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sigh... Here we go again,

 

The windmills will not destroy the Shetland landscape.

 

Offshore wind farms will cost twice as much (at least) and generate less power due to the reduction in height.

 

Sigh... Here we go again,

 

wind speed is greater over the sea than land, once the wind hits the coast updrafts increase turbulance and reduce overall and maximum wind speed considerably.

 

And as for your opinion of whether or not it will not dstroy the landscape that is just an opinion.

 

Building this windfarm will have sausage all effect on global warming but will salve your missguided conscience.

 

And I for one think it is too high a price to pay just so you can feel all warm inside.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You appear unwilling to engineer out the problems of the onshore wind farms due to cost. DTI figures quote offshore wind turbine installations as being only 30% more expensive to install than their onshore counterparts and these costs can be further mitigated through the use of larger turbines. If community funds are to be used than we must look for an option that is agreeable to the majority of Shetland, even if this costs slightly more.

 

 

Can you tell me how deep the water is 10 km offshore in Shetland? Once you can answer that, will you still maintain that turbines will only cost 30% more offshore?

 

There's a whole raft of issues to be considered here. There's no way that VE will save the planet by building this windfarm, but there's a pretty good chance that they will destroy our own little bit of the planet though. Call that nimbyism if you want.

 

My own view is that tidal is the best long term way forward. "Time and tide wait for no man". If the tide is slack on one side of Shetland, it will be running on the other. This is still a long way off being commercially viable though, but if the winfarm is built, the cable will be fully utilised with this which will rule out any development of tidal technology in Shetland.

 

I'm certainly not againt windfarms. If I thought it could make a difference, or even ensure the financial future of Shetland, i'd be right in there, but i'm yet to be convinced. And as i've said before, I dont live in the shadow of these things. I'd hate to make decisions for those that do.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My own view is that tidal is the best long term way forward. ....... This is still a long way off being commercially viable though, .

 

There are many large commercial companies that would argue with this point. The technolgy has been developed and is commercially available. Within the UK alone there are a raft of companies offering their products.

 

 

Marine Current Turbines Ltd have been operating the 300kW Seaflow tidal energy system at Lynmouth, Devon since May 2003 and are recognised as being one of the worlds leading tidal energy system developers.

Under the brand SeaGen they are currently installing a 1.2MW tidal energy convertor in Strangford Lough.

 

Marine Current Turbines Ltd's next project is for a 10.5MW tidal energy farm off the coast of the Welsh island of Anglesey in a fast flowing patch of 25 metre deep open sea known as The Skerries.

 

E.ON and Lunar Energy are installing eight underwater turbines, each 25 metres long and 15 metres high, on the sea bottom off St David’s peninsula in Pembrokeshire, South Wales. Construction is due to start this summer and the tidal energy turbines should be operational by 2010.

 

Limpet (Land Installed Marine Powered Energy Transformer) by Wavegen and is located on the island of Islay, off Scotland’s west coast. The Limpet design takes the wave into a funnel and drives air pressure past two turbines, each of which turns a 250 kW generator

 

Ocean Power Technologies (OPT) PowerBuoy® is an ocean-tested, proprietary system which generates electricity by using large floating buoys anchored to the sea bed. Their sea trials commenced in 1997, they have now installed several commercial developments and offer deployed arrays scalable to 100s of megawatts.

 

Pelamis Wave Power Ltd manufacture a system to generate renewable electricity from ocean waves. Four Pelamis machines are installed locally at the European Marine Energy Center, 2km off the west coast of the Orkney mainland generating 3MW. They have several other operating installations and offer thier products to commercial operators.

 

ORECon has recieved planning approval in september 2007 to install 'MRC1000' wave energy converters as part of a large scale wave farm off the coast of Cornwall.

 

AWS technology produce the AWS wave energy converter. The concept was proven at full-scale in 2004 off the coast of Portugal. By 2010 utility-scale AWS machines will be commercially generating electricity in the UK and Portugal.

 

 

These are just a few that come to mind, there are other UK based generation systems available and many more world wide. If Shetland wanted this type of generation there are many companies that could readily supply suitable systems. Land based wind turbines are not the only option available.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

ArabiaTerra wrote:

 

I'd rather look at a windmill than a bare rock hillside once climate change has washed all the peat off the hills

 

Please could you provide your evidence for such a dramatic forecast? You are balancing a measurable impact upon our lives and landscape against something you cannot, on the balance of reasonable evidence, show may happen. Given a median level of climate change predicted by the usual bodies, what effect will this realistically have on Shetland? Does this then balance against the turbines?

I'll quickly answer this one first.

 

My evidence: The landslides at the South mainland a few years ago.

 

Climate change is happening.

One of the first predicted effects is more extreme weather events

The landslides were caused by an extreme rain storm, or to put it another way : an extreme weather event.

Climate change predicts more of these.

 

Therefore it is logical to assume that more extreme rainfall events will cause more landslides.

 

I cannot put it more simply than that. What part of my logic don't you understand? Is there a massive hole in my logic that I can't see? If so please point it out because I don't want it to happen any more than you do.

 

I'm not saying that the VE windfarm will prevent this. What I am saying is that these events will happen whether or not the VE windfarm is built. So to say that the VE windfarm will destroy vast areas of peat in Shetland, whereas not building it will save the peat is simply wrong. The peat is at risk whatever we do. This point needs to be acknowledged.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

 

My evidence: The landslides at the South mainland a few years ago.

 

 

how do you know that wasn't just part of a 1 in 100 or 1 in a 200 year storm that caused the landslides?

 

edit: have you read the report done by Halcrows into the landslides?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Was my thinking too, Twerto. Also, looking at other landslides (such as the one at Weisdale voe last year), the interference of the land by humans by adding roads, etc seems to be likely to cause landslides.

 

How is monkeying around on top of the hill with roads and turbines going to reduce the likelihood of landslides? I don't think it will at all. Seems to me that landslides become more likely if we build the windfarm. And what kind of a problem would we get if it took some turbines with it...? :shock:

 

Maybe I'm mistaken and the opposite is true; perhaps the roads and turbines will hold the peat in place instead... :?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Peat deposits occur in areas where water logging is common. Large areas of blanket mire occur throughout the temperate and cold regions of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres and are particularly extensive in the UK Uplands. Mass movements of peat, reported usually as peat slides and bog bursts, have been well documented for over 150 years. However, the fundamental controls of this form of shallow instability are still poorly understood. [.......snip......]All instabilities occur in association with distinct drainage features. Slides are initiated along natural drainage lines or in association with artificial drainage often brought about by mining activity or agricultural practices. [....snip.......] These findings define several important hydrological controls for surficial mass movements in peat but the prospect of predicting the location and timing of such events is still a long way off..

(Warburton et al 2004)

(i) Intense rainfall causing development of transient high pore-water pressures along pre-existing or potential rupture surfaces ( e.g. at the discontinuity between peat and substrate);

 

(ii) Snow melt causing development of high pore-water pressures, as above;

 

(iii) Rapid ground accelerations (earthquakes) causing a decrease in shear strength;

 

(iv) Unloading of the peat mass by fluvial incision of a peat slope at its toe, reducing support to the upslope material; and

 

(v) Loading of the peat mass by landslide debris causing an increase in shear stress.

 

Factors (i) and (ii) are most frequently reported for peat mass movements in the UK. Anthropogenic ( i.e. human induced) triggers include some of the following:

 

(i) Alteration to drainage pattern focussing drainage and generating high pore-water pressures along pre-existing or potential rupture surfaces ( e.g. at the discontinuity between peat and substrate);

 

(ii) Rapid ground accelerations (blasting or mechanical vibrations) causing an increase in shear stresses;

 

(iii) Unloading of the peat mass by cutting of peat at the toe of a slope reducing support to the upslope material;

 

(iv) Loading of the peat mass by heavy plant, structures or overburden causing an increase in shear stress;

 

(v) Digging and tipping, which may undermine or load the peat mass respectively, and may occur during building, engineering, farming or mining (including subsidence);

(vi) Afforestation of peat areas, reducing water held in the peat body, and increasing potential for formation of desiccation cracks which are exploited by rainfall on forest harvesting; and

 

(vii) Changes in vegetation cover caused by burning, heaving grazing or stripping of the surface peat cover, reducing tensile strength in the upper layers of the peat body.

 

Natural factors are difficult to control, and while some anthropogenic factors can be mitigated, some cannot. For these reasons it is essential to identify and select a location for the development and associated infrastructure that avoids or minimises the impact of the development.

(scottish government publication)

 

I don't see peat slides as one of your better arguments for digging up the hills AT.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'd really rather not stare at windmills the rest of my life.

Because baron, treeless greenish brownish lumps AKA hills are any better?

 

I think that Windmills are amazing, they look cool.

 

What is Shetland? What has Shetland always been? Hills, hills and more beautiful hills. If you want trees, if you want huge wind turbines, go live south then, there's plenty there to feed your soul and more.

 

Offshore wind farms will cost twice as much (at least) and generate less power due to the reduction in height.

 

I mentioned wave energy, not offshore windfarms. Windfarms aren't the only answer to everything. There are all different kinds of energy that we could look into.

We could be looking at the route Orkney is taking around this issue and investigate the power of Wave Energy.

 

I'd rather look at a windmill than a bare rock hillside once climate change has washed all the peat off the hills and the noise will be negligible unless you are directly underneath the windmill. Think about it, unless the weather is perfectly still all you will hear is the wind, and when the weather is perfectly still, the windmills don't turn so there is no noise.

 

Please refer to my above answer to looking at windmills. Ok so lets just pollute the landscape and ruin the peat further by erecting huge ruddy windmills. Its ok because its all going anyway, we might as well make it worse instead of trying harder to prevent it. What a negative way of looking at things.

 

Also, as you said, windmills don't turn when its perfectly still, and nor do they turn when its windy. So they only turn at a certain windspeed? What's the use in that?

 

As compared to what? A nuclear power station? That's the alternative.

 

Who suggested a Nuclear Power Station? As I said there are other alternatives, don't try and back people's views in to a corner by quieting them down with the only suggestion you can think of.

 

I agree with renewable energy

You could have fooled me

 

Just because I don't agree with giant wind turbines in Shetland, doesn't mean I don't believe in other sources of renewable energy.

 

Yes, it's not yet ready for commercial deployment, at least not on the scale required and we don't have 10 years to spare to get it to the point where it is. The same goes for tidal and solar power.

 

Invest the money being wasted on windmills to bring that point forward then. £300m for a cable in the sea could easily cover it. And save on the messy idea of a giant windfarm.

 

I've been following the debate in the Shetland Times. I know what I need to know. And as for Angus Ward's views in Sounding Off, I have something to point out.

 

He states that large windmills are less of an eyesore in Germany and Denmark... well did he consider the difference in Landmass between Germany and Shetland? Big slow moving windmills will not have the same effect of tranquility when applied to the smaller surroundings of Shetland.

 

But honestly, it won't be that bad, the flare stack at SVT is 200m high. That's higher than the proposed windmills. You don't see that from all over Shetland. Ronas Hill is 400m high and you can't see that from everywhere in Shetland, just from the hilltops, and no-one lives on the hilltops.

 

The flarestack is alot more discretely hidden in a dip, than a big white windturbine on a hill. People do live in places where you can actually see the flarestack from a distance, and also Ronas Hill too. Just because you think no-one lives on hilltops, doesn't mean travellers and walkers who actually appreciate the desolate scenic beauty wouldn't be enjoying a walk on them.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • admin changed the title to Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
 Share

×
×
  • Create New...