Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[trowie246]

I think your last two posts, Malachy, certainly hit a chord with me and I'm ashamed to say that I hadn't really looked at it from that point a view - that alot of the problem (although not all of it) has been caused by our own selfishness. I think in lots of ways I actually saw it from AT's point of view " We've got a problem - lets try and find a solution" although I don't have a solution and AT thinks that VE has the solution.

 

We all like our cars, technology, our warm houses, food in plastic trays from the supermarket etc. etc. Nobody gives it a second thought. And if we turn Shetland into a windfarm who outwith Shetland would really care?

Nobody. And people would still go on and on wanting more and more with the root of the problem never fully being tackled.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Arabia Terra, in response to your query to SS, i'am sure that someone will contact you shortly, you may have already been contacted, as SS recieved your request at 16.41 on MONDAY

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Oops my mistake, that was 16.21, not 16.41

[Skunnered]

Insider information PJ?

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Well i could tell you Skunnered, but as the saying goes , i would then have to Keeel you

[Ghostrider]

The key point here though, is that conventional energy generation and transmission....

The key point, my dear Njugle, which I have been repeating ad nauseaum since I got into these debates is that conventional energy generation and transmission is over. It cannot continue. The planet can't handle it. The only reason it is still cheaper to burn coal,oil and gas is because they are not taxed, yet. The only reason they are not taxed yet is because the alternative is not in place, yet and the government can't risk massive price increases for consumers, yet. Once there is enough renewables in place to minimise the price rise the carbon taxes will be slapped on.

 

Stop comparing windfarms to fossil fuels. There will be no more fossil fuels. They have no future and will be phased out as soon as it is practical. The only meaningful comparison you can make on costs is between different renewables and nuclear. And of these, onshore wind is the cheapest.

 

Stop talking about the past Njugle. Wake up, the futures here and it's scary!

 

Fossil fuels are already taxed, at least a minimum of 5% VAT, never mind just how much of the pump price goes straight in to the greasy paws of HM Government every time you fill up. You're not helping "sell" VE to Shetland and Shetlanders with this kind of rhetoric....Lets see, wind power is only the golden egg laying goose the Charry Trust/SSE/Thomson Bros plc would have us believe if its subsidised by taxation funded Renewable Certificates, freebie connection to the grid and capped transmission charges, and helped on its way by HM Govt slapping yet more tax on fossil fuel..... Do I need to point out just how bad this makes VE's "investment" look?!? Set VE's investment on a level playing field, without certificates, having to pay its own way to get on to grid and maintain that connection against the same investment in fossil fuel generation nearer to the grid, and it looks exactly like the bottomless pit white elephant it is.

 

Maybe you're happy to rely of Government(s) not to change their mind months or years down the line, but I've seen far too many of them come and go having done exactly that, that I certainly don't. If VE's proposals cannot stand on their own two feet as a paying spec without certificates, and politically manufactured favourable market conditions, it needs binning now! Certificates may have come, but they can go as easily, favourable connection to the grid may be a possibility right now, tomorrow it may well be gone, maybe a Goverment will levy carbon taxes on fossil fuels on top of all the taxes they already do, in fact they probably will, but don't for one minute be sucked in to believing its to "encourage" folk to accept and maybe pay a slightly higher price for energy that's produced renewably, so that politicians can say they saved the world. Like hell it will be, it'll just be seen by them as another cash cow which adds to their coffers to be squandered on more crap.

 

Comparing renewable energy with fossil fuel energy may or may not be applicable, that all depends whether or not you've swallowed hook line and sinker the worst end of the guesswork so called "science" of the worst case scenario for the future, and consider it cast in tablets of stone gospel. Personally the whole thing has far too much based on questionable facts, conjecture and best guess, that even the so called "experts" in the field are still fighting over what it means, and all of it has far, far too many parallels with how religion is "promoted", to just run my life by it.

 

The future may well be here, and to some it may be scary, but the problem with it is, to your average Joe Public it looks, feels, tastes and smells exactly like the past. It still snows in London in winter, and rarely get above 100 in summer, and the Thames hasn't turned them in to a second Venice yet, Shetland still get the same old slester of weet sleet and howlin gales all winter the same as we always did, and summers rarely reach 70 let alone get above that, and the cellars on the lower side of the street haven't been flooded by the sea in nigh on 20 years. The only sign of planet imminent destruction is a few politicians and "scientists" pleepsin that its going to happen. When the only way to negotiate the Esplanade is by boat, and summers are regularly getting in to the 80's around the Costa del Scallawaa, folk will listen, folk will believe, and they'll readily accept windmills as tight as caird teeth on every one of Shetland's hills, until that time comes mention of imminent planet destruction is quickly met with responses of "cry wolf", "scraremongering" and "I' awarr a nae appearance o' I'm yit" by most folk I know. As long as that is what folk believe they will not act favourably towards actions to prevent something that they've yet to be convinced is ever going to happen, or support the sacrifice of something in their own back yard to allegedly prevent this thing that they are still to be convinced will ever occur.

[Malachy]

I am not sure whether I am pleased or distraught that it is probably exactly this kind of wilful ignorance that will stop the VE project going ahead.

[Skunnered]

Well put Ghostrider. It's certainly not correct to say that the investment returns are guaranteed because if wind farms fall out of favour at some point in the future, then Governments can change their taxes and subsidies. And we haven't yet had details of the contract between SSE and VE regarding the pricing structure for the electricity i.e. do we know for sure that SSE will maintain the price per unit that they pay to VE or will they be able to reduce it in the future in order to suck all of the profits out of the joint venture?

 

And who will pay for the de-commissioning at the end of the project?

 

There are still lots of unknowns about this project.

[Ghostrider]

I am not sure whether I am pleased or distraught that it is probably exactly this kind of wilful ignorance that will stop the VE project going ahead.

 

I prefer to call it healthy scepticism of the motivations and intentions of the scientific/political community, just as I have very similar feelings about religion due to what I would like to think was a healthy scepticism of the motivations and intentions of organised religions, whoever they are.

[Skunnered]

I am not sure whether I am pleased or distraught that it is probably exactly this kind of wilful ignorance that will stop the VE project going ahead.

 

I actually thought (perhaps in my own wilful ignorance) that Ghostrider raised some very good points, mainly in the first 2 paras. It would be interesting to know why you dismiss these, on a rational point-by-point basis.

[Malachy]

I am not sure whether I am pleased or distraught that it is probably exactly this kind of wilful ignorance that will stop the VE project going ahead.

 

I prefer to call it healthy scepticism of the motivations and intentions of the scientific/political community, just as I have very similar feelings about religion due to what I would like to think was a healthy scepticism of the motivations and intentions of organised religions, whoever they are.

 

I prefer to call it wilful ignorance. And this utter nonsense about the motivations of the 'scientific/political community' (as if there has ever been such a cosy consensus between those professions) is just that - utter nonsense. Am I not right in thinking that George Bush denied global warming right up almost to the end of his tenure, and that Sarah Palin also denied it. So does that mean that people like them are in the same camp as you - healthy sceptics? Had they analysed the data as carefully as you and come to the same conclusion? Or are they idiots? Or were they in the pay of oil companies?

The scientific community did not arrive at the current position all at once. Some more radical scientists have been saying we have a problem for a long time. Others have moved towards their position gradually as the empirical evidence steadily amassed. Scientists have not been paid by politicians to think a certain way, because politicians don't want climate change to exist. It's a complete pain in the ass for them that it exists because if they want to deal with the reality of the situation they will have to make very very unpopular decisions. And I very much doubt they will ever make those decisions. Instead they pay lip sevice to the scientists because if they don't they will look like complete idiots (hence the reason George Bush eventually relented). However bad the politicians say it is, you can bet it's a lot worse. And if you listen to the scientists it certainly is a lot worse. They are positively screaming at governments the world over to actually do something constructive, and they are being more or less ignored. There is no cosyness at all between them.

Of course, if your idea of science is reading the 'science correspondent' in the Daily Mail or the Sun, the complete opposite is true. Scientists have been bribed into lying by nasty left wing politicians who want us all to pay lots more 'green taxes' so they can spend it all on prostitutes and Koran lessons or something.

The propaganda against the evidence for climate change sounds no less ridiculous than the holocaust deniers or those claiming the Jews were responsible for 9/11. It takes a lot of effort to ignore the evidence, that is why I called it wilful. You have to ignore so much, so often, that you must walk around like a child putting its hands over its ears and singing "lalalalalalala" very loudly.

If you want to see what's changing turn off Top Gear and look outside. Speak to folk who know about the weather - talk to meteorologists rather than your pals. Talk to people who know about the land, about the environment. Speak to the Inuit - ask them if anything's changed. I suspect you'll get a different answer from the one you've currently got.

[Malachy]

I actually thought (perhaps in my own wilful ignorance) that Ghostrider raised some very good points, mainly in the first 2 paras. It would be interesting to know why you dismiss these, on a rational point-by-point basis.

 

I don't really need to dismiss those points because those paragraphs were concerned with attacking VE, which, like Ghostrider, I oppose, for the reasons I set out earlier. I stuck to his last paragraph because it is his feelings about climate change that I fundamentally disagree with.

[Ghostrider]

^^ I'm not going to have time right now to address that point by point, and its not due to watching TV or reading Red Tops, I do neither, I still have work to do tonight.

 

However, seeing as you mention talking to people who know the land and weather, firstly having lived in the Shetland version of the latter all my life, and worked with the Shetland version of the former one way or another for many of them too, I would like to think I do maybe know a little myself, but that aside. Perhaps you would care to explain how this heading and the data linked to it, lifted for the website of your own neighbour and weather expert resolves with the concept of global warming as bandied about in the present.

 

"Fair Isle Weather in 2007

Contrary to all predictions of increased storminess over the Atlantic resulting from global warming, annual wind speeds on Fair Isle – apart from a period during the early 1990s - have decreased."

 

Linked data here as pdf. http://www.northisles-weather.co.uk/weather/FI_2007_Binder.pdf

 

Now, to my un-metrologically trained eye, all of that only serves to disprove the concept of global warming, as it is currently promoted. Note, I did not say it disproved global warming in its entirity, despite the impression you may have gleaned so far, I do not disbelieve in global warming entirely, I just have extremely deep doubts relating to the alleged cause/effect conslusions and future projections of the so called "experts" at the present time. Now, if you can demonstrate to me how the above data in fact supports the theory of global warming, as it is currently punted to the masses, I would appreciate it.

[Malachy]

Well you've managed to pick one piece of data from that report that, for one part of the UK, goes against predictions.

 

I'm not going to presume to speak on Dave Wheeler's behalf, but I can fairly confidently say that he is not a climate change denier. In fact, I interviewed him a while back on that subject. What he says seems to contradict some of your statements earlier in this thread to the effect that Shetland's weather has not changed at all in recent decades....

Dave is talking here obviously about the changes that he has seen in his own professional observations in Fair Isle:

 

"In the last 30-plus years, the number of days with snow lying at 0900 hours between December and February has fallen by over 40 per cent. At the same time, the number of days on which snow or sleet was observed to have fallen (at any time during the day or night) has dropped by 25 per cent."

 

"Sea temperatures also continue to rise, most notably during the summer months, with a one to two degree Celsius rise over 30 years."

 

"An analysis of the daily mean temperatures appears to show that, during recent years, temperatures fluctuate (on a time scale of days to a week or so) far more widely than they did 20 to 30 years ago. I believe our climate is becoming even more variable than it was."

 

No offence, but I would rather take his word for it than yours.

[crofter]

This always happens in this thread! AT says we need VE because it is the only way to stop global warming. Then somebody else says that GW is only a theory. Then a mod comes along and moves all the climate change posts into the Global Warming thread.

 

Malachy made an excellent post earlier though, pointing out that there is no technological fix. If we seriously want to do something about co2, or even if we want our kids to have some resources left, we have to consume less. A lot less. Of everything.