England's huge Wind Farm

[Niri Te]

I read this story this morning, and hope that this now starts to wean England off coal. Comments Alan?? Niri Te
World

[Marvellous Chester]

Sadly not

Our supposedly 'conservative' government has made it much easier for new open cast coal mines to open up and there are plans for more of them in the coming years. Coal seems to be returning *spit*

Just when I thought we were starting to make progress in this country.

[Niri Te]

That's too bad ma oeya tsmuk. We have possibility of a SERIOUS REGRESSION here in the States, if Romney get's elected. He has vowed "in the name of Jobs" (sounds like the Labor Party, doesn't it?), to open up coal mining, fracking, and DECIMATING the EPA if he gets elected. If he gets elected, and he tries that, I SINCERELY HOPE that the entire intelligent Global Community BOYCOTTS ANYTHING that this Country makes. Those company's won't have the money to open up new coal mines then.
Niri Te

[Exoblade]

For a moment I though you where talking about Wadlow Wind farm near cambridge.

Wind power has arrived in South Cambridgeshire | Dry Drayton Green Group

[Marvellous Chester]

Originally Posted by Niri Te

That's too bad ma oeya tsmuk. We have possibility of a SERIOUS REGRESSION here in the States, if Romney get's elected. He has vowed "in the name of Jobs" (sounds like the Labor Party, doesn't it?), to open up coal mining, fracking, and DECIMATING the EPA if he gets elected. If he gets elected, and he tries that, I SINCERELY HOPE that the entire intelligent Global Community BOYCOTTS ANYTHING that this Country makes. Those company's won't have the money to open up new coal mines then.
Niri Te

Romney is a real slimeball. Unfortunately, I doubt anybody will boycott anything, nobody is planning to in this country. The mines will be opened and we'll just have to hope anybody who uses coal pays the price when they inhale it.

Atleast over here, companies are being forced to return the land to the way it was when they are done mining, but in the meantime, we have massive scars on the hills and fewer spots for our beasties to hang out. If enough people cared we could have them U-turn like they did with the forest sell-off but I don't think it'll happen.

[txen]

I've come to the conclusion that just about every bit of coal, oil, and gas will be burned. Solar, wind, hydro, etc may slow the rate, but burn it will.

[Human No More]

Originally Posted by The Silver Stag

Sadly not

Our supposedly 'conservative' government has made it much easier for new open cast coal mines to open up and there are plans for more of them in the coming years. Coal seems to be returning *spit*

Just when I thought we were starting to make progress in this country.

Blame every single UK government since the 70s. None of them have anything resembling sensible policy.

There needs to be backup - windmills not only don't work when it's calm, but have to be shut down when it's too windy, creating massive supply/demand imbalances. As it is, they feed energy into grid while operating a a loss, while the owners' profit is purely funded by subsidies.

To be completely fair, offshore is a better place to put them, both from an environmental point of view but also since there will be less time when they aren't operating, but it's still a long way from viability on a scale needed to support an entire population. +30% capacity is still only 1% of demand or so.

By all means, wind is a semi-viable method of energy production, but for it to become more viable, population needs to be significantly reduced and/or storage methods developed that are orders of magnitude cheaper and more efficient. Dinorwig cost £425m in the 70s, and only has a maximum capacity of 1.6GW - while it can provide power for up to 6 hours, it takes significantly longer to refill once empty and is only ~66% efficient.

Wind is somewhat viable, but really requires a global power grid to take advantage of varying conditions, as well as ideally a far smaller population.