Is Wind The Answer? St Andrews 1st March

This is an important meeting for those affected by wind farm applications on the east coast, be it Aberdeenshire, St.Andrews and Fife. A large turnout might persuade St Andrews University that their plans are likely to drive a wedge twixt town and gown that will never heal whilst such a monument to their contempt of the local populace rises above the town. The Old Course and other related Golf interests have said plain and loud that this is going to do real damage to tourism in the area for nothing more than gesture politics. St. Andrews is not a poor University and therefore the damage that this plan will cause is simply not worth the candle.

Welcome to the Highlands

Welcome to the Highlands, the land of  sparkling Burns, The Heather hughed Glens, High Mountains where the Eagles soar, a land of Deer and Salmon, Kilts and Pipes. The Corbetts, the Grahams and the Monros. A place to revitalise the Spirit and the Soul. This is a land of proud people, people that will give any man the time of day.

But today a certain sadness pervades all. In a desperate drive for fame our politicians have sold Scotland and its wild places to the lowest bidder. The march of the wind factories is heard in the Glens. Tourism for Scotland is dead. Our way of life crushed beneath the greed of mostly foreign adventurers and aided by our Government and Planners.

This is the opportunity for all you to have your say and perhaps we will save something for our children.

The first great requisite of motive power is; that it shall be wholly at our command, to be exerted when, and where, and in what degree we desire.The wind, for instance, as a direct motive power, is wholly inapplicable to a system of machine labour, for during a calm season the whole business of the country would be thrown out of gear.

William Stanley Jevons (1865)

“God never made an ugly landscape. All that sun shines on is beautiful, so long as it is wild.”

— John Muir

“Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wildness is necessity; that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”

— John Muir

Inverness – 3rd March – Scottish Lib-Dem Conference

 

Click on the link for information for Participants

5.5 million in fuel poverty but Big Six energy companies show profit growth

Despite UK sales falling by 8% French owned EDF Energy has posted a record profit of £2.3 billion post tax(!) for 2011, up £1.7 billion from 2010. This is on the back of steep energy increases imposed by the big six last year. At the same time fuel poverty in the UK has risen to 5.5 million people identified as spending more than 10% of their income on energy needs. Concurrently Centrica, the company behind British Gas has declared an adjusted(?) profit of £2.1 billion up 1% for 2010 despite a drop inprofits from British Gas of some 30% due to the mild winter. Centrica defended its high costs on the government obligations that add £77 to every dual fuel bill. Centrica has already announced some 1,800 role reductions across its business. Now that is one I haven’t heard before for redundancies. Part of those are due to a downturn in it’s Solar sales due to the cutback in the value of FITs. The other four major energy companies are expected to declare similar returns in the next few weeks. Obviously Renewable costs on electricity has added considerably to bills in the last year. The British Gas graphic is a good illustration.

Letter to Ruth Davidson MSP – Leader Scottish Conservatives

 Letter to Ruth Davidson MSP from Kim of CATS:

Ruth Davidson MSP - Leader of Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Dear Ms Davidson

I received a survey through my door today and have filled it in as requested.

You will see that on question 4. Improving our environment, I have ticked ‘other’ and written in NO MORE WIND FARMS!!!!!

Like many areas in Scotland, South West Ayrshire is now being bombarded with applications for large wind farms and also single/two/three individual applications. I cannot stress strongly enough that we have had enough. Our area has been totally trashed by greedy developers and landowners. What was a beautiful area to live in has become absolute hell. Nobody knows where the next wind farm application will turn up next. I look out over a large wind farm known as Hadyard Hill and it sits at the end of the valley. There are now two applications for wind farms which will be to the side of it. Some of the proposed turbines will tower over our village at a distance of only 1km. So much for the 2km rule. It doesn’t exist! No matter how many objections we get, and even if the planning panel refuse it, we still have to wait for an appeal knowing that the Scottish government reporter will probably pass it. There are two families who have been fighting noise issues from Hadyard Hill for 6 years now and now find that they will be totally surrounded by turbines if these two applications get the go ahead. To make matters worse, SSE is scoping on the other side of the valley for what could be another 80 turbines. All the land around here is owned by farmers and all they see is the money and vast wealth being offered for doing nothing. It has nothing to do with saving the planet and their morals and sense of decency to their neighbours just simply disappears. It has split our community right down the middle. Our valley and village will consist of wealthy farmers and poor residents. Everything my husband has worked for all his life (he is 65) will be for nothing. We had hoped to be able to sell and downsize to enable us to have a more comfortable life in our retirement but that is just a dream now as our home will have been devalued and we will have no profit left. We may also have to live with noise and visual intrusion. We did not move to Scotland for this. The local town of Girvan whose residents will not be affected will want the bribes being offered by the windfarm developer which, incidentally, is our money in the form of subsidies paid to them whether they produce any electricity or not. Scandalous! Hadyard Hill has received more constraint money (money to turn off) than any other wind farm. Nearly £2 million to date. The power cannot be taken away all the time because the grid cannot take it and yet we face more wind farms.

I am now part of a group called Communities Against Turbines Scotland and we represent many people like ourselves in the same situation. Scotland is slowly being covered in turbines and it is not pretty. Our friends who visit always comment on how many more turbines they can see but their comments are not ones of praise. We now have the chairman of the National Trust speaking out and celebrities such as Matt Baker who presents Countryfile saying that wind farms are the biggest threat to the countryside.

I have always voted Conservative and so have many that I am in touch within the groups but I have to say that unless something changes and quickly, I will never vote Conservative again. I am going to vote UKIP in the next election. Parties such as the Greens, Lib/Dems and the SNP have ruined this country and the electorate will not forgive them easily. I really don’t think you have any idea of what the countryside and our stunning landscapes mean to people. Our beautiful area now has no bats, birds and no stunning views left. We used to have bats outside our home and would see them every night but now we have none. We used to have buzzards nesting in our wood but now there are none and we don’t hear them crying out anymore. Wind farms destroy wildlife and when it is gone it does not return. The ecological balance of the area will be changed and the result does not bear thinking about. Rather than saving the planet we are destroying it and it borders on a criminal act.

More pensioners than ever are dying from hypothermia. This is not something any government can be proud of surely? As Nigel Lawson said, if we stopped all this global warming rubbish and stopped all the extra charges that are being added to our bills we could wipe out fuel poverty. Instead of that we get the likes of Chris Huhne saying that people must use less fuel. Some people cannot use less than nothing!! Other have no choice but to use less. They cannot afford to keep warm now.

To date, nobody has grasped the nettle of adverse health effects from living too close to turbines. I have written to Nicola Sturgeon on this subject but have had no reply yet. Other commonwealth countries are beginning to take this seriously and have issued guidelines to developers making them site turbines further away from residents. Australia is leading the way with medical research headed by Dr Sarah Laurie, a Scottish doctor working out there. She also works closely with Dr Amanda Harry from the UK who has also evidence that people’s health is being affected badly by turbines in the Cornwall area. Still the governments of this country ignore this. Who will be accountable when medical evidence finds there are problems?

We could revive our fine gas industry and give jobs back to miners. Build clean nuclear power stations. The technology in nuclear is moving fast and safer methods are getting closer all the time. Stop listening to the Lib/Dems. The vast majority of the public did not vote for them – they voted for a Conservative party. Mind you, we all thought the Conservatives valued things like village life and countryside but we are all shocked. David Cameron is leading the party to ruin. He will lose all credibility if he carries on like this. Many of his own MP’s feel he must do something but instead he carries blindly on even though the engineers and experts say it is wrong. Cynically, people are talking about how his father in law is making enormous amounts of money from turbines and that fact that Nick Clegg’s wife works for the wind industry and now we find that Ed Davey has family with connections in the power companies. Is it a case of lining one’s own pockets?

Alex Salmond has a dream come true with all of this. You are all playing straight into his hands and he will get his independence if things carry on like this. His main manifesto relies on the policy of renewables and the English are funding it for him. When, and it will be when at this rate, Scotland gains independence they will make England pay heavily for the wind energy they import while he will get his energy cheaper using their nuclear.

The rural areas of Scotland are paying a very high price for this policy and we will not let this government off lightly. I urge you to talk with Mr Cameron and I cannot stress enough just how angry and frustrated, not to mention heartbroken, people are in Scotland right now. I think you will find the same in the rest of the UK.

Yours sincerely

Kim Terry

Communities Against Turbines Scotland, Ayreshire

George Catlin on Global Warming

Apologies for the language. Why is it modern comedians seem to need to pepper their comedy with four letter words? I remember the comedians of old that never swore and the good ones were never crude. They were just as funny, if not more so. Double entendre is one thing, gratuitous swearing another. This guy seems clever enough not to need to lower himself. Perhaps it’s an American thang! 

NIMBY or Not To Be!

I think we are all a little fed up of the purile shouts of NIMBY by the pro wind lobby and the politicians. Yes we object to wind farm in our back yards but actually we object to them in anyones back yard. Unlike the windies we have studied the details appertaining to wind and found them wanting. In all fairness if we don’t protect our back yards, be they the land immediately around us or our protection of the wild lands that make our islands so fantastic, who will. Not the politicians that is for sure. David Cameron is on record as saying “He would no more risk the countryside than his family”. His track record would suggest the opposite. However he has responded to the 101 good men and true that he will beef up local planning and possibly follow the Australian rules that allow a local veto. We shall see. But reading the small print, he still deludes himself that we will all succumb to promises of Business Rates retained in the community and the divisive Community Benefit. We all have seen the money grubbing behaviour of our MPs but he must learn not to judge others by his own attitudes and those of all his London banker friends. His obvious blindness to our values is mind numbing. So far he has not budged on the value of ROCs above the 10% drop presently planned. Chris Heaton-Harris is pushing home his advantage with further talks at No.10.

I do though have a counter argument to those that can rise no higher than a catch phrase.

“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” (Edmund Burke)

At What Price? – A Holyrood comment

I have always said that the death of wind will be down to financial factors rather than anything else. Here in HOLYROOD magazine you will see an assessment of the subsidies. Read and weep!

 

This is Dunino Den By Deborah Pender

• ·        
  

  Photo courtesy of St. Andrews University!

  This is Dunino Den, it is a beautiful and very tranquil place. You feel a special serenity and clam in this beauty spot. Running through the Den you hear the little burn, as it ripples gently over the rocks around the deep mirror-surfaced pools. It is said that it was a highly revered place of worship. There is a type of energy all around you whilst you sit quietly and look at the large Celtic cross carved into a rock face. Or contemplate what the carved bowl in the rock was used for and wonder what it has witnessed over the centuries. The basin is called the Bel-Craig, and it is said that this was a site where the ancient tribal Kings and Queens were crowned. There was a Celtic deity called Bel linked to this area, so this ancient story may well be true. The centre piece is a large rock …outcrop which towers above you, covered in flora and fauna. Once there was a stone circle across the burn, but sadly it was taken down for agricultural space and some of the stones are built into the dry stone walls. This peaceful place, which is not mentioned in Visitor leaflets is totally unique.

  Just imagine what it would be like with 6 wind turbines whooshing, swooshing and clunking as they change gear just a mile away. Those turbines would totally destroy this ancient, mystical and symbolic place. I am still staggered that St Andrews University and its followers have no feeling whatsoever for the East Neuk of Fife, its history or for the many local people who live here. Non of the supporters of this industrial turbine plan seem to be living next to the proposed site. Yet we would be forced to live next to them. Such a waste of beautiful countryside, so costly as it forces people into fuel poverty and traps them in their homes. We are all supporters of finding new forms of energy, and would not mind so much if the turbines actually produced any worthwhile power, but they are so ineffectual they are not worth the suffering and destruction they bring with them.

The Perfect Storm – Craig, Colorado

When the Lights Go Out!

I am going to give you some financial advice but before I do, let me give you a wealth warning. Never take financial advice from friends or strangers, certainly from one whose pension provision now has more in common with the Titanic than even the Costa Concordia. The must buy in shares has to be Aggreko(Generators), Prices(candles), Primus(gas stoves) and Tilley(paraffin pressure lamps).

As previously mentioned the National Grid nearly had a major failure on the 8^thDecember. Since then the DECC (Department of Energy and Climate Change) have finally faced the truth stating “We face significant risks to the security of electricity supply in the medium term”. It admits that the accelerating closure of old fossil fuel power stations, to comply with EU Diktat and ruthlessly pursued by Chris Huhne, Ed Milliband before him and yes, The DECC and “increased levels of intermittent and less flexible capacity” (Wind farms to you

DECC suggests future Carbon Neutral use for light bulbs

and me, again promoted by Chris Huhne and the DECC) could lead to “multiple voltage reductions (brown-outs), and potentially more serious consequences, for example, power cuts affecting millions of homes, creating significant costs to the economy and high volatile prices in the wholesale markets which would likely to impact on consumer bills. This could plausibly be in the second half of the decade”. The fact that industry commentators, including the National Grid, have been telling them this for several years would seem to have passed them by. Essentially by 2015-19, we will no longer be guaranteed to have light when we click the switch or be able to boil a kettle, but we won’t be able to anyway because our lords and masters have ended up making such a cock-up of our energy industry in pursuit of carbon targets that we won’t be able to afford it.

So what is the government or the DECC going to do about it. One might suggest that the best option would be to extend the life of existing fossil fuel plants until such time as a secure energy mix, including the new Nuclear just agreed this week, come on line. There are issues, that since wind is king, the wear and tear on existing power plants coping with intermittent, but favoured. renewable energy is actually reducing the life expectancy of those plants without significant investment. The adherence to a failing EU carbon policy in face of a cataclysmic failure of our grid is the mark of a fool. And talking of fools, we have the answer from the DECC with, I suspect, a little help from the treasury. Essentially no one is building new power stations because of a lack of confidence in the market, and possibly the realisation that the big electricity generators have the UK government by the short and curlies. Essentially if wind can have mega bucks of subsidies, they want some too. The fact that most generators are not UK companies may have something to do with this as the Euro zone staggers from one crisis to another and US companies concentrate their investments in their own economies. Now the DECC have come out with a great wheeze. They will pay energy providers for capacity. This takes away one backlog. What new entrant into the energy field is going to build a 24/7/365 facility if the preference to use intermittent wind reduces his output to 70%. This is a very complicated area where over-capacity is dealt with by the constraints/balancing mechanism which can pay producers an average of £222 per mw not to produce electricity. So it would seem that new power station providers have learnt from the windies. In some cases they sit on both sides of the fence. Heads they win, tails you lose. Not only do they get paid for the electricity that they produce, but also for that which they don’t produce, and pick up a capacity bonus on top. They must employ a few bankers, I hear you say!

Now this capacity mechanism is quite cunning. The generators are required to bid for the capacity in an auction. Lessons learnt from the bonanza of oil and cellular phones. These will take place four years before the capacity is needed allowing four years to finance and build the plant. So the exchequer will pop a few hundred million in the bank from the licences and who do you think gets to pay for this capacity? Yes, got it in one. The consumer; that’s you and I; through our electricity bills. However legislating to provide the mechanism is not the same as implementing it though. Now go back to the start when DECC have at last admitted that we will almost certainly suffer power outages within the second half of the decade, 2015-19. Ministers have signalled that the first auction will be in 2015 with capacity due to come on line in 2019. Talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Despite these Monty Pythonesque plans, there is no sign that the industry has any confidence and until such time as that may be, the chances of this scheme coming into fruition by the beginning of the next decade are slim. Basically the DECC and it’s new leader Mr. Davies need to pull their digit out and create a policy that instils confidence. Any time soon please!!

One rather concerning aspect to this are the technical difficulties created by a total blackout. If the grid cannot be stabilised at 50mhz, the system simply shuts down to protect itself. The alternative would be a fireworks display that would put Guy Fawkes to shame. Re-starting the system is long and complex as many power stations cannot self start. Dinorwig Hydro has massive diesel generators as have some older coal power stations. But they may be closed by then. Modern power stations rely on a grid supply to power the computers, pumps, valves without which nothing works. Most Wind Turbines rely on a grid supply to start up. That is why unconnected wind farms need generators until their grid connection is made. Obviously the Grid would use it’s best endeavours for this not to happen, although major areas may very well find themselves without power. However no one can forecast the perfect storm. It has happened before both in the United States and in Spain.

So how about that investment? I suggest that it would probably better to invest in some candles, a tilley lamp, possibly a generator and a primus stove. If we really do end up with Armageddon, the share price will fall through the floor anyway as no power means no industrial production!  Oh and a little bit of news for those who think they are immune because they have invested in Photovoltaic solar panels or a wind turbine. When the power goes down, they switch off. In other European countries it is possible to fit a switch that allows the power to continue to be supplied to the house but in the UK, assuming a grid tie connection, this is not allowed. The problem is that should an engineer be working at re-connecting the supply and lots of mini turbines, micro hydro and pv cells were still supplying power to the grid, you may well end up with a deep fried engineer! Not a good idea.

For all actions there is always a consequence!

New Pumped Hydro for Loch a Choire Ghlais, Loch Lochy

Plans have been announced for a £800 million new pumped storage hydro dam at Coire Glas above Loch Lochy. A massive scheme on the scale of the Dinorwig Hydro, built in Wales in 1974. No decision will be made until 2014 but various organisation s such as JMT and Ramblers of Scotland have expressed their horror already. Details are available on the Power Engineering website and maps and details on Alan Sloman’s Blogspot. SSE’s visualisation could at best be described at a little watered down.

SSE Visualisation

What position should we take as a Wind Farm site. Hydro has been here for fifty years and therefore I think it logical to use it’s bounty and update it where possible. I have some reservations as to it’s original benefit to Scotland and whilst there is no doubt it lead to the emancipation of the women of the Glens we should also ask at what cost. Iain Thompson book “Isolation Shepherd” tells the story of Strathfarrar before the Hydro and describes the terrible destruction that the hydro wrought. As man always does, we have adapted and accepted it but there are areas of the Highlands now deserted of people where houses once were and families grew up. However it now produces clean cheap power and for that we must salute it. New Hydro has the advantage of being planned away from habitation and being level with the ground does not have the same impact as wind farms. However no one who has seen Mullardoch, Glascarnoch or Cruachan can ever call them a beautiful addition. Certainly the early constructions at Pitlochry were lavished with much attention but Highland ones built later were simply functional and utilitarian. The run of the river systems of the Beauly spoilt an otherwise idealic traditional Highland River. Possibly it improved flooding problems in Beauly but then at what cost. On the whole I take the view that our wild places are under significant threat and we are the custodians of the land to hand on to our children and our children’s children. One stroke of a pen can wreak havoc that can never be undone. It is possible however to work with nature and produce both a practical and ecologically acceptable scheme. We must hope that SSE, should they proceed with this dam, provide the resources so to do. One question that remains over this project is SSE’s barbed comments that they are waiting to see what happens to government support. From that we may deduce that Coire Glas dam may only be built if SSE can tap into the subsidies given to other Renewables as that of a renewable resource. An interesting conundrum. And one that may cost the consumer dear.

The whole Hydro story stems back from the fifties when the Labour MP Tom Johnstone was appointed by Winston Churchill as Secretary of State for Scotland, basically to keep him out of everyone’s hair. It is of note that Johnstone had previously blocked a privately funded Hydro Scheme for the Beauly Area. Hmm!! Hydro faltered and died , not because of the dearth of sites to transform, but due to the lobbying of Gerald Nabaro, MP and the National Coal Board, who saw the expansion as a threat to their industry. At the same time the land owners lost their enthusiasm for new technology as they saw the effect wrought on their lands.

As to this new tranche of Hydro Schemes, we must consider them well. We already have Glendoe, closed for the last year plus after a tunnel collapse. We have Balmaacan under consideration and the massive Glenmorie Scheme. We now have this one a t Loch Lochy. How practical one may ask? Pumped hydro produces large amounts of power over short periods. If this is to balance the intermittency of wind, we must suggest that the 600mw will do little to balance the massive number of turbines planned for the area. If Stronelaig and Balmacaan come on line you are talking of 834mw needed for those alone. As a resident of the area I am well aware that winter high pressure areas can last up to two weeks or more at a time. Fifty hours does not seem much based against those considerations. Also pumped storage relies on cheap coal or nuclear night time electricity to recycle. Expensive wind, off-shore or on-shore, wave or tidal would simply not be an economical option. Although the dam may provide fifty hours of capacity, this assumes two things. One: Mother Nature in her bounty has provided enough water in the hills and two: you have the time to pump it uphill before you need it next. The energy and time to refill a pumped hydro scheme is days if not weeks. These systems are fine for short bursts of power to cover high peaks of usage, like the end of football matches when everyone puts the kettle on. It is dubious whether they are practical to provide cover from wind.

This area is a Mecca for Tourism and yet the picture that Alan Sloman paints on his blog of the disruption we may expect would do irreparable damage to this business’s that rely on tourism in those areas. Looking to the past, at the turn of the Century I have a poster for a daily trip from Inverness in a coach and four to visit Kilmorack Falls at the princely sum of 6/s (7/6d inside). Nowadays we do not get any visitors to come and view the concrete edifices of either the Kilmorack or Aigas Dams and even the Fish Pass is now permanently closed. Anyone familiar with the Mullardoch and Glascarnoch Dam would remark at their foreboding appearance and the damage wreaked on the shorelines. A read of Iain Thomson’s book and you will realise what we lost in the pursuit of energy. When Hydro came to the Highland’s one coal fired power station would have provided the same output. It was a massive job creation scheme. Now we look at Glendoe which was built with mostly East European labour and equipped with German Turbines. When Kilmorack and Aigas were re-engineered about ten years ago it was German turbines and German engineers.   I remember as a boy seeing the great lorries going down the MI from GEC at Whetstone loaded with turbines and electrical gear for every country in the world, packing crates stencilled with the names of far off places: Durban, Dubai, Delhi and so many more. Now we even have to import the cables for the new Hunterston to Wirral undersea line. So, as in the years of the original Hydro, do we really have to sacrifice our lands when one nuclear power station would probably do the lot and 24/7/365.

Off shore Transfer

The economic of wind farms sometimes leave me lost for words. A Norfolk based company has just purchased  a workers transfer boat for offshore wind farms. This £1.5 million boat was produced in partnership with Mercurio Group (Spain) and specifically designed to serve the demands of the North Sea wind industry. Why we have to go to Spain to buy a boat for waters that our own boatbuilders have years of experience of beats me. This is for a five month contract worth £300,000 and providing jobs for three people. Seeing as many engineers working on these wind farms are provided by the manufacturers and developers, that might be the best that Norfolk can hope for. I suspect that the drop in numbers in the tourist industry may well be more than three. One hopes that they get another contract at the end or they are going to have a big hole in their piggy bank!

This is yet another example of UK jobs being exported to the detriment of our indigenous industries. One caveat, a fast boat of a similar design and size was purchased from Australia to provide a ferry in the Western Isles.  It proved totally unsuitable for the job as passengers were thrown all over the place in rough weather. It was withdrawn from service and for a year was operated as a fast transit vessel on Loch Ness. Even there it proved unsuitable in stormy conditions and has now been sold to a new owner in, I believe, Spain. Lessons to be learnt? This new boat boasts a much lighter weight than an aluminium hull but, as an ex sailor, weight equals stability!

EV, not ET

     

The Coalition Government is a Green Government. That is why it is not going anywhere!

Race for Wind is partly driven by the assumption that we wind need a vast increase in electricity. This is driven, in the main, by a belief that all cars will become electric in the future. Although there are other options, this is the perception with the corridors of power. Electric Vehicles were expected to reach the level of 100,000 in London but only 2,313 of all types, including milk floats, are currently operating in the City. The GLA fleet has fewer than 50 compared to the Mayor’s ambition of 1000 by 2015. Boris wants to make London the electric vehicle capital of Europe. Of yes, another Vanity project. Problem is that they don’t actually work very well. A maximum range of 100 miles is heavily reduced by having the heater on. Air-con is a no-no. Load the family up and a load of prams, picnics et all and you may possibly make it to Chessington Zoo, more likely to spend the day on the North Circular, but you ain’t going to get back that day. It takes about four minutes to fill up a tank of petrol but many hours(c.10-12hrs@10amps) to recharge a battery. Three thoughts. Could this be why road side cafe, supermarkets and motorway

Quentin Crisp issues Mayor Boris with Parking Fine for overstaying in local supermarket car park

services are ‘fining’ people from staying over two hours. Takes longer than that to recharge a Leaf; more money in Tesco’s bank! If EVs don’t pay road tax and there is no fuel tax on electricity, how long before road pricing takes away the financial “benefits” of electricity and sting us all with massive hikes in taxes under the green umbrella. How much electricity will be needed when everyone gets home in the evening, turns on the kettle, television and lights AND plugs in their electric cars. No wonder they have plans for tens of thousands of off-shore turbines. Problem is no one told them that often the wind drops in the evening. It strikes me that some one didn’t learn their sums before they did the Economics Degree, or was it a PPE. With a government subsidy of £5000 per car, a limited battery life and the cost of a new normal car to replace them, one does conclude that these are not even the economics of primary school. I think we would have been better of if someone had worked out our future energy needs and means of attaining them on the back of a fag packet! A final point of note, the only minister that I ever saw getting in an electric car in Downing Street was the un-lamented Chris Huhne and one might consider that, had he driven an electric car in the past, speeding fines would have been the least of his worries.

note: North Sea oil is still only 50% used and new drilling techniques are still offering new opportunities. De-carbonise? At what cost?

 

£500m nuclear deal with France to create 1,500 British jobs

Hinckley Point will see the contruction of a new Nuclear Power Station under this agreement with the French. Rolls Royce will be involved and we can summise that this signals a new direction to the future of electricity in England. Reliance on Scottish Renewables, the bedrock of Salmond’s Independence plans, seem a little shaky now.

Now I can tell that little tyke Salmond where he can stick his wind turbines!

Real price of green energy

Well you heard it here first and eventually the government have come clean on the true cost of supporting renewable industy. This proves inconclusively that for the last few years Government Ministers and Scottish Parliamentary Ministers have repeated lied about these costs. There is no simpler way to say this and we now know that they have had their hands in our back pockets to the tune of around £200 per year. I say it loud and I say it long: I told you so! The story is here in the Daily Mail and now we shall see how it is spun and weaved to make us believe it was all in our interests but you must now ask what other obfurscations (lies to you and I) such as the DECC and our Secretary of States and Ministers have been passing by us. CO2 and de-carbonisation of our economy to start with. On December 8th this year there was very nearly a total brownout of the UK due to the Grid being unable to balance existing supplies with demand. Only French Nuclear saved the day which may be why Mr, Cameron has been cozying up to Mr. Sarkozy to tie up an agreement on Nuclear Energy Supplies. Can’t have the South East and London, which has the lowest density of wind farm in the UK losing their IPads and cappuccino machines, can we? Essentially we have put the cart before the horse. If we were to go down the renewable route, we should have first installed the infrastructure within the grid, extending the life of fossil fuel and nuclear generation whilst we did.Then and only then would we be in a position to consider such as wind power and wave/tidal. In the meantime we would have discovered that the costs were not justified and we would have rebuilt new capacity on existing sites adapting new technologies as we went. Bit late now though! Wind has taken a Lion’s share of the capital available and we now have to look to the main generators to build subsidised capacity to cover intermittent wind. Bonkers! Paying twice for what we cannot afford.

Where do we go from here?

From the green fields around Beauly a sleeping monster rises! Not Nessie, but the new towers of the Beauly-Denny line, soon to be joined by the upgrade of the Beauly-Mossford overhead line. In the news too is the £1 billion 470km undersea cable from Hunterston to the Wirral awarded to Siemans and Draka. Draka does have a factory in Derby, the old AEI Cables factory bought out a year ago, but that is under Notice of Closure with the loss of 200 jobs. The Contract was awarded by Spanish owned Scottish Power and the National Grid. Where Salmond’s thousands of Scottish jobs in this are is a debatable point. This whole industry is driven by imported goods, and more often than not imported labour, which will leave Scotland with a debt that will be both eye-watering, and, I suspect in the end, very painful to the ordinary people. The profits, and these will be large will not be channeled into the Scottish economy but will drift through tax avoidance loopholes to offshore companies and banks. All we will be left with is the damage wrought and massive interest payments.

So what does this mean to us in the Highlands. In the last few months Wind Farms have been relatively quiet in comparison to many of the other parts of the country, caused in main part by the bottleneck in capacity at Beauly/Balblair. The construction of the Beauly-Denny line alongside the uprade of the Beauly-Mossford will be the proverbial release of the cork. Lochluichart plus extension and Corriemollie now have their connection capacity and SSE are jumping on the bandwagon with a thirty six turbine extention to Fairburn. There are application in this week for a thirteen turbine wind farm at Alness and a seventeen turbine wind farm at Brora. The Glenmorie and other Lairg applications move on a pace. Druim Ba will soon be with the reporter and the distributor bottleneck for Balmacaan and Stronelairg is removed at a stroke. More concerning still is the confirmation that the West Coast HVDC(high voltage DC) line is back on the agenda with approval by Ofgem for the new line. This will inevitably result in a massive new DC/AC convertor building of some six stories height at Balblair. Effectively the Highlands, driven by the new capacity in the Beauly-Denny interconnector will now become the honeypot for wind farm developers from all around the world.

I can only suggest watch this space. I believe that the next move will be an ammendment to planning, not unlike that already suggested for offshore which will reduce the time from application to start of construction to six months. Councils may be forced into the situation of a preception to approve, or may even be bypassed altogether. Salmonds needs his great adventure into wind to bear fruit by 2014. The planning system stands in his way. One may wonder what Alex Salmond has against the wild places, especially as his mother, Mary Salmond, was an entusistic hill walker, member of many years and Chair of Linlithgow Ramblers, and a Munro basher with no less than 170 to her credit. By all accounts a charming and lovely lady who joined the WRENs and worked in London during the Blitz. Perhaps Wee’Eck was lead up mountains and down Glens rain or shine as a wee lad and developed a pathalogical aversion to the Wild Places. Mary Salmond died in 2003 whilst out on a walk with The Linlithgow Ramblers at the tender age of eighty one. I think many will join me in wishing she was still around to perhaps knock some sense into our First Minister.

A question was asked about the technical issues in transferring power from the Highlands to the South and the power losses sustained therein. The attached details may be an eye-opener for many! Many thanks to George for this info.

I offered DECC and Chris Huhne to set up a small cost effective team to carry out an unbiased honest cost analysis of the full carbon footprint of wind-turbines both on-shore and offshore with their required back-up support together with the costings from interactions with the UK balancing market. This would include transmission losses and all the additive costs of interconnector requirements with Europe and smart meters over a 20 to 30-year time-scale.
My former boss Colin Gibson has all ready carried out published costings, and from what I read, he is unsurprisingly honest and of the same mindset as myself, and that is that wind-turbines are doubling the cost of energy and are not providing any appreciable savings in carbon dioxide emissions. It is impossible for the UK to meet its carbon dioxide emissions targets by 2020 and the more wind-turbines that are built here it will simply make the situation worse and the costs will quite literally escalate further.
The way Alex Salmond is talking he will cripple Scotland’s economics if he believes that Scotland can become the renewable energy centre for Europe. Scotland would become more reliant on back-up energy reserve services from elsewhere or it would have to pay the cost of holding generation plant for standby back-up services in Scotland. Sooner or later, the costs of transmission connections and the energy losses in transferring energy will have to become part of the market mechanism in the UK and Europe if the continued developments of siting generation remotely are to be included in the market deliverance and the energy bills that we pay.
All the proposed developments will have to eventually be justified on the true and total costings, and if carbon dioxide savings are to be a criteria of global warming, the true and total carbon footprint analysis of everything will have to be rigorously included. These have criteria have all been glossed over to date.
There are many eminent geologists and scientists that now believe that carbon dioxide is not a factor in global warming. And even if it were so, we should plant more broadleaf trees such as oak and ash to turn the carbon dioxide gases into very useful wood and through the wonders of nature the bi-product of giving us humans more oxygen to breathe would be extremely beneficial.

The simplest answer to power loss in cables for the transfer of energy is the ‘I’ squared ‘R’ losses, i.e. the square of the current transmitted multiplied by the resistance. However, as you might have realised the problem is a lot more complex than that, because there has to be compensation devices to support the voltage drops caused by reactive power losses during high load transfers and guess what the reverse of this when there are low load transfers because the capacitance of the cable/overhead lines cause reactive gain and therefore high voltages. Many of these compensating devices can react instantaneously to compensate rapid changes under fault and immediate loss of transfer situations. All in all, it is a very expensive process to install power transmission networks to cater for the heavy power exchanges envisaged by Alex Salmond and if his proposals of 100% of Scotland’s energy to be renewable by wind turbines were to go ahead, then the polluter should pay, i.e. Scotland should pay a significant proportion of the transmission reinforcements envisaged by National Grid, i.e. part of the £17-billion upgrade programme. If Scotland wants Independence then they have to be burdened with their share of the costs they create.

What I did not add is that between 10% ands 15% of any energy transferred from Scotland will be lost to the heating of the cables which simply will be emitted into the atmosphere or ground. And in itself this should be counted against the global warming debate and must be much worse than any CO2 emitted from power stations. In short it’s like having an electric fire transferring heat into the atmosphere possibly from the extremities of Scotland to mid England. Alex Salmond, please, please wake up to reality and stop talking out of your A–E.

Oh and another point, National Grid are seriously having to consider very expensive additional interconnectors to stabilise the power network in high windy times at absolutely enormous costs. None of this would be required if we built new nuclear power stations on existing sites where the existing transmission will cope and replacing the existing conventional power stations with new gas-fired CCGT’s and CHP stations again on existing power station sites. Gas prices are falling because of shale gas extractions and this in turn should also reduce costs on our oil productions. How much longer do we have to suffer this pain of ignorance as spouted by our politicians???

George Wood, former head of Technical and Economics, Balancing Services, National Grid.

Craven District Council, they say no!

Chelker Reservoir Redundant Turbines

Peter Rigby, from the Campaign to Protect Rural England (CPRE), described the existing turbines as an “industrial graveyard” and “rotting tooth stumps” that could clearly be seen from the Yorkshire Dales National Park. The original Turbines had been installed sixteen years ago and an application had been made to replace them with two considerably larger turbines. One has to question the oft quoted life span of twenty five years as these were useless and defunct. The application was turned down after objections from English Heritage, CPRE, Yorkshire Dales National Park and two local Parish Councils. Coun Robert Heseltine (Ind) urged officers to look into how the council could legally force the removal of the existing “rotting tooth stump” turbines. He said with hindsight, the original decision to approve the turbines had been a mammoth mistake. A small chink of light maybe but this was based on experience and a long history of complaints against the old turbines. I have little doubt that the apologists for wind will say new ones are quieter. Tell that to all those suffering the noise and flicker of these new turbines. There is an inbuilt problem with HAWT technology which has been pushed under the carpet too long. The Industry knows. That is why the ETSU-R-97 standards were drawn up and blatently fixed by the old DTI. That is why the DECC refuses to re-consider the standard despite the fact it is 15 years old and was conceived for much smaller turbines. Low frequency noise, the classic thump of turbines, is not considered at all and yet we all know that low frequency sounds can travel long distances and through walls. 

The spectre of thousands of oil spewing, rusting and useless wind factories has come early to the Yorkshire Dales! What of the much vaunted bonds that are supposed to be provided for de-commissioning. We should all see this as a stark warning of what the future holds.

A Political View – Lord Lawson

Lord Lawson was Chancellor of the Exchequer from June 1983 to October 1989 under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Global Warming Policy Foundation and author of the book ‘An Appeal to Reason: A Cool Look at Global Warming”.

It is sad that fashionable obsession can lead an intelligent man like Tim Yeo into such a farrago of factual error and economic illiteracy. The reason why there is no economic case for ‘going green’ is simple. It is that green energy is hugely more expensive than carbon-based energy, it always has been and is likely to remain so for the foreseeable future.

That, and no other reason, is why the world relies on carbon-based energy – coal, oil and, increasingly, gas.

And that is why to ‘go green’ requires either a heavy tax on carbon-based energy, to make it less competitive, or a massive subsidy for wind power and other forms of green energy, to make them more competitive – and probably both. Either way, these represent a huge economic cost and a burden on the consumer that bears especially hard in an age of austerity, but which would be unjustifiable at any time.

In his better moments Tim Yeo half-recognises this. Introducing, as its Chairman, the most recent Report of the House of Commons Energy and Climate Change Committee, he is quoted as saying “Taking action on our own will have no overall effect on emissions other than to outsource them…the price of carbon has to be increased at an EU level to kick-start investment in clean energy”.

I have news for Tim Yeo. There is a world outside the EU, including the fastest growing major economies on the planet, such as China and India. Unilateral EU action (which in any case looks increasingly unlikely in future) would also simply outsource industry – and thus emissions – from Europe to China (which is busily building a new coal-fired power station every five days) and the rest of the emerging world, which have not the slightest intention of burdening themselves with the massive economic cost of ‘going green’.

One of Tim’s more remarkable assertions is that “to delay Britain’s investment in low-carbon technology just when other countries are starting to accelerate theirs verges on the Luddite”. The trend is in fact in the reverse direction. Not only is the emerging world firmly committed to carbon-fuelled growth, but even in slower-growing Europe ‘green’ subsidies are being phased out. Spain, which went for wind power (in particular) in a big way, has decided to cut back drastically all its ‘green’ energy subsidies. In recent months, similar cuts have been announced in Italy, Greece and the Czech Republic. And Germany, Europe’s largest economy, is doing much the same. Meanwhile, in the United States, the solar power industry, once their renewable of choice, is mired in scandal and in a state of collapse.

I regret, incidentally, the use of ‘Luddite’ as a generalized term of economic abuse, since it does in fact have a precise meaning. It refers to the movement in the early days of the industrial revolution to destroy machines in order to protect jobs. It precise analogue today is the attempt by the Tim Yeos of this world to persuade the government to move from comparatively cheap carbon-based energy to much more expensive green energy in order to create ‘green jobs’.

This also underlines the fundamental point that even if the whole world were to be converted to costly ‘green energy’ – which is not going to happen – there would still be a heavy economic cost, not to mention the human cost in those countries where a slower rate of economic development means unnecessary poverty, disease, malnutrition and premature death for hundreds of millions of people.

Tim, of course, confidently tells us that this is merely a temporary burden that will soon pass, since “despite the discovery of shale gas, the price of fossil fuels will continue to rise”, presumably making green energy thoroughly economic. I wonder how he knows this. As a former Energy Secretary, some 30 years ago, I have watched fossil fuel prices rise and fall as confident predictions regularly bite the dust. What we do know is that in the US, which at the present time is leading the way, the shale gas revolution has caused the price of gas to plummet, and this is bound to spread to the rest of the world before too long.

One last point. The one essential resource for onshore wind power – the UK’s (or at least the unlamented Mr Huhne’s) green energy of choice – is large tracts of land. I am constantly surprised that politicians who like to think of themselves as progressive support such a massively perverse scheme of income redistribution: a scheme that takes money from the pockets of the people and pays it out in subsidies to wealthy landowners.

 

 

 

This is an MP!

Sammy Wilson DUP MP from Northern Ireland. Hey an MP that understands the problem. Perhaps he should have been made the Secretary of State for Energy! Sammy Wilson is one of those that signed Chris Heaton-Harris’s letter to the PM

An interesting calculation

John Curtis kindly got his abacus out and did a bit of research. His figures are illuminating and make interesting reading. Thanks  John for letting me pass this on.

“I have been considering effects of parasitic power consumption by wind turbines, by which I mean power that they must use to stay functional even if there is no wind. The manufacturers do not give detailed information but I believe we can assess what is needed by using common sense.

Actual figures may vary from what I am assuming, but I do not think that I am far off. If you have any other ideas I would be very pleased to have them. Below is a representative list of equipment and systems that require electric power, together with assumed power consumptions.

Yaw mechanism to turn the rotor into the wind. 20kW

Pitch mechanism to adjust the blade angle to the wind 15kW

Lights, controllers, communication, sensors, data collection, etc. 10kW

Heating the blades during winter. 250Kw

Heating/cooling and dehumidifying the nacelle. 10kW

Oil heater, pump, cooler and filtering system of the gearbox 25kW

Hydraulic brake to lock the blades when the wind is too strong. 5kW

Thyristors for power conditioning and connection. 25kW

Magnetizing the stator to keep the rotor speed constant 25kW

Using the generator as a motor to help blades start to turn when wind speed is low or, as many suspect, to create the illusion the facility is producing electricity when it is not, particularly during site tours. It also spins the rotor shaft and blades to prevent warping when there is no wind. 50Kw.

TOTAL Installed. 435kW.

 

Not all items will be used at the same time, although they may be. However, we can generously assume 50% usage, for a parasitic consumption of approximately 215 kW.

Turbine rated wind speed is 12 mps. Cut in speed is 4 mps. Rated power is 2 mW. Power varies as cube of wind speed.

Therefore Power at 4mps is 2,000,000/3x3x3 = 74kW

Nett output is –141kW

Power at 5mps is 144kW Nett output is -71kW

Power at 6mps is 250kW

Nett output is +35kW

This shows that the machine does not start to produce useful power until wind speeds reach around 6mps, assuming that 35kW from a 2mW machine can be considered as useful.

Published figures for average wind speeds locally (Banbury area. It will vary depending on actual location) at masthead height are 6mps.

There are subsequent losses such as transformer inefficiencies and transmission losses to take power from turbine to grid. We can assume approximately 6% to 15%, depending on the type of equipment and transmission line lengths.

What this says is that the turbine is virtually useless even at average wind speeds and that we need considerably more than average in order to get any useful power output. On average we can expect to power about 12 electric kettles. Not bad for an investment of around £2.4 million!!

Note that the turbine ‘sells’ its power based on metering at the output unit and thus avoids the effects of transmission losses. Also, there is no charge made for power that is consumed when there is low or no output. In other words, charges are made based in gross output, not net output.

And we do not even start to “save” CO2 emissions until we reach average wind speeds. What a huge con job is being foisted on us all.

Plus each turbine site requires cables to connect to a central control station from which the power is sent to the grid. There is a CO2 penalty that depends on installation size and length of power lines”

* Ed’s Note: As backup power needs to run 24/7 to compensate for the intermittancy of wind, in fact CO2 is not saved. In fact gas power stations running in standby mode perversely produce more CO2. RUK figures are based on replacement of energy from 2nd generation coal powered generating stations. 3rd generation black coal and the latest clean coal generators provide even less CO2. Readily available figures from the NETA website shows that wind is more likely to replace hydro (zero CO2), Nuclear(zero CO2) or Gas(50-70% less than coal). Coal runs as base load which wind will never be able to replace. On this basis the whole CO2 arguement for wind power is critically flawed. Apart from that, Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant. It is tasteless, colorless, nontoxic to humans at concentrations up to 13 times present levels and is essential to life. Plants breathe CO2, and as they grow and reproduce they exhale oxygen, making the earth habitable for humans. Instead of a disaster, the expected doubling of CO2 due to human activities will produce a number of benefits over the next century. Who’s afraid of CO2?

One interesting statistic that he has missed is that we are informed that power provided by the grid to maintain the turbines and in some cases to turn the blades to keep the oil moving is not charged to the operator. Multiply John’s figure by the amount of turbines installed and this is not an inconsiderable benefit to the wind farm companies.

Highland Tourism 2012

You will have noticed that I regularly refer to Tourism as a great source of income and employment to the Highlands of Scotland. We all recognise the attractions of Pitlochry, Aviemore, Fort George, Culloden, Inverness and Glenurquart Castle on Loch Ness. We may have visited the honey traps of Fort Augustus and Drumnadrochit. However there are three less visited venues that I enjoy and which are free. For the dreich days when the icy rain comes horizontal off the Cromarty Firth, I cannot think of a better place to visit than Dingwall Mart and the Drovers Exhibition. Open 8.30am to 4.30pm, Monday to Friday, you can’t miss it for the fantastic bronze sculpture that sits on the hill as you approach Dingwall from the A9 by the Mart. This is a detailed and interactive display with modern and old films to explain the ways of the Drovers. The display boards take you through the history of Scottish black cattle(Highland Cattle) in an educated and informative way. Great for children and the not so young. The Mart also has a fantastic little café that produces home cooked local produce and the best cakes for miles. Although on the first floor, I believe there is a lift in the far corner for disabled. As well as that there is a viewing gallery over the sales ring and for those that have not visited a mart before, there are plenty of people around who will be pleased to explain what is going on. Not all days have sales so if you wish to see the mart in all it’s glory it would pay to check the Dingwall Mart site first. http://www.dingwallmart.co.uk/HLHS/hlhsindex.htm

Second suggestion is the perhaps mis-named “Highland Folk Museum” at Newtonmore. Originally spread over two sites at Kingussie and Newtonmore, financial cutbacks within the Highland Council Museum’s budget resulted in the Kingussie site being mothballed, although arrangements can be made to visit it as a group. Last time I was there it seemed a bit overgrown and un-loved. Newtonmore however is a marvellous living museum with the Township away to the east and the Steading to the west. A post office is usually manned with a great choice of sweets from the jar that will bring a smile of pleasant recollection to those of us of more advanced years. Essentially you will walk through the ages from the smoky reality of a peat house, to the schoolhouse that some may well remember. One further item of note is a wind turbine built and installed in the 1930′s, it was capable of charging two six volt batteries and powering three 24w bulbs

1930's Wind Turbine

and three six watt bulbs. Made by Joseph Lucas of Birmingham it cost the princely sum of £22 10s. The fact that it has taken eighty years to re-invent the wheel may say something of wind powers efficacy. There is a café on site and a shop. Parking and entrance is free but donations are accepted and an important part of keeping this facility open. I understand that this year the community will be taking a greater part in the Centre which will be a positive move. Best visited on a good day the views to the Cairngorms are simply majestic. http://www.highlandfolk.com/  Not far away are the Ruthven Barracks which are worth a visit to reflect on the pivotal part that they have played in Highland History. You will often find Ruaridh Ormiston’s Highland cattle gazing there. Ruaridh runs a tekking centre at Newtonmore Riding Centre. http://www.newtonmoreridingcentre.com/ That may cost you a penny or two but the experience of riding Highland Ponies in the landscape that God designed them for is something that will remain with your youngsters for a lifetime. Ruaridh will shortly be seen on TV with Griff Rys Jones in a film about droving. Apparently the out-takes were something else.

Third suggestion is Glen Affric. Leave Beauly on the Cannich Road and presently you are in another world. In the little hamlet of Struy you can take a right turn up to Strathfarrar. You will need a key from the keepers cottage unless you are walking or cycling. There is a limit on cars allowed so be prepared to be disappointed. If all else fails you can drown your sorrows at the Struy Inn. Carrying on the main road you will come to Cannich which has three cafes/restaurants. Bog Cotton Café by the campsite is fun and the Slaters Arms are both recommended. Haven’t to the one by the Glen Affric Hotel for a while but it was fine last time I was there. In Cannich you can take a right turn after the bridge and drive up through Glen Cannich to the Mullardoch Dam. Hydro was supposed to rebuild the road beside the dam but in the later construction of hydro some things were conveniently forgotten. Out of site, out of mind. However the scenery is worth the trip. Then on the main road to Fasnakyle, where you can fork left to Tomich with it’s lovely little hotel, on to the spectacular water fall at Plodda Falls and eventually the trekking centre at Courgie. Straight on takes you into Glen Affric itself with Dog falls, the Lochs, Mountains and Scots Pine forests that make the area so very special. At the moment there are no parking charges, although it is rumoured that Forestry Commission Scotland have plans to impose them to recover some of the costs that they have incurred recently in refurbishing the car parks, loos and tracks. For walkers, a good map and the world is your oyster, for cyclists a range of tracks that will satisfy even the most ambitious and for the climber/hill walker a range of Munros stand before you. For the traveller and the honeymooners, probably one of the finest parts of Scotland to just stand and enjoy the natural environment. For the photographer and naturalist, this is nirvana. This is the route of the Highland Cross race(23rd June 2012), possibly one of the most demanding amateur events in the UK. It’s popularity has rathered taken away its local status which is a great pity. http://www.glenaffric.org/index.html

So there you are, three idealic but different parts of the Highlands which will take you away from the bulk of the Tourist Trail but lead you to an understanding of the Highland not bettered by any guidebook. Come soon lest we can’t turn the tide if the turbines as these areas are free from the scourge but all are under threat. Even Glen Affric is surrounded by applications or approved schemes so whilst the Glen itself is reasonably protected, the approaches are under threat. To the South though, the Beauly-Denny is starting to rise its ugly towers.