Tuesday 5 February 2013

Let The North Wind Blow




Originally three wind turbines were erected just north of the beautiful East Neuk of Fife village of Crail.

Now there are two left standing and both have bent blades.  The third is flat on the ground.

Mike Scott-Hayward saw the destruction on his way past the site on Saturday.

I'm assuming the damage was done by recent high winds and that the turbines are on agricultural land, because most applications with Fife Council show farming land as sites.  Having done a quick scan of wind turbine applications around Crail, the only one I could find was for a Lochton Farm which applied to erect 3 turbines in 2010.

There seems to be problems with turbines in this area and I know the east coast is definitely windy most of the time.  One of Mike's Facebook friends commented:

'The farmer opposite has a turbine and since it was erected which is less than a year ago, the developers have been back and forth like yo-yos sorting out problems and it's been on and off like the wind, A neighbour who is friends with the farmer said the latest problem was the pole cracked due to high winds!!'

Who will pay the bill for the repair of those turbines or will, in the long term, it come from the extra utilities tax we pay?  Quite possibly.


20 comments:

JRB said...

On seeing the subject of your topic for today, and out of idle curiosity, I Googled (other search engines are available) ‘wind turbines damaged by high winds’. . .

The search results were an astonishing revelation.

Throughout the UK there have been numerous cases where wind turbines have experienced catastrophic failure due to high winds.
The numbers involved are such as to represent a significant failure rate in terms of technical production, electrical power generation capacity and loss of asset value amongst turbines operating within the UK.

It is surprising just how little of this information is released by politicians, turbine manufacturers or generating companies. Makes one wonder why.

Unknown said...

It will be like California soon where they have 10,000 windmills in the same state. The land can never be recovered properly. Millions of tons of concrete for the bases that will always be there. And important peatlands etc dug up and dumped somewhere.
Can I borrow the pics ?

pa_broon74 said...

Can I temper your post with the news that the Sellafield clean up cost has reached £67.5 billion, (according to a BBC report.)

I'd rather be paying for a wind turbine being put back up than a nuclear power station being decommissioned. (I know you're probably not a fan of nuclear power generation either, but it never seems to get mentioned: renewable generation subsidy = bad. Nuclear power generation = not really mentioned. And I suppose, fossil fuel subsidy = Not mentioned either.)

Given that all methods of power generation seem to need some amount of subsidy...

Unknown said...

Back to basics...

http://theveiledsun.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/folly-builders-to-go-back-to-basics.html

dognamedblue said...

there's quite a good article from a "high brow" science site on the negatives of these wind farms, will try & dig it out of twitter
basically, & this applies to "wind farms", they are like damming a river, which changes its course & flow, & studies are showing how these farms are having the same effect on the atmosphere & weather
don't get me wrong there are many modern technologies that we should be using to generate green energy, but not these wind farms.
never seen my leccy bill go down once, only profits, in the millions, for those that do these farms, pure greed
now what ever home needs is their own power generator, might cost millions, but I think it would be a lot cheaper than these wind farms - ever see those speed signs with the little fan on top? frowny face if you go to fast? smiley face if you go to slow?
I live in scotland & it's raining for about 300 days a year so solar isn't the solution but one of these on every roof? I don't think they'd have a negative effect on the atmosphere or weather

has the weather really been changing? didn't dr foster go to glouster in a shower of rain & step in a puddle? long before the internal combustion engine created "man made" global warming?
climate's been changing for 4 billion years, still be changing long after we've gone, long after we've stopped raping the planet

pa_broon74 said...

Not a believer in man made global warming per se, but the notion that wind farms are some how damming the wind is hilarious.

There'll be erports out next saying the earth's rotation is being slowed down/sped up due to wind farms.

I have no idea if wind generation is viable, I'm happy to have my mind changed to be honest (although I like the look of them.) But the notion that wind patterns are affected by wind farms to my mind is the same as saying climate change is caused by cars.



Unknown said...

pa..they do make forecasting the weather more difficult..

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/renewableenergy/9822836/Wind-turbines-could-interfere-with-weather-forecasts.html

The met office who push the global warming scam that encourages billions of pounds to be wasted on 'low carbon' wind farms are now saying that the windfarms are upsetting their forecasts of global warming.
Couldn't make it up.

Especially when the same met office admit that there's been no warming for 20 years. Despite an increase in CO2...

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/paulhudson/2013/01/met-office-scale-back-global-w.shtml

I'm at a loss to think why they keep ignoring the lack of warming and continue building useless windmills. (sarc....money ! )

Demetrius said...

Three turbines in Fife? Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble.

JimS said...

Pa_broon:

You make a direct comparison between wind turbines and nuclear power stations, unfortunately there is a considerable difference in the relative outputs.


This 'XKCD' graphic
makes an interesting comparison between the energy densities of fossil fuels and nuclear. Industrial development has progressed because of the use of ever higher energy density fuels.

So what about wind power? Well if the wall chart within the graphic was 1,000 miles high then the coal 'bar' would be 45 miles high and wind? A mere 1.9 inches I'm afraid.

Hamish said...

In the interests of balance, on-shore wind turbines have been producing record amounts of electricity in recent weeks.

subrosa said...

Ah JRB, I was hoping you'd read the comments in Mr Scott-Hayward's Facebook. They too tell of some horrendous problems.

The media and politicians don't want us to know. Hence the silence.

subrosa said...

Of course you can borrow the pics Monty. I borrowed them myself. :)

subrosa said...

Ah but, pa_broon, therein lies the rub. We were told that subsidies for renewables would be much less than nuclear and renewables would create far more jobs.

subrosa said...

Many thanks for the link Monty.

subrosa said...

dognamedblue, please do give us a link.

subrosa said...

Now now pa_broon, who taught you physics? Of course any solid obstacle will block airflow.

subrosa said...

Oh there are plenty more doted around Fife Demetrius. Most are on farm land. Of course I'm not suggesting farmers are keen on the subsidies - not for a minute.

subrosa said...

Well tonight they're producing nothing here Hamish because they're closed down. The winds are too high.

Anyway, they don't have to produce much to break their records do they??

Jon Jermey said...

"Who will pay the bill for the repair of those turbines..."

SILLY question!

subrosa said...

You're right Jon, it is.

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