Windmill nonsense.. Tilting at Wind mills

On Sun, 9 Jul 2006 23:33:37 +0100 someone who may be Andy Hall wrote this:-

I have read that one before. Note that the article blurs objections against Black Law with those against other wind farms. The few arguments against Black Law were generic, largely made by a noisy, but small, group of people who object to any wind farm. Even the bird/wildlife lobby didn't object to Black Law and use it as an example of how they can work with wind turbine promoters in the right circumstances.

Now that most of it is commissioned the loudest noise in the area is still the sound of motor vehicles on the road. When these are not moving one can hear the sound of humans speaking, sheep and birds. One cannot hear the turbines from any distance, unless standing under them (when it is still possible to converse in a normal voice). The turbines are big, but they look rather graceful as they turn slowly. The locals are largely happy, though no doubt one could find a die hard anti if one tried hard enough. In a few years the larger Eaglesham Moor will be operating, which is excellent news.

If only some other sorts of power station made so little impact on people and animals. According to

Correct. However, they were referring to a study conducted for the DTI.

I am making many points. Sorry if they are inconvenient, but I will continue to make them for as long as I want to.

Here is another point, about how much uranium is left,

"The Oxford Research Group argues that a worldwide shortage of high- grade uranium ore will force new nuclear reactors to exploit increasingly lower-grade ores for their fuel. Because that requires more energy to extract, the process will result in ever-greater amounts of climate-wrecking pollution."

? If uranium is already being used to generate energy, then that energy is what would be used to do the ore extraction. That does not compute.

As long as you get more energy out of the uranium than is being used to extract it, its a net plus on the energy stakes.

Ive heard the same argument about biofuels too.

The oil lobby has not gone away ..;-)

Do you (or indeed others) include the costs of decommisioning plants and long term storage of waste in the overall running costs of the industry?

That's a genuine question by the way. I've always been against nuclear, partly because of the long term legacy of the waste but mostly on the basis that it appeared to be immensley expensive in total, but the majority of that cost was hidden by the decomissioning costs being 'disregarded' or squirreled away somehow.

| |Andy Hall wrote: | | | |> It's a great shame that successive governments in many countries have wasted |> more than a generation (probably two) through not pursuing nuclear power |> generation and the technology behind it. | |Do you (or indeed others) include the costs of decommisioning plants |and long term storage of waste in the overall running costs of the |industry?

Both coal mining and oil extraction are dangerous industries, and kill lots of workers. The choice is between killing workers today, and probably not killing others way in the future.

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 11:46:06 +0100 someone who may be Dave Fawthrop wrote this:-

The same can be said of uranium mining.

On 10 Jul 2006 03:32:50 -0700 someone who may be "Fitz" wrote this:-

All of that has now been dumped on the taxpayer. Originally only the mess from the military and semi-military Magnox programmes was to be dumped on the taxpayer. British Energy were supposed to pay for decommissioning the stations they operate, but they pleaded hardship and government were only too keen to step in with our money.

While the past may not be a guide to the future I suspect that in this case it will.

Ever thought about the decommissioning cost of coal slag heaps? Aberfan springs to mind...or the decommissioning costs of all the gas and oil fired power stations in the world...New Orleans springs to mind.

Anyone who is actually HONEST about the true global costs of energy production, will rapidly see that nuclear is a lot cleaner, and a lot cheaper in the long run.

First and second generation reactors were built partly experimentally, partly to make weapons grade fuel, and never with the cost of decommissioning to an absurdly stringent level of radioactive leakage, with no one prepared to countenance it within a 1000 miles of their homes.. in mind.

It could be said, but it would not really be correct. Most uranium is IIRC open cast mining.

A fairly benign business in comparison.

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 13:46:10 +0100 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

Fascinating. So, do you think that coal mining in Canada, Australia and South Africa consists of Dai Williams going down in a cage to hew coal from a narrow seam with his trusty pick and shovel?

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 00:43:15 +0100, David Hansen wrote (in article ):

It doesn't really matter. None of them are an attractive proposition.

Evidence?

This one was built on the site of an old open cast mine, so pretty much anything would have been upside.

Which are very few and far between.

"Graceful" is not a word that can reasonably be applied to these industrial eyesores.

Currently, according to figures from the BWEA site, there is about 1700MW of wind generating capacity. This is equivalent to 2-3 generating sets at one of the traditional coal fired power stations - in other words a drop in the bucket.

I am pretty sure that people will not be happy at the number and scale of projects needed to deliver the hoped for 10% of capacity by 2010 and aspired

ROTFL. So we have a trade interest group doing a study commissioned by a government department..... Government departments don't have a clue what they are doing in the first place other than what they think will please the current minister. They then commission a report by an organisation with a vested interest in a particular technology and outcome. At best the result is going to be a combination of that organisation's agenda plus telling the customer what he wants to hear.

The shenanigans surrounding part P of the Building Regulations were another example of exactly the same thing.

I am really surprised that you would even suggest this as a serious discussion point.

They are not inconvenient at all. I am sure that you won't mind me highlighting the bullshit in some of the greeny rhetoric. Some is well-meaning, of course, but just impractical in the real world.

This is just rubbish.

If one looks through the the report produced by the AEA as a source document for the SDC, there is a very different picture.

- There is an overall projected increase in raw uranium requirement but this is well within the capacity of identified supplies, let alone projected ones. Demand in Europe is expected to decrease, despite the projected increase in generating capacity.

- Political risk is not considered high, with most production in OECD countries or those with a good relationship with OECD countries.

- Reprocessing of spent fuel becomes economically viable if the price of raw uranium increases

- New reactor technologies in 3rd and 4th generation plant will reduce the requirement for raw uranium

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 10:44:07 +0100 someone who may be The Natural Philosopher wrote this:-

You are assuming that all the energy used in converting what is dug out of the ground into fuel rods comes from uranium.

what volume of material is mined to produce uranium? What volume is mined to produce coal? This affects how many does/will kill.

NT

not a very good point.

NT

The message from Andy Hall contains these words:

I love 'em. From our kitchen window we can see The Wrekin and I'd love to see it adorned with beautiful wind turbines. Sadly some lout has already put a transmitter up there, so that's fairly unlikely.

The smooth lazy hypnotic turning of wind turbines is worth going out of your way to enjoy. As my son said "It's like children doing cartwheels on the spot"

On Mon, 10 Jul 2006 21:16:02 +0100, Guy King wrote (in article ):

I'll write to National Grid Wireless for you and send them your appreciation.

I suspect that many of your neighbours would disagree

The message from Andy Hall contains these words:

Quite possibly, but there are quite a lot of people who actively like wind turbines.

As for The Wrekin's transmitter, what I'd really like is for it to broadcast FM Radio4. Signal from Sutton Coldfield is crap.

In article , Guy King writes

Enjoy;)

I just hope that you get the sun glint from the blades or worse are within the area of land swept by the blades shadows. Blinking daylight at around 1Hz will soon drive you potty...

Wind turbines have a place, it's called off shore, where they are more efficient as the wind is less disturbed by ground obstacles. Odd that off shore isn't being pushed as hard as on shore, I wonder if the little fact that it is more expensive to build off shore has anything to do with it? No, it can't can it? We are building wind turbines to save the planet not make maximum profits for shareholders..

that always struck me as a real red herring. There are far more seiruos issues than that in the choices between the differing technologies. It matters for beauty spots, elsewhere its rather trivial compared to the real issues.

NT