some information from a friend of mine who works at a power station, mostly it's what the guy said at the meeting but condensed and easier :p i basically asked him if he could give me any info on them this was his email response.

I can give you many, many reasons why it’s pointless and a waste of money BUT before I can do that I need to explain the situation. The government, greens and newspapers wants to see green energy. The People, apparently, want green energy. So it has to be put into practise. Windmills aren’t profitable; they only produce 2 MW (or so) per turbine and only do that 30% of the time. As an investment they’re obviously shit. So the government to keep the newspapers (and therefore the people) happy has said to power companies, we will give you subsidies for these projects to make them profitable. The companies (including British Energy) have gone, oh my god free money for putting up a windmill???. So that’s the background. We have the problem that the UK is small and the windmills need to go somewhere, hence they are going to go up in your neighbour’s back garden.

As for some reasons not to build them: they only run 30% of the time (known as unit capability factor), they don’t make anywhere near the amount of energy needed and lastly windmills cannot produce more than 10% of the country’s electricity as the wind isn’t constant enough (the grid doesn’t like bouncing loads). To put it in perspective, Dungeness B Power Station makes 1100 MW or 550 windmills worth and it does it 90% of the time.

As for weirdness, depleted uranium is used to fill the ends of the rotors, they chop up birds AND they aren’t qualified for anywhere near the level of a nuclear power station. If we had one of those rotor’s spinning at nearly the speed of sound shoot off like one did in Holland and landed on someone’s house, well you do the maths.

Hi,

I have been obviously concerned by the announcement of this development and decided that the best way to make an informed decision was to roll back the years to my university days and remember how to do a bit of old fashioned research.

After a fair few hours spent at my computer (ok not that old fashioned)I have to be honest I still am undecided on my feelings towards this development, with arguments for and against.

How ever after reading the above letter I have to be honest I was amused, it is twaddle like this which makes me think that maybe much of the antiwind press we read is sensationalised and only losely based on any real facts by NIMBY'S.

I have some querrys relating to the above letter, by implying that your friend works at a power station it suggests that he obviously has some technical knowledge and yet he constantly refers to 'wind mills' and yet in all technical information I have come across they are 'Wind turbines'!

He also mentions that they only run 30% of the time and this is unit capability factor, well from the documentation that is readily available from various web sites (turbine manafactures seem fairly good) what he is trying to talk about is 30% load factor which is the conversion of the winds potential energy into electricity, not how often they turn.

And as for the statement that they use Uranium in the rotor baldes it is just ludicrus, and not a single one would have ever recieved planning permission if this was the case.

Now I know that I sound as if I am coming down heavily on the pro side but that is not what I intended, my research will continue until I have decided but information like that presented above really serves no one and will increase the support of the developers whose information is much more informed!

I dont know what all this fuss is about a little bit of uranium, after all the blades need to glow a bit to so the aircraft dont hit them. After all how are they supposed to get rid of the spent nuclear waste without anyone knowing.

Daily news comes in about the failure of these generators. Last week in Texas, USA< there was a near total power failure due to a high pressure system over the state. Electricity was diverted away from industrial users for 90 mins because of the lack of generating capacity. This is OK if you don't rely on 24/7 availability, but any industrial process that needs this would run up horendous costs reviving a process that needs this power. Texas generates about half its electricity by wind but has no redundancy so no back up.

The world leaders in wind power, Denmark, have abandonned plans of extending their wind farms because power is cheaper from EDF in France. EDF is 82% nuclear.

The British Wind Power Association has a wind generator on its premises in N London and this has been checked by an independant scientific body and was found to be 8% efficient, ie. for 92% of the time it was stationary.

I've watched the development of this story with interest from afar. I run a locally based aviation consultancy, which does a lot of work on the impact of windfarms on airports, RAF bases etc (for airports and energy companies). Generally the story, and letters published in the press, are typical of the NIMBY attitude I see all over the country (although it's worth noting that the opponents tend to be a very vocal minority).

There are two areas that interest me with respect to Baumber:

1. Enertrag have a well earned reputation for taking a fairly agressive non-consultative approach to windfarm development.

2. This site will almost certainly be in full view of the radar at RAF Coningsby. If this is the case, then everyone is wasting their time, it will be killed as the RAF never back down over sites so close to their main bases (I should know I've wasted many hours discussing it).

Hi Oakworth

Thanks for your comments re the RAF...

Please let me correct you on your statement re small vocal minority.,.. we have been up and running for about 3 weeks, in that time we have receive overwhelming support from the main villages affected, i.e Baumber, Wispington, ( at the last countt 100%) ,Minting approx 90%.

We had a meeting in Baumber Village Hall in January ,where the speaker was Mr Keith Eddington who has, '(rough quote) 'a wide range of experience in the energy generating industry including wind farms over many years' . When asked the direct question ; would he live within 700 metres ( quoted approx distance by Enertrag) ,of a wind turbine ? he said 'NO.'...

If working hard to save my local environment means Im a nimby, then I will gladly wear the badge ... Do you have any convictions & things you hold dear ? I hope so...

BTW If the RAF say No, then thats fine by me....

Regards Melvin

My comment on minority did not refer to Baumber, nor did I refer to you as a NIMBY (that relates to the uniformed comments the Horncastle News insists on publishing). The point of my post was simply to highlight that to date the published argument has missed the obvious reason why this windfarm should be opposed (an unacceptable impact on the safe operation of aircraft from RAF Coningsby and possibly Waddington).

My folks live on the Norfolk coast, overlooking the huge off-shore wind-farm on Scroby Sands. Apart from being an unsightly blot on a beach resort vista, I am constantly surprised at how often they are idle. I recall one bitterly cold winter's day last year when, with no wind, not a single turbine was turning. Conversely, with the strong gale force winds we've had of late, they cannot be used because of the risk of damage in high winds.

It's time the wind farm fanatics woke up to reality, turbines are an expensive con!

By the way, if carbon capture is the way ahead, where we would bury it deep underground (in exhausted N Sea oil wells, for instance) what is the difference between that and burying nuclear waste underground? Both would be disastrous if there were a major leak, but I cannot see why one is acceptable and the other is not. Modern nuclear stations produce very little significant waste (most of what we currently store comes from military programmes, weapons, etc). Most of the "green" lobby seem perfectly content to use the nuclear-generated electricity sold to us by France.

Wind farms are an ugly and inefficient blot on the lanscape. Nuclear is the answer!

Ramjet,you take this weeks best blog award!! keep em coming mate! Greg

Just a few figures for you folks to use elsewhere:

It would take 13,000 wind turbines operating at 100% capacity 24 hours a day to match the output of a single 555-megawatt natural gas fired power plant. They usually operate at about 30%, so it would take 43,333 in reality. It would take all the wind turbines in the USA at 100% capacity to match just six coal fired power plants. In fact, it would take a wind farm the size of Greater Manchester to make just the amount of electricity wasted by the National Grid.

“E.ON Netz – one of the world’s largest private energy providers – owns over 40% of Germany’s wind generating capacity. They released a report titled "WIND REPORT 2004" stating that wind energy requires "shadow stations" of traditional energy on back-up reserve in case the wind forecast is wrong. They state that reserve capacity needs to be 60% to 80% of the total wind capacity! So as more wind comes on line, it is all but certain that more hydrocarbon reserve capacity will be required, further demonstrating how renewable energy is used to supplement over-consumption. “

So we may as well just build the fossil fuel power stations—as Denmark has found to its cost, wind farms produce almost no power.

Furthermore, windfarms are not carbon neutral, and use more carbon in production, installation, and maintenance, than they save when in use, since they have to be replaced every twenty years.

As for Ramjet's comments on nuclear power, uranium is actually going to be in very short supply soon. If consumption increases by just 3% supplies will be exhausted by 2015. Even if uranium deposits are twice as large as we currently know, they would only last until 2042. It would take 10,000 of the largest nuclear power plants to produce the energy we get from fossil fuels. At £6-10 billion a plant, not taking into account waste and decommisioning, it's not the viable alternative I once hoped for.

For more info, I suggest you check out this site. You can skip to slide 28 for power production.

sorry...2025 not 2015. Slip of the keys.

Wow. So global warming is humbug! Amazing, have you told the government, they may not have spotted your atheist website with it's uncoroborated statements of fact.

Samizdat must take the prize for creative accountancy.

All power stations have a load factor and, according to the Digest of UK Energy Statistics, in 2006 generating plants had a load factor of 52.8%. This compares with about 30% for wind turbines. Therefore, to replace 100Mw of conventional generating capacity with wind would require wind farm capacity of 100x52.8/30 = 176Mw or 88 x 2Mw turbines or 11 Baumber sized wind farms.

I think the fact that you all rely on the electricity shows that you DO need some form of power generation in baumber. If not wind, then what? Dam some rivers? Nuclear plants dotting your beautiful area? Coal-fired power, so you breathe in ash and soot? If you were suggesting a real alternative, perhaps I would listen, but while you are just complaining as an excuse to get your name on a website and so you look like you care, forget it.

I think the fact that you all rely on the electricity shows that you DO need some form of power generation in baumber. If not wind, then what? Dam some rivers? Nuclear plants dotting your beautiful area? Coal-fired power, so you breathe in ash and soot? If you were suggesting a real alternative, perhaps I would listen, but while you are just complaining as an excuse to get your name on a website and so you look like you care, forget it.

--- Angry Local(guest) 

through out history this sort of person has run a mock. hitler and the jews, stalin and most of russia, george w bush and most of the world.

whilst in this case it's not acceptable, lets unite and wipe out the people that seem to think that this website is a site for random posting to get their names on the internet, well my name is squirrel nutkins, want a fight about it?

but you get the idea all those that pretend to care probably don't actually care the slightest thing about what happens in a back planet world such as baumber, i.e gordon brown and his group of friends who'd rather wipe his arse than disagree with him until 3 years is up, upon whence he WILL be removed for being the biggest scum bag this side of the atlantic

I think the fact that you all rely on the electricity shows that you DO need some form of power generation in baumber. If not wind, then what? Dam some rivers? Nuclear plants dotting your beautiful area? Coal-fired power, so you breathe in ash and soot? If you were suggesting a real alternative, perhaps I would listen, but while you are just complaining as an excuse to get your name on a website and so you look like you care, forget it.

--- Angry Local(guest) 

through out history this sort of person has run a mock. hitler and the jews, stalin and most of russia, george w bush and most of the world.

whilst in this case it's not acceptable, lets unite and wipe out the people that seem to think that this website is a site for random posting to get their names on the internet, well my name is squirrel nutkins, want a fight about it?

but you get the idea all those that pretend to care probably don't actually care the slightest thing about what happens in a back planet world such as baumber, i.e gordon brown and his group of friends who'd rather wipe his arse than disagree with him until 3 years is up, upon whence he WILL be removed for being the biggest scum bag this side of the atlantic

--- gordon green(guest) 

sorry my name isn't gordon green...aber ess ist squirrel nutkins

YES TO WINDFARMS

If more power is needed, nuclear or coal is the way to go -- a modern coal plant is clean of nitrogen, sulfur, and mercury compounds; CO2 is completely harmless. With fuel reprocessing, a la France, two generations of waste fuel from an entire household would fit in a beer can.

The purpose of wind turbines is to generate tax breaks and subsidies for financiers in London and New York; it doesn't matter that they produce no useful power and blight the lives and landscapes of rural folk. The only "green" in wind power is money and the only "power" in it is money. And this catastrophe is coming soon to a place near you; Missouri or Ontario or Baumer or Wales or Sardinia or Hungary or ...

And the modus operandi is always the same: come in to a small town, lie about how wonderful wind plants are, if the locals object, buy off the county or provincial politicians -- the same ones who conveniently made you exempt from the normal environmental regulations -- to override local authority. Always the same. God bless you and best of luck.

Would just like to say how enertrag are now looking into and impact evaluation of the area.

I find it rather funny as my dissertation is on the same topic with Baumber wind farm along with all the existing wind farms in Lincolnshire.

If any of you would like any information on my dissertation please dont hesitate to ask

Regarding other developments in Lincolnshire. It might be regarded as alarming, that the nearby development by Ecotricity of 28 Industrial Turbines, at Heckington Fen, has been applied for, without an EIA (Environmental Impact Assesment) With local residents largly in the dark, as to Ecotricities intentions. And outside of the control ok NKDC, who are now it seems acting as a consultee, only. The application, it seems, is for the attention of the Secratary of State for the Environment?!!

It might be, that this matter is no longer about Wind Turbines. But actualy about Democracy itself?