Your take on Windfarm schemes and UK energy policy

[sweetheart]

Congratulations, you have just been drafted by Tony Blair and made
minister of Energy for the UK. You are now responsible for making
strategic decisions that affect us all towards where we will look
for power in the coming times.

What will you change?

Wind energy is but a small slice of your concern. Do you continue,
as the current government is doing, to put on-shore windfarms in some
of the most scenic and natural-heritage parts of britain?
What do you think about tax breaks to make re-roofing with solar
energy and insulating houses to save energy?
Do you press the transport secretary to get the trains working
better for bicyclists?
How about nuclear power, do you end the british dependence on oil
by building a big set of nukes?

Windmills are especially an issue where i live, with plans to put up
600 megawatts of windmills in land that should be deemed a national
park, the largest peet bog in the world, a major carbon sink and
biodiversity site of its own right, obviously needing development
by wind energy greedy companies from london with their new labour
bribes. It is too narrow, so i'm curious your greater and smaller
solution to the UK energy issue(s).

[WMliberal]

1. how about windmills in the channel

or somewhere else the weather is awful and gales are notorious.

[sweetheart]

3. Yes

The offshore plans are the best ones, IMO, as they do not take up
any public land or eyesore out there in the channel/north sea/irish
sea. Appearantly, it is much more expensive to land based schemes,
so whilst the sales pitch has been to put windmills off shore, the
costs have had the power companies looking to put them on shore.
In some cases, this is involving putting towers 300+ feet tall
within half a mile of houses. The greed has had them violate their
own planning guidelines in siting windmills near housing.

Also, the power, once generated costs much more to get to shore by
undersea cable than land-transmission. There was a time where the
UK was sold a big offshore wind farm load of warm fuzzy, and then
they instead are siting them in the last european wilderness areas,
to kill birds, and destroy highland tourism... f***ing idiots.

In practice, wind generation produces 20% of the time, but the
planners use 30% to sell the installation, promising what will not
be delivered. Then the resulting reality, is that 100% of power
supplies must STILL be available from a source that will work when
winds are low.

Much of the housing stock in britain is very low quality, many of
the older buildings (of which there are MANY), do not have first
world insulation, and such, so the cost of heating and cooling these
old boxes takes massive amounts of energy. Were the same money
and focus put on insulating the housing stock, that is going in to
building wind power generation stations (euphemistically called
Wind farms), the demand for heating energy could be cut drastically.

Fixing this would involve a tax abatement for re-roofing with solar
slates, and insulation. As most houses are re-roofed withing a
50 year period, the entire housing stock could be brought up to code
in half a century, providing employment for a plethora of people
across the UK in diverse professions related to building.

Instead, the money is being channeled in to a few developers who do
not employ many people, as a windmill is a concrete base, and a big
purchased pole that bolts on to it... not much employment diversity,
and in many cases, no local employment at all... so the "creates
jobs" lie is thin at best.

Get this, this is rich, the power companies have so run to the north
highlands to site their new wind gold mines, that they discovered
that the grid bandwidth is too low to get the power down south, where
the power would be used... so they want to charge highland customers
to increase the grid when they don't need it... ha! Corporate
welfare is very much admired by tony blair's governmetn, so he is
importing it across the atlantic.

There is serious potential for tidal and current power generation
around the long coastline, and this, being less developed, is not
subsidized to the same tune as wind.

In all honesty, land based farms, are OK, if they are sited not to
destroy natural wildscapes. As it stands, it is much easier to get
permission to build 20 100 meter masts in a natural beauty spot than
a house. So whilst the highlands suffers for a lack of housing,
people can start to live in windmills. ;-)

[Ready4Change]

2. My thoughts

First, I'm not British. I'll approach this from what I'd do if I were in charge of the USA's energy policy.

I'd work on the idea that, in an age of rising oil prices, any lessening of oil dependance will provide a longer term economic benefit. So I'd subsidize industry efforts to convert from fossil fuels to renewables, and to make gains in efficiency and less environmental impact.

I'd impose a $.50 per gallon tax on gas, provide tax breaks scaled on the milage of new cars sold, both efforts to make more efficient cars of any size more desireable.

I'd provide permamant tax breaks for residential renewable power installations, as well as one time co-payments for the initial installations. This would be in hopes of lessening demand on existing fossil fueled power plants, as well as improving environmental impacts.

I'd also establish a renewable research agency with similar goals to the early form of NASA, aka, to perform basic research and make the results available to industry in order to advance our capabilities. If such an agency already exists, I'd take measures to strengthen it's abilities, as it's been doing pitifully little up till now.

[sweetheart]

4. Ending the subsidies

Britain has petrol at about 4 pounds per imperial gallon (5+
dollars per gallon) today. This already has had an impact at keeping
the car traffic "small", as a big car can drain your bank account
faster than a mistress in paris.

Nuclear power gets massive subsidy because of its infinite cleanup,
and the bean counters to not incorporate the present value (NPV) of
future cleanup in to their power generation costs, so it can appear
artifically cheap. I am wary of it, though it does appear the
cleanest given latest power generation technologies.

Definitely based on your approach, i'd give a tax break to reroof
with solar-power generation slates, making them only marginally
more expensive than regular slates. Then residential customers
could sell excess power back to the grid. I imagine every house
in america with a 100% solar tile roof, that the whole countries
housing stock is a massive power station.

I guess this would take some micro-power generation legislation to
break up the enron "de=regulation" (ha!).

You know how refrigerators, if you buy one today, will have an
energy efficiency rating from A to F... methinks that all houses
sold on the market, as well as cars, have a similar rating attached
by a surveyor. Such a rating would then determine the vehicle tax
/property tax(council tax) bandings. This would provide economic
incentive to improve the rating or shift towards a lighter burning
technology.

Road users should be charged for using public roads, and people who
do not, should not. With a nationwide GPS road charging scheme,
the UK's future looks bright in this area. However the wisdom
is stopping there. City dwellers are demanding big tax subsidies
to fix/improve their transport systems like subways (underground),
while country dwellers do not get reciprocal subsidy to the petrol
price which is their primary transport. So while a london resident
can go 5 miles on the tube for 2 pounds, a country resident can only
get so far in a taxi for 10 pounds, or a private car.

It helps to further understand, why the "wealthy" in britain are
all in the countryside, as it costs more to live there, and since the
partisan divide in britain is mostly between country and city
dwellers, with the city dwellers in power, the country people get
the shaft.

For the USA, i think all commercial trucks that use the roads should
have a massive tax increase that they PAY for the road network they
are damaging 100 times more than private cars. As well, all cars over 1500 pounds weight should pay 500% more road tax. Pay by
weight, is fairer energy wise, and leads to more balanced rethinging
of energy/transport.

Aircraft, hmmm... methinks a subsidy needs to be cut, but i'm not
sure wheether it is a landing fee, or just to let airplanes pay
the same per gallon tax as car drivers.

[muriel_volestrangler]

5. I like to know the costs and capabilities of solar power slates

because those who advocate them are always rather fuzzy on that aspect. I think (but can't be sure, because they never come right out and say it) that you need direct sunlight to get decent power from them - in which case they're probably more unreliable than wind power for Britain (though there would be a reasonable fit between the 2 - one for summer, one for winter).

I would advocate a much better, subsidised bus service for rural areas. I would point out that "the wealthy are all in the countryside" is wrong - the highest income region is Inner London, for instance, http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_compendia/Regional_trends_37/Regional_Trends_37_Introduction_and_overview.pdf :

For the first time Household Income estimates on a national accounts basis have been published for local areas of the UK. The level and composition of Gross Disposable Household Income (GDHI) differs considerably between local areas . For example, Inner London-West had a per capita GDHI 64% above the UK average whereas the North of Northern Ireland had a per capita GDHI 28% below the UK average over the period 1997 - 1999.
However, this does not give a full picture as weekly household expenditure and housing costs for those living in the south of England are higher than the national average. Although house prices have risen faster than the rate of inflation in all areas, the north-south difference persists, the average dwelling price in London is now over £200,000 compared with less than £70,000 in the North East of England .

I think that wind turbines are not a problem - the noise from them is comparable to an 'A' road, and those are allowed to be built within half a mile of houses. It's worth keeping a few parts of the country free of them - whether your area (near Thurso, I believe?) is one of them, I don't know. I've only been there once - nice, but I'm not sure I'd say it was so unique that wind towers should be banned from it.

I do want a fuel tax on aircraft similar to that on cars - but organising it in international flights is very complicated. If the whole of Europe (ie EU plus Norway, Switzerland, etc.) could agree on a rate, that could be a start - it would make it more difficult for airlines to avoid the taxed areas if the whole continent did it.

I suspect that (a) we will need to use nuclear power and (b) we need a lot of research into storage technology, becasue wind and solar are both intermittent, while nuclear power runs efficiently at a steady rate, so can't be quickly increased to compensate for drops from solar and/or wind.

The final area I'd like to see more research in is wave power. I've seen claims that the government, largely on behalf of the nuclear industry, lied about the figures for the 'Salter duck' that was always turning up on "Tommorow's World" in the late 1970s, to make nuclear power seem more attractive in comparison. If that's true, then wave power may be viable - and it would be clean, reliable, and out of sight, more or less. And remember - Britannia rules the waves.

[sweetheart]

6. on those points.

Here is a link for solar slates. They generate on cloudy days.
Methinks they are the future, but they need a kickstart, as they
are certianly more expensive than regular slates. If they were
subsidized a bit, the massive economies of scale would bring
them down in price further.
http://www.solarcentury.co.uk/content.jsp?sectno=4&subno=3

Inner london may be an exception to the wealth thing, but then again
london is another country. A voting map i saw of britain showed
labour in all cities, and blue belt of torys around in the country.
It can't have changed. Perhaps that is not wealth, my bad. I meant
the partisan divide between tory and labour seems to be distinctly
country/city.

I'm west of thurso, closer to cape wrath, than john o groats. It
is in the west country of the mountainous highlands where my heart
is most worried about windmill siting. The northwest coastline is
by far the least touched on the british mainland, and sutherland the
least populated area... methinks that if it has survived this long
without power generation stations, it is best to leave the land
alone, and respect it with national park status, national coastline
or so. Also, it is but part of the peet bog that makes the region
a major carbon storage sink, tradeable in green energy.. a major
wetland, that windmill development roads should not be defacing.

I used to live in a house in colorado at 9000 feet altitude that
was heated in the winter only by the light bulbs. It was THAT well
insulated. The insulation standards in british housing are abysmal,
and much energy would be saved by fixing this.

Wind turbine noise, after reseraching it myself is audible for
about a mile, and would disturb my sleep.. sounds like a car starter
cranking. aaraaraaraa. Funnily, 2 turbines were sited near thurso
at borrowstown, and 1 of the turbines can't run all the time because
it is making people in a near by business park sick from the flicker.
It is truly ironic that after bullshitting about how they are
following site guidelines, they put the first 2 turbines directly
on the coast against their own advise, near housese against their
own advise and can't even run them all the time, as they did not
follow their own advise about flicker either.

I've no problems with wind turbines, provided the planning and
approvals are fair. In a recent case just approved over the struie
between the cromarty and dornoch firths, the highland council bowed
to pressure from down south and approved a bunch of pilons on the
mountain tops that will be visible for 80 miles and forever change
the scenic highland east coast to a power station. Local people
fight using democratic organizations, but the scottish executive
and downing street push through regardless of democracy.

Wave power is running in experimental operations in orkney as i
write this, and as well tidal... I also believe that this is the
TRUE source of future energy for britain. It is clean, no eyesores
and has truly infinite potential no matter what the weather or time
of year.

Regarding storage technology, if the country is shifted towards
fuel cells and hydrogen splitting of water, excess power can produce
hydrogen. Presuming that most cars in 50 years will by hydrogen
powered, this would dovetail nicely with a forecourt strategy on
powering cars and transport as well.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Thanks for the link

it looks like they still work out as fairly expensive:
£22,000 for a 2kWp installation (life expectancy > 30 years; 2kWp = 1500 kWh annual electricity)
say the lifetime is 50 years; that's 30p/kWh - compared with current charges of about 5p/kWh. Wind power is estimated at 4-6p/kWh (http://www-tec.open.ac.uk/eeru/natta/renewonline/rol50/12.htm).

I suppose the wind turbine noise is subjective - I'd describe it as 'wooshing', and not disturbing (but then I've nearly always lived within about a kilometre of a motorway, so am used to continuous background noise). Maybe the land nearer Cape Wrath isn't suitable - the area around Dounreay seems better (I presume they've got the pylons in for a start). 600MW does seem a lot - well over 100 turbines, I'd have thought.

[Ready4Change]

9. Question on these costs?

"£22,000 for a 2kWp installation (life expectancy > 30 years; 2kWp = 1500 kWh annual electricity)"

As these solar slates also function as regular roffing slates, has the cost of regular roofing slates been removed from the above costs?

For example, if the cost of roofing the above house with regular slates were £10,000, then the 2kWp installtions cost is really only £12,000 about what otherwise would have been spent. (Assuming this is done on new construction or when the roof is due for recovering anyway.) The cost per kWh is still high, but this factor lowers it some.

I'm also curious about the insulation value of solar slates vs regular slates. I'm considering a solar installation for my home, but what really sparked the idea for me was how the sun overheats a portion of my house in the summer by overheating the roof. I began wondering if there were a way to shade my roof, and I then thought, if I were to do that, why not use solar panels to make the shade, as well as generate some power?

[Ready4Change]

10. That's where I'd like us to go.

"I imagine every house in america with a 100% solar tile roof, that the whole countries
housing stock is a massive power station."

Exactly. I don't see an immediate need for massive solar farms. I've flown a small aircraft and looked down at populated areas, particularly suburbs here in the USA. In the summer I see the sunlight hitting all those roofs, and see two simultaneous ways of improving things. First, much of that sunlight can be converted to electricity. Second, all those roofs can be shaded from sunlight, which will decrease summer air conditioning costs.

So I think much of our residential power needs can be met with solar. Industry is harder, as it needs far more concentrated power than most homes. I'm don't think current solar technologies can meet those needs.

[sweetheart]

11. industry nuclear

If industry is nuclear for the time being and shifts over to
fuel cell hydrogen, ocean wave generation and perhaps newer
innovations in solar could take a long term very clean lightweight
fuel economy. There is no time to get there, We'll kill the earth
if we take too long as a global culture. Carbon fuels are toxifying
the atmosphere. Oh dear, at an alarming rate.

[RogueTrooper]

7. When it comes to wind farms

I do not think we have a choice. We have to start using reusable energy both for economic and evironmental reasons. I am much keener on off-shore windfarms than ones on land but I am beginning to think that beggars cannot be choosers on this front.

[Guy_Montag]

12. Energy cost of production vs energy produced

I have yet to see any stats showing the energy cost of production vs the energy produced.

For example - Solar cells are extremely expensive to produce, in terms of energy, cleaning up nasty chemicals etc. and they produce a fairly limited output. Though they require little maintenance over their lifespan.

Wind generators are cheaper (energy wise) to produce (they are straight forward mechanical turbines) but they require much more maintenance & tend to be sited further away from major infrastructure which raises costs.

And so on...

I'm not sure that the simple cash price is a realistic way of pricing these systems, which is why I fell that an:

energy out - energy in

equation is fairest.

I await your thoughts with interest.

GM

[sweetheart]

13. here are some windfarm photos i took

Following are 3 photos of 2 separate windfarms.

The first windfarm is in borrowston: (zoomed in map reference)
http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=302000&Y=969500&width=500&height=300&gride=&gridn=&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=&advanced=&local=&localinfosel=&kw=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&zm=0&scale=10000&out.x=5&out.y=7

This site, as is clear from the photo has violated the planning
guidelines for windmills in several ways. Firstly, it is too close
to residential houses, with 1 kilometer being the guideline.
Second, it is too close to the coast... sorry in the photo, you can
see the dim outline of "hoy", an orkney island, behind the right
windmill... This photo is taken towards the northeast, and about 100
yards behind the windmills are the coastal cliffs. Out of the
picture to the right is what is called "the american base", and old
CIA listening post closed down after the cold war, now used as a
business park. THe right windmill needs to be turned off every
afternoon because people in that park were getting sick from the
flicker.

This being the first windfarm on the nort coast, it is a planning
joke, and it is no wonder that a subsequent 12 windmills planned
to the "right" of the photo, was rejected by over 95% of the local
people.



My grade for the borrowston windfarm: F - fail


The following 2 photos are taken to the southwest, and you can see
in the distance, the eastern part of the world's largest peetbog
wetland. These windmills are 100meters tall (pilons) and are truly
breathtaking in their size. THe photo(s) are some way off, so they
can appear small.

On this map reference, the windmills are sited about where the letter
"M" is in mybster to the soutwest of the A9.
http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?client=public&X=320000&Y=950000&width=500&height=300&gride=&gridn=&srec=0&coordsys=gb&db=&addr1=&addr2=&addr3=&pc=&advanced=&local=&localinfosel=&kw=&inmap=&table=&ovtype=&zm=0&scale=200000&multimap.x=187&multimap.y=80

Though it does spoil the view, and make a highland landscape look
like an industrial installation, this windfarm is not so close to
residences as borrowston.



My grade for this windfarm: B

[baby_mouse]

14. Hm.

I realise that this is largely a matter of taste, and that as I don't live at these locations I have no right to support wind farm development on those grounds, but I think they look quite attractive. :-)

I'd probably loathe them if I actually lived next to them, of course.

[sweetheart]

15. Yet, indirectly you do support them

The scottish executive, representing the central belt, is overriding
the democratic choice of the highlands. The power from these things
is intended for edinburgh, not the houses next door.

Why don't they put some wind farms on the hills behind edinburgh
then... because then they'd see them, and have to deal with political
opposition from people in populated areas... so rather, screw the
highland people.

As you know, the highlands gets most of its income from tourism,
and these industrial wind powerstations destroy the hand that feeds.
The NIMBY argument would be more acceptable if 100 100 meter tall
turbine masts were visible behind edinburgh on the hills.

The scottish executive must come to realize that the highlands are
a goldmine for tourism and scotland's viability, being the last
unpopulated bit of land in europe... to waste it as a power station
is simply ignorance.