Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[PJ of Hildisvik]

I don't know, you would have to look at all the details first, the only thing IMHO, is that i don't trust the SNP, they have one main agenda of Independance, which would have huge effects on the fishing industry, oil and conservation IMHO of course

[JustMe]

If I thought that a windfarm in my front garden would do any good then I would be all for it. Sadly I do not. As for a massive windfarm in Shetland I am not convinced that it makes sense. The cost to the environment of creating the windfarm plus the cost to the environment of the interconnector need to be less than the status quo and so far I am not convinced that they are.

 

Also I need to be convinced that a Shetland windfarm would able to "sell" its electricity when lower cost alternatives were in place on the UK mainland. At the moment I am not convinced of that either.

 

Global warming is one issue and clean energy is another. Experts may argue about global warming but clean energy certainly makes lots of sense but we need to get it right. Sensible solutions only.

[petrocelli_]

People who want the wind farm, and those un-decided obviously won't sign it will they, hardly a biased petition.

 

Are you saying that if 5,000 sign it then we can take it that the other 17,000 are either undecided or for the VE project? Very gracious of you, PJ!

 

Anyway, all I was saying was that it would have been interesting to see the results of a joint petition, for and against, but that just might have come up with a result that Sustainable would have been horrified at!

 

I suspect that at the moment we have a hard core on both sides with the vast majority undecided but receptive to hearing more information on whether this is or isn't a viable option. Sensible stance I would say.

[Medziotojas]

I suspect that at the moment we have a hard core on both sides with the vast majority undecided but receptive to hearing more information on whether this is or isn't a viable option. Sensible stance I would say.

 

I think this is probably the case as well. However, as long as people are indecisive I think this project is likely to get pushed through under the current proposals.

 

I don't know what the situation is like in Shetland, but reading the views on here it seems that there is a serious lack of information. Perhaps if VE put something more on the table, an incentive for the people of Shetland, they could rally more support.

 

My main gripe is the scale of the project, and the fact that Shetland should be more concerned with its own supply before it considers selling power to the mainland grid.

[ArabiaTerra]

Global warming is one issue and clean energy is another.

No, you're wrong. These issues are one and the same. Dirty energy causes global warming.

[JustMe]

Global warming is one issue and clean energy is another.

No, you're wrong. These issues are one and the same. Dirty energy causes global warming.

 

Sorry A.T. but your statement counts as "not proven" in a lot of peoples minds. Surely we can also argue for clean energy on the grounds of a cleaner environment and conservation of finite fuel sources even if global warming is still being debated.

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

I'm for a cleaner environment myself, after all, I live in!

 

Conservation of finite resources also makes sense to me as well.

[nic]

How much longer is the debate going to go on for wasting time, money and effort.

 

Simple, does the majority want it or not. No funny petitions or other MORI style crap. Every person over the age of 12 gets a voting slip DONE.

[Carlos]

The debate (in political terms) has not really started yet.

 

What's going on at the moment is the preparation of VE's planning submission - the environmental stuff. After that goes public (February 2009?) there'll likely be a fair discussion of the information they presented for....what, 6 months, a year?

 

Then if that gets passed we'll move on to the true debate, whether it should be built and whether the council should invest the money - the financial and political part.

It'll run and run.

[tirvaluk]

Interesting piece on Countryfile today about alternative power, there are so many wind power projects being held up or stopped for environmental reasons that this country could be seriously short of power in a few years.

[Grafter]

An interesting article about wind power and how inefficient and very expensive it is.

 

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=1029

[ArabiaTerra]

An interesting article about wind power and how inefficient and very expensive it is.

 

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=1029

As opposed to .....

 

Tidal? Granted, tidal power has the advantage of being constant and predictable but it has disadvantages as well. The main one being that it works underwater which means that if it breaks you have to lift the whole thing out of the sea to fix it. This is expensive and potentially dangerous given that it is most likely to break during times of maximum stress ie: during storms.

 

Wave? Wave power has the same problems as wind. It's intermittent and suffers from the same problem of latency that affects wind power. Also it has the same maintenance problems as tidal power.

 

Solar Power? Intermittent and expensive, very expensive.

 

This leaves nuclear power which, while it is unpopular and expensive, at least gives you the guaranteed base load you need.

 

Wind, wave and tidal have their places (like Shetland where the intermittency of the wind is at a minimum and the latency is 50%) and I think a lot more could be done with bio-fuels (such as wood burning power stations) but the future is nuclear, at least until we get fusion working.

 

The up-shot is the era of cheap unlimited power is over. We just have to get used to this.

[Nigel Bridgman-Elliot]

Re. solar, I thought the sun shone every day ?

 

I thought solar was also now cheaper than coal ? (nanosolar panels for example.)

 

 

Whilst I'm also a fan of fusion, no one seems to pay geothermal much attention these days..

 

 

In London last winter we had brownouts, and are expecting them to become more common as our generating capacity falls, I'm sure some of us rememebr what it was like in the 1970's when the lights last went out..

 

http://century.guardian.co.uk/1970-1979/Story/0,,106893,00.html

 

 

I certainly think though that nuclear looks the most promising as a known solution. (Incidently, when did Shetland become a nuclear free zone ?)

[ArabiaTerra]

Re. solar, I thought the sun shone every day ?

errrr... clouds? Actually, I should have said latency as, like wind and wave, they don't always operate at full efficiency.

I thought solar was also now cheaper than coal ? (nanosolar panels for example.)

I think if this was the case it would be being shouted from the rooftops (or coated on the rooftops ).

I certainly think though that nuclear looks the most promising as a known solution. (Incidently, when did Shetland become a nuclear free zone ?)

In the early eighties I think. Mostly a reaction to emissions from Dounrey and Thatcher's proposal to build Trident.

[aa]

The article from Energy Tribune linked to above says:

Ofgem, which regulates the U.K.'s electricity and gas markets, has already expressed its concern at the burgeoning tab being picked up by the British taxpayer which, they claim, is “grossly distorting the market†while hiding the real cost of wind power. In the past year alone, prices for electricity and natural gas in the U.K. have risen twice as fast as the European Union average according to figures released in November by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. While 15 percent energy price rises were experienced across the E.U., in the U.K. gas and electricity prices rose by a staggering 29.7 percent. Ofgem believes wind subsidy has been a prime factor and questions the logic when, for all the public investment, wind produces a mere 1.3 percent of the U.K.'s energy needs.

I am not a fan of VE's proposals but that article has some amazing distortions in it. The UK suffered disproportionate spikes in energy prices because we can't store much gas and so have to buy at the spot market price. From what I can remember, Germany has the ability to store up to 70 days worth of gas, which means that it can fill up in summer when gas is cheaper and then top up during the winter when spot market prices are relatively low (i.e. mild periods). The UK can only store 14 days of gas which means that we can't buy much in the summer and we have to buy gas when demand is at its highest and so spot prices are high. To imply, as the article does, that the UK suffered high energy prices because we have more wind turbines is complete tosh.