Friday
Feb112011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Parliament debates wind farms
Feb 11, 2011 Climate: Parliament Energy There was a Westminster Hall debate on wind farms yesterday. Westminster Hall debates are often sparsely attended affairs, but yesterday's occasion appears to have been rather different, with what the speaker called "an extraordinary number" of honourable members wanting to speak.
Those attending appear overwhelmingly to have been from the government side of the house, with apparently only two opposition members showing their faces. I haven't read the whole transcript, but most people seem to have had little good to say about Labour's great blight on the British landscape.
Reader Comments (57)
Part of the summation by Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire, Conservative) literally speaks volumes.
'Another important point to make is that nobody in Westminster Hall today is speaking out loudly in favour of there being more onshore wind in the energy mix. There is a very important issue here, which is that we already have 3,000 wind turbines in this country and 6,500 more are either under construction or in planning. That is an enormous number of new turbines and any new legislation that we introduce at this point is likely to come too late to deal with them. We could have three times the current number of onshore wind turbines before people can start to benefit from changes in legislation that might say, in fact, that their area was not appropriate for a particular number of turbines or that the turbines could not be put in a particular location. Those are important points to remember.'
Don Pablo, Phillip Bratby
Another literary reference:
"Far away, spiked, jagged and indented by the wind vanes, the Surrey Hills rose blue and faint; to the north and nearer, the sharp contours of Highgate and Muswell Hill were similarly jagged. And all over the countryside, he knew, on every crest and hill, where once the hedges had interlaced, and cottages, churches, inns, and farmhouses had nestled among their trees, wind wheels similar to those he saw and bearing like vast advertisements, gaunt and distinctive symbols of the new age, cast their whirling shadows ..."
H. G. Wells The Sleeper Awakes
Rick Bradford writes:
"The windmills are our version of the mo'ai of Easter Island -- huge useless structures erected at vast cost in both human and environmental terms in the attempt to placate the gods of a mythic religion."
Indeed.
I have wondered myself about the eventual fate of these enormous wind turbines - what if they really are a tremendously bad idea? (Partial sarc intended). Then one day, when the fashion of AGW wears off, or money runs scarce, what will become of these behemoths? Are bonds in place for decommissioning? I know in Texas there has been a problem with well operators simply abandoning old wells and bankrupting the company; and this is being put to stop by new regulations requiring the well-operators to post a bond before drilling to pay for eventual decommission.
Just a thought.
Here's more food for thought about the costs and unintended consequences of wind energy:
http://www.abcbirds.org/newsandreports/releases/110202.html
My suspicion as to the final plan for the windmills is that when sufficient have been constructed they will be powered up by the remaining coal plants, and with a bit of a shove the sceptred Isles will break free thence to sail to southern climes where it is warm and we can eat coconuts and talk about the weather with bare breasted maidens in grass skirts. Simple! Carbon dioxide reduction goals will be easily met and all will marvel at the intellect and probity of the marxist revolutionaries and fellow travellers who have brought us to this place.
Says Prof Mackay; "To make any impact on the national energy equation renewable energy capture installations need to be of 'country size' ". Meaning no square meters of Scotland or Wales and only a few square kilometers of England shall be without installed turbines.
Unless, of course, someone decrees we shall use less.
Also, in order to counter the media success wind power has enjoyed the direct relation between that 'success' and our personal, and our increasing, electricity bills must be condensed into similarly attractive sound bites and similarly attractive cosy green images.
Phillip Bratby
Re Gulliver's Travels, I'm sure you've read this, but just in case not,
No, I have missed this version. Thank you.
Charles Hendry (Minister of State (Renewable Energy), Energy and Climate Change; Wealden, Conservative)
Complete logical fallacy. It doesn't matter if we have more wind than anybody else, if the basic economics simply don't work anywhere.
Just because mine is bigger than yours doesn't mean it's necessarily big enough to do the job, but this is the typical mouth-breathing level of cogitation in the EU (British Office).
Nothing will change until supporting madcap CAGW schemes becomes a political liability. I see that day as inevitably edging closer, but still not very close.