Cowal Hills

[marisca]

Now, dinnae get me wrong, I am not anti-windmills per se and certainly havnae made my mind up on this one, but there may be those out there who do care.
There is apparently a plan afoot to plant 15 x 145m high wind turbines on Forestry Commission land (i.e. ours!) above Innellan and Dunoon. No planning permission required, just approval by the Energy Consents and Deployment Unit of Holyrood. There is a website at http://www.savecowal.org which may not be in favour of the development.
So now you know - what you do is up to you.

[Storyline]

Do not know about the location you are referring to but just as a matter of interest I spent a couple of days with my cousin recently. He is an independent consultant working in the alt energy sector. He works for Greenpeace/Green party as well as some corporates. Anyway, he was saying that the days of wind (esp land based) are now numbered. The future will be solar and there are eye watering amounts of money being talked about. Apols if this is common knowledge (do not follow these things as much as I used to).

He was also saying that a lot of the decisions whether to create windfarms have nothing to do with the greater good but are just cynical money making ventures (probably obvious).

[BarnacleBill]

I also heard that windmills are cash cows and are not as efficient as they should be. I think they are an eyesore on the landscape.

[Nick]

He was also saying that a lot of the decisions whether to create windfarms have nothing to do with the greater good but are just cynical money making ventures (probably obvious).

So just like most decisions made by government and their corporate chums, eh?

[Storyline]

He was also saying that a lot of the decisions whether to create windfarms have nothing to do with the greater good but are just cynical money making ventures (probably obvious).

So just like most decisions made by government and their corporate chums, eh?

Something to do with gravy and trains

[mm5aho]

I don't think that putting wind generators on this part of the country is a good idea, because of the aesthetics reduction.

But the topic always raises some notions that could be challenged.

Inefficiency:
Some scoff at the approx 30% efficiency of these generators. (this is more related to availability)
But they forget the comparisons. A car is about 15% efficient. (conversion of chemical energy into motion)
A fossil fuel power station is about 38% efficient.
A nuclear station has long periods off line due to maintenance.

Availability
They only work when the wind blows. Yes. But other forms (fossil fuel, nuclear) don't have 100% on-time either. It's just the technology. Sailors understand this intermittency in boats, but we forget it on land?


Ugliness.
I think some look elegant, but (IMO) these are the small groups of 2-3. The Kintyre peninsular, the A74 motorway south near Moffat are areas that have very large concentrations of turbines and look more industrialised.
But adding houses to countryside makes alters the appearance too, but there's far less objection to that despoilation.

Inventive man will come up with new or improved ways to harness energy from the sun (or derivatives) that will cope, but unless we experiment, we'll not find them. Otherwise our choice is to use less (turn off the lights) or poison the atmosphere continuing using fossil fuels.

[Rowana]

Inventive man will come up with new or improved ways to harness energy from the sun (or derivatives) that will cope, but unless we experiment, we'll not find them. Otherwise our choice is to use less (turn off the lights) or poison the atmosphere continuing using fossil fuels.

Or have less people on the planet.

Perhaps EBOLA IS the solution (where is the tongue-in-cheek smiley when you need it?)

[mm5aho]

"Or have less people on the planet. "

How will having smaller people help?

[Storyline]

If we could invent some system of transmitting power over long distances without too much power loss, the sunnier and poorer areas in Africa could benefit from the redistribution of wealth from the richer north. Don't know the actual figures but there must be enough energy falling on completely barren desert areas where solar farms would have negligible environmental impact. There must be research going into ultra high conductivity in parallel with fusion, tidal, etc. etc.

[Nick]

If we could invent some system of transmitting power over long distances without too much power loss, the sunnier and poorer areas in Africa could benefit from the redistribution of wealth from the richer north. Don't know the actual figures but there must be enough energy falling on completely barren desert areas where solar farms would have negligible environmental impact. There must be research going into ultra high conductivity in parallel with fusion, tidal, etc. etc.

Here's how much solar energy it would take to power the world:



Come on humanity, get your act together ffs

[Storyline]

Amazing graphic

[claymore]

Here we are, surrounded by waters where tides flow constantly and still we look to harness energy from winds which don't.

[ParaHandy]

?.. tides flow constantly ...

If Noah really had got his show aff ra groond, the rule of twelths wid be the Ten Commandments; dump orra ithers like coveting her twa doors doon. It wid huv the lot; every 6 hours or so the guid Lord takes a rest and on the seventh hour gans back again ....

[claymore]

Ye soond mair like a Rechabite wi every day that passes

[ParaHandy]

How so, my fevered friend? I take the drink and do bit of this and a bit of that and don't live in a tent. One o yon must sound a bit orra grim fekker don't youse think?