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Greener Energy

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landykins:
I think the wind turbines look good and they show an effort of "greener energy" but the oil they waste in the making of them far outstrips theoil they save as when they got older han the newest technology they'll get ripped down and replaced with the newer ones.

Green Machine:
I have to agree with sharpshooter, I do think nuclear energy is one of the very few realistic alternatives to our use of fossil fuels, but as been said before this is just my humble opinion :?

clbarclay:
There are many alternatives, the best is to use less energy in the first place.


One solution that sound like it has potential is burning oil seed rape (the yellow stuff that doesn't give people hay fever) in old coal power stations. There are loads of moth balled caol power stations around the country, mainly from old coal mines and you can burn the rape seed in them without need for processing. Yes it produces carbon dioxide, but the plants take in the stuff in order to produce the rape seed first.

And by the way tests have shown that rape seed takes less man made energy to produce than it will give out when burnt.


Just one of the many potential solutions.

Manicminer:
About half of all windfarms in Britain are in Wales.

I have cut and pasted an artice from a newspaper below.


A forest of turbines?

Prof Peter Cobbold explains why plans for 100 giant wind turbines in Clocaenog would destroy a quarter of the forest
IN late July the Welsh Assembly Government used its website to publish draft instructions to council planning departments: in essence these will facilitate the installation of hundreds of giant wind turbines in the Welsh countryside.

One of the locations identified by the Assembly as a Strategic Search Area (SSA) for wind power was Clocaenog Forest. It was chosen because of "...positive siting factors (defined as Forestry Commission woodland, due to single ownership and the presence of existing access tracks...)".
The perimeter of the SSA, the only one in North Wales, encompasses a vast area. Wind turbine development, if it takes place here, will affect numerous places: Bylchau, Nantglyn, Prion, Bontuchel, Pwllglas, Gwyddelwern, Maerdy, T£ Nant, Cerrigydrudion, Glasfryn, Llyn Aled and the Sportsman's Arms.

How many turbines will be needed? The Assembly gives no detailed plans (those are left entirely to the private sector) except to stipulate that the SSA's generating capacity should be "200MW minimum capacity".

This implies at least 100 giant turbines, each of 2MW capacity.
To describe these machines as big is a considerable understatement. The blades of a 2MW turbine reach up to 117m (380ft) and sweep out 1.1 acres at 140mph tip-speed.
The diameter of the rotor is bigger than the wingspan of a jumbo jet. These are gigantic machines, twice the height of those near Cerrigydrudion, but the electrical output, averaged over a year, from a machine in cleared forest, would be worth just 73p per minute.

Quite where these 100 turbines would be sited in Clocaenog Forest can only guessed at. But there are several important clues.
Wind speed is of paramount importance. The best site, for maybe 10-12 machines, is the ridge to the west of the Alwen Reservoir. Many more machines would be sited on the long ridge in the centre of the forest that runs north-to-south from Tir Mostyn (where 25 smaller turbines are already approved), past Foel Frech to beyond Craig Bron-Banog, with an extension to exploit the escarpment overlooking Pentre-Llyncymmer.

The third large site is Cefn Du, which runs from the centre of the forest eastwards to the monument at Pincyn Llys, above the villages of Clocaenog, Cyffylliog and Bontuchel.
The simulated photograph of Cefn Du (right) shows 27 2MW turbines placed in three rows in accordance with wind engineering principles. The turbines are shown on 80m towers, of which 20m is hidden by conifers (80m towers enable 7% more production than 60m towers).
What the photograph does not show is that very few of the trees on Cefn Du will remain after the turbines are installed.


The array of turbines in the photograph is 3km (2 miles) long: why? Wind engineers separate each turbine by four rotor diameters (ie. 300m for 2MW machines) and seven rotor diameters (ie. 500m) along the direction of the prevailing wind.
This is because of efficiency-sapping wake turbulence: a 2MW turbine extracts 2,600hp from winds of 45-60mph, leaving a wake of three vortices spiralling around one another. One hundred machines will therefore require the felling of at least 11 sq km of forest, or approximately 3,000 acres.

Engineering principles demand that the land surrounding turbines should be free from raised obstacles which might impair wind flow. In fact clear-felling the trees between the turbines, and up-wind from the edge of a group of machines for several hundred metres, will increase power production from 500KW to 660KW, or 32%.
That translates into a 32% increase in profits. One hundred turbines require an investment of over £100m, so every percentage point of productivity is important.
It is therefore inevitable that all the trees in the photograph of Cefn Du (and more off-picture to the west) will be clear-felled to raise the retail value of the electrical power from this 27-turbine "farm" from £15 to £20 per minute.

An additional 500 acres of clear-felling will enhance wind-flow into the periphery of turbine arrays, so the total clear-felled area required for 100 turbines will be approximately
3,500 acres. As the total area of Clocaenog is about 14,000 acres, it follows that wind "farming" will destroy and industrialise one quarter of the forest.
Dividing the forest into isolated fragments will be ecologically very damaging, especially as engineers will dictate which sites will be used, not the Forestry Commission's ecologists.

The forest has a thriving colony of red squirrels. Pine marten, an even rarer, endangered, forest-dwelling mustelid, may well be present in the forest. Pine martens are agile, arboreal animals that travel miles, particularly around dawn and dusk, feeding mainly on voles and small birds.
It is important to update our knowledge about Clocaenog Forest's population of pine martens: look for the bushy tail, dark chestnut/black pelt, and the distinctive cream throat (and do not confuse with a young fox which is similar in size).

Information relating to this rare and important animal will be useful not just for turbine opponents, but also to the wider conservation community. To report sightings, please send details to my email address (treesnotturbines@fsmail.net).
For those people horrified at the prospect of Clocaenog Forest being ripped apart in the pursuit of wind energy, time is fast running out to do something about it.
Assembly consultations on the plans, which are outlined in its TAN8 consultation, end on October 8. Campaigners against proposed wind-farms across Denbighshire and Conwy have organised a series of meetings.

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