Help stem march of wind turbines (From York Press)

What kind of Council could possibly approve of such inefficient monstrosities on their landscape on behalf of their residents. Well perhaps a green one, and that's just behind the ears!

I am not from malton area but these wind farms are an eyesore nice green hills blighted by these monsters they are not economical what is the costs somewhere I saw they supply 3 per cent our energy.the point of these is to catch the wind but get to strong a wind they are turned off to prevent damage.we have the best country in Yorkshire keep it that way .if I remember right flamingoland had to have a ride lowered it was to high and an eyesore.what could be worse than lots of useless machines all over.

Meant to say best county yorkshire

It's ok to oppose wind turbines...if you suggest an alternative.

So I guess the people of Malton and Ryedale will be happy with more nuclear power stations (as long as they're in someone else's backyard, of course).

People of malton and ryedale should vote with the rest of the country let's have a big nuclear power station in the centre of London. They don't want nuclear or windfarms in their back gardens so why should we .with all the hot air around London with the politicians like windfarms useless.

Matt, in order to meet silly renewable targets, 5 coal power stations will be closed down next March, costing hundreds of jobs. Since we have plenty of coal under the ground I suggest we keep the stations open and keep our miners in work. Also, we need to get on with producing our own shale gas. The USA for example now have energy a fraction the cost of ours. Finally, where is our investment in hydro electricity? We appear to have wasted a fortune on rubbish instead and given huge payments to some of the wealthiest landowners in the UK.

ColdAsChristmas wrote:
Matt, in order to meet silly renewable targets, 5 coal power stations will be closed down next March, costing hundreds of jobs. Since we have plenty of coal under the ground I suggest we keep the stations open and keep our miners in work. Also, we need to get on with producing our own shale gas. The USA for example now have energy a fraction the cost of ours. Finally, where is our investment in hydro electricity? We appear to have wasted a fortune on rubbish instead and given huge payments to some of the wealthiest landowners in the UK.

Hydroelectricity and wave power would probably be more expensive than wind; and wouldn't generate as much energy as it (including offshore wind).

See, for example, p.107 of David MacKay's 'Sustainable Energy without the Hot Air', free to download from here:
http://www.withoutho
tair.com/download.ht
ml

That page lists his own estimates of total energy that could potentially be generated from renewables, alongside estimates of other groups.

The problem with potential is that it is a bit vague, unlike the known quantities associated with fossil fuel and Nuclear. Hydro on the other hand is 80% efficient and keeps generating even in the dark with no wind. Factor that in plus its better durability over wind hardware and the cost is much more efficient.
This is one of the problems of man made global warming alarmism. It talks about could, might, 'potential', models etc but nothing on substance and no clear proof. If we base our energy generation needs on 'might' then the lights might just go out?

ColdAsChristmas wrote:
Matt, in order to meet silly renewable targets, 5 coal power stations will be closed down next March, costing hundreds of jobs. Since we have plenty of coal under the ground I suggest we keep the stations open and keep our miners in work. Also, we need to get on with producing our own shale gas. The USA for example now have energy a fraction the cost of ours. Finally, where is our investment in hydro electricity? We appear to have wasted a fortune on rubbish instead and given huge payments to some of the wealthiest landowners in the UK.

The coal power stations will close because they release too much CO2 for regulations that are coming into force. Also a lot of the coal burnt in these stations comes from oversees not UK mines because in is cheaper from countries with massive open cast mines not underground like a lot of ours were. What we need is to become more energy self sufficient instead of relying on foreign gas and coal as we now do which unfortunately will put up energy costs in the short term at least, but we would not be at the mercy of foreign countries.

We can be self sufficient on Shale gas if we get on with it and that too would cut prices, although you can be certain that government and the big 6 cartel will find a way to hike prices.
Coal is the cheapest method of generation, that is why Poland and the Czech Republic have defied EU regulation.
Incidentally, since Polar Bears have been found to be at record numbers the BBC have turned attention to Chinese Panda's now. I ask you!

What the wind turbine debate needs is a bit of moderation.

Is it possible to accept the idea of climate change (like the overwhelming majority of scientists), accept renewable energy's part to play in reducing CO2 emissions, accept that wind turbines have a part to play in a renewable strategy...but also agree that it's really important where they are sited.

I support turbines but accept that they shouldn't be placed in areas of significant landscape quality.

I also accept that it's difficult to draw the line and also that your own local landscape is precious regardless of how beautiful others see it as.

For me, this is the sensible way to control turbines. Resorting to extreme right-wing climate-change-denyi
ng positions and trying to concoct pseudo-economic arguments aganst renewable energy just lacks credibility.

Being windy & having sea all around us, the UK should be a world leader in renewable technology. We need to skae off our dependence on oil/coal/gas and the foreign countries that supply us.

So, yes we have to be careful where we put the but no, we mustn't throw the baby out with the bath water.

A number of points for me to answer there yorkshirelad. First you didn't mention at all let alone with enthusiasm that shale gas will give us cheap home produced energy for decades to come.
Second, you refer to shaking off dependence on foreign oil, coal and gas, which I have some respect for, however, there is still plenty of coal under out feet, we have dithered over building new Nuclear reactors to the point where we need foreign expertise and very little of the £Billions in subsidies have been spent on developing efficient hydro electricity. Natural gas has been used to generate electricity (Dash for gas) instead of cheaper coal. Wind turbines are grossly inefficient and each on shore giant turbine costs £3Million each, add another £Million each for off shore wind turbines.
As for self sufficiency, most of the solar panels you see are made in China and wind turbines made in Denmark and Germany. I can also think of at least a couple of wind farm projects under Swedish management!
If we are talking traditional science then it is not possible to consider man made climate change /global warming. Overwhelming majority of scientists believe in man made global warming? Well yes, but only if you take into account the PAL review system where any other standpoint is not permitted. This then is called consensus science, nothing to do with fact but simply if you want to stay on this gravy train you had better support the hypothesis.
The founder of the Weather channel has the signatures of over 30,000 scientists, 6,000 PhDs who don't believe in the fairy tale.
Cutting CO2 emissions will make almost no difference except to us all financially in a downward way, big time. Stopping the import of fossil fuels that might currently keep the economy moving is madness unless you intend to equally stop importing cars, motorcycles, trucks, buses and a whole lots of other imports. Why just fuel? (Otherwise even more debt)
Man made CO2 represents around just 16 parts per million in the atmosphere, almost nothing in the greater scheme of things. 95% of our greenhouse gas is water vapour and without that we would return to ice ball Earth much sooner that we will anyway. 330,000 ppm CO2 during an ice age has been known of. Then you are bothered about a tiny 395 ppm?
Finally, world average temperatures were no higher last August than they were in August 1997, so much for the accelerating and runaway scare. If our world was getting warmer there would be less demand for heating fuel and rock salt, go figure!