It's not unusual, the is a minimum effective wind speed, below which the blades are feathered so they will not catch the wind.

It does highlight the downside of wind power, they don't generate reliable power, regardless of the analysis and justification of any given site, no-one can guarantee the amount and strength of wind at any given time, or over any given period. Justification are written based on assumed performance over a given period, so promoters can pick the best numbers, and make the best claims, and then just shrug their shoulders and say "Well, you can't predict the weather 100%" when their windfarms fail to meet claims.

The problem with windpower, as opposed to say wave/water power, is that it is highly visible, and good for politics. Windfarms are high visibility green assets, visible to the population and visiting politicians and foreign representatives.

The good news however, is that communities are now beginning to see that the numbers aren't stacking up for windfarms, and they aren't delivering all the power and benefits their developers are promising. Particularly in the area of the Clyde and Cowal, the local communities are now actively blocking all new windfarm developments, arguing that they are having to look at enough of these horrors marching across the countryside and ruining the view. The latest schemes are planned to land on some of the most attractive vies visible from the islands and coasts of the Forth of Clyde and the Cowal, and the those dependent on the only industry they have left there, tourism, are becoming hardened and determined in their efforts to block these swathes of wind turbines being planted on their doorstep. Protests are being lodged with local community council backing, and planning meeting forced to consider the potential impacts and real benefits of these projects, rather than just having them 'rubber-stamped' because they're supposed to be green.

While they may not be useless, they're far from automatically being good simply because they're promoted/perceived as green.

I could not disagree more with the title of this thread.  Whilst they are not the total answer they can certainly make a very useful contribution to electricity supplies.

Apparently we, in the west of Scotland, have 70% of the EU's wind resource so we should expect it to be exploited. As one of my neighbours said, "Bring them on, the more the merrier". Do not fall for the view that the vociferous minority, for that is what they are, represent the real views of the Community.

Detractors say they are only 30% efficient but then turn round and complain that the companies are raking in mega bucks from the sale of Renewable Obligation Certificates.  To get the certificates, issued by the Department for Energy or whatever ir is called today they have to have produced the electricity first!  I conclude that they must be able to produce a reasonable amount of power.

We also have major grid connections to Inverkip (now redundant) and Hunterston (partly redundant) so few if any extra pylons are called for.  Various other areas have grid connections for hydro schemes so the same applies.

If anyone has an urge to research this further then the full planning application for one of them is on http://www.southcowal.org  which is the South Cowal Community Council's website.  You can read the full month or the non technical version.



I actually think they are very graceful and an engineering miracle. Having visited a couple of farms I am amazed that quite a gentle breeze can rotate a set of blades that are 90 metres in diameter and the associated mechanal parts.   If you get the chance go and visit one.

Still doesn't change the fact that wind farms attract funding to be built, and set up, so are little more than money earners for those in the lucky position to benefit, take a cut, and move on to the next cash-cow. The favourite method of "Green", Renewable", or whatever name the 'Best" energy production method is the one with the BIGGEST funding snout in the trough, and has absolutely nothing to do with the environment or the customers. Today, the shareholder and the company's share value is king

No-one's in it for the long term, and the schemes like the Renewable Obligation are fundamentally flawed. This quote from the Ramblers's Association:

Because the Renewables Obligation is creating a big demand for green electricity, and because there is money to be made, many companies are getting involved in renewable electricity generation. In the drive to keep construction and operation costs low, they all go for the cheapest available technology, which happens to be onshore wind turbines.
This is why we have this mad dash for onshore windfarms with around 400 development proposals either approved or currently under investigation.

Doubtless most folk in Cowal can be cut into to geographic camps, those whose houses have the windfarm at the back of their house, and far away enough so they can't hear the turbines, and those that look out out of their front window and have to look at the turbines day in and day out, or are within earshot of noise.

The sad thing about it all is that the technology remained flawed, and is only a very small, intermittent top up to the country's power demand.

Scotland's being used as England's power house, but only when the wind blows in the windy places, and only when it's fast enough to generate meaningful power. And don't forget, for those windfarms built in the windiest places, supposedly to gain the advantage of the higher wind speeds, there's the never mention fact that the turbines spend a significant periods idle, when they have to be feathered (turned off) because the wind speed is Too High, and they would be damaged if allowed to run.

The easiest way (for the engineers among us) to see the problem is to remember that a kilo of "stuff" moving at a given speed will produce the same amount (within reason) of energy when thrown at a generator, regardless of what the "stuff" is, and how efficient the collector fitted to the generator is.

Air density is a little over 1 kg per cubic metre, water density is 1,000 kg per cubic metre.

Hmmm... Water is 1,000 times heavier than air. Which one would be good to use to drive generators?

Wind turbines are fitted with huge blades, with inherent drag losses, turbulence and needed a vast swept area to collect a significant amount of energy, whenever the wind happens to be blowing. At low speeds, efficiency is poor, so not much happens, at high speeds, efficiency increases exponentially, and not much happens as the turbine has to be disabled before it flys apart.

Water turbines (as a generic name for water powered systems) don't need to be huge for the same "mass swept area" can be located in reliable tidal firths, where the flow is predictable, or in offshore locations where current are known to flow. And then there's Ye Olde hydro power. Largely exploited in the best locations, but if uneconomic oil fields are now viable, how about formerly poor hydro sites?

So, now I hear someone ask "But why are there water-based systems being developed and built"?

Easy. Wind power had the shortest lead-time and was first to market. It was also the cheapest to kick-start, and gobbled up all the research and grant money because there were backers waiting to pour money into farms, and pick up the associated financial incentives. Many wind turbine producers are no more, leaving only a few big-boys making them now.

Also, with water 1,000 time denser than air, tidal, or ocean, based schemes have to much more heavily engineered and robust than their blown counterparts, leading to higher research, development, capital, design and build costs. With the money already poured into wind-power, water-based systems are having to fight from behind to get noticed.

Don't look at the claims, look where the money goes, and why, and that will show you why any particular energy system is in favour.

Think back to nuclear power in the 1950s, after the military motivation had paved the way, it was still being pushed as "free" electricity for the future. Now that de-commissioning costs are factored into the build, no-one wants to know.

I still maintain that if the developers are making mega bucks then it comes from the electricity generated.  The Ramblers Association article is another example of facing in two directions at once!  Every watt of electricity generated from the wind saves carbon dioxide being discharged to the atmosphere.  That must be good for everyone.

They mention Cowal.  The scenery in Cowal and Bute is nice but is only classified as grade 3 out of 5 in a government initiated survey of Scotland and the impact of windfarms.

I wish the detractors would face it, they do produce useful power and generate good returns for the investors but the other option would be for the government to fund it all. Does anyone think they would have a remote chance of doing a better and more cost efficient job?  We have had even more dishonest propoganda round here such as " Coal and oil fired power stations create more polution when on standby than they do when running at full load.  Clearly these people have no knowledge of the laws of physics.  Another was a faked up photomontage of a wind farm above Inverkip where they made no allowance for distance from the view point. Turbines at a greater distance would of course appear smaller than those that are closer.

If their case is so strong why all the missinformation?

No, the developers are making their money from government/European money being paid to them to develop windfarms and fulfil the myth that they're the "Great Green Saviour". Al they are is the current cash-cow. When the wind of change blows, and say wave power takes off (as it was reported to, with the world's biggest wave-energy farm gaining funding back in 2002, off the Scottish coast http://business.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=605&id=270422007 Wonder how it's getting on?). Farming's a good analogy, as the windfarm junket is akin to the EU filling farmer's pockets with cash to grow crops, look busy and profitable, and then trash them.

I'm not detracting wind-power. What I am saying is that a country like Scotland (well, really the UK since it's one big island) the activity should have been concentrated on collecting the energy currently washing around our coast twice a day, and flowing around us all the time. A sensible country like Germany, which does most things better than Britain, has noticed it is landlocked, concentrated on wind power because it is the best available to it, and become the world's largest user of the stuff. I'd put money on Germany, if it was located on the UK mainland, having become the world largest used of wave/tidal/hydro power by now, and wind power would be concentrated only in areas where water power wasn't practical.

Provided the cash is on hand to pay for the turbine, I don't think anyone will argue that 'when it is generating' it will produce power, and if chosen to be big enough, it will produce a surplus which can be exported/sold. The point no-one bothers to mention that is if the scheme is built with insufficient storage, then the owner will have to buy-back that power when the turbine is becalmed. Since the book-keepers generally kept incoming and outgoing funds as separate accounts, we only get shown the incoming books. We always hear about successful schemes where this happens - referring to the mis-information question, why do we never get any publicity about schemes that have failed to produce? If there really are none, then windfarms would be a first, without a single economic failure. Which carpet have those ones been swept under?

What's wrong with Coal and oil fired power stations create more polution when on standby than they do when running at full load?

Large thermal power stations must run continuously and at full load to be efficient. Load predictions are run days, months and years in advance to plan their firing. They can't be turned on and off to suit demand, taking days to start up up and shut down, even suffering damage if shut down unnecessarily. These stations are run 24/7 to provide the country's base load, and are supplemented by hydroelectric and gas (if there any left!). These stations can be left fully idle, or left spinning in the case of hydro-electric schemes, which can be online in seconds in response to demand, or minutes if not spinning.

Artist's impressions? What can I say

Why all the mis-information?

Did I mention somewhere that companies developing wind farms and turbines get cash from the government/Europe?

I really am pro- windpower, despite what may be thought. My problem is its bastardisation and abuse by business, grants, funding, skewed stories, bad accounting, mis-information, mis-use, mis-represntation etc etc etc etc

I have been to a couple of presentations on proposed wind farms where the company representatives were asked directly what subsidy were they getting from the government and in both cases they were categorical that there were NO subsidies.

The only case of a government subisdy for a wind farm that I know of was given for an experimental deep  water site off the NW coast.  The rest are privately financed and the money is made from trading ROCs on the world market.  This cannnot be regarded as a subsidy as no governemnt money is involved.

Secret Subsidy  

According to The Scotsman earlier this month ROCs are simply a means of hiding the subsidy, possibly so the question can be answered "Hand on Heart" without fingers crossed behind back.

ROCS are a subsidy no matter which way you look at it, they currently trade at around £46/mwh compared to the electricity itself at around £35/mwh.

Remember, I'm biting at the corruption that this is example of. Wind power's fine, but not as it's being promoted and forced on everyone and everywhere as if it's some magical green renewable energy saviour. It's not. It;s a poor also-ran that has consumed cash and development time simply because it was the quickest to market.

Here's an example of what we're losing through worshipping at the false god of the church of the holy wind farm...

Published only 3 days ago, see the highlighted sentence. ONE underwater system will produce the same power as ALL Scotland's wind farms combined

'Saudi Arabia of renewable energy' off Scotland's coast

IT HAS been described as the "greatest untapped source of energy Scotland has ever had", capable of generating enough electricity for every home and business in the country several times over.

But while the Pentland Firth has been too deep and too dangerous to exploit, the race is now on to develop machines that will harness this "underwater hurricane" and fundamentally change Scotland.

Not only could it provide endless supplies of electricity for Scotland and beyond, but spare energy could be used to convert rubbish into environmentally friendly biofuel for cars, trains and airplanes, slashing greenhouse gas emissions and ridding the country of landfill sites.

In August, the world's largest tidal-current generator will be installed on Northern Ireland's Strangford Lough and, next year, ScottishPower will start testing an underwater turbine in the Pentland Firth itself.

ScottishPower believes its system could generate up to a gigawatt (GW) of electricity - equivalent to all of Scotland's wind farms put together, or the power produced by the Hunterston B nuclear power station.

But Professor Stephen Salter, who wrote an energy review for the SNP extolling the potential of the Pentland Firth, believes the actual amount of energy could be as high as ten to 20GW. He was turned down by the previous Scottish Executive for funding to investigate the potential of installing a tidal machine at depths previously considered out of reach, but believes the SNP government could be more receptive.

He said: "If we could do this, we could get twice the electricity Scotland uses at peak demand - it's absolutely enormous. The Pentland Firth is the Saudi Arabia of marine energy. But, if you are in London, energy from the Pentland Firth is a long way away and there's no cable to get it to your voters."

The rest: http://news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?tid=605&id=982522007

I don't personally want to broach the political side of things, but the Scotsman article does it for me, and just confirms the that the wind power option has been foisted upon us, and probably on Scotland rather than England, so they don't have to look at the turbines.

I thought this was interesting, but didn't belong in the same post as the one above.

It may not be obvious to the non-engineer, but wind farms produce their power by extracting energy from the wind that passes through them and turns the blades on their turbines. The result is that energy is extracted from the wind, but as the wind farms aren't all that big or tall, compared to the atmosphere which the wind blows in, they don't have much of an effect on it.

However, that's not true at ground level, where they do their business.

I just spotted a case in Germany (yes, the world's greatest user of wind turbines since they have no coast!) which is rather interesting.

I couldn't find the outcome, but the prime mover for the court action was a dispute between two competing providers of wind generated electricity, where supplier B had brought an action against supplier A, contending that supplier A had built a wind farm which was geographically positioned in such a way as to extract a significant amount of the energy being carried by wind before it arrived at supplier B's wind farm. This meant that supplier B was unable to generate the power formerly available from their site, and was claiming that they were losing something around 30% of their production, compared to their operation before supplier A built their new wind farm.

"New" business. "New" ways to sue. Same "old" winners: the lawyers!  

Maybe they should put a wind farm and a tidal generator outside Holyrood.

After all, there's enough wind and p**s comes out of there to keep the country going.

I tend to agree with the Fox on the issue of wind farms.  Despite the fact that my own city this very day is involved in a study concerned with a $400 million wind farm project, I admit to being totally ignorant of the technical aspects of this form of power-generating.

I have cycled through massive wind farms in Germany and will admit they did adversely affect the scenery, but not to any great extent... not nearly as much as the oil well in Schleswieg Holstein does. Oh yes, and there was a constant whirring sound, but again, hardly enough to get upset over; it didn't seem to be bothering the coos as they munched away on the surrounding grass.

Tidal water power-generating is something we in Canada have been discussing for a long long time: at least 60 years. Nature endowed Canada with a stretch of water which has one of the greatest, if not the greatest, diurnal changes in tide level in the world...the Bay of Fundy. It, like Scotland's Pentland Firth, is touted as a source of  unfathomable amounts of clean power. So far, to the best of my knowledge, the Bay of Fundy goes up and down every day with nary a light bulb glow to its credit.

"A sensible country like Germany, which does most things better than Britain..."

Geez Apollo, a sweeping statement, canny let this go commentless! Are we that sure about this claim? Hmmm, would we not have to throw in some time constraints or something, like do we mean from last Tuesday, or since 1765? Oh, and what do we mean by "most things"?  Is this not one of these hazy areas on which one dares not hang one's hat for fear that one can't show it to be factual?

"....[Germany] has noticed it is landlocked,"

Now, I, and I'm sure you too, know this is not true, and what you really mean is that Germany doesn't have as much coast line as the UK. Yes, you're thinking... he's bloody nit-picking!  Well I'm not really. I think the Kiel Kanal for example, has gates at both ends, and I think this is because the level of water on the east side differs from that on the west side. Has this been investigated by the Germans as a source of power-generation? Are they perhaps in the same boat (oh,ho,ho,ho!) as the British and the Canadians with respect to saltwater power generation?

An aside: Did you know that they manufacture these wind farm machines in Campbeltown? Well, I'm assuming they do now since they have been talkning about opening such a factory around Machrihanish for quite some time.

Wow! What a lot of material to work with

totally ignorant of the technical aspects of this form of power-generating
And that puts us back in 'belief' mod, so I don't go there.

Bay of Fundy - What a waste...  

Germany, end of World War II, country razed and ravaged by the Allies (notably to stupid to help itself to things like VW) but conveniently not bankrupt an in debt up to its eyeballs. Better standard of living and wages than UK, better profitability. Unlike UK/Scotland, doesn't have as many inventors/first (but has a fair few), however it does know how to build factories, manufacture, and sell stuff for a profit. Ended up with the advantage of 'losing' the war, and was able to start afresh.

UK, end of World War II, bankrupt and in debt to the world, (only just paid WWII debt off recently, WWI debt is STILL unpaid). The UK 'won' the war, and didn't have to rebuild, with the advantage of creaking along for years on obsolete and defunct manufacturing facilities, and a work force as outdated, resulting in the highest manufacturing cost base and one of the lowest profitabilities, with the result that anyone that did invest  here in the past has long since found the quickest route off this rock, or created facilities geared to soaking up government incentives to stay (or bypass EU taxes and tariffs).

There's point 1 above raising its head again. I can't be bothered checking, but I suspect the amount of water supporting canal lock operations is little more than spit in terms of power generation.

Aside
Oh yes! Machrihanish got its wind turbine factory, and a lot of local trouble it generated too.

I was visiting Campbeltown around the time wind farms were an issue in the area, and it was clear from the posters and notices in the shop windows that the local feeling was hostile.

I believe Princess Anne visited the factory in 2003.

Here's an article from May 2002 about the cranes installed in the Vestas factory, which was obviously built - a couple of years after I was there, so the "Nays" didn't win the day.

Friends of the Earth item, which I only include because it includes their usual level of accuracy, and places the factory ON the sit of RAF Machrihanish. I think it's located a bit past it, unfortunately thay hadn't built it when I was there, so there were only signs directing visitors past the airfield.

A site that clearly wasn't too impressed: Windfarm Free Mull:-

http://www.windfarm-free-mull.co.uk/index.html

There's a link at the bottom of the page to pics of the factory.

Interestingly
Now that it's getting harder to organise 'fiddles' to get 'Subsidies-not-called-subsidies' to build windfarms, the Vestas factory is barely open and already in danger of being no more.

At the end of August 2006,  Vestas announced that they had decided to close down the production of nacelles in Campbeltown and Tasmania,  Spain then taking over their manufacture.

The production of towers would be continued at Campbeltown "if Campbeltown's efficiency could be increased satisfactorily over the next 12 months", continued Vestas' Interim Financial Report for the second quarter of their financial year  -  40 jobs would be lost at the Machrihanish plant as a consequence of the decision here and the skilled labour force cut to around 120 employees.

Campbeltown is also home to Vestas' U.K. servicing team and,  for the present,  will continue to be so.

The story of the Vestas Wind Turbines...

http://groups.msn.com/fessenden/mastsandvestaswindturbines.msnw

Apollo, I don't know what "belief mod" means. The thing is, should I know? I've tried to fit my being totally ignorant of the technical aspects of this form of power-generating into some relation to "belief", but I gave up under the assumption that it's a part of computerese... a language with which I'm not at all familiar.

Well there's not too much I can say that would contradict your claims about Germany... "time frames" or "things" notwithstanding! I mean, when the UK send the RMS Queen Elizabeth to Hamburg for an engine job, builds the new RMSQueen Mary in St. Nazaire, and allows American F16's to follow the path blazed by the Hurricane and Spitfire, what's left to quibble over, Apollo's dead right. Yes, Germany did lose the war, but assuming "lose" means to "destroy", then I'm sure it won't be a difficult to find some cynics who feel Britain too, "lost" the war. Seen through the eyes of post-war North American baby boomer, the war we're talking about was a civil war!

"UK, end of World War II, bankrupt and in debt to the world,..."

Your point here is of course correct, but in fact the UK was legally bankrupt at the end of 1941 and had to borrow money from Belgian government in exile! At the end of the war Britain owed £27 billion... back in the days when a joiner at Fairfield's earned less than £6 per week. Seeking consolation? Just remember we in the world now have a European Union, which includes both Germany and Britain. Let's hear it for the Union!

About the Keil Kanal... c'mon, the vertical difference together with the different tide times is more than a spit! Anyway, I'm backing off here, having thought further about it, I'm no longer even sure there are lock gates at each end, and can't even recall if the canal has any flow. Yup a weak point.

Glad to hear Campbeltown is still doing a bit of the Vespa business. Let's hope the toon workers can increase their efficiency! Oh, if they can't, they can get work next year at the new Machrihanish golfing complex expected to open in 2008.

I haven't had a read of the "The story of the Vestas Wind Turbines". One of these dyas...

It's those damned typos again! Not your understanding, which I think is better than average

It should, of course, have read Belief Mode  

Having got into trouble before, when trying to have an online discussion without realising I was in contact with a disciple who was preaching belief, rather than swapping factual comparisons, I found myself in "nasty" territory. So, I plays safe and just don't go there at all.

My phrase of choice being along the lines of "He who fights and runs away, lives to fight another day".

Lose, destroy, whatever words anyone wants to use the result was the same. Look at Germany and Japan. The UK is the sick man of the world now (why do you think it keeps it claws tightly around its nuclear status), its Victorian empire is defunct and all it can do (which is still a pretty BIG all) is be one of the financial capitals of the world. Great if you deal in the money market or are in government. Precious little good of you're an unskilled drone.

Re the debt, as I said, we still owe the debt from World War I, having "only" paid off the for the second one. Maybe it's being treated like the old mortgage trick. If you have a mortgage and can afford to pay it off, pay all but the last £100, which you never clear. That way, if you need another mortgage, you don't have to get approval and acceptance (which your new circumstances might prevent), you just up the amount in your existing one.

My guess on the canal is that regardless of head, its mass flow rate (which determines the amount of power it could generate) is the main factor, and this would be low as it can only flow what the locks consume as they are used. There could be they use of flow bypasses, but I'm guessing they'd also have to keep a reserve on tap to keep the canal working. Having experienced the head/flow on even a small hydro-power system, and wandered along a canal or two, the difference is vast. To give you an idea, imagine a standard, two barge wide canal built on a hill about 300 m high and descending at about 30 to 40 degrees. Now put a lid on the canal and picture the water running full unrestricted flow down it for 4 or 5 hours. And that's just a little hydro station. Proper ones would be two to four times that flow/power.

There's one station near me, and they have to be careful of anglers. Hydro stations have an emergency divert valve, which basically kicks in to divert the flow from the turbines to a escape tunnel in the event there is an emergency/failure in the turbine hall. This effectively open a tunnel on a column of water hundreds of feet long, a few square metres across, and moving rather quickly! It weighs many tons, and can easily leave the station, cross the Clyde, and carry on past the opposite bank, killing anyone unfortunate enough to have ignored the warning signs. I've never seen it, but the operators assure me they've done it, and were impressed by the show.

I've still to read that Vestas item fully too, most of the stuff I mentioned came from visiting the area, but I had to do a bit of hunting to find confirmation of the production run-down and potential closure of the Vestas factory, as that had only been delivered to me as tittle-tattle.

I'm keen to see now the Machrihanish golf resort takes off (or not?). Apparently the sheep have already hired lawyers to take out actions against golfers in the event they are whacked by golf balls while out feeding on the course. Apparently it's to be a "real Scottish course", and the sheep wandering about will be there to add to the effect.

Reading an 'old' news summary for Scotland, and it was interesting to note the following article it contained:

Enterprise Minister Nicol Stephen told delegates at the Offshore Europe conference in Aberdeen this week that renewable wave and tidal energy could provide up to 10% of Scotland's electricity production - and create 7,000 new jobs in the process. The Scottish Executive has a target of 18% for electricity generated in Scotland from renewable sources by 2010, rising to 40% by 2020. Much of the attention in achieving this has been on wind farms (and the opposition from the public to them in scenic areas). To date, there have been no significant commercial projects for wave or tidal power in Scotland. The minister says that has to change as there are major opportunities in Scotland, with its long, exposed coasts, to develop and then market these technologies.

Given the percentages this twerp is quoting, there's clearly no official recognition for wave/tidal (despite his mouth forming words his brain doesn't hear), which has the ability to easily surpass the pathetic capacity of wind power, without blighting the countryside.

Two years later, the Scotsman article referred to above may signal a recognition that the politicians have recognised that they backed the wrong horse some years ago, having gone for sprinter than produces quick results (and green votes), but can't stay the course, and provide a long-term, ongoing solution to the renewable energy question.

Quite unrelated, but also interesting, is the general coastal problem of sea erosion, which has featured in a number of documentaries in recent months.

The usual basis for these programmes is the general wailing and moaning of those who have been stupid enough to buy property in these location, and are then A. Surprised that nature wants to remodel the coastline (she's only being doing for the past few million years after all) and B. Surprised that the rest of us don't want to pay for them to keep their nice view, or buy their now worthless property.

They're generally very, very vociferous over the authorities who are responsible for coastal management, because they (unlike the home-owners) have seen the light, and at last realised that YOU CAN'T FIGHT NATURE, especially when it's ocean sized! Consequently, they've decided that the futile process of beach-defences is to end, and that the coast will be left to find its own level. There's also the tiny concern that they've also realised that their defences only serve to send the damaging effect along the coast, to land at another point, and create more destruction there. Since they would be deemed to have caused it, and be sued for damages if their beach-defences were shown to cause damage elsewhere, they'd get the bill!

HOWEVER, there could always be another way around this...

If you were reading the posts above, you'll have seen that I reported on the German case of two wind farm operators at one another's throats, with one claiming the other had effectively 'stolen' their wind by affecting the airflow by siting their windfarm to catch it and absorb some of the energy before it arrived at their farm.

Here's a novel concept, a win-win suggestion for water power:

Why don't all these folk with eroding coastlines get together (like we're told the wind farm communities do) and but their efforts into having coastal water power farms installed.

Why?

Well. unlike the current beach-defences, which are designed to redirect the sea's energy from the areas being damaged, with the result that it's dumped on the next beach along the coast, so doing even more damage than would have occurred at that location anyway, a wave farm actually ABSORBS the energy (well, where did you think the power they generate came from in the first place?), so it would have a doubly beneficial effect from those folk's point of view. A. It would absorb some of the energy that was damaging their coast, and B. wouldn't be redirecting that energy elsewhere, other than into the National Grid.

Win-Win?

Or...

Not enough votes or political capital?

I wonder if you have considered the fact that in areas of coastal erosion the tidal stream is loaded with sand and the effect this would have on the innards of the tidal generator?

Ah, but (don't you love 'but'   )...

The suggestion is that (in this particular case) the installation (of which the type is undetermined) would b extracting energy from the water. The point being that this would potentially reduce the erosion, which was the idea behind it.

As I understand it, in areas where such schemes have been tested (and these are never areas with problems such as erosion), the problem is that the loss of energy from the water is believed to cause the water to drop the silt etc, which it no longer has the power to support, with the effect that waterways could become blocked if dredging operation were not started.

The effect of the sand would be minimal, as the only moving parts exposed to the flow would be the external vanes or blades. The equipment is high-mass, low-flow, meaning that there are no tight tolerances involved such as in low-mass, high-flow installations, where gaps and tolerances are critical to maintain flow velocity, and duct or tubes are used to constrain the flow.

That's partly why I posed the question. Energy extraction from river and tides is generally frowned on for problems caused by interrupting the 'natural' flow. My thought is to use that disadvantage as an advantage in areas where pointless coastal defences are no longer to be maintained.

I wonder if there could be a similar application in river based operations?

The usual scenario is for someone to have the 'bright' idea of diverting a river, or modifying its flow for irrigation, or land reclamation reasons. The usual result is that all is well at first, but the river, being more persistent and powerful than the planners, usually ends up back where it was, all on it own. Reason being that the new flow pattern means it deposits its silt where the planners don't want it. They fight back, the river carries on as it want to, and after a while it either gets left its own devices, or cuts a now course where it, not the planners, wants to go.

Maybe a bit of smarter thinking, resetting the course, AND using some sort of power extraction, would allow the desired route to remain?

This one's just a bit of conjecture though, inspired by the bigger coastal stuff, so I don't know if it's feasible; been thought of before; or should be dropped like a hot potato

Another little story appeared in the media this week, doing nothing to diminish my contention that there's a 'Slush Fund' to be tapped where wind farm developments are concerned.

This one's quite clear in its purpose though, to buy favour with those who might otherwise be opposed to a given installation. (I've often lamented the fact that my back garden doesn't happen to lie in a convenient spot some cellphone operator to be willing to part with a few grand each year, for the privilege of planting a nice little mast in it ).

(Emphasis is mine)...

When utility companies obtain planning permission for creating a wind farm, property owners often benefit from a big cash windfall as they obtain revenue for the use of their land by the massive turbines. Local communities sometimes benefit too - and that encourages them to support the developments in the first place. You might have thought that wind farms being built out to sea would not involve such payments, but it seems that energy firm E.ON has pledged £500,000 to be paid over the next ten years to local communities along the Solway coastline in Dumfries and Galloway near the Robin Rigg offshore wind farm.

One of the lead items in today's Campbeltown Courier today featured the following:

"A BROKEN crane caused a shipping jam on the quay at Campbeltown this week.

The Balticon Hamburg arrived from Germany on Sunday, to load wind turbine towers from Vestas Celtic to take to Baumont, Texas."

Now, the broken crane is certainly no big deal for Campbeltown, but here we have Campbeltown wrapped up comercially with Germany and the likes of Texas... hey, that's big-time stuff!

I like to raise a cheer for the good folk of Campbeltown and its surrounds, but at the end of the day, the factory is just a convenience for a great big Danish company that gets all the benefits

In 2003, the company merged with the Danish wind turbine manufacturer NEG Micon to create the largest wind turbine manufacturer in the world. Today, the company is named Vestas Wind Systems A/S.

Revenue      3.85Bn Euros
Net income      161M Euros

Profits soar for top wind turbine maker (21 March 2007)
Denmark-based Vestas, the world's top wind turbine maker, reaped a 201m euro profit last year after a significant rise in sales, according to the company's latest annual report.

http://www.edie.net/news/news_story.asp?id=12798&channel=0

They're canny business-folk, there's already run-down at Machrihanish, and I see that they've already got a plant underway in China, so once that's churning out the hardware they're (by 'they' I mean the Group, not Machrihanish) currently making elsewhere, someone will probably be for the chop.

It's interesting that they haven't got any facilities in the States, their sites were summarised in the above article as being in: Denmark, Germany, India, Italy, Britain, Spain, Sweden, Norway, Australia and China.

It'll be interesting to see how they stand up to the likes of Katrina - If they're not careful, those Machrihanish turbines could land back here one day!