Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[Njugle]

Oops, I've just realised i've mis-represented myself there. The station will more likely be entirely mothballed, with skeleton staff, as the point that was rumbling around in my distracted mind is that the interconnector will have the possibility of supplying back the way and the powerstation will be retained only to cover the eventuality of a break in the cable.

 

To answer your question, engines on that scale have a lengthy start-up and rundown cycle to prevent damage and run efficiently. You can't just turn the key and put the foot down. (Nor should you with any ICE, though i am as guilty of it as the next).

[ArabiaTerra]

To answer your question, engines on that scale have a lengthy start-up and rundown cycle to prevent damage and run efficiently. You can't just turn the key and put the foot down.

Not sure I buy that to be honest, I've worked on several big diesels both at College and at SVT and they were all pretty much turn the key and you're off (they were, after all standby generators and fire pumps). Of course the diesels in the Gremista station are probably that bit bigger again so you could be right. I've never actually set foot in the place. But now we're getting off topic...

[ArabiaTerra]

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.

I've just had a look at the Centrica web site but unfortunately there is no mention of this project.

 

As to the coal gasification process, the estimates I've seen for the energy consumption of this process which involves cooking the coal under high pressure and temperature have been up to 75% of the power output of the station. That doesn't leave much left of the 800MW and equates to a real CO2 output of 0.6 tons/MWhour rather than the 0.15 claimed. Which is no better than oil or gas.

 

As I've said before, there is no such thing as clean coal.

[Njugle]

I'm going to have to steer us away from the windfarm thread to mention this again:

More 'cleaner power stations' here.

[Mutley]

[quote name="Hardwadder"

 

 

 

Well here we go again

 

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

 

And it is the same pub' date=' make mine a malt! [/quote]

 

Hey, I'm sorry but I've taken a look at this and it's over 3 years old! The success of the German initiative is clearly highlighted in the up-to-date Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology website. It does not look to me like an industry which is failing.

 

Topline: http://www.german-renewable-energy.com/Renewables/Navigation/Englisch/root.html

 

Further Info: http://www.german-renewable-energy.com/Renewables/Navigation/Englisch/wind-power.html

 

§ Some 214,000 people are now employed in the renewable energy sector and may have managed to prevent some 101 million tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere in 2006.

§ Renewable energy technologies in Germany have become an important industrial sector with high annual growth rates in the last few years. Many innovative German companies have advanced to become international technological leaders, providing key components for the wind energy, hydropower, solar energy, geothermic and biomass sectors. "Renewables made in Germany" are considered amongst the world leaders and are therefore being used all over the world.

§ A turnover of 11.3 billion euros arose from the erection of plants and 10.3 billion euros from the operation of the plants.

§ Renewable energy accounted for 5.8 percent of primary energy consumption in Germany in 2006 and the share of renewable energy in total gross electricity consumption rose to 12 percent.

In relation to total road traffic, the contribution of biofuels to fuel supply reached 6.6 percent and, in the heat market, renewables' share in total heat provision was 6 percent. Its proportion in the total final energy consumption rose to 8 percent.

[Mutley]

For the record this appeared in the Shetland News today.

 

Windfarm clarification

2 April, 2008

 

ROSA is welcome to ask anything anywhere and if it's about the windfarm then I'll try to answer (Letter: Growing old disgracefully 1/4/08).

 

To correct Rosa's first mistake: Viking Energy's mandate does not come from an early opinion poll. Viking Energy's only mandate comes from the support of Shetland's democratically elected councillors who have been willing to investigate the opportunity identified and who understand that they are committed to nothing more than finding out if the project can ever happen.

 

However, the Ipsos Mori poll mentioned was a useful part of Viking Energy's consultation process. Useful to Viking Energy mainly because it gave us a good idea of how much people knew about the project. Rather than go into the detail I will merely direct Rosa (and anyone else interested) to the Viking Energy website where the analysis of the survey including full details of every question asked has been sitting for more than a year. http://www.vikingenergy.co.uk/news.asp

 

The amount of money spent on this project has similarly been published before and I am happy to add to what has already been said. By this morning, Shetland Island's Council has spent just over £1.4 million over the last four years against budgets for everything to do with Viking Energy. A significant proportion of this is for costs such as wages, office, IT costs, etc. that would have been incurred regardless of whether the project existed. Our partner has spent slightly less and so, following a reconciliation process, Scottish and Southern Energy will reimburse half of the difference to ensure that both partners pay exactly 50 per cent each.

 

Rosa's misunderstanding of scoping procedures is quite common and I think the easiest way to explain the site size is to say that Viking Energy's approach to environmental impact assessment is to understand more than the minimum necessary and instead we are happily surveying areas where we have no intention of putting turbines.

 

The sheer volume of environmental data now collected for this project is already a valuable resource. We do this simply so we can demonstrate that we not only know what is going on within the windfarm footprint, but also that we know what is going on away from the windfarm.

 

It is also good to have what are known as 'control' sites should the project proceed and the ongoing monitoring start. So our scoping site may be 32,000 acres but our actual proposed windfarm footprint will be less than a third of this. The area actually disturbed will be more in the region of 371 acres.

 

As always, we welcome discussion of any kind.

 

David Thomson

Project Officer - Viking Energy

Tel: 01595 744919 Fax: 01595 744920

Email: david.h.thomson@shetland.gov.uk

Web: www.vikingenergy.co.uk

[sheepshagger]

Shetlands entire power could be supplied by the power station at sullom, and could have been ever since the thing was built this is gas fired and carbon neutral as excess gas is burnt anyway when not used for power so if the council was serious about the environment this is surely the option that would be first out the hat.

Seeing as it is our bloody gas in the first place why the heck should we pay the oil companies for it, free clean power without a blot on the hills of the central mainland, makes more sense does it not?

If the folks that are pushing this scheme had the rest of our interests at heart this would be the first thing they would do, SSE have commited themselves to nuclear power and it takes a fair while to build one of those buggers about the same time as it will tak for the windfarm to go tits up with a nice handy cable to a remote BROKE group of islands far to the north of Edinburgh.

[ArabiaTerra]

Shetlands entire power could be supplied by the power station at sullom, and could have been ever since the thing was built this is gas fired and carbon neutral as excess gas is burnt anyway when not used for power

I'm afraid that's not carbon neutral, SS. Gas is a fossil fuel. The only way to use it in a carbon neutral way is to leave it in the ground.

[sheepshagger]

if it is going to be burnt any way then using it to create electricity is carbon neutral AT

[Njugle]

^Or develop biological or chemical means to return the CO2 to a stable carbon form immediately. Like 'instant peat'

 

Talking of peat here's a cautionary tale:

www.galwaynews.ie[/url]"]

Court blames windfarm for Derrybrien slide

THE massive bog slide which occurred at Derrybrien in October, 2003, could have been predicted and was caused by windfarm construction activities — rather than bad weather — a High Court judge has ruled.

 

In a comprehensive 343 page judgment, Mr. Justice Declan Budd, has firmly laid the blame for the bog slide on excavation works being carried out on the site involving the development of a 71 wind turbine farm in the Slieve Aughty mountains.

[ArabiaTerra]

if it is going to be burnt any way then using it to create electricity is carbon neutral AT

I wasn't going to answer this, as it is complete rubbish. But I just can't leave such obvious nonsense unchallenged.

 

Burning fossil fuels, under any circumstances, causes climate change regardless of whether we do anything useful with the fossil fuel in the process.

[Fjool]

Not complete rubbish. Look at it this way, AT: at present, the gas is not used to generate electricity, and other, extra fossil fuels are used to produce that electricity instead. Therefore, if the gas is used, the electricity produced is, by consequence, reducing carbon emissions.

 

Now we can argue over the technicalities of where and how the co2 is produced, of course, and I see where you're coming from, but it's perfectly valid to think of it in terms of an offset against the extra fuel which no longer needs burning. It has saved some co2 emissions elsewhere even if, in itself, it produced co2.

[sheepshagger]

AT would like to go back to living in caves and eating raw meat because that is how we would have to live if he had his way.

2005 was a year of solar minimum yet had the highest recorded solar actvity it was also the year of Katrina and other devestating storms,

2011 is the next solar maximum and I can't wait to here AT's man made disaster when the climate goes haywire in 2011/12, get a grip AT if you want to spout doomsday at least have a basic grasp of the facts not some pish that bunch of hippies that want to stop all civilisation in the western world would have you believe.

And the government well what a convenient way to raise tax and seem like the good guys without doing a damn thing to help mitigate the effects of natural climate change.

 

Gullable is a polite term for you boy

[Girzie]

What about all the paet which has been cast and taken out of the hills for hundreds of years now? Hasn't that caused the destruction of blanket bog and carbon emission? Or am I just not understanding the principle?

[Carlos]

Give it 2 years and washing powder will be advertised as "carbon neutral"

 

You're both right.

Burning gas is not carbon neutral.

Generating more energy from gas that is already burnt is a carbon neutral change to the process, even if the process is not - basically an efficiency saving.