The evil that is WIND POWER!!!!

I just saw an interesting program on telly about these mills. Apparently 50% of all windmills in the world are of danish origin, which I found quite surprising.

The danish windmill industry has the following website, that contains information about everything you want to know about windmills;

http://www.windpower.org/

Take a look.
 
The Don said:
When I last flew into Denmark, there seemed to be a large wond farm just off the coast near Copenhagen, it looked amazing.

I also like the way that the turbines have been spread throughout the landscape, makes each one seem a little less weird.

I know they're a small country with a relatively small population and low energy needs (efficent buidlings, few energy intensive industries, expensive energy (good way of encouraging less energy use)) but they really seem to have tackled this with enthusiasm
Click to expand...


FYI, Danish windmills are the result of massive government subsidy. "If you pay them they will build it".
 
Flame said:


Being that I live in Ireland I have heard plenty about the destruction and devastation that these mudslides have caused. Terrible.
Thing is it sounds more like planning errors were the cause than the windmills...

toni
Click to expand...

Engineers have determined the cause of at least one to be cause by the construction.

Take one boggy hill.

Dig a number of enormous holes.

Wait while water ingresses from surrounding soil, until ground becomes unstable.

Run like hell.
 
273017223



Heres a picture of one. The anti-wind people can be quite annoying. Like Walter Cronkite. His beef is that it'd ruin the water views from his multi million dollar summer home. I feel for him, especially since Mass. has some of the highest electric costs in the country.
 
Drooper said:


Engineers have determined the cause of at least one to be cause by the construction.

Take one boggy hill.

Dig a number of enormous holes.

Wait while water ingresses from surrounding soil, until ground becomes unstable.

Run like hell.
Click to expand...

Sure, but this is not a problem inherent in wind power, is it? It is just a problem with idiot surveyors and/or foolish engineers who thought that building a huge structure on a boggy hill was a good idea.

Compare to the problems caused by traditional power generators - problems which are inherent: pollution from coal/oil fired power stations, problems with spent fuel from nuclear reactors, and so on.
 
As I understand, the bird-kill problem has been abated somewhat by putting more resistance on the turbines. This means that the blades turn more slowly, but still generate about the same amount of energy (with correct gearing). Birds can more easily see and dodge the slower-moving blades.
 
Re: Re: Re: Re: The evil that is WIND POWER!!!!

Terry said:


Hey, I live there! I ride my bike next to the windmill farms every morning. There's a frontage road next to I-10 that I ride on. As for the windmills being loud, that doesn't appear to be the case. When it is very windy, you can just about hear them, but the wind itself is much louder.

--Terry.
Click to expand...
Not a very good picture, but...
 
shuize:
Does anyone know which large corporations are working on these technologies? I'd really like to buy their stock. I'm pretty sure Kyocera is one of them. Does anyone else know of others?
Click to expand...
Well, these two Danish companies Vestas and NEG Micon each have 20% of the world market. TMK, they are top dogs in that business.
 
Drooper said:
In Ireland people are learning about some adverse environmental side effects of windfarms.

One farm, being constructed in Galway has led to an entire mountain becoming destablised. a massive mudslide has ensued, engulfing houses, road, just about anything in its path.

The worst bit is that the sludge has (or way about to) spill into the local lake, killing off all the wildlife and ruining the water supply for the region.

Maybe a nuclear reactor would have been a safer environmental bet.
Click to expand...

What do you think would have happened if that had been a nuclear reactor on that mountain? Ka-BOOM!!! (to put it bluntly) Then by now you would be more concerned with evacuating Ireland than with preserving wildlife.
 
plindboe said:
I just saw an interesting program on telly about these mills. Apparently 50% of all windmills in the world are of danish origin, which I found quite surprising.

The danish windmill industry has the following website, that contains information about everything you want to know about windmills;

http://www.windpower.org/

Take a look.
Click to expand...
Thanks, plindboe. Interesting reading.

Did you know that an average windwill, during its lifetime, produces 80 times the energy required to produce, transport, install and decommission it? With an average lifespan of 20 years, that means the energy is (on average) recouped within the first 3 months of operation.

The Don,

According to plindboe's link, Denmark is also currently building the world's largest offshore windmill park.

Furthermore, Denmark apparently has a "windmill strategy" which states that by the year 2030, 50% of Denmark's energy should come from windmills. Currently, 18% of our needs are met by windmills.
 
Drooper:
FYI, Danish windmills are the result of massive government subsidy. "If you pay them they will build it".
Click to expand...
Could you expand on this? TMK there hasn't been any massive subsidizing of the windmill manufacturers themselves. There has, however, been a substantial subsidizing of the owners of windmills in the form of guaranteed higher prizes for the power delivered as opposed to market rates. This subsidy has recently been greatly reduced.
 
Here in DK, about 20% of our energy comes from windmills. Of course there have been complaints and debate, in cases where they have been placed too close to people's property, but I have honestly never heard that bird argument before. Admittedly I don't know of any serious research into how many are killed, but my first impression is that this argument is complete and utter nonsense. Have there ever been conducted any serious research about bird killings?
 
richardm said:


Sure, but this is not a problem inherent in wind power, is it? It is just a problem with idiot surveyors and/or foolish engineers who thought that building a huge structure on a boggy hill was a good idea.

Compare to the problems caused by traditional power generators - problems which are inherent: pollution from coal/oil fired power stations, problems with spent fuel from nuclear reactors, and so on.
Click to expand...


My comment was meant a little facetiously.

But since you objected.

This example does show that the land coverage (scale and type) needed to site these farms represents a real and significant environmental problem in itself. Windmiills aren't are cuddly as people make out. Also add to the fact that if you build a windmill farm you can't decommision conventional powerplants, because when the wind stops blowing you need a back-up.

And finally, if you thing the Anthropogenic global Warming scare is unofunded onb current knowledge, as I do, conventional coal fired power stations are the best, most efficient form of power generation.
 
Chaos:
What do you think would have happened if that had been a nuclear reactor on that mountain? Ka-BOOM!!! (to put it bluntly)
Click to expand...
Nuclear power rocks! :)

BTW, I read something else interesting on plindboe's link. Apparently, Western Europe's power needs could in theory be met several times over just using coastal off shore windmill farms. No further data was given, but it is thought provoking.

(Still, nuclear power rocks).
 
I don't think this is "enviormentalists" being hypocritical... it's just the nature of humans in general to be hypocritical. For example, everybody wants equality for all... until a black/ jewish /poor /immigrant/ whatever family moves in next door (or to the same school district). Everybody hates censorship... until that porn shop threathens to lower the property values. NIMBY-ism ("not in my back yard") is part of the human condition. I doubt the enviormentalists are any MORE hypocritical than others.

I'd like to say a good word for the hypocrites. As somebody once said, "Hypocracy is the tribute of vice to virtue". After all, without the hypocrites in the enviormental movement who want wind power in somebody else's back yard, nobody would be building the wind power turbines ANYWHERE in the first place. Besides, hypocracy often leads to virtue: in my experience, people who are "hypocritically" nice to (say) a mixed-race couple despite being against it are at least far more likely to meet and talk with them--and as time goes by, to lose the "theoretical" hatered in favor of genuine niceness (if that's a word.)
 
There are some drawbacks against windmills. In La Mancha (ironically enough), the citizens are fighting to keep windmills away... and for good reason: they are heavily land-intensive.

Along the way they are clashing with small towns that don't want them. Although wind power does not burn fossil fuel, it does affect the environment by clearing woodland to build noisy and unsightly towers.
Click to expand...

Source: Planet Ark. http://www.planetark.org/dailynewsstory.cfm?newsid=22377&newsdate=29-Sep-2003
 
Re: Re: The evil that is WIND POWER!!!!

richardm said:
Yep. As someone who likes to protect the environment, It really vexes me that after years of crying "Stop building power stations! Start using renewable energy instead!" environmentalists are now whinging about the visual impact of windmills.
Click to expand...

There are environmentalists, and there are what amount to anti-electricity woo-woos.

I'll leave the technical details of the advisability of wind power to others. Though doesn't Germany do a pretty good job of it?

It's not NIMBY, it's BANANA. Build Anything Nowhere Around Nothing Anywhere.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom