Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[Carlos]

What is the simple question though?

"Do you want any/no wind turbines?"?

 

Most people would answer that they would have some at least, no?

 

Then how many, and where, power for Shetland only/export as a business, more smaller turbines vs less larger turbines, what kind of financial deal/risk for the SIC investment, what kind of deal for landowners/electricity customers, what level of environmental impact is acceptable, how do the carbon impacts of various options compare in the long term....... then trying to compare all those potential against a projected alternative for sticking with an SSE power station and what kind of rise in electricity costs you think are likely in the next 50 years......then do you want to bring in the likelihood of developing tidal/wave power installations, with their commercial viability being affected by the inter-connector being or not being in place......

 

If they an get information covering those possibilities out there and get some informed public opinion back for £10,000 then I think they are doing pretty well.

[paulb]

as im sure you know. Shetland is old very old there is very little chance of there being any geothermal heat souces like in iceland.

if your talking about borehole ground souce heat pumps your looking at 9000 50m holes. if your wanting it on the surface then the area of damage would be massive. you would still need power and then theres the cost of all the new heating systems.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Another thing that will become of interest, and that is what will VE do when the allocated £3.000.000 for "looking" into the feasibility of a wind farm runs out .They had spent £1.6million up to 3 months ago. will the SIC keep coughing up more money for such a white elephant?

[marlin13]

Having taken note of a lot of what has been said on the two different poll threads, I have formed these conclusions.

 

1. It would be impossible to have a referendeum as the options you would require to give people would challenge the magna carta for size.

 

2. There is a distinct lack of confidence/faith in our elected repesentatives

 

3. it appears likely that it probably doesn't matter a hoot what is said here or anywhere else as the powers that be are likely to build it in any case.

Unless of course it could be delayed until after the next council elections where it could be an election issue with no fence sitting allowed !!!

[PJ of Hildisvik]

^^^^^Quite agree, there are feelings it a done deal, and if the council wanted to pull out, it is so far in over it's head that it couldn't.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Of course the big outstanding question still hasn't been answered yet, and that is Why can't we see what was signed in the beginning at Busta House?

Is it a community project or NOT?

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

Apparently with the GEOHIL technology you don't need hotspots like Iceland, it works anywhere. With several hundred plants apparently in use for over 20 years, it sounds like it works..

 

 

I was thinking the borehole ground source heat pumps might work well for say, district heating purposes, rather than everyone have their own. You'd need to drill far less holes then, especially if you make them deeper, so as to keep the surface damage aspect to a low level.

 

Even so, looking at various footage of boreholes being drilled, filled and used for heat pumps, the ground disturbance didn't strike me as massive, especially compared with the footprint of housing. (I saw on Grand Designs for example one guy who had his holes drilled under his house and part of the foundations.)

 

 

But if you could build a dozen or so really deep ones to supply juice for everyone, plus a little extra to sell on, and plenty enough of heating for everyone and industry, it strikes me as less of a blot on the landscape than wind, and more dependable 24/7.

[paulb]

i could not understand half what they were saying. but old volcanic rock is a poor conductor of heat.

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

Surely its down to how far you dig/bore, eventually its going to get really hot! (Eg. after several km/miles.)

[Njugle]

Is there not a renewable energy thread you could discuss boreholes on? It's mucking up the continuity of the Windfarm discussion. Thanks.

[paulb]

so whats both the pro and anti are saying is that the shetland folk are not allowed a say untill all the money has been spent on eco studies,consultations of everybody except the people who count.

 

i wonder why they dont want it. is it that the antis will lose or is it that the pro export lobby dont want the shetland folks say. very intresting that both sides think that the people cant understand the options available. its our money thats helping fund this scheme and its our land it will be built on.

 

let us the people have the right to choose before anything else is done.

 

why for example would they survey the route of the interconnector if they are waiting for all these studies. could the delay be that they are waiting for the new law that takes away the local councils right to apose nationaly important schemes. then it wont matter what we say we will get it dumped on us.

[Carlos]

It's hard to see how you could have an informed consultation/referendum/political issue without spending time and money to develop at least the outline of a practical proposal, and that is a responsibility that private developers have to take on before they get to apply for planning permission too. Should the standards required be lower because public money is involved?

 

As soon as somebody says, "I'm not sure how to vote on this.... how many turbines will there be?" and the answer is "Ah, we're not sure either, somewhere between 50 and 250" then where is the validity of either the question or the answer?

 

The same applies to all of the other factors involved too.

For a few people the issue is black and white, but for most there are a lot of, often conflicting, factors to weigh up.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

There is a lot of confusing info out there. The interconnector cable and the windfarm have been treated as seperate entities. Both go to planning at different times, so people must remember if they choose to object to the VEP it won't include the cable and converter station.

Of course there won't be an interconnector if the wind farm is refused, the link is designed only for the Wind farm and vice-versa. So people who would like to see fewer turbines etc, or just wave and tidal power to sell power down the line will be out of luck.

There would be a limited scope during times of calm and maintenance , maybe to sell to the National Grid by means of tidal power etc, but these schemes aren't high on the list of prioritys with this project, and in any case to do this the 153 turbines would have to go up first.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Just some info you won't find on the VE web site, concerning how important peatlands are, this is from the International Mires Conservation Group.

While covering only 3% of the worlds land area, peatlands contain at least 550Gt of carbon in their peat. This is equivialent to 30% of all global soil carbon, 75% of all atmospheric carbon, equal to all terrestial biomass, and twice the carbon stock in the forest biomass of the world. This makes peatlands the top long-term carbon store in the terrestial biosphere.

 

Carbon emissions from drainage, fires, and exploitation are estimated to currently be at least 3000 million tonnes a year, equivalent to more than 10% of global fossil emissions.

 

Food for thought.

[ArabiaTerra]

Just some info you won't find on the VE web site, concerning how important peatlands are, this is from the International Mires Conservation Group.

While covering only 3% of the worlds land area, peatlands contain at least 550Gt of carbon in their peat. This is equivialent to 30% of all global soil carbon, 75% of all atmospheric carbon, equal to all terrestial biomass, and twice the carbon stock in the forest biomass of the world. This makes peatlands the top long-term carbon store in the terrestial biosphere.

 

Carbon emissions from drainage, fires, and exploitation are estimated to currently be at least 3000 million tonnes a year, equivalent to more than 10% of global fossil emissions.

 

Food for thought.

And what % of this is in Shetland? What % of this is actually going to be disturbed by the Windfarm? Answer : Practically zero.

 

What % is going to be affected by global warming? Answer : All of it, 100%.

 

It is food for thought and after a few minutes chewing I realise it's totally irrelevant to the windfarm debate. The windfarm will, at most, disturb (not destroy) a few thousand tonnes of peat out of the 550,000,000,000 tonnes you quote above. Global warming will affect it all. We have about 20 years to eliminate the use of fossil fuels. Tidal power is not ready, wave power is not ready and nuclear takes too long to build. Windfarms are the only option we have at the moment and we can't afford to wait for other options to appear, and Shetland is the best place in the world to build windfarms. The crises of global warming will affect the whole globe and it will be a disaster, globally. The time for worrying about your view or a few birds or a few thousand tonnes of peat is long past. It's big picture time now and the big picture is grim.