Wind Turbines For or against & why?

[Baff1 0]

If Balschoiws figures are correct, then they are very financially viable.

A 25% return on your money, guareteeable over 20 years is something you can take to the bank.

You can get a loan for that, even if you don't have the cash.

You could even buy it on your credit cards and make half the return he does.

With a deal like that only an idiot in Germany would go to work.

@ Red Kite I can think of many reasons for embracing alternative energy solutions.

If I can get secondary confirmation of Balschoiws figures, I'll be doing a lot more than thinking about it.

The trouble is the subject is heavily politicised and getting a transparent view of it is all but impossible in the present climate.

Global warming, however, is obviously not one of them.

I'm not anti wind or solar power, I'm anti global warming idiots pretending they have the magic silver bullet answers to a global diasater that isn't even coming.

I'm particularly anti them, when they propose ridiculously expensive and globally damaging solutions to imaginary problems. Giving it the old "the rise in CO2 in the atmosphere is the single largest danger facing the world today". As if.

How tired am I of student types explaining how evil money and the pursuit of it is, and how irrelevant it is if things cost more as long as it os for the global good.

As if anything that actually costs more can ever be for the global good.

If there is ever going to be enough money in the world to feed everyone.

As if despite this being a natural and unavoidable law, people aren't actually trying.

Who cares if things cost more money, if those hard fought over resoursces aren't made to stretch as far as they can? Who cares if rich people have to pay more?

There is a real danger to guard against with the green movement.

They are swing voters they have a political influence over and above the rest of us.

As for dwindling fossil fuels in the U.K., what are you talking about?

We have coal coming out of our ears.

The cheap gas, that replaced coal for 20 years is now all but finished, but the coal isn't anything like used up.

It's cheap as chips and there is loads of it.

Any energy crisis we face here in Britain will be self imposed only.

Even our domestic gas supplies are only financially non viable due to North Sea taxation.

The government is subsidising wind farms, but it is taxing coal stations. The gas stations too. Carbon Trading they call it.

There is no shortage of fossil fuels here.

This technology is not driven by economic necessity it is driven by political expediency.

Here's an intresting article from the Daily Telegraph which covers German subsidies to solar energy. I've highlighted the bits that intrested me most.

Quote[/b] ]Within five years, solar power will be cheap enough to compete with carbon-generated electricity, even in Britain, Scandinavia or upper Siberia. In a decade, the cost may have fallen so dramatically that solar cells could undercut oil, gas, coal and nuclear power by up to half. Technology is leaping ahead of a stale political debate about fossil fuels.

Anil Sethi, the chief executive of the Swiss start-up company Flisom, says he looks forward to the day - not so far off - when entire cities in America and Europe generate their heating, lighting and air-conditioning needs from solar films on buildings with enough left over to feed a surplus back into the grid.

The secret? Mr Sethi lovingly cradles a piece of dark polymer foil, as thin a sheet of paper. It is 200 times lighter than the normal glass-based solar materials, which require expensive substrates and roof support. Indeed, it is so light it can be stuck to the sides of buildings.

advertisementRather than being manufactured laboriously piece by piece, it can be mass-produced in cheap rolls like packaging - in any colour.

The "tipping point" will arrive when the capital cost of solar power falls below $1 (51p) per watt, roughly the cost of carbon power. We are not there yet. The best options today vary from $3 to $4 per watt - down from $100 in the late 1970s.

Mr Sethi believes his product will cut the cost to 80 cents per watt within five years, and 50 cents in a decade.

It is based on a CIGS (CuInGaSe2) semiconductor compound that absorbs light by freeing electrons. This is then embedded on the polymer base. It will be ready commercially in late 2009.

"It'll even work on a cold, grey, cloudy day in England, which still produces 25pc to 30pc of the optimal light level. That is enough, if you cover half the roof," he said.

"We don't need subsidies, we just need governments to get out of the way and do no harm. They've spent $170bn subsidising nuclear power over the last thirty years," he said.

His ultra-light technology, based on a copper indium compound, can power mobile phones and laptop computers with a sliver of foil.

"You won't have to get down on your knees ever again to hunt for plug socket," he said

Michael Rogol, a solar expert at Credit Lyonnais, expects the solar industry to grow from $7bn in 2004 to nearer $40bn by 2010, with operating earnings of $3bn.

The sector is poised to outstrip wind power. It is a remarkable boom for a technology long dismissed by experts as hopelessly unviable.

Mr Rogol said he was struck by the way solar use had increased dramatically in Japan and above all Germany, where Berlin's green energy law passed in 2004 forces the grid to buy surplus electricity from households at a fat premium. (In Britain, utilities may refuse to buy the surplus. They typically pay half the customer price of electricity.)

The change in Germany's law catapulted the share price of the German flagship company SolarWorld from €1.38 (67p) in February 2004 to over €60 by early 2006.

The tipping point in Germany and Japan came once households twigged that they could undercut their unloved utilities. Credit Lyonnais believes the rest of the world will soon join the stampede.

Mike Splinter, chief executive of the US semiconductor group Applied Materials, told me his company is two years away from a solar product that reaches the magic level of $1 a watt.

Cell conversion efficiency and economies of scale are galloping ahead so fast that the cost will be down to 70 US cents by 2010, with a target of 30 or 40 cents in a decade.

"We think solar power can provide 20pc of all the incremental energy needed worldwide by 2040," he said.

"This is a very powerful technology and we're seeing dramatic improvements all the time. It can be used across the entire range from small houses to big buildings and power plants," he said.

"The beauty of this is that you can use it in rural areas of India without having to lay down power lines or truck in fuel."

Villages across Asia and Africa that have never seen electricity may soon leapfrog directly into the solar age, replicating the jump to mobile phones seen in countries that never had a network of fixed lines. As a by-product, India's rural poor will stop blanketing the subcontinent with soot from tens of millions of open stoves.

Applied Materials is betting on both of the two rival solar technologies: thin film panels best used where there is plenty of room and the traditional crystalline (c-Si) wafer-based cells, which are not as cheap but produce a higher yield - better for tight spaces.

Needless to say, electricity utilities are watching the solar revolution with horror. Companies in Japan and Germany have already seen an erosion of profits because of an effect known "peak shaving". In essence, the peak wattage of solar cells overlaps with hours of peak demand and peak prices for electricity in the middle of the day, crunching margins.

As for the oil companies, they are still treating solar power as a fringe curiosity. "There is no silver bullet," said Jeroen Van der Veer, Shell's chief executive.

"We have invested a bit in all forms of renewable energy ourselves and maybe we'll find a winner one day. But the reality is that in twenty years time we'll still be using more oil than now," he said.

[Balschoiw 0]

Quote[/b] ] If I can get secondary confirmation of Balschoiws figures, I'll be doing a lot more than thinking about it.

If you can read some german you´ll find lots of info on the program here in germany.

Actually farmers are always very sceptical about new technologies, but as it is now you will find hardly a farmroof in the south of germany without photovoltaic cells on it, as it´s a very good deal financially. You even get cheap loan money for such projects and the guaranteed price of selling the electricity makes it a no-risk deal.

You definately have to check Brit programs on that though. Afaik germany´s government is leading in encouring people on a financial side to build such installations.

That´s why I said earlier that there is no universal solution for producing alternative energy.

BTW, you mention coal-plants. Seriously, coal power plants are the most polluting things one can think of. I´ve talked to a guy who works at a big one near Cottbus and it consumes 18000 rail-wagons of coal per day. The growing demand from china for coal will end the natural reserves pretty fast apart from the rising price for it.

Natural ressources are limited and if the world keeps evolving in it´s energy needs like it has done over the last 20 years, the day 0 will be there sooner than you think.

Getting closer to that day you´ll find out that prices for natural ressources will rise extremely and therefore prices for electricity produced with those antiques will also rise , like they did over the last years, while price for alternative energy sources will drop the more are produced.

I think there is a basic flaw in your assumptions. You have to look on the global power market and ressource trading to get the idea. The UK alone may be well off with UK coal but the problem is that it isn´t stored there, but sold abroad into a growing market of demanding customers.

I also think that some investment has to pay off and create profit, but making this the only reason for decisions is very narrow minded, especially if you keep in mind that predictions for 10 or 20 years are very hard at the moment with exploding asian growth.

Edit:

I´m in a hurry now. Need to waste some gasoline to get to The Police concert in Munich.

[Baff1 0]

Thanks yes, I've just been reading up on the German system, I edited the post above with an article that mentions it.

I just got my electricity bill. I am paying 14p / KWh, going to 8p if I use a lot. They pay half that to buy from me.

So 7p. (0.1 Eu).

That's the going rate for non-subsidised electricty in the U.K.

So I can expect to divide your 12,789 Eu return by 5 here.

I can however apply for a government grant to recover half my installation costs.

This is still a comedy investment for me. If our government ever susidises to the same level yours does, I'll be right there for the free money.

If we're redistributing the wealth, I'll take other peoples money. I'm not shy.

I've always been keen to stay off the government payroll.

To keep my politcal motives pure so to speak.

But 25% is a lot.....

I'm willing to kill for that kind of lifestyle, so leeching from my fellow man and advocating the dangers of global warming really isn't going to be that much of a moral dilemma for me.

Coal.

There isn't any problem if the cost of energy goes up because we are selling fuel abroad.

Quite the opposite.

We shall be able to afford much more energy if we are able to export our resources.

The problem with coal in the U.K. is not so much the pollution as the political power it gives to the miners.

They have had a tendency to cut off supply every other winter to blackmail the country in the past.

It's one of the reasons we need energy diversity.

We had to break our dependence on them.

I don't give a fig about the CO2 pollution from coal. (In fact I think would be an abuse of the word "pollution").

Far better the economic benefit from that pollution is felt in the U.K. rather than elsewhere in the world.

Why make our economy less globally competative so that our rivals can out compete us by using coal to make the same products and services that we could have done using coal?

That makes no sense at all.

All it does is win us a Darwin Award on a national scale.

Inefficiency isn't a luxury we can afford. As rich as we are, we aren't that rich.

Our two countries have both faced starvation and famine in living memory. There aren't any guarentee's.

As resources become short prices do not rapidly rise. They rise organically.

Change overs are not going to be sudden, they will be gradual.

I'm not suprised Germans are scared of Asian growth.

Having seen the self defeating solar power subsidies!

How can your economy ever be expected to compete globally in the long term when your government is actively encouraging and rewarding gross energy inefficiency on a national scale?

Honestly, good for you personally I can see, but on a national level? Who elected these clowns?

This form of energy production isn't cheap. Not even in Germany.

It's just not you personally who is paying.

[Iron+Cross 0]

Quote[/b] ]If we're redistributing the wealth, I'll take other peoples money. I'm not shy.

I've always been keen to stay off the government payroll.

To keep my politcal motives pure so to speak.

But 25% is a lot.....

I'm willing to kill for that kind of lifestyle, so leeching from my fellow man and advocating the dangers of global warming really isn't going to be that much of a moral dilemma for me.

you should be thinking hey less money the government has to spend on weapons & ammo to kill people the better service im doing humanity.. but this is geting prety ot m8 i know you like money but...

[Baff1 0]

Not at all Iron Cross, I want my government to spend a lot more on weapons and killing people.

I'd rather my troops had better body armour than some numpty have a windmill on his roof.

It is a moral responsability to arm our fighting men with the best equipment we can afford.

To minimise the immense risk we place them in, for our financial benefit.

I cannot think of any way in which subsidising windmills and solar electricity is of a higher priority than this.

We are at an all time historical low on our defence budget and our troops are underpaid, under-equiped and overcommited.

The U.S., the EU and the Soviets are all expanding and re-arming.

The middle east in danger of kicking us out.

Energy security is a fundamental directive of British foreign policy. Until Solar or wind or whatever is capable of viably and economically replacing foriegn fuels, our armies are a much more important asset to the nation.

There is however an important argument for the strategic diversity of energy sources.

Windpower and Solar power will help us if we were ever to become navally blockaded again. Or economically sanctioned.

Anything that lessens our dependance on EU or Russian Gas, Middle Eastern and Russian oil, Australian and African Uranium, has hidden value.

It's not OT at all, Iron, the only reason Balschoiw is making a return on his solar energy is because it is enforced by the government.

Not because it is a cheap and efficient method of producing electricity.

It's not a question of loving money, it's a question of understanding it. Financial literacy.

He gets paid 5 times the going rate for what he produces, and the other German people, the domestic energy consumers, are the ones that foot the bill.

He's got 2 houses 3 cars, goes on holiday for 1.5 months of the year, and yet even the poorest members of German society are all financially contributing to give him an extra 12,000 Eu a year.

It's not cheap energy, someone is still paying for it.

Solar and wind power aren't economically viable. There are many arguments in favour of wind or solar, but cost is not one of them.

[-Snafu- 77]

I'd rather my troops had better body armour than some numpty have a windmill on his roof.

It is a moral responsability to arm our fighting men with the best equipment we can afford.

To minimise the immense risk we place them in, for our financial benefit.

We are at an all time historical low on our defence budget and our troops are underpaid, under-equiped and overcommited.

If you are from Britain you will realise this is not what happens, well you probably wouldn't know given that the public has bugger all interest in defence spending. Britains defence budget is used primarily to keep the useless BAE in business. In the past 30 years there have been numerous disaster buys. For example, Anti-submarine Merlins, the Euro Fighter, the Tornado, the A400, L85's etc. Our forces are also hampered by conflicts between the different services and traditional conservative thinking. For example the Royal Navy buying batlleships instead of buying troop transports to enable the British Army to project it's power across the globe.

Our defence budget is actually adequate to buy decent equipment. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper to simply buy American rather than spend ridiculous amounts of money on BAE and god awful European collaborative projects. Not to mention that the Amercian equipment is generally better.

All of these points are from a book called 'Lions, Donkeys and Dinosuars: Waste and Blundering in the military' by Lewis Page. I suggest you buy if you give a damn about the Forces. These points are also appilcable to most nations forces.

So all in all Britain could save a lot of dosh to help pay for green energy projects and give our troops decent pay and equipment.

Well I know it was completely off-topic. If you want to continue this Baff1 then PM me.

[Baff1 0]

That's a great topic.

I could spam for hours on that one Snafu.

[-Snafu- 77]

That's a great topic.

I could spam for hours on that one Snafu.

It wasn't complete spam given that you said:

Quote[/b] ]I'd rather my troops had better body armour than some numpty have a windmill on his roof.....We are at an all time historical low on our defence budget and our troops are underpaid, under-equiped and overcommited.

And I said:

Quote[/b] ]So all in all Britain could save a lot of dosh to help pay for green energy projects and give our troops decent pay and equipment.

[Journeyman 0]

I'm not anti wind or solar power, I'm anti global warming idiots pretending they have the magic silver bullet answers to a global diasater that isn't even coming.

But Baff1 I already know that!  My interest in alternative power is about self-reliance and hopefully saving money in the long term. It won't be in this 'rip off' country though; no it will be in the Philippines (where my wife comes from). There is good reason for having solar power over there as the utility supply is frequently interrupted due to a poor infrastructure and the all year reliable power of the tropical sun.

Thanks for your heads up on that new technology that we should hopefully see in the next few years. I'm in no hurry over my installations so I think I might wait this one out!

Here is the link to that report. There is more here and here!. There is also an interesting article from Canada on solar power here!.

Like I said it is not generally an economically viable energy solution ATM, but reading these reports it looks like it soon could be! I'll be keeping an eye on this one!  

[Iron+Cross 0]

Could an Admin Plz Lock this Thread Or give a warning to the people who are going totaly OT.

totaly OT.. baff.. Totaly...

[Journeyman 0]

Could an Admin Plz Lock this Thread Or give a warning to the people who are going totaly OT.

I don't think it needs locking, unless as the topic starter you request it! Topics like this are bound to meander off course here and there; so long as it doesn't go totally adrift I wouldn't worry!

Moderating in these forums is pretty crap ATM and Placebo's return hasn't made much difference either! Love it or hate it, I've learned some useful stuff already!  

[Iron+Cross 0]

agreed, as have i The financial Side of it is quite a viable alternative but i still prefer hands on easy non intrusive method of going about it.

But chill out a bit baff, hey at least you can make a thread about the Financial Alternative & not have to worry about it being merged....

another reason im agianst Wind Turbines, Not only do they kill Birds & cause hastle for rural peopel forced to live near them,

they also might be killing Skyfish

hehe bet the planning dept. would love this one...  

go for it baff... id love to hear what you got to say about this one..  

[Journeyman 0]

they also might be killing Skyfish

I can't make out that picture! Can you explain it more so that we can comment!  

[Iron+Cross 0]

have a search for it i dont take it to seriously, but it would be a laugh.

I think the human persistancee of vision is about 24 frames per second.

Well some specialsts (mostly street nutters), are saying these things go faster than the human eye can detect, or make them verry faded so as they would be practicaly invisible, unless you used a camera or some kind of HIGH FPS recording device, & slow it down.

Some specialists have tried to catch it, although one guy said he cought one & said it evaported within minutes cough cough..

which if you belive it would explain no dead ones laying all over the place,

Also some Photografic specialists say its probably flys or moths  that blur, but if you take a look through realy High rate image capture devices aparently its not a blur & is an individual insect of sorts, although i aint seen a pic yet of a bug & one of tehse things in same shot...  

but there has been documentrys on it aparently, so theoreticly these God awful windturbines could be killing tons of these things & there just evaporating...

pitty those gulls & starlings coudlent do teh same lol.

[Journeyman 0]

Well some specialsts (mostly street nutters), are saying these things go faster than the human eye can detect, or make them verry faded so as they would be practicaly invisible, unless you used a camera or some kind of HIGH FPS recording device, & slow it down.

... Also some Photografic specialists say its probably flys or moths  that blur,

Boy you had me hooked for a while!    Skyfish, Rods and half an hours worth of surfing and then my excitement fell like a stone! From Wikipedia...

Quote[/b] ]On 8th and 9th August 2005, China Central Television (CCTV) aired a two-part documentary about flying rods in China. It reported an incident which happened from May to June of the same year at Tonghua Zhenguo Pharmaceutical Company in Tonghua City, Jilin Province, which debunked the flying rods. ([3]) Surveillance cameras in the facility's compound captured video footage of flying rods identical to those shown in Jose Escamilla's video. Getting no satisfactory answer to the phenomenon, the curious research staff of the facility, being scientists, decided that they would try to solve the mystery by attempting to catch these airborne creatures. Huge nets were set up and the same surveillance cameras captured rods flying into the trap. When the nets were inspected, the "rods" were no more than regular moths and other ordinary flying insects. Subsequent investigations proved that the appearance of flying rods on video was an optical illusion created by the slower recording speed of the camera (done to save video space). This is the empirical evidence, showing that the "rods" themselves can be captured, and that they do indeed prove to be ordinary animals.

But then again there is a nice article here about how these things are apparently increasing due to global warming! ...

Quote[/b] ]He began studying them and realized that the animals invade the space everywhere. Besides he discovered that the creatures began reproducing at a much faster rate as a result of the global warming.

   

Ahem! By the way I think that you might be the one to go off topic now though!  

[Albert Schweitzer 10]

dont have time to read the thread. During my last job I worked for a company that also analysed wind energy funds (closed ended funds) as investments. Good for tax purposes, but shitty in terms of revenue. Forget it.

[Iron+Cross 0]

hehe skyfish told you it owuld be fun.

yeh i read in the doc i have infront of me that you should only take power output of wind turbines at 30% of its maximum rated output per year, acording to Scottish Power.

& the sound is generaly 37-45db (sound level) up to 300 meters from base of turbine's, ( & acording to UK LAW its a contradiction for industry to cause more than 5db over the ambient noise)

But Wind farms & other "Special industrys" get let of the hook.

& if you read what im reading, its prety Blatant that they take Rural individual complaints  & concerns with total contempt & have  total disregard for compaints that directly conflict with there view's.

they also state there are hazzerds to birds but "they try to avoid it within there means..."  or whatever dosent cut into there proffits..

They also clearly admit that there is Electric interference with TV/radio reception's, Personal Communications equipment, &  that "they try to minimize this to as few people as possible with the help of local services."

were talking about 110 meter turbines here..

p.s the life span is only 25 years..

its some read i tell you.