Shetland windfarm - Viking Energy

[north]

Do you trust the council to run any business and turn any profit with their track record, let alone the maximum theoretical projected profit. I sure as hell don't.

 

I whole-heartledly agree with Ghostrider. The Council are utterly incapable of running a business; creating a realistic budget or even balancing a cheque-book.

 

A cursory review of past debacles involving them over the last 40 years will reveal a very compelling trend of mismanagement, poor investment judgement, leadership by committee rather than delegated responsible executive team and the all important petty internal politics for favoured projects.

 

Within the "corporate structure" of the various and sundry entities the SIC trades under are a number of quite succesful ventures and some very good ideas and people. There is also an embarrasing number of utter failures that have been swept under the carpet and hoped they would just go away.

 

If they are determined to run a business of this nature, they need to appoint a management team responsible to their "shareholders", with all the accompanying risks that running such an entity entails.

 

Business Plans; Profit and Loss; Quarterly and Annual reporting. Open meetings for the customer and shareholder to ask questions of the executive management. Distribution or reinvestment of the profits. An accountable board of directors just like a real business. The ability to fire the management if their business plans fail to meet their goals or their behaviour fails to meet the norms of business.

 

You will be paying top-bucks to attract a management team like this, but they in turn will be able to tell you if;

a. It has a hope in hell in succeeding (because the either won't come or they won't stay)

b. Be accountable for meeting all the performance conditions determined for the business - and recieve bonuses if they exceed them!

 

The last thing required is some high-cost consultant accounting company who knows utterly sausage-all about power generation, distribution or responsibility to the customer coming in to hose the Council yet again. If you don't know what you are doing, then hire the people who do. If you haven't assembled a team of individuals with the credentials to operate this as a profitable business venture, then run while the going is good.

 

These are precisely the reasons why Government should never be involved in business ventures that involve potential risk!

 

They should stick to businesses they are well versed and talented at, such as taxation - money for old rope, guaranteed income! Even the government couldn't screw up taxing the masses - or could they?

 

Oh, and I am 100% against the entire windfarm as it currently stands.

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Well said North!

[ArabiaTerra]

I whole-heartledly agree with Ghostrider. The Council are utterly incapable of running a business; creating a realistic budget or even balancing a cheque-book.

The council won't be running the business, they will be shareholders in the business.

by they way who is going to pay to restore sullom voe when its finished. what about the voe they filled in with all the peat they shifted. were there any major disasters because the peat was shifted. the same with scarsta they shifted thousands of tonnes of peat to build that the area looks ok.

Hear, hear. I've been pointing this out to the doom-merchants for months, but , as usual, they completely refuse to discuss anything that might undermine their "windfarms are bad, they will destroy all of Shetlands peat" mantra.

 

Another point that they ignore is how unchecked global warming will affect Shetland's blanket bog. They seem to have this assumption that we will sail serenely on, totally unaffected by global warming while the rest of the world goes to hell around us. Talk about heads in the sand.

[Ghostrider]

I whole-heartledly agree with Ghostrider. The Council are utterly incapable of running a business; creating a realistic budget or even balancing a cheque-book.

The council won't be running the business, they will be shareholders in the business.

 

Shareholders who will be royally screwed over by their more competent and astute partners.

 

If this plan was being put forward with only the council behind it, it would have no chance at all. With other shareholders it might just make money, if it can make any money at all it will make money for SSE, it might even stand a reasonable chance of making a nice little retirement fund for the family Thomson, what is very dubious though is whether it will make any money for the council, and by default the rest of us. If it does make money for the council, it will make several 100% more for SSE and Thomson, simply due to the councils inherent ineptitude of allowing themselves to be put in to a position of handing out cash like it was going out of fashion and of accepting "pretty beads for Manhattan".

[Ghostrider]

by they way who is going to pay to restore sullom voe when its finished. what about the voe they filled in with all the peat they shifted. were there any major disasters because the peat was shifted. the same with scarsta they shifted thousands of tonnes of peat to build that the area looks ok.

Hear, hear. I've been pointing this out to the doom-merchants for months, but , as usual, they completely refuse to discuss anything that might undermine their "windfarms are bad, they will destroy all of Shetlands peat" mantra.

 

Another point that they ignore is how unchecked global warming will affect Shetland's blanket bog. They seem to have this assumption that we will sail serenely on, totally unaffected by global warming while the rest of the world goes to hell around us. Talk about heads in the sand.

 

Comparing what can be done at sea level in a landlocked voe well sheltered from westerlies with hilltops is not like with like.

 

I've posted this link before but make no apologies for posting it again, this is a maximum of 800 ft above sea level and SE facing, observe at the top right and across the middle of the shot how "well" moor repairs and regenerates itself.....the last any disturbance was made to this area was at least 25 years before the picture was taken, most of it very much longer ago than that....It would be considerably worse westerly facing or at greater altitudes.

 

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/image.php?i=56064&r=2&t=4&x=1

[paulb]

you missed the point. who is going to pay to restore this site. i wonder who owns the site.

guess the question is too easy.

 

so i post this one what must you do with an heavy industry site when its removed. you need to remove the polution that has sank into all that nice absorbant peat. what are you going to do with it when you have. i know in shetland you like to leave the ruins of things alone but you cant leave sullom voe alone.

 

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/index.php?a=subjects&s=item&key=SYToyOntpOjA7aTo0ODc7aToxO3M6MTA6IlN1bGxvbSBWb2UiO30=&pg=57

when were the radio thingis put up. i think we have learnt things since then.

 

have a drive around aith and lower voe there is plenty of rocky barren ground. have a closer look at the peat. you will see that shetlanders have scalped large areas of peat over the centuries. place the turbines in areas that have been damaged. use the peat that is removed to restore the damaged peat and reseed. it works in the peak district.

http://photos.shetland-museum.org.uk/image.php?i=45227&r=2&t=4&x=1

the major peat slides in the south will always happen. in fact they will happen a lot more soon. hot dry summers followed by wet winter produces slides. in fact look at the hillsides as you drive about you will see the remains of loads of them. if you have an hour or so have a read of this it shows most peat slides have been natural not man made

 

http://www.geog.leeds.ac.uk/people/j.holden/esr2004.pdf

 

why not use one of the disused fish factories on the west side for the connector site. sand is nice and empty and we could do with the few jobs it would create.

 

now if your concerns are the total inability of the council to manage anything then lets buy in the skills needed and lets keep the council away from it.

 

if it that you object to it because of the natural beauty of the landscape. well its not the first time shetland has had to make these choices as those with a view of sullom voe or any other industry.

 

i do wounder why there are non planned for the hills of the south mainland or around lerwick.

its aways the north that gets dumped on.

[crofter]

Another point that they ignore is how unchecked global warming will affect Shetland's blanket bog. They seem to have this assumption that we will sail serenely on, totally unaffected by global warming while the rest of the world goes to hell around us. Talk about heads in the sand.

 

Hmm. I have said it before, but might as well say it again. This windfarm will do nothing to combat global warming. Nothing. It might even contribute to it. That said, I would support it if I thought it might earn some money for Shetland, but like Ghostrider and north I am still sceptical.

[Ghostrider]

The radio thingys have nothing to do with the damage in that picture, it gets worse as you go over the top and continue well beyond them where it does get the westerlies. That damage is the result of old peat workings much of them over a century old.

 

It was left to regenerate natural way, of replacing the turf from the top of the to be cut ground over the recently cut from ground, which works perfectly well on a large number of other sites, it didn't work there due to exposure to wind strength, sea spray etc killing the foliage and eroding the ground. Attempts have been made in recent years to reseed some of that moor, with very little success, moor has such an inherent high acid content and very low nutrition content for plants simply getting anything to germinate was difficult never mind, given the very late start to a growing season and its very limited overall duration, getting any plant to establish adequately. You *might* be able to reinstate hilltop moor sites by importing a massive tonnage of much better quality soil from lower altitudes, allowing fresh growth of reseeded plants to flourish better and *maybe* survive enough winters to be adequate ground cover to allow other slower growing plants more suited to the conditions to become established and *maybe* just keep it all together once your reseeded plants mostly die off, as they will after 2-5 years. Its only theory though, as due to the massive cost of such a venture, its not usually considered a commercially viable option.

 

The road up there was made in WWII and the radio thingys were built in the early 70's. We've certainly learned a lot since then, namely to be very careful what you do with moor on exposed high altitude sites, unless you want a permanant wasteland. None of us will be around to see it, but my belief is many locations of the Viking site will have ground looking exactly like in that picture a century and more after the last blade stops turning.

[MuckleJoannie]

None of us will be around to see it, but my belief is many locations of the Viking site will have ground looking exactly like in that picture a century and more after the last blade stops turning.

 

There are other sites in Shetland where military communication equipment was situated on the tops of hills (Collafirth Hill, Saxavord), also there are tv masts at various locations in Shetland. None of them has the damage that is shown in the picture of Mossy Hill.

[north]

Arabia Terra says;

 

The council won't be running the business, they will be shareholders in the business.

 

What will be the percentage shareholding of the SIC through it's varied and many entities?

[Ghostrider]

None of us will be around to see it, but my belief is many locations of the Viking site will have ground looking exactly like in that picture a century and more after the last blade stops turning.

 

There are other sites in Shetland where military communication equipment was situated on the tops of hills (Collafirth Hill, Saxavord), also there are tv masts at various locations in Shetland. None of them has the damage that is shown in the picture of Mossy Hill.

 

Having never been to the top of either Collafirth of Saxa Vord I can't say one way or the other concerning damage or the lack of it, but those, to the best of my knowledge are single sites, with single access roads, each arguably equivalent to what one turbine site will be given the size of the proposed Viking ones.

 

Viking are proposing well over 100 such sites with all the access and interconnecting roads that entails, and no doubt they will be lucky at a number of the locations, especially the more sheltered ones, and reinstatement will be easy enough, but they won't all be that way with so many of them, and I did say "many" of the locations would end up looking like that picture, not "all".

[PJ of Hildisvik]

Please tell me how you restore ancient blanket bog to it's original state when it's taken thousands of years to develop, just when each turbine base alone consists of 2500 cubic metres of concrete, not including a similar amount for the hard standing for the crane to put it up on, plus the seperate crane road for it to move back and forth on???

Don't forget the minimum of nine massive quarries needed in place on the hill to provide the minimum of 1.4million cubic metres of rock needed. Then you have the interconnecting motorway of "floating roads" joining the whole industrial site together.

I believe the Alkalinity of all that cement and rock mixed together will destroy all the Trout lochs up there, a lot more than a bloody tree!

[Ertieiddabanks]

you missed the point. who is going to pay to restore this site. i wonder who owns the site.

 

 

Part of the original SVT building contract stipulates that when the site is decommissioned the owners/ shareholders( bp, total,exxon etc) must return it to a natural state. the site is built on family land( can't remember the name offhand) and is on a longterm lease to the various oil companies who own the terminal( BP just run it and have a low % stake).

[paulb]

you missed the point. who is going to pay to restore this site. i wonder who owns the site.

 

 

Part of the original SVT building contract stipulates that when the site is decommissioned the owners/ shareholders( bp, total,exxon etc) must return it to a natural state. the site is built on family land( can't remember the name offhand) and is on a longterm lease to the various oil companies who own the terminal( BP just run it and have a low % stake).

 

they were ment to clean up the camps as well but i remember that it was the council who had to pay. they were ment to pay rent to the council but that was talked out of the contract.

 

so if we dont use the wind or waves then it back to either coal or Nuclear power. which would you perfer on your doorstep.

as a local councillor said at a meeting get used to the fact that oil and the way we run our lives is nearly over we need to adapt or die.

 

im assuming that you have all the modern electrical items so are you prepared to give them up. it is the only choices we have renewables or fosil fuels/nuclear. or back to the pre industrial life styles of our ancestors. i dont fancy doing that so we need the power now.

[paulb]

Please tell me how you restore ancient blanket bog to it's original state when it's taken thousands of years to develop, just when each turbine base alone consists of 2500 cubic metres of concrete, not including a similar amount for the hard standing for the crane to put it up on, plus the seperate crane road for it to move back and forth on???

Don't forget the minimum of nine massive quarries needed in place on the hill to provide the minimum of 1.4million cubic metres of rock needed. Then you have the interconnecting motorway of "floating roads" joining the whole industrial site together.

I believe the Alkalinity of all that cement and rock mixed together will destroy all the Trout lochs up there, a lot more than a bloody tree!

 

show me the evidence that shows that the alkaliity will affect the enviroment. they are going to build them on very acidic ground any leachate will be neutralised by the acid hence a neutral water supply. also trout seem to enjoy chalk/limestone rivers.

 

its the acid from commercial tree planting that is the killer. and it would have to be large very large plantings of dense conifers to make it worthwhile. they have near zero wildlife in them and they are very dark and boring to look at. an alternitive which would still damage the bogs would be to grow willow for coppicing to burn at the power station again this would require most of the peat bog to be planted up.

why do we need to retore it to its original state why not improve it so nature can gain from it. remember blanket bog is just a sign that we have beggered up nature in the first place.

 

the first railway between manchester and liverpool had to cross chat moss a very large area of peat they used wood and saplings etc. and it is still in use.

 

you mean we have none now. how about the one at scalloway. we just have to be careful how its done unlike all the eyesores that sullom kicked up. how about using the drilling waste as the hard core. what about removeable track ways. theres plenty of things that can be done reduce the impact on the enviroment.