2,000 more wind turbines in countryside (UK)

In his first speech since becoming energy minister, Malcolm Wicks, will offer unequivocal backing to the green lobby by insisting it is 'vital' the government rides out vocal opposition to windfarms and sticks with wind energy.

Wicks will underline government pledges that by 2010 10 per cent of Britain's electricity will be produced by renewable energy, including wind. The move will more than double the number of turbines across the country over the next few years.

The backing for wind power will equate to at least another 2,000 turbines sited across the UK with another 1,500 located offshore if the industry is to reach government targets. At the moment there are around 1,230 turbines in the UK.

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,1489792,00.html


Looks to me like the Sellafield accident is turning into an opportunity to advance renewables in the UK. Wicks has a good sense of timing.

Global climate change has nothing to do with the expansion of wind power?

Nobody who is trying to find a solution to the matter of global climate change opposes wind power, of course, but I think that anyone who is serious about the matter ought to concede that the wind does not blow 100% of the time.

Therefore anyone who supports wind power must also address the issue of what happens when the wind is not blowing.

Or has the over hyped leak at Sellafield, which is certainly nowhere as serious consequences as the coal generated electricity in the UK had today, yesterday and every other day it is produced, caused the wind to blow 100% of the time now?

Britain, I hear, is about to suffer some dire effects from the shutdown of the Gulf Stream. Would this be a great time to pay the maximum attention to the leaking pipe at Sellafield?

Maybe millions and millions of people who were killed maimed and otherwise injured by the tremendous tragedy at Sellafield and I missed it. If so, I apologize for my indifference to what is really happening. Too bad other people don't apologize for their indifference to what is really happening.

How many people in London died as a result of coal between 4 December and 7 December, 1952?

Now tell me how many people died as a result of Sellafield.

We have to get an energy source someway when the wind isn't blowing, and I'll be damned if it is coal.

It amuses me that the various pro-nuclear people on this board keep insisting on a comparison to coal, and showing nuclear as a slightly lesser evil to the soot and plague that coal obviously causes (one only need look at mountaintop removal to see coal minings threat), without ever thinking, hey, maybe we should STOP looking for lesser evils and get rid of them altogether. The simple fact is that the system of production and consumption today is not sustainable, and it should not be maintained, but yet people insist on putting forth huge cash outlays on nuclear energy to keep doing just that. I don't want coal plants or nuclear plants. I want the whole damn thing shuttered. This will raise the inevitable shackles about "jobs", "the economy", and "society" as we know it. This ignores the fact that none of these things would exist in there current state without a world in which to tear asunder and take out its natural resources. So yes, worrying about jobs seems kind of pedantic when you're talking about severe and long term damage to the world.

Environmentally, things were better 400 years ago. However are humans as a whole willing to step that far back? Humans need to learn to live with nature, rather than fight against it. Conservation is a key to that, as well as using less polluting energy. But I preach until my face is blue about conservation and no one listens. How do you intend to change that?

I think conservation is basically a life time ethic of sorts, and its not one easily instilled in a society where rampant consumption is not the norm, but almost DEMAND it. At the same time, those who profess conservation also need to move beyond simply putting out the recycling bins and driving a hybrid car. I think you lead by example, and by showing that its not "harder" to live ecologically sound.

Unfortunatly, due to the way the system works, conservation and being environmentally friendly is extremely expensive. As long as wasteful, disposable methods are essentially subsidized (via the cheap availibility of fossil fuels and landfill space), thats how way things are going to be.

That said there a couple things people could do to take lessen their ecological footprints, and that aren't readily publicized.

- Community Supported Agriculture: One of the biggest ecological disasters is corporate agri-farming, and the giant logistics infrastructure that is needed to support it. In many areas you can buy a "share" in a local organic farm andreceive a weekly amount of vegetables every week for usually 16 weeks after that season is over.

-Grey water systems: Recycling grey water (sink water) in order to irrigate plants or using it to provide water into toilets.

-Solar Lighting: Alot of noise is made obviously about solar panels and renewable ebergy. But why merely put panels to power light bulbs when you can replace said lightbulbs with solar lighting in those parts of your house where windows aren't practical or impossible?

-Decreasing meat consumption: Even if one doesn't believe in animal rights, eating meat is a tremendous waste of resources, requiring pumping huge amounts of feed to only get small returns on meat. Again, such a situation can only exist due to the current agri-business model, which is not sustainable.

Theres shitloads of ideas on how to further reduce ones ecological impact. And there are low cost ways to implement a number of these solutions, especially on the home front, if you are willing to do the work and construction yourself, as opposed to buying pre-made systems.

It means that at least somebody in the UK is thinking of non-centralized, non-petroleum, non-coal energy sources.

(And I take it that Sellafield was a low-level nuclear accident.)

The first priority is to make sure there is enough energy for residential use of the populace. This probably won't require nuclear power, and most countries can develop such resources pretty fast if they have to.

The problems that require nuclear power -- or some other high-density power source -- involve industry and economic growth. I see that as the major problem in the twilight of the oil age. Economic devolution is likely to be extremely destructive, even if it does mean that Wal-Mart tanks, ugly suburbs cease to exist, and people get to know their neighbors a little better.

But even with a crash program of nuclear generator building, I don't think enough energy will come on-line fast enough to prevent major problems from happening. Not only does the nuclear industry have to contend with a three-decade-long atmosphere of fear and suspicion (some of which is well-earned, but most of which is unwarranted), but in a severe economic turndown, raising capital to build nukes will probably be quite difficult at least initially. Even in the best of circumstances, it would take at least five years to build a nuke, and we need some two thousand of them (at an average of 750 million watts per station).

My own favorite long-term solution, development of tele-operable industrial "habitats" in space, reqires even more time and capital than a nuclear program. And one way or another, our current kind of passenger automobile system is doomed.

Development of solar, wind, biofuels, tidal, geothermal, TDP, etc., will at least provide the necessities with little centralization required. If we're facing any kind of miserable economic period at all, whether it's 10 years of 75 years, we might as well be able to survive and stay healthy -- especially if major climate changes are coming.

--p!

How does the grid adjust, when the wind is blowing, versus when the wind is not blowing?