Wind Farm Planned at Hinkley Pint

Does this mean there will be no more huge amazing techno parties on the point? aka Technival..... tee hee :o)

made me quite windy

Well Well, I see that objectivity is dead, long live the rise of the minority view, take what “we” say as gospel and try not to look further into Green Issues as it’s against our law….
Sorry to say if people blindly beloved what Your Energy say then they are losing the point. It has been said here on the main post that your energy has a wealth of experience building wind farms… well go and look at their carefully worded web site and try and find any mention of them actually building one so far. They may have applied for permission or sought to weaken local resolve against any future proposals but as yet it does appear they have yet to get permission for one or actually start the build process. Their site gives info that they have bought into the ownership of a site.

Jim Duffy, spokesman for Stop Hinkley is in fact the spokesman for Stop Hinkley Expansion. Another key person directly involved with this group is the editor of the British Wind Energy Association publication. The BWEA is a commercial company with nothing to do with the Government or environmental groups and is financed by over 290 private companies involved with the commercial side of wind farms.

What ever you view on Nuclear power you must try to at least understand the problems with wind farms. At present the drive for wind energy in the UK appears to be for Political appeasement as even their own advisors question their viability without first putting in place extremely large-scale alterations to the UK National Grid in order for their generated power to be fully used. Your Energy is giving dubious figures for the amount of power the muted 12 (or 15 according to other info given out by Your Energy) will produce. “Enough power for the domestic requirements for the whole of West Somerset” or “20,000 homes”. Well there are more than 20,000 homes in West Somerset and they use more than the given power output. Please also note that 12 new, large wind turbines would be extremely hard pressed to produce enough power for the so called 20,000 homes. Also and more disturbingly they would only do so for at best 26% of the time as that is how often the wind conditions would be suitable for generation. Also and more importantly is the fact that the National Grid is a live system and does not “store” electricity. There are limited times that it can accept the wind power produced by wind farms. So even if they are producing 26% of the time, not all of that power can be accepted by the Grid. What Your Energy should be stating is that the wind farm, might on a good year produce enough electricity that might be accepted by the National Grid for the equivalent 3 months of the year at best. Please also note that Your Energy has not yet undertaken the required TWO YEAR wind survey to check the suitability of the site so the figures are at best guesswork.

Even environmental experts are questioning the suitability of on shore land based wind farms. The Government is now championing off shore wind farms that are more environmentally acceptable. Please note that on shore, land based farms are totally commercial concerns making money for people like Your Energy by taking advantage of large subsidies. It is questionable on a generation point alone as to whether they are even environmentally positive. Yes wind energy is free. But the building of the turbines, their components and transport to site and construction is not. If they generate environmentally clean power for 100% of the time it will still take 4 years or so to pay back their construction and build cost. As they only ever work for about 26% of the time that pay back is even longer and extended further depending on how much of the power the National Grid will accept. Existing power stations still have to be kept on line and “ticking over” burning fossil fuel and emitting CO2 for when the wind dies as it does so far quicker that existing power stations can turn on and get up to generating speed. This lengthens the pay back further...

If wind energy becomes a major contributor to the UK energy requirements then a large scale loss of power on a calm or troubled wind days will lead to major supply problems, power cuts and greater environmental issues.

Even sceptics, environmentalists, ecologists are saying that non-polluting nuclear power stations are the best partner for wind energy. This is where Stop Hinkley expansion comes into conflict with itself. They are not being objective or realistic about wind energy. To rush ahead now and build numerous on shore, land based wind farms is wrong. Wait and see how the larger off shore wind farms cope and how their power is used. On shore land based wind farms are damaging the countryside, creating more environmental issues than they solve and are using up huge amounts of cash subsidies that could be better used elsewhere.

YES to WIND, NO TO LAND BASED WIND FARMS.

I would be interested to know where Jim Duffy obtains his “facts” with regard to the amount of electricity the 12 wide turbines are anticipated to generate! He refers to the wide farm as representing a “clean development”. Has he thought to consider that it is estimated to take 20 years for an average wind turbine to generate the same level of energy expenditure, which was required during their manufacture! I don’t understand why comparisons are being drawn between a wind farm on the site, or another nuclear power station. This is missing the point, and in my view irrelevant. The question is whether to allow a wind farm to be constructed or not all!