ArabiaTerra

Not quite. There's a pier, but the reason for the boat hoist is that there is no shelter from easterly gales. The only safe place for boats is to get them out of the water completely. In the book, "The Other Titanic" by the guys who salvaged the Oceanic wreck, they tell of how, against the advice of the locals, they moored their salvage boat just off the "harbour" overwinter using the Oceanic's own anchors. When they returned the next summer their boat was reduced to matchwood and had actually dragged the anchors for a few metres before breaking free. That's a small wooden fishing boat dragging the anchors of an ocean liner!

I'm sure there's a Billy Connolly joke in there somewhere.

It's true that conditions can be more challenging up here than in other places, but the thing is, the native flora are adapted to this environment and seem to do alright (when they aren't subjected to overgrazing by the woolly gods). Now, this is a purely anecdotal remark, so shouldn't be taken as a statement of fact or anything, but, a friend of mine from school days is married to a girl who works for SEPA as an environmental consultant. The last time they were home we were talking about the windfarm and she mentioned that the environmental management plan VE had drawn up had crossed her desk. She thought it was, by a long way, the best she had seen from any windfarm proposal in Scotland. So I am optimistic about that part of things. He is.

Ok then. No, the concrete bases will not be removed. As I understand it, they will be covered with topsoil and reseeded.

The CO2 costs of concrete come from the making of the cement, CO2 costs of transporting it to where it's required and the curing of the concrete. Once it's set, it's pretty much inert. Leaving it where it is once the windfarm is gone is the most environmentally friendly thing to do, certainly compared to the costs of trying to blast it out of the hill again (lumps of reinforced concrete that size would almost certainly require blasting to remove them). A good rule of thumb for calculating the carbon costs of different fossil fuels is 3:2:1. 1 ton of coal gets you 3 tons of CO2, 1 ton of oil gets you 2 tons of CO2, and 1 ton of LPG gets you 1 ton of CO2. Of course this is just a rough estimate. Also, when it comes to oil the type of oil can make a big difference. For instance, petrol will be lower than 2 tons while the kind of heavy bunker oil which would be burned in a power station would be higher. So while running the Gremista station on gas would be much better than oil from a carbon point of view, it's still a fossil fuel and thus better left in the ground. As far as tidal generation goes, while it is more predictable than wind, it still only has a maximum yield of 50% ( the tides waxes and wanes over each tidal cycle to give you an average of 50%), and the fact that the turbines have to be underwater means they will always be more expensive to build, operate and maintain than the equivalent wind turbines. Also, given that they are very similar machines, any big breakthrough in tidal turbine design would likely be just as applicable to wind turbines as well. As far as "sustainable" Shetland's judicial challenge goes, if it succeeds, it could delay the project by another 2-3 years, which would mean delaying the benefits for that long, but I don't see it preventing the project from going ahead.

Where have you been these last 5 years? All of these questions have been discussed on the windfarm thread. But I'm not expecting you to trawl through 227 pages to find the answers, so I'll see if I can summarise them here: Peat: There is no evidence that there would be any lasting damage to the peat moor. Of course, during the construction period there will be a bit of a mess made, but once the construction is over, that will be cleaned up as it would be for any other development. Allegations have been made that building roads through peat moor will disrupt the drainage and end up damaging the moor on either side of the roads. Held up as evidence of this is a single example of a peat slide in Ireland caused by the road to a windmill. As a counter example I would like to point out the complete lack of devastation caused in Shetland over the last 40 years during which our entire main road network has been built, most of it through peat moor. Of particular note is the road between Mid Yell and Gutcher, a large part of which is, or used to be, "floating" on top of deep peat moor. Do you see any devastation of the surrounding moorland? Neither do I. Peat Removal: The original VE proposal called for the excavation and removal of around 1 million cubic metres (cubes) of peat. As the original proposal has been scaled back, the amount of peat removed has also been reduced, especially as the parts of the scheme removed were those with the biggest peat impact. The size of the scheme has been reduced to around 60% of the original proposal so I would expect the peat removed to be reduced by a similar amount. The thing is, peat removed does not equal peat destroyed. It simply means moved somewhere else. When Sullom was built, around 10 million cubes of peat were removed from Calback Ness and dumped into Orca Voe. It's still there, right where they left it, 35 years later. Wildlife: The principal species which will be affected by the windfarm are the Whimbrel and the Raingoose. In the case of the raingoose, they spend their days at sea, feeding, and their nights on lochs. They move between the two at dawn and dusk. VE have identified the turbines which lie on the flightpaths between sea and lochs and have said they will turn off those turbines during the dawn and dusk periods to avoid disturbing the birds. The whimbrel, on the other hand, are a lost cause. Their numbers have declined by 50% over the last ten years before any turbines have been built and they will likely be extinct in Shetland by the early 2020's, windfarm or not. Research into the effects of climate change on the ranges of wild species has shown that 60% of the species studied are moving their ranges to cope. Now I don't know of any research specific to the whimbrel on this subject, but the changes in the whimbrel population in Shetland fit the pattern of a species adjusting it's range in response to climate change. Shetland is at the extreme southern edge of the range of the whimbrel, an Arctic species. And the whimbrel, globally, is not endangered. It's range stretches through Northern Scandinavia into Siberia. CO2 cost of Building the Windfarm: Irrelevant. What I mean by this is that our current stock of power stations in the UK are knackered. The big coal fired stations were built in the 50's and 60's, and our nuclear stations in the 60's and 70's. All of these are near the end of their useful lives and need to be replaced by something in the next 10-20 years. So the relevant question is whether the windfarm will cost more CO2 to build than the alternatives. Given that CO2 is a factor, this immediately rules out new coal, oil or gas right at the start. They may cost less CO2 to build but the amount of CO2 they produce during normal operations completely wipes out this advantage by orders of magnitude. This leaves Solar or Nuclear. The CO2 cost of building a nuclear power station are actually quite severe. The sheer amount of concrete that goes into the foundations and containment building are staggering, and then you've got the mining, transporting, smelting, casting and machining of all the exotic metals which go into the reactor plant. And finally, you've got the mining, transporting and processing of the nuclear fuel, all of which are highly carbon intensive. Then you've got the waste problem. Windfarms look good in comparison. Solar is good. From a carbon point of view anyway. But it's expensive and tends to use a lot of exotic materials compared to a windfarm. We should do both. Windfarm + Interconnector (W+I) vs New Gremista Station & No Interconnector (GS-I): There's no contest here really. W+I, going by the efficiency of the Burradale farm of 52%, means half the time we're running on windfarm power with zero carbon cost and half the time we're importing power from the national grid at average grid CO2 cost. Which equates to an overall 50% average national grid CO2 intensity. Compared to burning oil in a small (and therefore inefficient) power station which I doubt would come in at less than double the carbon intensity of the Grid. As for a couple of more small windfarms? Not possible without the interconnector, or someone would have built them already. The interconnector is necessary for load balancing. Here's the thing. The only way to absolutely prove the benefits of the windfarm, is to build it. Failing that, you've just got to look at the available information and make a decision. More info can be found here and here.

No we won't. As I have pointed out in the windfarm thread, the subsidy for renewable energy consists of a tiny fraction of your electricity bill. The allegation that this, or any other, windfarm will substantially raise your bill is a lie spread by anti-windfarm campaigners and the fossil fuel lobby. The recent large increases in electricity bills have been entirely due to rises in international gas prices, not the renewables subsidy. And if you're upset about subsidies increasing your bills, then why aren't you complaining about the £3 billion subsidy to the oil industry announced in the last budget? You do realise that a substantial part of the tax you pay on fuel goes straight back to the oil companies in the form of tax relief, don't you?

If that was aimed at my post, I am sorry, it certainly wasn't mean to be telling anyone off, I am just curious about the topic question which is "Should same-sex marriage be made legal?" - which has, as far as I can see, zero to do with the church. It is the church, or rather, religions, which are leading the opposition to same-sex marriage. Granted, not all of the churches, some of the more liberal ones are putting humanity ahead of dogma. But the lions share of the opposition is coming from the religious whose various holy books declare it an abomination. If it weren't for the religious lobby, then this would be a non-issue. That's what makes discussing religious attitudes relevant to this topic. What I think is interesting is the way some of the churches like the CofE are tearing themselves apart over the issue. The more liberal parts in the UK and US seem to be largely ok with it, but the more conservative elements, based mainly in Africa, are screaming bloody murder. It's an entertaining bunfight.

It depends what you mean by wellhead price. I assumed you meant cost of production. There has been a load of new shale gas production come on-line in the US in the last couple of years, but this has gone towards replacing coal fired power generation rather than onto the open market. The thing is, the demand has also been rising and this has kept the price up. I'm not that familiar with how the international gas market works, but I think the gas price was pegged to the oil price, or at least, used to be. That could be having something to do with it. Also, there's the fact that the power companies are quick enough to raise prices when the wholesale price goes up, but they can be a bit tardy in reducing it when the price falls. I remember the government slagging them off about that a couple of years ago.

It's one of the Fundie's four main sacraments: Hate, Lies, Ignorance, and Hypocrisy. But it is nice to see that the more progressive sects are able to set aside the bigotry of their holy book and act like civilised human beings for a change.

This is something that I do not understand. As far as I am aware the wellhead price for natural gas has been falling for the past five years or thereabout, and currently is about the same as it was at the turn of the century. However the price paid by both industry and consumers seems to have been steadily increasing over the same period. Do you know why that should be? Demand. With the massive increase in demand from (mostly) China and India, there has been a corresponding increase in price. The wellhead price is irrelevant. (I believe the wellhead price for Saudi crude is around $5/barrel, try buying oil for that price!)

A rather biased article there, unlinked. It's common knowledge that some parts of the tory party are opposed to onshore wind. So what if one of them says he wants subsidies cut? That doesn't mean they will be. It is a coalition and the lib-dems are opposed to this. It also assumes the con-dems will still be in power then, which I really doubt. Also, the whole point of subsidies in the first place was to level the playing field with fossil fuel energy. As fossil fuel prices rise, the plan always was to reduce the subsidies. When on-shore wind reaches grid parity, the subsidies will not be necessary. The recent furore about solar subsidies was because the cost of solar dropped faster than expected so the uptake of these systems was higher than expected which used up the money set aside for these subsidies much faster than expected. The government decided to cut the subsidies much more than expected and basically buggered up the entire industry. The industry took the gov to court and the gov's actions were declared illegal. I would expect the same result if they tried the same with the wind industry. The recent rises in electrical bills have been entirely due to the volatility of the fossil fuel market, principally gas prices. The rise due to windfarm subsidies, in comparison, has been little more than a rounding error.

This is an interesting take in the "interesting times" we're living in. I think he goes a bit far into conspiracy land on the terrorism bit, but the rest is pretty good.

Not bad at all.

This example is completely irrelevant. They wanted to build it in the middle of an existing bird reserve. That's why it was refused.

The difference, I think, is that the Calamity thread was already pages long well before he got anywhere near a courthouse, coupled with the fact that the whole point of calamities court appearance was publicity, makes him fair game.

http://failblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/06/epic-fail-photos-fail-nation-idea-fail.gif

My Dad was having this problem with his old Dell box (512 Mb). I tracked it down to the fact that AVG was insisting on running a full scan every time the computer was fired up, that seemed to be the default setting. Once I'd switched that off it was a lot better

Oh, oh! And Somalia is an anarchic hellhole, so how on earth is Singapore going to survive without rescue by Canada! (Any other completely pointless, nonsensical comparisons you'd like to make?)

We know all this. Your point is... ?

Bullsh*t The private sector has siphoned off all the profits to the CEO's and other members of the mutually backslapping club while suppressing wages for the rest and plundering their pension schemes. This has been going on for the last 30 years and look where we are. Now people want to do the same to the public sector. A 10% wealth tax on the 1% and the deficit is solved. Jail the tax avoiders and seize their assets and you'll plug the pensions gap as well. Expecting the economy to improve by sacking people and raising taxes on the 99% is madness, When people are out of work or feeling insecure about their jobs they spend less money, not more. Supply side economics doesn't work. We cut taxes for the rich and the corporations, the "job creators", so where are the jobs? Nowhere to be seen because they kept the money to themselves. Supply side economics is voodoo. It doesn't work. We've just spent the last 30 years proving this. Time to try something new.

Not sure about the aesthetics of the thing, it's always a matter of personal taste, but from a practical point of view, some form of pouch incorporated into the suit to carry stuff like contacts, phone, fags, glasses etc is essential.

I agree. Lets say, for instance, that the SIC needs to make 20% of across the board cuts, then the first thing, before anything else is even discussed, should be a 20% wages cut for the top 20% of council employees. Only when those making the cuts have demonstrated that they are willing to proportionately share the pain, can they have the moral authority to impose that pain. (Similarly, if the pain means job cuts, then it must start with cuts at the top, and work it's way down, never bottom up.)

This is cool: