Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Petrocelli, i think £10 would be a waste of moneyIMHO, but obviously not in the eyes of the council.

 

Seeing that the VEP has been allocated £3million , to so called "investigate" the potential of a windfarm, (that makes me laugh everytime)!, it's a good job Sustainable Shetland is there to try and even the odds, even without £3 million. so as to make it fairer for the public to decide.

 

What happens when the funding runs out?, or is the SIC going to hand over a blank cheque, until they hook or by crook get permission to build the thing? and is that ethical if the majority of Shetland folk turn out against it when it goes to planning??

[Frogger]

Was anyone at the Sustainable Shetland meeting last night, I couldn't make it and so would like to know what those of you who attended thought.

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

On the issues of overhead power lines, how much more would it cost to put them all underground ?

 

And, how much more would it cost to import building materials rather than digging them out locally ?

 

 

Maybe rather then digging big wide holes everywhere to get material, they could dig a single really deep shaft..

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Or perhaps common sense could prevail, and the ridiculous project thrown out of the window.

[paulb]

in your view. getting green enery is not stupid. how we use the said energy can be debated.

 

digging up the hundreds of miles of cable would be expensive and damaging.

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

Burying cables always strikes me as a poor design approach, much better to install them in tunnels (Perhaps cut & cover approach.) then you can more easily service them, replace them/etc. without having to go around digging up the countryside again.

 

Its certainly an approach I plan to use in my building design, with everything in man sized Jefferies tubes, as it makes just so much sense than burying services in the walls, floors and ceilings!

 

 

Perhaps a ridiculous solution might be to make the wind turbines invisible..

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12961080

 

http://projects.tachilab.org/rpt/movie.php

[JohanofNess]

Burying cables always strikes me as a poor design approach, much better to install them in tunnels (Perhaps cut & cover approach.) then you can more easily service them, replace them/etc. without having to go around digging up the countryside again.

 

 

If money were no object you would be right, but money is a concern which is why cables get stuck in trenches.

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

Usually money isn't really the issue if you look closely, its often down to a case of how much less profit do you want to make..

 

It can be an affordable route to take (And often cheaper long term once you factor long term maintence issues into it.) if so desired.

 

If the desire is not to annoy lots of people with overhead wiring, then it would be a solution that could be offered.

[JohanofNess]

Usually money isn't really the issue if you look closely, its often down to a case of how much less profit do you want to make..

 

It can be an affordable route to take (And often cheaper long term once you factor long term maintence issues into it.) if so desired.

 

If the desire is not to annoy lots of people with overhead wiring, then it would be a solution that could be offered.

 

Money isn't an issue?. Funny that we always promote burying cabling because its cheaper to the client, incurs less damage from the elements and has less problems with landowners. If we were to stick the cost of a concrete tunnel on top I can imagine we'd win no work.

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

Depends whether your client wants an uncluttered landscape or not, being that most clients do not live on the land they develop, its rarely an issue.

 

But, making your neighbours happy should be more taken notice of, as I certainly think that such an approach is the best way to win friends and influence people..

[JohanofNess]

Depends whether your client wants an uncluttered landscape or not, being that most clients do not live on the land they develop, its rarely an issue.

 

The majority of our renewable energy contracts the clients do live on the land the turbines go on and the few that don't live in the communities that the turbines are built on. In saying that maybe all your clients don't live on the land they develop. But either way if you bury a cable in a trench or a service tunnel your landscape will remain uncluttered.

 

But, making your neighbours happy should be more taken notice of, as I certainly think that such an approach is the best way to win friends and influence people..

 

Unfortunately the developers and utility companies don't care as long as their projects get built to the specification required for as cheap a price as they can. I would like to meet a large scale developer who gives a monkeys but he probably wouldn't be large scale for long if he did.

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

So we might at least agree that putting the cabling out of sight would be a better step in keeping the neighbours happy

 

 

Perhaps we shall start to see developers who do give a monkeys soon emerging in the market place. After all, we've all seen Secret Millionaires on television manage to get their consciences working again and start to think of people at the bottom.

 

Maybe an oppertunity for some cooperative approaches, though I have to say, getting a large number of people to put a hand in their pocket and work hard together on a project is perhaps being too idealistic..

 

I at least give a monkeys, and intend to grow from small to big, lets see if I can manage it

[Carlos]

For the neighbours, if the cable is buried, it is buried, the fact that it is in a trench, a duct, or a tunnel would seem to make little difference?

 

On the other hand, to pay the extra infrastructure costs to install even the cheapest man accessible option of something like a 1.2m plastic pipe, you'd have to be digging up the entire length of cable maybe 20 times during it's life. There's a huge difference in construction costs.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

The trench's for the interconnector, won't be just a few feet wide, also the cables will have to lay on cement especially when running through peat, they get quite hot you know. What effect on the marine life of the seabed!

SHETL, would they give a monkeys?

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

Perhaps combine the cables with a water supply channel of some sort, like they lay power cables by the side of canals to keep them cool.

 

I'm often suprised how frequent buried cables get dug up, not to mention the down time whilst its done, the associated hassle of all the connected elements, eg. road blocks, noise.

 

Costs up front is all about reducing costs further down the line in the future, its often a false economy to only look at costs in the way that many do, without realising that by spending a few percent you get a fair easier to work with product than something built just to be penny pinching.

 

 

The service tunnel would also answer the issue I believe raised about what happens afterwards, in years to come when you need to disturb the landscape to remove the cables if they are just buried.

 

Making an effort to please the majority is what it should be about, otherwise, whats the point in producing something that only a few are going to benefit from..