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>> No. 1885 Anonymous
18th September 2011
Sunday 11:10 am
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A wind farm has been paid £1.2 million not to produce electricity for eight-and-a-half hours. The National Grid asked the company, Fred Olsen Renewables, to shut down its Crystal Rig II wind farm last Saturday for a little over eight hours amid fears the electricity network would become overloaded.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/windpower/8770937/Wind-farm-paid-1.2-million-to-produce-no-electricity.html

This boils my piss.
Expand all images.
>> No. 1886 Anonymous
18th September 2011
Sunday 12:09 pm
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>>1885

I see we don't even own the windmills either so the money is syphoned off abroad. Total failure.
>> No. 1887 Anonymous
18th September 2011
Sunday 1:34 pm
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Wind farm projects are a clusterfuck of terribleness. I'm going to try and find the documents which outline how much electricity is actually coming out of these machines, because the figures are apalling. They don't work in winter when we need electricity the most, for example, and as in OP the National Grid is actually having to pay off foreign companies for not producing electricity with them.

And they kill bats.

Wind farms are a waste of time and money. In fact, I'd be interested to hear from anybody whose domestic wind turbine produces anything other than subsidies and profit.
>> No. 1888 Anonymous
18th September 2011
Sunday 1:38 pm
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>>1887

And they're a scam, the victims being the taxpayer and the people who have to live near them. The only people who benefit are the companies who manufacture and install them and the pathetic people who buy them hoping for a 70 metre penis extension.

https://www.youtube.com/v/CqEccgR0q-o
>> No. 1889 Anonymous
18th September 2011
Sunday 2:41 pm
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In the good weather when it is calm, they are useless and we get no electricity. In the windy weather they have to be turned off to stop them from flying apart and so we get no electricity. At other times we have to pay ten times normal costs to foreign companies to have them sitting doing nothing while we get no electricity. They are expensive to build, design and maintain and need to take up special spots and potentially large areas to be functional.

I don't see anything wrong with individuals finding a use for the small scale usage (I've seen farmers and others use them), like the solar option, if they want to but so far it is not going so well for large scale.

The green movement has gone off the rails again with this one.
>> No. 1890 Anonymous
18th September 2011
Sunday 5:29 pm
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>>1889

But the wind lobby is powerful and effective. Even though the systems don't work and cost the country billions, they're still being used. It really is preposterous, and while local governments have identified domestic wind power as faintly ridiculous, it's going to take a while for Whitehall to stop pissing money away on these helpless ego projects.
>> No. 1891 Anonymous
18th September 2011
Sunday 6:35 pm
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I definitely support the idea of windfarms and projects - they manage them perfectly well in France and other places in Europe, it's clear though that the National Grid and the system of subsidies is at fault here.

We've built the windmills without any idea of the required supporting infrastructure. The idea that they have to be turned off when "too much wind" arrives though, because it might overload the system is preposterous though.
>> No. 1892 Anonymous
18th September 2011
Sunday 6:46 pm
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>>1891

Parts of Europe are starting to shun wind turbines because of these problems, though. Quite apart from the ridiculous financial problems we have in this country (two thirds of wind farms are foreign-owned, £500m in subsidies go abroad every year) wind isn't a particularly good energy source.

When there's no wind, there's no electricity. When there's too much wind, they have to be turned off and there's no electricity. But despite this, we're "committed" to sourcing 40% of our electricity from wind power by 2020. Mercifully this probably isn't going to happen, but it'll take brownouts and blackouts for people to understand that wind power - however green - is not an effective way to create electricity.
>> No. 1893 Anonymous
18th September 2011
Sunday 6:48 pm
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>>1891

No infrastructure can store surplus electricty, and no infrastructure allows the turbines to remain active in high winds. The system is flawed to the very core.
>> No. 1896 Anonymous
21st September 2011
Wednesday 1:19 am
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>>1892
>two thirds of wind farms are foreign-owned
Two thirds of our large power companies are foreign-owned. I'm not saying that I don't object to how much of our infrastructure is in foreign hands - I do - but it's nothing at all to do with wind power.


In any case, onshore wind isn't such an expensive way to generate electricity in the scheme of things; it's not great, but at least if we spread our investments then we won't be held to quite the same wild peaks and troughs as we would if we were to rely on coal and gas alone. Offshore is quite a different kettle of fish; investing in that now is really a bet on its becoming cheaper in the future, and trying to get some of the manufacturing over here in anticipation of the boom which may be enjoyed at some indeterminate point in the future.

As for the argument about turning them off when there's too much wind, that is a short-term problem. Wind farms tend to be sited in isolated corners of the country, and they tend not to have great grid connections, but that will come with time. The demand for the power certainly exists. For the mean time, we don't really need power storage, although it would be my inclination to take the long view and start work on it in the next few years.


I'm well aware that they're not perfect, but right now, what else do we have??
>> No. 1897 Anonymous
21st September 2011
Wednesday 2:24 am
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>>1896

Coal, oil, gas, nuclear, hydro - all work just fine.

Wind is a dreadful money sponge alternative. It's bizarre that you'd actually ask that question, pretending that it was the only thing we had or choice out there. It will never provide a reliable constant source because the energy source is not reliable and constant. It's also expensive and requires huge subsidies to get anywhere.
>> No. 1898 Anonymous
21st September 2011
Wednesday 3:54 pm
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>>1896

>what else do we have??

Come on now.
>> No. 1899 Anonymous
23rd September 2011
Friday 12:49 am
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>>1897

Well, I was working on the basis that we are trying to move away from fossil fuels, which does limit our options somewhat. If we move away from that assumption then that certainly makes things a bit easier, but if we stand by it then it's renewables and nuclear. I'm a great advocate of nuclear power but it's no cheaper than wind, and although it's more predictable, it's just as awkward to match it to supply and demand. It takes a long time to raise/cool the core temperature (I think that that's it... it might be rate of reaction, not core temperature, but I am fairly sure that I remember nuclear being inflexible), and so one cannot match demand without being very wasteful of fuel - a bad idea - or building power storage - a good idea, and one which works well alongside any wind on the grid.
In the context of a future in which we focus more on nuclear, wind power is also conveniently reducing the (already minute) chance of an accident by allowing us to get away with one or two fewer reactors.
As for other renewables, hydro is great but requires lots of land, and the best sites have already been developed, and solar is just very costly. Tidal power and wave power are worth investing in, but for the moment we're dealing in research and pilot projects, not large-scale power generation.
>> No. 1900 Anonymous
23rd September 2011
Friday 2:56 pm
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Go with coal. We can use that for a long time to come, until Thorium or other future alternatives crop up. Forcing our hand too early is a terrible idea.
>> No. 1901 Anonymous
23rd September 2011
Friday 8:16 pm
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>>1899

Fusion reactors will soon be available. Electricity will be too cheap to bill.
>> No. 1902 Anonymous
23rd September 2011
Friday 8:36 pm
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>>1901

If you're old enough then you can remember when they said that nuclear fission would be so cheap that they'd give it away too.
>> No. 1903 Anonymous
23rd September 2011
Friday 11:08 pm
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>>1901

When, exactly?
They say 'within the next fifty years' but they've said that for a while; it seems probable to me that, although progress is being made, they simply can't say for sure what the time-scale is. So yes, it'll be lovely, but we are at least a few generations of power station away.
>> No. 1904 Anonymous
30th September 2011
Friday 8:10 pm
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>>1902

Fission is wasteful and dangerous, and yet the only reason it's so expensive for the consumer is because of the companies charging so much.

I hope we get a massive investment in a nationalised fission grid funded entirely through a £60 a year fission tax, which everyone automatically pays monthly (£5 PAYE) when they get work. £146,500,000 a month according to Wolfram-Alpha. £1,758,000,000 a year. I'd pull some expertise out of my bum and say that's enough to run a National national grid, and it can be upped to £10 a month to double that to £3,516,000,000 and still not hurt anyone with giant fees.

All we'd need is a strong leader who won't waste the money with inefficiency, honeypot sucklers and giant temp companies which charge £50 an hour for people when it would be cheaper to use some initiative. Oh, and hope that people would accept real-life fascism (not that UAF "edl use r fascists" bollocks).
>> No. 1905 Anonymous
30th September 2011
Friday 9:16 pm
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>>1904

So you want to tax people even more and hand it to the private nuclear industry which you say is already laughing it up at the trough? No thanks.
>> No. 1906 Anonymous
30th September 2011
Friday 9:26 pm
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>>1905

I'm not >>1904, but I think by nationalised he means state sector. A state sector fission network funded by tax rather than the private industry we have at the moment. Sounds nice, not sure people would like it though.

Wind is a terrible idea on a thousand levels.
>> No. 1907 Anonymous
30th September 2011
Friday 9:33 pm
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>>1906

They should never have given away the nuclear to start with. Outright robbery of the public property again.
>> No. 1908 Anonymous
30th September 2011
Friday 11:20 pm
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>>1905

>So you want to tax people even more and hand it to the private nuclear industry

>a nationalised fission grid

Read your dictionary, lad. A nationalised fission grid isn't the same thing as a national fission grid, although my plan would involve the nationalisation of a national fission grid.

But even if it wasn't, you'd be a bloody idiot if you'd rather let them dictate the prices than pay a max of £120 pounds a year through tax. You say "You want to tax us EVEN MORE!" but you're not even considering the fact that you'll save thousands upon thousands because you don't have to pay electricity bills anymore. How ridiculously short-sighted must you be to not have even considered that?
>> No. 1909 Anonymous
1st October 2011
Saturday 12:19 am
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>>1908

Wind the neck in a bit, please. Remember this is /eco/, home of sheds, outdoor jaunts and pleasantness. A couple of people getting wires crossed or the wrong end of the stick is nothing really.
>> No. 1910 Anonymous
1st October 2011
Saturday 4:01 pm
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>>1909

Yeah sorry, I got engaged in /pol/ mode a little bit.
>> No. 1912 Anonymous
1st October 2011
Saturday 4:14 pm
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>>1910

Easy done. Happens to the best of us.
>> No. 1913 Anonymous
1st October 2011
Saturday 4:27 pm
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>>1885
This is what you get for privatisation. If the government owned them, they wouldn't have to pay anyone other than a small fee to an employee(s) (engineer) to shut them down and turn them on again.
>> No. 1915 Anonymous
2nd October 2011
Sunday 1:50 am
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>>1908
Isn't it alongside metering? Metering's good. Makes people less wasteful.
>> No. 1916 Anonymous
2nd October 2011
Sunday 2:17 pm
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>>1915

No, it makes it more expensive.
>> No. 1917 Anonymous
2nd October 2011
Sunday 10:54 pm
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>>1915

'Wasting' electricity wouldn't really matter if we were using Fission power, surely? The only reason it's bad now is because it's essentially burning up the coal needed to generate that leccy for nothing.
>> No. 1918 Anonymous
2nd October 2011
Sunday 10:55 pm
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>>1917
It would still matter with fission, you'd still be using up your radioactive material just as you would with burning coal.
>> No. 1919 Anonymous
3rd October 2011
Monday 5:15 pm
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>>1917

It doesn't matter so much, no. The fuel will be spent before long anyway. This has advantages in that it can tick over and give that majority background and ramp up when needed.
>> No. 1921 Anonymous
4th October 2011
Tuesday 12:23 am
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Only one man can save us - sage for not really adding much other than a borrowed touch of humour
>> No. 1922 Anonymous
4th October 2011
Tuesday 1:39 am
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Wind turbines are fashionable. They spring up to subsidise the swimming pools and the mansions of the rich, while the rest of the little villagers have to look on in disgust.

Community wind would be acceptable. As it is, the incentives are piled on to one individual who pollutes the land with these ridiculous ego projects. They wreck lives, ruin businesses (especially in the tourism industry) and serve nobody but the manufacturer, agent, and owner.
>> No. 1923 Anonymous
5th October 2011
Wednesday 1:43 pm
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If the revivied abiotic oil theory works out then we could end up with a renewable resource with vast quantitites. The soviets seem to have been on to something.
>> No. 1924 Anonymous
5th October 2011
Wednesday 9:01 pm
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>>1918

Yeah sorry, I meant Fusion not Fission.
>> No. 1928 Anonymous
10th October 2011
Monday 3:35 pm
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>>1924
One day, lad. One day.

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