Beauty versus Bills - What would you prefer?

some_dose

This is a topic about which I have had many debates with friends. As every person on this board knows, it is inevitable that energy prices will rise in the very near future as oil/gas availability nears its "peak" (which imo is total shite as they usually only exploit a very small percentage of each oil well leaving huge amounts untapped). As a result we will pay more and more for our electricity. However, does it have to be this way?

The west coast of Ireland consistently receives some of the strongest winds on the face of this planet. Already we have some wind farms in place to harness this potential energy. However, a major restriction on the construction and placement of wind farms on land is as a result of the perceived impact on the aesthetics of an area (particularly in western Ireland) which it is believed will impact on tourism.

So my question to the people of After Hours is this - would you rather preserve our "aesthetic" beauty and pay 3 to 4 time s the amount for electricity imported from the U.K. and Europe or would you favour (like myself) building huge wind farms all over the place and eventually be in a situation where we can sell excess energy to other E.U. states?

For example -would you pay 50 euro a month for electricity and have the west coast covered in wind farms (potentially at the cost to tourism but generating jobs and potentially and excess of power we could sell to Europe) or would you rather pay 200 euro (made up figures) for imported electricity from other countries?

Kylo Ren

Atari Jaguar.

Kojak

Keno 92 wrote: »

Atari Jaguar.

Apparently "Shag Off" is the new Atari Jaguar. You must not have got the memo...

Balfie

won't somebody pleeeeease think of the children...

Kylo Ren

Kojak wrote: »

Apparently "Shag Off" is the new Atari Jaguar. You must not have got the memo...

I got it. I shot the delivery boy when he handed me it. There is only one Atari Jaguar.

Temptamperu

I think wind farms look cool and we should put loads of them up.

gsxr1

Im guessing the most of the east coast will vote Yes. Most having never ever seen the beauty of the west of Ireland.

smk89

Temptamperu wrote: »

I think wind farms look cool and we should put loads of them up.

Plus if we build enough we can sail this country to the Caribbean.

Duggy747

I actualy think the wind farms look alright. Everytime I was travelling up north I'd always look out in the distance to see these silent farms.

They're a damn sight better looking than something like a chicken farm. Those places are pre-made sets for horror movies.

PseudoFamous

gsxr1 wrote: »

Im guessing the most of the east coast will vote Yes. Most having never ever seen the beauty of the west of Ireland.

I want them anywhere we can extract a fart's worth of power. In fact, they were building Ireland's largest windfarm 8km out from me a few years ago, and are waiting for funding to finish it, so I'm not just saying to put them on the *cough* beautiful West coast. Anywhere that'll catch a breeze is grand, but we should also get solar arrays in the boglands which are currently without much productive use other than turf cutting.

Oh, and nuclear, we need some of that, too. Just put it somewhere with good drainage and we won't have a Ballyfukushima on our hands. Is there anywhere suitable over in the West for it?

Hank_Jones

I really don't think we should be pushing for wind turbines, we'll regret it in the future.

We only have so much land, why ruin it with horrible wind turbines?

Different story if they are off shore though.

some_dose

Hank_Jones wrote: »

I really don't think we should be pushing for wind turbines, we'll regret it in the future.

We only have so much land, why ruin it with horrible wind turbines?

Different story if they are off shore though.

It's 3 times the cost to build them off shore which would mean 3 times the cost to the consumer in terms of bills

Pdfile

wind farms looks great compared to oil riggs...

Buceph

There's been a couple of articles in the British papers about this, and it's been confirmed by some people I know involved in energy engineering. Wind farms aren't the general answer to energy problems, and won't be until we develop a long term energy storage solution, i.e. batteries. Wind farms are ok at producing energy when there is wind, but when the wind drops below 10mph or so they produce **** all. Because we have no way of storing energy from the wind farms when they can produce excess it means we have to have back up energy for when their production does dip. This would be in the form of goal, oil, gas, turf, etc. seeing as we're averse to nuclear. And the thing with carbon energy production is that it doesn't scale easily. The gas, etc. plants can't be running at 5% one day and 100%. They need to be kept going at a fairly high rate. If you look at airtricity they buy a lot of their supply in from regular energy producers when the wind is low. They can only do this because there's the normal supply, which is powering most people anyway. If we went even 50% wind that backup would either have to keep producing and wasting the energy, or not produce and we'd suffer brown/black outs.

The real technology to keep an eye on for the future is tidal energy. We have a huge coastline for such a small country, and a lot of ocean with a relatively shallow water depth. The indiciations are that we're perfect for that type of energy production, and the best thing is tides are absolutely regular and predictable. Much as I'd hate to see tracts of the coast and sea become inaccessible because of energy production, it's a much better bet than going with unreliable wind energy. It's just that wind is easier to do, so it's had more investment (and more return for those investors.) And these investors have been selling a dodgy technology, not selling an ecologically sound and commercially viable product.

wonderfulname

The lifespan of a wind farm is only 20 years, after that it needs to be rebuilt or just destroyed, so I don't quite see the point of them with regards where our energy needs will be in 2050.

To be honest the only real option is nuclear, but that has such a bad (and quite frankly undeserved) reputation that we won't see it happening for a long time yet.

some_dose

wonderfulname wrote: »

The lifespan of a wind farm is only 20 years, after that it needs to be rebuilt or just destroyed, so I don't quite see the point of them with regards where our energy needs will be in 2050.

To be honest the only real option is nuclear, but that has such a bad (and quite frankly undeserved) reputation that we won't see it happening for a long time yet.

Explain please

wonderfulname

A wind turbine will survive between 10 and 25 years depending on who you ask (here's some sources), planning permission for wind farms here comes with the condition that the farm be de constructed after 20, now the idea is that a newer, more efficient turbine gets put up in place of the old one, but who are we to say what the future market will be like?

According to the IWEA (link above);

In terms of the longer term risks the wind farm development, possibly the biggest threat to the industry is future price volitility in the energy market.
It is generally acceptd that while energy prices have fluctuating significantly in recent times, a total price collapse in the energy market is unlikely* in the immediate future; however, recent market sources have suggested that the current price for gas is artificially high and may decline significantly in the future. Also with further wind farm developments the amount of wind generation on the system will increase.

As these generators have zero fuel costs more and more generators on the system will be operating at zero marginal cost. This has the effect of lowering the overall market price. Thus a fall in the price of gas coupled with an increased amount of renewable generation could lead to a significant decline in market prices. Which may jeopardise the servicing of wind farm debt repayments.

*Barring the advent of cold fusion or a similar leap forward in current technology

By the time the current turbines are due for replacement we could see that the industry is no longer economically viable, certainly not for businesses who need to re inject a substantial amount of capital, this is by no means a guarantee, but it does point out a serious flaw in the idea that wind energy is a long term solution.

An example of this happening in this kind of industry is the current state of landfill waste disposal, you may have noticed a crap load of landfills being build about five or more years ago, this is because conditions were created that investors were forecasted to see a return of many times over their initial investment, yet now private landfills are barely if at all viable, they're a burden if anything, hence nobody wants in on the industry, it will be interesting to see what happens when they hit the end of their lifespan.

Guill

Temptamperu wrote: »

I think wind farms look cool and we should put loads of them up.

+1

Capt'n Midnight

Beauty vs. Bills ?

Since most tourists come from areas that already have wind farms who is to say that wind farms would have any adverse effect ? Maybe tourists would prefer to be in an eco-friendly place, maybe they just don't care.

To suggest that it's tourists or wind farms is very disengenous.


How many places have any posters here changed their minds on visiting when they found out there were wind farms in the country ??


oh yeah there is the whole thing about whether wind farms are economic and would save on the bills :pac:

Potential-Monke

Install dynamo exercise bikes in the Joy and make the criminals produce the energy as a punishment for breaking the law.

OneArt

I don't think windfarms actually look to bad... They're just big sticks with propellers on them. They look a hell of a lot nicer than nuclear reactors!

EverEvolving

We could aim to build the worlds biggest wind farm and use that as a tourist attraction, if people visit the arigna mines then I don't see why they wouldn't be interested in wind farms which are much more aesthetically pleasing.

jacksprat

So, from what i see we need to make Nuclear Power Plants look cooler....

Homer: Well basically, I just copied the plant we have now.
Mr. Burns: Hmmm.
Homer: Then, I added some fins to lower wind resistance. And this racing stripe here I feel is pretty sharp.
Mr. Burns: Agreed. First prize. (gives Homer a blue ribbon)

Mike 1972

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

Since most tourists come from areas that already have wind farms who is to say that wind farms would have any adverse effect ? Maybe tourists would prefer to be in an eco-friendly place, maybe they just don't care.

To suggest that it's tourists or wind farms is very disengenous.

Theyve lots of windmills in the Netherlands and it doesnt seem to have done their tourist industries any harm.

Maybe communities who object to windfarms should have their electricity supply withdrawn.

32yg

Set up some but don't ruin the whole landscape!

Mike 1972

When the National grid in the UK (possibly Ireland too) was being built there were lots of complaints about those ugly pylons and poles ruining the landscape.

wonderfulname

EverEvolving wrote: »

We could aim to build the worlds biggest wind farm and use that as a tourist attraction, if people visit the arigna mines then I don't see why they wouldn't be interested in wind farms which are much more aesthetically pleasing.

This is not actually something we could possibly do, we don't have the funds or the land to contest with the vast areas of land the UK alone have put aside for offshore windfarms, in comparison to countries that are actually taking renewables seriously we're hobbyists.

orourkeda

gsxr1 wrote: »

Im guessing the most of the east coast will vote Yes. Most having never ever seen the beauty of the west of Ireland.

Yeah. To hell or to connacht still has some resonance.

whoopdedoo

screw nuclear

thorium ftw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

WoollyRedHat

What about wave power?

Mike 1972

whoopdedoo wrote: »

screw nuclear

thorium ftw

Is thorium not just another form of nuclear

Somnus

wonderfulname wrote: »

To be honest the only real option is nuclear, but that has such a bad (and quite frankly undeserved) reputation that we won't see it happening for a long time yet.

+1

Nuclear for the win. Cheap, clean energy. The only thing holding it back in some countries, like Ireland, is peoples fear even though it's very safe

Capt'n Midnight

whoopdedoo wrote: »

screw nuclear

thorium ftw

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

it's like fusion , until someone builds a safe economical system you can ignore it.

the theory is nice less than 1% of the waste produced by normal reactors and even less if you burn up as much as the really nasty stuff as you can


at present orbiting solar power stations are probably more feasible
you could get 1000 tonnes into LEO for about €2 billion with Sea Dragon
(ok 500 tonnes of that is aluminim tankage but it could be reused for structure) a low tech version would just use mirrors to provide light and warmth in winter and save some power that way , maybe use infra red mirrors so people don't complain about the brightness

epgc3fyqirnbsx

I really need to educate myself on wind and wave energy, you hear so many arguments for and against and regarding their productivity etc, but so many of the arguments are clearly agenda driven

So for this reason I haven't voted until I familiarise myself with some non biased fatcs

Mike 1972

Capt'n Midnight wrote: »

a low tech version would just use mirrors to provide light and warmth in winter and save some power that way

Given our limited understanding of the complexities of how the many factors influencing the worlds climate interact and produce unforeseen results its something id be reluctant to monkey around with (much) further regardless of how noble the intentions.

wonderfulname wrote: »

This is not actually something we could possibly do, we don't have the funds or the land to contest with the vast areas of land .

Land area is not the biggest factor in determining the suitablity of a region for large scale wind energy. Our (windy) climate, hilly landscape and low population density are a lot more relevent.

Potential-Monke wrote: »

Install dynamo exercise bikes an incinerator in the Joy and make the criminals produce the energy as a punishment for breaking the law.

FYP !
Look if youre going to hijack another AH thread for more populist rabble rabble O/T horseshyte do it properly FFS

Capt'n Midnight

Mike 1972 wrote: »

Given our limited understanding of the complexities of how the many factors influencing the worlds climate interact and produce unforeseen results its something id be reluctant to monkey around with (much) further regardless of how noble the intentions.

we are already monkeying around with the climate

For the Nitrogen and Phosphoros cycles and global erosion humans are already a bigger factor than nature

Laisurg

I couldn't give a ****e about how rural Ireland and the farms look and now is certainly not a time to be thinking about it since we're all broke anyway and we have gobshítes in the dail yet again :P

To be honest i never liked it in the first place. And i actually think the windmills look pretty cool.

Capt'n Midnight

Dr.Poca wrote: »

+1

Nuclear for the win. Cheap, clean energy. The only thing holding it back in some countries, like Ireland, is peoples fear even though it's very safe

Nuclear can be cheap or clean
no one has managed both yet.

25 years on no one is allowed to live within 30km of the Chernobyl plant, and wasn't the first exclusion area


while a nuclear accident is unlikely it would significantly affect our tourist industry

Latchy

I was surprised to read an article yesterday saying that the French or the EU plan to build wind farms of the Normandy coast where the D-Day landings took place

Blisterman

Very little of the Irish landscape could really be considered "natural". Wind farms aren't any more damaging to the landscape than hedges or fields.

wonderfulname

Mike 1972 wrote: »

Land area is not the biggest factor in determining the suitablity of a region for large scale wind energy. Our (windy) climate, hilly landscape and low population density are a lot more relevent.

You should take a look at our wind maps, they're actually not as amazing as are made out, but just to point out the UK is looking at 18GW from offshore alone by 2020 whereas our government is pledging about 5 across the board, which from my research isn't actually possible, ironically mainly due to politics.