Proposed Wind Farm near Glaslyn

[thenorthwind]

It amuses me that people frequently denigrate 'environmental' initiatives. What? You don't want better air and water quality? More pleasant living spaces? Streets where kids can play like we used to? etc etc.

Brings to mind:

[RIP]

[riderdown]

due to capitalism we want everything cheap

Pretty certain the average person in a communist country wants everything cheap as well

It's a sad reality that infrastructure projects like wind farms, reservoirs, incinerators, nuclear power stations etc do little for the people who live in the areas that get blighted by their development. If that was changed it would at least in part give a reason for local support rather than there only being downsides for the community

Intrusive development shouldn't just be sending it's profits to the venture capitalists/ high net worth individuals in London and the home counties, it needs to be taxed to support the area it exists in. Planning controls need to have teeth and the council the resources to monitor the ongoing impact. That way the abuses if the current system with wind farms being sold off to anonymous offshore entities as soon as they are built can be tackled.

As for 220m turbines on-shore, it's bonkers, the civil engineering in the base is going to be huge

[Johnallan]

I don't have anything useful to add, other than I really enjoy this forum

[RIP]

As for 220m turbines on-shore, it's bonkers, the civil engineering in the base is going to be huge

I'm interested to learn more about that to increase my knowledge. At the moment we have the highest one in England just outside our town at 147m. Apparently it's also the most powerful, generating 4.1MW.

[fatbikephil]

As for 220m turbines on-shore, it's bonkers, the civil engineering in the base is going to be huge

I'm interested to learn more about that to increase my knowledge. At the moment we have the highest one in England just outside our town at 147m. Apparently it's also the most powerful, generating 4.1MW.

The one in Methill generates 7MW and is nearly 200m to blade tip - it's quite big...

The lump of concrete they have to sit on has to be heavy enough to resist the considerable wind forces. It's interesting to note (well I think so) that offshore turbines aren't bolts to the sea bed - the weight of the support tower and footing is deemed enough to resist wind and wave. On land, the base has to be big enough so that it's self weight (and the weight of the turbine) is spread out
enough so it doesn't sink into the ground. Some of the ones in Caithness have huge footings requiring a large volume of peat to be dug out to get down to firm ground, added to the peat removal required to built a track capable of carrying a 44T truck = moving alot of peat. The peat bogs of Caithness and Sutherland are one of the worlds biggest absorbers of CO2....

[Bearbonesnorm]

I forget exactly but I'm sure it's something like 8000 tonnes of concrete per base.

[riderdown]

I forget exactly but I'm sure it's something like 8000 tonnes of concrete per base.

At 2.4 tonnes per M3 that's a lot of concrete

[fatbikephil]

A 20x20x6 slab = 5750 T and that's the size of the ones in my local hills. So 8000T probably about right for one in deep peat. Oh and concrete takes a load of CO2 to produce....

[jameso]

Talk of concrete blocks and carbon blades etc.. Thinking back to conversations about bikes and impact where even the highest CO2 cost to produce is offset if it replaces a few hundred miles of car use I wondered how much energy an average wind turbine has to generate to become CO2 neutral Vs coal or wood fired energy?

A few articles all suggest only 6 months +/- a month or so, which I was surprised by. Less surprised when I read the difference of ~10g of CO2 per KWh for wind power Vs over 1kg per KWh for coal power or 18g for UK electricity production overall. ~25-30% of UK electricity is from wind so it's already a significant part of getting that CO2 per KWh number down.

[faustus]

Yeah carbon payback is a good point, and with solar too. I think with old solar panels they struggled to pay themselves back, but modern more efficient ones are 1 to 4 years apparently. And obviously with fossil fuels there is no payback, just net increase in Co2. The biomass/wood power stations are particularly bad, as I think they rely heavily on imported fuel from North America. There is some reuse of waste materials, but some will rely on 'leftovers' from forestry harvesting and it's attendant impacts. As with other biofuels, there is the whole issue of using land just for fuel supply rather than food or just leaving it to nature.

[Bearbonesnorm]

but some will rely on 'leftovers' from forestry harvesting and it's attendant impacts. As with other biofuels, there is the whole issue of using land just for fuel supply rather than food or just leaving it to nature.

The last lot of wood to be cut from the forest here went straight to Drax. These weren't left overs but acres of mature trees.

[riderdown]

The biomass/wood power stations are particularly bad, as I think they rely heavily on imported fuel from North America.

One in Cumbria I am aware of from a few years ago was trying to be reliant on their waste and local short rotation coppiced willow, the willow having significant positive side effects of growing well on marginal damp land, biodiversity improvements and flood mitigation

[Itchynuts]

I've been reading the posts on the proposed wind farm and trying not to pitch in but now I've cracked. I'm sure there will be a certain amount of verbal abuse coming my way but I really feel the need to make a few comments.

In the UK there are a whole lot of us crammed into a small space and we need electricity for almost everything we do. We can't afford to buy it so we must make our own.

If that means putting wind farms on top of every hill in the country then that's what we have to do. Yes it will be awful and yes some flowers and animals will become extinct but if the alternative is for my children and grand children to become extinct then I'm afraid the plants and animals will have to go.

It may be that nuclear power is our only viable short term solution until we can crack wave power and then we'll have to sidestep the people who say a crab or a mollusc might not like it.

I admit I'm feeling a bit doomy at the moment. In my spare time I watch a lot of videos made by Sabine Hossenfelder. A very clever (and funny) lady but I watched this one a month ago:-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4S9sDyooxf4

She hopes she is wrong. I hope she is wrong but either way it is time to stop moaning and debating and build stuff.

There - I've said it. Now I can go out on my bike.

[Lazarus]

Yes it will be awful and yes some flowers and animals will become extinct but if the alternative is for my children and grand children to become extinct then I'm afraid the plants and animals will have to go.

Its not quite that binary but at some point humans have to learn to live in partnership with their home or it's going to get very unpleasant for us when the food runs out, the seas rise, deserts grow and huge numbers of humans are displaced and starving.

[thenorthwind]

I'm afraid the plants and animals will have to go

How do you see that working out for your children and grandchildren?

[riderdown]

If that means putting wind farms on top of every hill in the country then that's what we have to do.

I cycled through what was at the time of construction the largest land based windfarm in England today and it wasn't turning nor were all the other wind farms I saw on the skyline

Wind isn't reliable, do we turn everything off when it doesn't blow? You can't flex nuclear quick enough, other renewables are tiny and have their own issues, we can't store surplus wind energy at scale

As pointed out earlier by someone the real key is reducing demand, this is going to be really difficult as we have a housing stock which is terrible and a cold damp climate. Put the price up and you increase fuel poverty, ration use and the poorest in the worst housing suffer. We could insulate but the sector is full of cowboys we are already seeing the first claims for faulty cavity wall insulation etc it's yet another example of failed self regulation in Britain

What's the answer? It's complicated, but it's not putting wind turbines up on Welsh hills to feed demand generated elsewhere with nothing for that community

[Lazarus]

[quote the real key is reducing demand, t. [/quote]
In the future cars and heating are going to be electric so that reduction is going to happen. Green renewable energy is the only solution and it's going to be built where it's generally windy.

[godivatrailrider]

we need electricity for almost everything we do.

except cycling.... unless ... oh.

Yes it will be awful and yes some flowers and animals will become extinct but if the alternative is for my children and grand children to become extinct then I'm afraid the plants and animals will have to go.

I'm sorry but that is one of the most astonishingly arrogant sentences I've read in years!
You'd genuinely rather rare species of plants become extinct, just as long as you and your progeny have electricity?

FFS. We are absolutely doomed.

[AndreR]

I'm afraid the plants and animals will have to go

How do you see that working out for your children and grandchildren?

I would point out that those plants and animals you are so quick to dismiss need exactly the same things your children and grandchildren will need. It is becoming increasingly obvious that the "people are more important than plants and animals" is exactly the thinking that has got us into the hole we find ourselves in now. The solution will not be found in sacrificing bits of the natural world for the greater good of people, the natural world including people all survive together or we will all fall together.

[Bearbonesnorm]

Like I said earlier ... how long before there's nothing worth saving?

[Hyppy]

…  with nothing for that community.

Not nothing: We got ~400 metres of pavement through the village in exchange for the local wind farm.

[Lazarus]

Like I said earlier ... how long before there's nothing worth saving?

Depends how long it is before we start trying to save things ( all of us having something worth saving even if it's just yourself)

We won't reach a point where humanity collectively throws in the towel and we all go to dignitas.

[RIP]

'Saving' one thing can be at the cost of 'losing' another. The view of what's 'saved' and what's 'lost' is frequently subjective, and even if there's an objective angle the facts surrounding it can be blurred.

Speaking of facts, this has been a fairly interesting thread but it's also been fairly 'hard facts free' - plenty of personal opinions and viewpoints from all 'sides' and nowt wrong with that - so I've stopped learning anything from it </petulant>.

Selfishly speaking I'd rather this particular place is left alone as a remote wilderness, of which we don't have much left. But - subjectivity . Anyway, I'm not sure anyone would find it easy to transport heavy engineering up the steep curvy Mountain Road so I expect the original discussion point is academic.

Now about those gear ratios...

PS. Facts... which are reliable? In this era of fake noos, I don't know. I read up a bit more about the "England's largest" 4.1MW one up the road and it said 900T (9000 seems an overestimate - a Channel ferry is only 3 times that) of concrete are in the foundations (also said about 70 x 18T lorry loads so that doesn't quite match but not far off), and they claim 2800T 'CO2 offsetting per year', compared to what it didn't say though. I've seen CO2-per-tonne-of-concrete varying from 72kg up to 1T, a wide range. Obviously there's plenty of other CO2 costs involved which I might read up about. Or I might not, as she's just given me my chores list.

[RIP]

Re coal and its high calorific value for power generation and our own plentiful supplies - and I speak as someone who is very interested indeed in the mining thereof, and the social history of its communities - on the debit side we have: Aberfan, Senghenydd, Gresford, Oaks, Blantyre, Cilfynydd, emphysema, bulk transport costs, slag fly ash transport and disposal, pit tips, acid rain (remember that?), ground water contamination, air quality (London smogs!), limestone quarried and burned to make lime for flue desulphurisation, and that's before the CO2 issues .

Plenty, some different some not, of issues with gas and nuclear too of course. Recent figures show 50% gas from North Sea (with some claim that it will run out in the 2030s) and 50% imported mainly from Norway (surely also North Sea?). That doesn't say "local security of supply" to me somehow.

Place your bets and spin the wheel.