Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[petrocelli_]

that there were folk there who were genuinely interested in what the modus operandi of SS was.

 

From what I heard on Radio Shetland there were four folk asked for their opinion of the meeting, two said they were still "undecided"! That would appear to back up your point, Mutley.

[Girzie]

There were 150 people reported to attend this meeting of Sustainable Shetland which I don't actually think is a great many considering the population of the islands. Also as has been said before, it was not a discussion or public meeting as it was entirely one sided.

[Hardwadder]

 

These kind of things alienate people and to be honest we had a bloody good laugh about this in the pub tonight.

 

 

Must have been the same pub where the crane driving guy who thinks that you can site two 150m tower cranes to top off a wind turbine on a peat bog drinks.

 

Which pub by the way? - sounds like a fun place

[BlackEagle]

http://shetlopedia.com/images/c/c2/PicSullomVoeOT1.jpg

 

This is a photo of Sullom with the flare in the background. I think the flare is around 200m high tho' that's a vague memory from years ago when I worked there so if anyone actually knows, please correct me....

 

If anyone wants to try some photoshop magic on those images, it might help with visualisations of the windfarm. That's all the photo's I could find on the net.

 

Edit: This is a good one, kind of puts the visual impact of a windfarm into perspective.

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/index.php?a=indexes&s=item&key=IYToxOntpOjA7czoxMjoiR2FsbGFnaGVyLCBSIjt9&pg=88

 

If this point has been made already please forgive the repetition. I haven't been able to keep up with the entire thread and tempus fugit.

At least when the oil started coming along 30 some years ago, the SIC had the brains to place the terminal in a remote place so that it would have minimal visual impact to visitors and residents on the rest of the island.

Does anyone remember the old BBC childrens' programme about the Tripods? The idea of around 150 giant windmills on the hilltops along the length of Shetland conjurs up images of Tripods coming over the top of the hill in search of fugitive freemen.

 

I believe it was also written into the contract that the terminal owners would need to return the land to its original state (or as close as possible) at the end of the life of the terminal. Have any of these safeguards been considered in contracts for the windfarm? It will after all have a limited service lifetime. Who will be left with the cleanup bill when the windfarm has reached the end of its useful life or is replaced with a more effective, efficient and reliable source of renewable energy?

[Hardwadder]

Pretty accurate guage of windmill size

 

 

http://www.sustainableshetland.org/Aith290408.htm

[ArabiaTerra]

For those of you who maintain that windpower is no use because it cannot be stored:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7315059.stm

[Hardwadder]

For those of you who maintain that windpower is no use because it cannot be stored:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/7315059.stm

 

If that's a reality then it's great news for Shetland. It would mean that we could have a fit for scale community windfarm supplying the Shetland Grid, probably 20 or so of the giant turbines which I'm sure we could all live with...

[Carlos]

Another +1 on the tone of the debate lately.

 

I'd agree that now the question is about the balance of what we gain and what we loose with each possible proposal, now and for the future, and I hope that with more information coming over the summer we will start to get some more solid idea on the pluses and minuses.

[Mutley]

 

 

Must have been the same pub where the crane driving guy who thinks that you can site two 150m tower cranes to top off a wind turbine on a peat bog drinks.

 

It's certainly not one where the mad guy who sits nodding to himself in the corner who reckons he can mind readthe guy who tells tall tales about 22 years to erect a windfarm and the lady who reckons that wind farming in Germany has been a failure:

 

"In Germany, wind energy has experienced over recent years a degree of success that had hardly been thought conceivable" (EU Directorate General for Energy and Transport)

 

[Hardwadder]

 

 

It's certainly not one where the mad guy who sits nodding to himself in the corner who reckons he can mind readthe guy who tells tall tales about 22 years to erect a windfarm and the lady who reckons that wind farming in Germany has been a failure:

 

"In Germany, wind energy has experienced over recent years a degree of success that had hardly been thought conceivable" (EU Directorate General for Energy and Transport)

 

 

 

 

Well here we go again

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/feb/26/sciencenews.renewableenergy

 

And it is the same pub, make mine a malt!

[petrocelli_]

Well here we go again

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2005/feb/26/sciencenews.renewableenergy

 

And it is the same pub, make mine a malt!

 

Hardwadder, come ower here so I can skelp de backside!

 

Please report back to page 34 of this thread and read the posts re. the stark difference between the Danish and German wind regimes compared to Shetland's case.

 

As I've said before on this thread, all that the Guardian's report does is highlight, once again, the relatively poor output experienced by German windfarms.

 

That would clearly not be the case here. To get the same output in Germany as can be experienced here in Shetland you would need to erect 3-3.5 turbines to every one in Shetland. Starting to make sense, Hardwadder.

 

Tia Maria and Lucozade for me, cheers!

[ArabiaTerra]

Critics of wind energy in Germany said it would be cheaper and more environmentally efficient to insulate old houses or to renew existing power stations.

So we combat climate change by replacing existing coal fired power stations with new coal fired power stations. Like that's going to work.

 

As the guy from Greenpeace was quoted as saying in the same article: "You can't energy-efficiency your way out of climate change. You need to have clean forms of energy generation, and wind power is the technology that's competitive, current and it's the one that's available now."

[Njugle]

So we combat climate change by replacing existing coal fired power stations with new coal fired power stations. Like that's going to work.

The Guardian[/url]"]Centrica promised today to build Britain's cleanest-ever coal-fired power station with almost zero carbon emissions as part of the fight against global warming and security of energy supply.

 

Advancement through technology, as some Germans have been known to say.

 

On the subject of the Windfarm, kinda. The reduced cost of the "run down" Gremista power station will not be factored into the justification for the interconnector, unfortunately. Well, not in VE terms, i'm sure it will be a big plus point for SSE financially. There will most likely be job cuts though, but the station will have to be run at some level, even though not supplying the grid, to safeguard against any downtime the windmills have. ie the power station cannot be 'switched on and off' in case of emergency.

 

The VE windfarm will supply the local grid as well as exporting electricity.

[ArabiaTerra]

800MW @ 0.15 tons/MWhour = 120tons/hour

 

I'd hardly call that "almost zero carbon emissions". It's a start I suppose compared to 720tons/hour for a conventional coal fired plant. The problem is they don't mention how many of the 800MW will be used by the coal gasification process. Without that figure, and it wont be trivial, any claims made by Centrica are meaningless.

[ArabiaTerra]

.... but the station will have to be run at some level, even though not supplying the grid, to safeguard against any downtime the windmills have. ie the power station cannot be 'switched on and off' in case of emergency.

Why not? It's an internal combustion engine, it should switch on and off like a car engine. It's not like it's a steam powered generating plant where you have to wait a couple of hours for the water to boil.