Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[unlinkedstudent]

Wind turbines stopped after they kill birds. Well if this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/8167630.stm can happen with a couple of mini turbines then what could 150 big ones do?.

 

Oooh, I see they say the turbines were damaged too after a gale! Perish the thought!

[sheepshagger]

I'm sugesting it AT the scoty wants to reduce emisions but when it comes to building windfarms on the tartan isles to the west of their little piece of rock it was a no go but build it here and screw up our little bit of rock and hey what do ya know

[Para Handy]

A gale! Here in Shetland. What ever will we do.

[Skunnered]

The simple fact of the matter is that two-thirds of Shetland's central mainland peatland is already degrading so badly that it is a carbon emitter. There is no truth in the belief that leaving the peat alone will save it. Viking Energy's proposal will actually be looking after large areas of this peat and preserving it in a way that Mother Nature isn't going to do.

*

Have they said exactly HOW they are going to preserve the peat?

[ArabiaTerra]

Wind turbines stopped after they kill birds. Well if this http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/devon/8167630.stm can happen with a couple of mini turbines then what could 150 big ones do?.

A bit of a misleading headline from the Beeb, I think. Killing birds was only one of the reasons the turbines were taken down. They had also failed to produce the expected power output and been damaged by gales. Those are 6kW turbines, akin to the ones that have recently been erected next to most of the public halls in Shetland. If anyone has looked, they will know those spin like aircraft propellers, hundreds of revs a minute, it's no wonder birds are getting minced. The turbines VE want to install are very different. According to the VE FAQ, they will revolve at 5 to 13 revs a minute. Slow enough for most birds to avoid them. I'm not saying they won't kill any birds, but, as Burradale has proved, it will be much less than faster, smaller turbines.

 

 

The ironic thing is, theses are exactly the type of turbines "sustainable" Shetland are pushing as part of their "community based" solution, thousands of them, outside every building in the islands. But you don't hear them telling us about the disadvantages of their solution. Oh no, "sustainable" Shetland are right behind wind power as long as it is "fit for scale, and provide real community benefit."

 

My point is, whatever we do and wherever we build it, switching our power generation to carbon free sources will have environmental costs of some form or another. What we have to do is maximise the benefits while minimising those costs. I think the VE proposal achieves this.

More great news, the RSPB Scotland have put in their OBJECTION as well!

You don't have a link to that, do you PJ?

 

Edit: Never mind, I found it.

 

http://uk.sitestat.com/rspb/website/s?downloads.project.223066&ns_type=pdf&ns_url=[http]

[ArabiaTerra]

Well now, the RSPB document is actually a well written and argued piece. Unlike the SAT objection, it actually goes out of it's way to suggest constructive solutions to the various objections they have to the VE proposal.

 

Of course, like all these documents, it suffers from the same flaw, namely, it doesn't consider the likely effects of climate change on the area during the 25 year lifetime of the windfarm and after, so how relevant it is is open to argument. I would ague that the likely damage caused by climate change to the whole of Shetland over the next 30 years will make any damage done by the windfarm undetectable. (Not to mention the myriads of birds which will be killed by "sustainable" Shetlands solution, thousands of mini-turbines).

 

On the whole though, a good document. I, personally, don't think any of the objections raised are important enough to prevent the project going ahead, maybe with modifications as suggested by the RSPB. But that's just my opinion.

[sheepshagger]

so then AT we build the windfarm and global warming will stop there will be no sea level rise and the world will be saved.

Or we build the wind farm and things will carry on just as they are sea levels will still rise but we will have f***ed our little bit of paradise by building the damn thing in a totaly unsuitable place.

Much better we build it on 1 or 2 uninhabited isles off the coast somewhere that the council can compulsary purchase. less damage to the environment and BA won't get his hands on any more of our money.

[ArabiaTerra]

so then AT we build the windfarm and global warming will stop there will be no sea level rise and the world will be saved.

Or we build the wind farm and things will carry on just as they are sea levels will still rise but we will have f***ed our little bit of paradise by building the damn thing in a totaly unsuitable place.

Much better we build it on 1 or 2 uninhabited isles off the coast somewhere that the council can compulsary purchase. less damage to the environment and BA won't get his hands on any more of our money.

If we build the windfarm, and hundreds more like it, develop wave, tidal and solar power where suitable, convert our transport to electric and hydrogen power, and basically stop digging stuff out of the ground and burning it and if we do all this in the next 20-40 years, then we stand a good chance of limiting the effects of climate change to 2 degrees C or so by the end of the century and avoiding the more apocalyptic predictions.

 

If we don't manage this, and the temperature rises higher then all sorts of nasty feedback loops kick in and all of the natural stores of carbon such as the rainforests, the Arctic tundra and peatland all over the world stop absorbing carbon and start releasing it, dwarfing human emissions and beginning a process of runaway global warming which will lead to catastrophe. It may take hundreds or even thousands of years for all this to work itself out, but the decision as to whether it happens or not will be made by us, in the next 20-40 years.

 

As far as sea level rise goes, that's probably going to happen anyway, at least as much as a metre. This is caused mainly by thermal expansion of the oceans. A smaller amount of rise will be caused by melting ice, that's inevitable but whether we get a catastrophic melting of the Greenland ice cap (7 metre rise) is, I think, still within our power to prevent, but again, while that ice may take centuries to fully melt, the decision as to whether or not it happens is still in our hands. But time is running out. The latest projections indicate that we have until 2015 to stop our emissions rising and begin reducing them. That's why I'm pushing this windfarm so hard. Tidal and wave power would be great, so would more nuclear and solar, but none of these are at the level of technological maturity where they can be deployed on the scale nescessary in time (nuclear is, but the time taken to build the things rules it out in the immediate future, we should have started building the new generation of nuclear stations at least 5 years ago).

 

We've wasted the last 20 years arguing about whether or not climate change is happening, and what to do about it if it is, while all that time the evidence has grown stronger and stronger and the potential consequences worse. We are out of time. That's the bottom line.

[sheepshagger]

So lets f**k up our local environment because it may but probably wont save the planet.

My what a far sighted prophet you are.

I am not totaly against windfarms but I do reckon they are not the messiah you think they are.

If they are to be built they should be built where they will do the least damage to the local environment.

If they are to be built they should be built for the right reasons not to line the pockets of a few individuals.

VE will f**k up our environment.

VE is all about making a few individuals a turd load of money at the rest of us expense.

and if you ever get out your bedroom for more than a few hours a day and into the real world you may just see this, but I won't hold my breath

[shetlandpeat]

There may be times when a little sacrifice is required for the greater good..But personal comments again....no good...poor show again ss.

 

I thought you came here to debate and discuss..

[Claudias]

^ ^ ^

 

Only sheepshagger gets out of his bedroom and into the real world. Such a brave child. Why can't we all be like him?

[Michael]

See, even if (and I stress if) the windfarm turned out to be a net carbon emitter, it would still be generating power that if wasn't generated here, it would have to be generated by something that almost certainly produced many times more carbon dioxide. It would still therefore reduce our overall carbon footprint as a country.

[Grafter]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/jul/28/shetland-windfarm-protest-rspb

This seems to be a balanced resume of the story so far. There will obviously be a lot more mileage in this as Viking Energy struggle to overcome the many deficiencies in their plans. It would seem that a public enquiry is a near certainty with the consequent delay to the project. By that time the Tories will be back in power nationally and they are much less sympathetic to the wind industry!

Here's hoping that this project will eventually end up in the dustbin where it fully deserves to be.

[Rasmie]

Been trying to sit on the fence re the VE wind farm. It seems to me that the odds are rapidly stacking against it!

 

From what I hear public opinion is going against it too.

 

One thing it won't do and only a deluded person would claim, that is, in any form would save the planet. Not.

 

If it saves us money then it might have a chance, but I fear it might cost us in the long term. Who will want to visit or even live in a Shetland covered in giant windyspiels?

 

The one thing we have going for us up here (and its not just myself) - great natural beauty ! Otherwise we may as well go and live in a city. This country's current ruling party has never cared much for country folk and seem to have scant disregard for the countryside.

 

If you want to "help" the planet increase energy efficiency.

[unlinkedstudent]

Well said Rasmie.

 

I'm almost tempted to break into a football crowd chant, namely "It gone quieeettttt over there!"