Tuesday, October 04, 2011

Wind farm

Interesting presentation from Eneco to the Town Council last night. Most striking thing was the revelation that there is NO room for any significant negotiation on the siting of the turbines. They will be placed in the area shown, not anywhere else on the larger zone, as most people believed is what they had been told. Visuals can be seen at the Gazette offices (though I've placed copies here, but not very easy to see online).







12 comments:

David Furmage said...

Use tidal energy , then it's out of sight. Think about it 3 tides meet at Peveril point.

Anonymous said...

It's fantastic to see renewable energy being used on our doorstep. Would enhance the view not spoil it.

David Furmage said...

Wind turbines might be renewable , though it's not reliable:(


Renewable means that the energy is replaced at the same rate as it is used by us and clean means that the method of converting the energy does not release harmful by-products (particularly greenhouse gases) into the atmosphere. One difficulty at the moment is that the devices we have designed to convert energy this way are still quite cumbersome and inefficient, and we are so energy-hungry that we need a vast number of them to replace fossil-fuel-burning power stations. We have to be careful to make sure that their very presence does not degrade the environment in such a way that the environmental benefits are outweighed by the costs.

The other problem is that most renewable energy sources are intermittent. While we can simply choose how much fossil fuel to burn in a coal-fired power station, we cannot control when the wind, the sun and or the waves will produce energy for us. One renewable energy source that might well go a little way towards alleviating this problem is tidal energy. Although the tides are not related in any way to our demand for electricity, they are, at least, highly predictable. The tides can be predicted weeks, months, years and even centuries into the future.

The movement of water on the surface of the planet due to the tides causes (a) vertical water movements at coastal locations and (b) horizontal movements of water along the coast, called tidal streams. The vertical movements are magnified in places where there is a funnelling effect, such as in estuaries, and the horizontal movements are magnified in places where the flow is constricted, such as around headlands and between islands. Importantly, both of these water motions can be exploited to turn electricity-producing turbines, hence produce electrical energy in a clean and renewable way.

Anonymous said...

I think you will find that the tide round here is too feeble to be much use in terms of range, velocity and volume of water. The entrance to Poole Harbour might have the right characteristics but submerged turbines would be something of an impediment to navigation. I wonder if they would work further out attached to the legs of the wind turbines. The latter could be constructed in such a way as to provide a habitat for edible crustaca I suspect and so serve several purposes.

David Furmage said...

Maybe so though the tides that meet at peveril point are quite strong. But saying that Swanage , Corfe and Wareham has got a viable source of energy that probably no one has even thought of tapping into. And it's that they all have rivers and steam. Which are constanly moving all the time.

http://www.ashdenawards.org/micro-hydro

Could be an option instead of building turbines:)

Anonymous said...

There is possibly a problem with alternative energy companies saying things like such and such will provide enough power for say 10,000 homes. But that figure ignores, I presume, the gas used, oil, petrol, aviation fuel and the like. So all they do is provide the electricity part of a much bigger problem?
nichthefish

Anonymous said...

Have you looked at the Swan Brook?

Anonymous said...

Using anaerobic digestion for food waste and the seaweed that has to be scraped off the beach after every storm might be an idea worth investigating.

Anonymous said...

Not withstanding the esthetical citing of the proposed wind farm, the low frequency sound emissions both from the blades and the power inverters were demonstrated on the BBC Programme ‘WINDFARM WARS’ BBC 2 aired on 27/05/2011

AND Also in the DAILY MAIL Friday 16th September 2011

“Are you winding my up ?
HALF the time they sit motionless, but this week when the tail-end of Hurricane Katia bent tress at right angles across Britain, 13 wind farms had to close because they were generating too much electricity.

Enough energy to power Bristol was lost and the National Grid must now pay wind farm operators almost £2m. to compensate for the disconnection, which is higher than the going rate for the fuel.

Never forget, some genius in Whitehall came up with this energy plan. Well paid for it he was too.”

In view of the corruption of the environment, ecology and shore aspect I would ask our planners to justify the proposed offshore wind farm off Dorset in light of the above article.

Anonymous said...

So simples, get the proposed wind farm to pump water up to Scotland and release it through the turbines when us Southerners need it.

Anonymous said...

Recently a renewable energy meeting was held at Wareham where it was advised by the renewable energy consultant that we should be considering a mix of renewable energy. We need to do something very soon.

Whilst people are saying no to wind because they don't like the look of turbines at the same time these same people seem to be ignoring the fact that the rainforests and indigenous peoples habitats are being destroyed so that energy can be provided for us by oil, gas and biofuel.

In the well off West we seem to be extremely selfish and as long as the visual and environmetal impact is elsewhere we are happy to ignore. Habitats are being destroyed in places where energy consumption is low. If we keep saying no, then we may find we have a nuclear power station on our doorstep. We need to take responsibility.

We asked questions about using the rivers in Purbeck for hydro power but we were told that they do not have enough 'head' to be useful for providing energy.

The Postman said...

Scoping Report for the Navitus Bay Wind Park
The Scoping Report for the Navitus Bay Wind Park is now available to view online at: http://www.navitusbaywindpark.co.uk/news-detail.aspx?newsID=425
A formal consultation on this document has been carried out by The Infrastructure Planning Commission with statutory consultees.
Eneco are not required to carry out a public consultation, however, they are currently accepting comments on this document.
Please send any comments to: +44 (0) 1926 331 214 or email: info@enecowindoffshore.co.uk
Deadline for comments: 30 November 2011