Wednesday
Oct312012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Lost Horizons
Oct 31, 2012 Energy: wind Ben Pile's new film on windfarms has been released. Colour me very impressed. Phillip Bratby features early on.
Oct 31, 2012 Energy: wind
Reader Comments (76)
The noise problem is real; infrasound resonates in dwellings. You can't hear it but if you sit at a node, your internal organs can be damaged and it can cause death. There needs to be > 1 km spacing.
Look at the topography of the Lake District and the Scottish valleys to be flooded to 700 feet. When used to absorb 7 GW wind surges to stop the grid from being destroyed and to allow a few % CO2 saving instead of zero, the water must be pumped by nuclear so the 30% efficiency loss is CO2 free.
Davey, a past green activist allegedly indoctrinated by eugenicist Porritt, intends to force the most regressive tax ever on the poor. Yet you can save far more CO2 by other approaches, e.g. 10 million fuel cells in homes taking control of the grid back from the Mafia and the increasingly totalitarian EU..
Cumbrian Lad: I had the same thought about 'shorts' being taken from this for the 'yoof' and others - hence my mention of YouTube. I would be surprised if Ben and the others weren't already doing it.
eSmiff: The Nazi theme is interesting if OT. Thanks for the reminder of where Hess touched down. I'm not convinced we know everything about that strange incident to this day. But Churchill was wily enough to outwit the enemies within, that much I do believe.
Oct 31, 2012 at 10:56 PM, Don Keiller said: Just watched some BBC commisar on News at Ten stating that wind power was the cheapest form of
power.
Of course it is. Wind is free! So electricity will be so cheap that it costs too much to meter!
congrats to ben pile and everyone involved. just got around to watching.
when u add radio 4's 'climategate revisited', it's been an extremely pleasant and informative way to spend an hour. bish, u and mcintyre were splendid.
@Agouts
"... but if it can be clearly demonstrated that they don't fulfil their primary purpose, then what are they for?"
They make a lot of reliable money through taxpayer subsidy. That is what they are for, and that is the pressure you have to counter. You will find that if you prove that they don't 'save CO2', then their proponents will argue that they provide 'energy independence', 'multiple sources of supply' or some other justification. They will keep producing different vague justifications so long as the money is there.
People are in business to make money. If the government is sufficiently stupid or corrupt to provide it for no good reason, an astute businessman will jump on the bandwagon and try to stay on as long as possible. They can easily whip up 'useful green idiots' (to use a Russian quote) to support them.
I don't blame the businessmen. They're just doing what comes naturally - tearing apart some food and stuffing it down like a wolf-pack. I blame the politicians who no longer try to govern by principle, and instead are suckered by the first activists who come along...
Rather unfortunate that we have to rely on corrupt EUKIP MEPS to support the argument.
If it seems unusual to see a film featuring the older generation (as Ben's does), that may be because the media we watch has been obsessed with 'yoof' for the past decade or two. It's pretty well known that selling things - from products to lifestyles to dogmas - becomes a far more difficult task when the 'market' is over forty. Most people emerging from their thirties have, more-or-less, settled on their preferences and are wise enough to be immune to media efforts to influence (or manipulate) them... so the media, generally, doesn't bother.
That the BBC has lost interest in catering to this (very large) age group in much of its scheduling and in the quality of its content, underscores the widespread compliant against it.
Messenger:"Look at this map of current and proposed turbines -and weep for our country." Scale! Make the dots twice as big and it will look even worse! Drawn to scale you wont even see most of them.
A very telling point by the UKIP gentleman - about the rise of the 'political class' in this country - who have no technical experience whatsoever, but make decisions based on whichever lobby group shouts the loudest.
We all know who that is, don't we..?
Oct 31, 2012 at 10:56 PM | Don Keiller
"Just watched some BBC commisar on News at Ten stating that wind power was the cheapest form of
power."
It was good old Roger Harabin and he very subtly said that wind turbines were the cheapest form of 'renewable' energy, but leaving the meme, "wind farms-cheap energy" in the minds of viewers.
Dodgy Geezer:
Yes, yes, yes and yes again.100% right. And thus 100% depressing.
Meanwhile, in Ontario Canada...
http://opinion.financialpost.com/2012/10/31/terence-corcoran-mcguintys-dark-secrets-revealed/
This is a beautifully and professionally put together documentary type program. However it has the feel of something like Frank Bough and A Year in Provence, it is relaxed, comfortable and easy on the eye.
The part that Mr Bratby played was very good because it was hard hitting, factual nuts and bolts stuff but much of the program was (as someone already said) a bit NIMBY.
I am for sure a NIMBY myself but it gets you nowhere if you are objecting to something. I agree with every single thing said in the program but I think it concentrated too much on the visual aspect of wind turbines and not enough on the real reasons we all object to them; they cost too much, they do not cut CO2 emissions and they are unreliable.
Bitbucket isn't trying very hard defending his beloved windmills by claiming they're invisible at 9 miles out.
A friend of mine who's pro windmills points out that you can't see them at niight!
Nov 2, 2012 at 4:42 PM | Capell
I'm pretty sure that they will have to be lit by anti-collision lights at night. All the French onshore windmills have anti-collision lights which flash randomly all the time at night. Not very good for astronomers!
The noise issue at Fullabrook wind farm (featured in the video) is covered in The North Devon Journal
I, too, thought this was an excellent video. Phillip Bratby and others sounded very natural and unscripted.
Prior to emigrating to Canada, my family lived in Llanelly for four years (and by the time we left I had actually mastered saying "Llanelly" - and Llanfair p.g.), so it breaks my heart to think that were I to visit the land of (part of) my childhood on the Gower - after more years than I care to count - I may be confronted by the view of this planned obscene assault of wind turbines on a such a beautiful part of the country.
But that aside, I think one could consider the last few days as offering a trifecta of realism: Ben's "Lost Horizons", the Beeb's surprisingly "balanced" (for the most part) "Climategate Revisited" and Steyn/NRO's brilliant takedown of Mann via the full page ad they succeeded in placing on his current home turf.
Methinks we've come a long way in the last three years:-)
Hey, I didn't know the Llanelly part of your history Hilary. Did they teach you rugby? You're right that it's been an extraordinary week for climate realism. I'd add (on the UK front) what David Miliband said about shale gas on BBC's Question Time on Thursday night and the irrepressible John Hayes having a go at wind power and getting away with it, as reported by Quentin Letts in his Commons sketch yesterday. There is blowback too, as Letts wittily puts it, but the overall direction of public opinion and (I think) policy is quite clear.
BitBucket seems to think that 9 miles is a great distance. One of my memories of a holiday spent on Lundy manically bashing rhododendrons, is seeing large sections of the South Wales Coast - over 30 miles away. They are not small turbines. They will be either 180m or 220m height. This compares to 128m for the highest point on Lundy, 158m for the Blackpool Tower, 76m for Jodrell Bank main dish, and 183m height of the Gherkin in London. Furthermore, wind turbines have been known to occasionally rotate, increasing the visibility.
I posted up some comparisons in August after learning of the Atlantic Array whilst holidaying in North Devon.
http://manicbeancounter.com/2012/08/12/stop-the-blighting-of-lundy-north-devon-by-rwes-atlantic-array/
Messenger:"Look at this map of current and proposed turbines -and weep for our country." Scale! Make the dots twice as big and it will look even worse! Drawn to scale you wont even see most of them.
Nov 1, 2012 at 1:32 PM | BitBucket "
Scottish National Heritage's wind map is to scale http://www.snh.gov.uk/docs/A763435.pdf
Richard, back in those days I don't think anyone ever dreamed that girls would/could play rugby (or soccer as it is called on this side of the pond, I believe)! But field-hockey was part of the curriculum at Llanelly Girls' Grammar School, in my day - although I didn't do very well, which may be why I was called off the field one day for "play practice". I was originally cast as a "piglet" in Noah's Ark; however, I protested that this was "unkosher" and was reassigned to the role of "penguin" in this publicly performed play! I don't recall, though, that there were any Polar bears on board;-)
Tsk tsk Hilary, your memory of your childhood days in Wales does not serve you well. Rugby is played with an oval (prolate spheroid) ball that players are allowed to hold and run with, similar to American football (or gridiron, as it is sometimes still called in Australia and the UK). It is widely played, including in France, Italy, Argentina, Eastern Europe, Japan and Canada, but is most popular in the UK/Ireland, South Africa, Australia, NZ and the western Pacific islands. It is very much a contact sport and not for the faint-hearted.
I imagine that this is of little interest to you, particularly in a country where (ice) hockey reigns supreme. Rugby is however a game that reflects a robust and positive attitude towards life, and I imagine that the majority of rugby fans, if asked to think about it, would be climate change skeptics.
Well, thanks a lot, Chris! There goes my sport-commentator cred right down the drain!
Although. considering that my feet are now firmly planted on the field of the climate change skeptic camp, I wonder if (by your speculation) I could be considered a rugby fan by ... uh ... proxy;-)
Hilary, don't worry about the shape of the ball, the story of Noah's Ark made kosher in the valleys is one of the funniest I've ever heard. Despite my studies of Leo Rosten I can't find a Yinglish phrase to do justice to it. Thanks.
Thanks for getting me off that hook, Richard! And (I forgot to mention previously) thanks also for the link to Letts' Sketch. In a similar vein, from this side of the pond, you might enjoy Terence Corcoran's take on (non-) Hurricane Sandy, last week: