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Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy


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Where are all the pumped hydro stations in the UK? I can only think of a handful.

Yeah, there are only a handful, in the Highlands I believe. Which is why we also need Nuclear and Gas. The crucial point is closing the coal fired stations as they produce the vast majority of the UK's emissions.

 

Medziotojas, micro-generation and efficiency savings are all well and good, but they will only ever solve part of the problem. If you consider the UK's emissions as consisting of three parts: Home use, Transport and Industry, micro generation will only address one of these, namely home energy use. Transport will be addressed, in the short term, by using smaller more efficient cars and by moving freight onto the (electric) railways, and in the long term, by scrapping petrol and diesel vehicles altogether. That leaves Industry, which in the UK nowadays seems to be predominately office based. You can deal with that by rebuilding all of our office blocks as more efficient buildings like the new Shetland Enterprise office at the North Ness, but as has been pointed out in relation to the building of the windfarm, construction is an environmentally unfriendly business. It would surely be better (and easier) to make our energy generation carbon neutral in the first place, then the office buildings can be rebuilt over a longer time period as and when necessary.

 

All of the above still leaves, in Shetland's case, the moral argument for the windfarm. Shetland's current prosperity is based on oil. If we don't spend some of that money making up for the damage that oil has done to the planet, then I think we should hand over the remaining oil money to someone who will.

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I've just read Crofter's link:

 

From http://www.aweo.org/White-DenmarkTooGood.pdf[/url]

 

The point that report is making is that the Danish windfarms are only producing 15-20% of their rated power. The whole point of the Shetland windfarm is that, going by the evidence of the Burradale farm, the output from the VE windfarm would be closer to 50%.

 

Also, it states in that report that, apart from hydro, "you cannot store electricity". To this should be added "using existing grid technology". One of the things that should be clear from this debate is that the distribution grid needs to be radically redesigned to accommodate renewable's in all their forms. There are a myriad of ways to store electricity, from batteries to hot, pressurised water to hydrogen generation and storage. To simply state that electricity cannot be stored is plain wrong.

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The crucial point is closing the coal fired stations as they produce the vast majority of the UK's emissions.

 

But it seems unlikely that building the windfarm will result in any of the coal fired stations closing. In fact, as more windmills are built, we may need to build more, to provide the backup generation capacity.

 

Found a leaflet for this while off isle:

 

http://stopturbinesonpressendye.com/

 

stats they are quoting, unverified by me:

 


  • * Germany, with many more turbines than the UK is building 27 new coal-fired power stations
     
    * In Denmark, no fossil fuel power stations have been closed despite the construction of 6000 wind turbines. Carbon emissions have increased.

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I've just read Crofter's link:

 

From http://www.aweo.org/White-DenmarkTooGood.pdf[/url]

 

The point that report is making is that the Danish windfarms are only producing 15-20% of their rated power. The whole point of the Shetland windfarm is that, going by the evidence of the Burradale farm, the output from the VE windfarm would be closer to 50%.

 

I agree that Shetland is probably twice as windy as Denmark. However, that just means that they need twice as many turbines as we do to generate the same amount of electricity. If they cannot reduce CO2 emissions in Denmark with thousands of turbines, how can we do it here with a few hundred?

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Germany, with many more turbines than the UK is building 27 new coal-fired power stations

I've been searching but I can't find any reference to this anywhere except on anti-windfarm sites. It looks like they're all passing round the same rumour, but none carry a source for this claim.

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It was stated earlier that a scale model of the windfarm would be impractical. How about a virtual model using Google Earth or Flight Sim X?

 

It'd be very easy to put the turbines into Google Earth. I am not sure how good their ground model is for Shetland though - the good data is all kept by the OS to sell.

 

It'd come down to what you expected from it, a quick and easy look round to get the overall idea, or an exact view from your house.

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Cheers for that, Njugle.

 

It seems that the new plants are intended to replace existing ones rather than add additional capacity. I also found reference to a phasing out of Germany's nuclear capacity when I was searching, so these new plants would presumably be intended to replace that as well.

 

Nevertheless, it is a worrying trend. The Germans seem to have bought the myth of "clean coal" technology. Well if anyone can make it work...

 

This new development does not, however, seem to be linked to any failure of German policy on windfarms. Despite what the anti-windfarm sites are implying.

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Very funny, Auld Een, however the proposed windfarm is not going to cover all the hills and, more importantly, I think the VE boys would be a bit annoyed about this assumption that when the windfarm reaches the end of it's life it will be simply abandoned to rot on the hills. I don't think anyone connected with VE has even come close to suggesting this.

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Guest Anonymous

^Of course they hivna suggested it AT. :roll: It is all how good it is goin to be for the community they are hardly likely to tell us how bad it really will be.

All they are interested in is lining their own pockets.

One of the land owners set to recieve a substantial amount of ground rent is on the CT, He has already recieved a load of money from the CT and if he has it his way he will recieve a lot more.

They will be no real benefit for Shetland either through employment in the construction phase ( a few labourers is not an employment boom) or employment in the long term (how many folk are employed full time looking after the current wind farm).

A few land owners who have already bennefited from the oil fund will benefit some more and the rest of us will suffer and pay for it all.

 

A pestilence on them and their spawn for 50 generations.

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I'm coming to the conclusion that the decommissioning and windmill industries are very similar.

 

Excepionally high levels of spin, regarding jobs and economic spin offs.

 

Anyone know anybody who works in the oil decommissioning business?

 

Anyone know anybody who works in the windmill business apart from the Burradale boys (who are hoping to get a 10% share of VE in return for a used black shadow and a roosty red tin)

 

I am sorry to be so depressed about both subjects but I am yet to be convinced that we are just not going to end up with two large piles of s**t on our doorsteps, massive debt, several very well off individuals and not much else.

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  • admin changed the title to Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

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