Ecotricity makes second bid for North Dorset wind farm (From Bournemouth Echo)

Bring it on the sooner we get the wind farms the better.

To those of you who don't want a wind farm on the hill behind your houses: would you like an enormous, grey and always-hazardous nuclear station on the coast in front of them instead? Because that's your choice.

Wind turbines look nice and the quiet swooshing sound they make, I actually like. I'll happily swap house with one of you NIMBYs any day.

This sounds like, we all want cleaner energy but not on my doorstep thank you.

MJD wrote:
Bring it on the sooner we get the wind farms the better.

WE???

How long has Hamworthy been in North Dorset then?

Go to some European countries and you will see wind farms long established as part of the 21st centuary landscape . One area in Germany near the Soest city has had wind farms on it's landscape since mid 1980's . It's going to happen sooner or later without much choice . So let's quit moaning and get cleaner and cheaper energy for this day and age !!

Oh dear, the usual uninformed comment about turbines.

For info, they will not substitute for more than a tiny % of thermal capacity so you will pay to build new thermal power stations anyway:

"E.ON said that it could take 50 gigawatts of renewable electricity generation to meet the EU target. But it would require up to 90% of this amount as backup from coal and gas plants to ensure supply when intermittent renewable supplies were not available. That would push Britain's installed power base from the existing 76 gigawatts to 120 gigawatts." ('E.ON warns over backup for renewables', Guardian, 4 June 2008.)

National Grid agree with these figures.

H20Hara - you certainly won't get cheaper power from wind - the Renewables Obligation subsidy doubles the cost of onshore and triples the wholesale cost of offshore electricity.

Danfox Davies - The most pro-wind report to date, which is invariably referenced by the BWEA, Greenpeace and FOE, states: "It would be unrealistic to assume that wind energy would displace any nuclear capacity," ('Wind Power in the UK', Sustainable Development Commission).

jollybaggins wrote:

MJD wrote: Bring it on the sooner we get the wind farms the better.

WE??? How long has Hamworthy been in North Dorset then?

I spend a lot of time in North Dorset on farms and several of them have wind turbines and the farmers atchley get free power and cash yes cash for the surplus. They hardly make any nose at all. Further to the point since when has Weymouth been in North Dorset ?

Danfox Davies wrote:
To those of you who don't want a wind farm on the hill behind your houses: would you like an enormous, grey and always-hazardous nuclear station on the coast in front of them instead? Because that's your choice. Wind turbines look nice and the quiet swooshing sound they make, I actually like. I'll happily swap house with one of you NIMBYs any day.

80% of French electricity is produced from nuclear power, you dont hear of the french glowing in the dark or terrible disasters like chernoble happening over there.

MJD - Farmers are getting cash from their turbines because of the Feed-in Tariff or, for larger installations, Renewables Obligation certificates.

In other words: the electricity consumer is paying through the nose for the small amounts of intermittent power that they produce.

Peter Atherton, head utilities analyst at Citi Investment Research put it concisely:
"It's a bonanza. Anyone who can get their nose in the trough is trying to." (FT)

Paul Golby, Chief Executive of E.ON UK (formerly Powergen - you will remember their turbine ad') said:
"Without the renewable obligation certificates nobody would be building wind farms." (Daily Telegraph).

@ Red Grouse,
Oh dear the usual misinformation about wind turbines.

Thermal capacity? Since when has a coal fired power station provided thermal power?
Thankfully coal is now being phased out because of the terrible consequences of their emissions so lets take this opportunity to invest in a sustainable infrastructure.
Nuclear isn't really sustainable because of limited resources of usable grade Uranium ore, also takes half a day to wind up/down so cannot react to fluctuations to demand in much the same way as relying on the wind, the advantage wind farms have is being spread across the country evens out any regional fluctuations in supply (windiness) - an ideal model for base load.
Yes we will need some gas/biomass power stations to follow demand but that demand and their reliance is reduced by every kW produced by a wind turbine. It's just common sense really.

I don't know what you lot have against them, they're quiet, totally benign, visually pleasing and generate clean electricity.

GPWool.

Thermal power - "In thermal power stations, mechanical power is produced by a heat engine that transforms thermal energy, often from combustion of a fuel, into rotational energy ".(Wikipedia).

'Thermal capacity' -the usual industry description for the collective rated capacity of thermal power stations.

Coal is not being "phased out". I agree it is a problematic fuel source in terms of pollution but it remains the most widespread fuel source for power stations world wide.

The government is committed to building new coal plant with carbon capture (if Chris Huhne lets them!).

The Danes don't like to advertise the fact, but all their wind capacity (they have the highest per-capita wind capacity in the world) has failed to displace their coal-fired generation

Energinet.dk, the operator of Denmark's electricity and natural gas grids, publishes figures showing that in 2007, carbon dioxide levels from electricity generation totaled about 23 million tons, about the same level as they were back in 1990, before the country began its frenzied construction of wind turbines.

Meanwhile, despite heavy government subsidies for wind, coal use has remained remarkably stable. In 1999, Denmark's daily coal consumption was the equivalent of about 94,400 barrels of oil per day. By 2007, despite a 136% increase in the amount of electricity produced from wind power, Denmark's coal consumption was exactly the same as it was back in 1999.

In fact, Denmark's coal consumption in 2007 was only about 4% lower than it was back in 1981.

While coal use dropped slightly over that period, natural gas consumption went from zero to over 400 million cubic feet per day, proving the power industry adage: "wind fuels gas".

The Danes are also dependent on electricity generated by nuclear power stations in Sweden and Germany.
The Danish Government is planning to end subsidies for onshore wind in 2011.

Your comments about nuclear are just not factually correct. You really shouldn't believe Greenpeace/FoE propaganda.

There is absolutely no shortage of nuclear fuel.

The Institution of Mechanical Engineers say that:

"Prices spiked nearly ten-fold in 2007 on market fears of a uranium supply shortage, triggered by media expectations of a sudden global nuclear renaissance. Uranium ore prices have now dropped back again and are currently at a four-year low.

"The 2007 uranium price bubble has caused some stakeholders to worry that there may be a serious supply shortage of uranium nuclear fuel in the future. Despite alarming headlines, these worries are not really very well founded.

"The volatile price of uranium ore raw material is actually only a relatively small cost component of the overall manufacturing process, typically about 25%. Using nuclear fuel more efficiently by burning it for longer in the reactor is effectively driving this cost segment down even further to around 15-20%. In fact uranium fuel manufacturing capacity currently outweighs requirements by 40%. There is a supply glut. This means that it is economically very unlikely that commercial nuclear energy utilities will face a uranium fuel supply shortage anytime soon. Uranium supply probably will not become a bottleneck in any realistic nuclear renaissance in Britain.

"Enriched uranium is the simplest and most well understood nuclear fuel. However despite its dominance of the nuclear fuel market, commercial reactors have also been powered with mixtures of recycled plutonium and uranium oxides.

"The major alternative fuel to uranium is the thorium fuel cycle. It is possible to operate nuclear reactors using a hybrid mix of both thorium and uranium nuclear fuels.

"Thorium is attractive as an alternative nuclear fuel for developing countries because large thorium reserves are known to exist and thorium reactor fuel is difficult to weaponise."

As for difficulty with nuclear: the French have no difficulty with over 75% of their electricity generation being nuclear.

Even the Swedes have seen which way the wind is blowing (sorry!) and have OK'd 10 new reactors.

Interestingly this is threatening the wind industry in Denmark. Recent headlines screamed, ‘Wind turbines threatened by atomic power’ (Jyllands-posten, 19 June), stating that, "New atomic power stations in Finland and Sweden are poison for the Danish wind industry, but good for electricity prices".

Cheap, low carbon,base load power from nuclear compares rather well with hugely expensive, intermittent wind power generation.