Wind turbines/wind farms. Your thoughts on them.

[Len Brennan]

What seems mad to me is that we dump millions of tonnes of flammable rubbish in landfills every year, surely we should be burning it in power stations?

[twistedhicap]

and lots of rapeseed too

[twistedhicap]

ah incinerators that provide power and heat would be good for distric heating too !

 

 

and more recycling then least we would be on the right track and wasting of food just cause its not looking like the perfect potato/ fruit etc there natural they grow weirdly but taste the same !

[Taupotreeman]

Some chap worked out how to incinerate all the rubbish we discard, with zero or very minimal emissions, and use the enrgy produced to create electricity and heating. He needed a grant to get the whole idea going. Nobody was ineterested and the incinerator never got off the ground. The chance to kill two birds with one stone and again,lazy beurocrats couldn't be bothered. And geothermal energy production isn't always that well excepted by the public. There's a few around Taupo and one of the newest is so loud it just about pops your eardrums. Granted though, massive steam jets and clouds are a better sight than a hillside full of turnbines. I had to help with clearing trees for the power line to a new site in N. Wales back in the 90's. We had to fell a huge and very mature Oak in the middle of a paddock. The only tree around and plenty of room either side to put the conductors and the planners couldn't move them a few metres either way to save the Oak.

[TimberCutterDartmoor]

What seems mad to me is that we dump millions of tonnes of flammable rubbish in landfills every year, surely we should be burning it in power stations?

 

Sort of. Spent years in the municipal and clinical waste incineration business (part of working for a waste-to-energy co concerned with mines, sewer and landfill gas and incineration). Energy recovery from incineration is good but boy do you get the locals up in arms about incinerators - they hear one little fear story and you have the CATS club - that's council against toxic substances having fits about dioxins. But the capitalisation on landfill gas in the UK is hardly known yet well established; we used to generate circa 150mWe from LFG so landfilled waste doesn't just sit there. In fact, 1m3 of compacted putrescible landfill waste once buried produces 1m3 of LFG per hour for upto 15 years approx. Masses of LFG is then sucked from the tip into the generation compound where a number of Jenbacher, Caterpillar or Cummins low btu gensets sit typically producing 1 mWh each. A 1mWe genset running on 50% CH4 LFG consumes circa 650m3/hr of LFG.

 

Some chap worked out how to incinerate all the rubbish we discard, with zero or very minimal emissions.

 

That'll be Plasma-Arc Incineration; fantastic system that burns at over 10,000 centigrade and practically vapourises the stuff into elemental gas and solids. The syngas produced is the source of the power. Marvellous system, a few dotted around the globe and would love to see more.

[Taupotreeman]

Timbercutter; that sounds like the one. It was here in NZ and he had the plans drawn up to put a facility just out of Auckland I think but couldn't raise the funds. Talk about short sighted. There were murmerings the idea was being discussed again but as per usualy, nothing happened.

[roseyweb]

We have them near us, I think there quite pretty really,

[WoodED]

thats right blame the farmers!:sneaky2:as i said before , we should be growing energy!! either willow coppice or ethernol plants it gives the option of turning the land back into food production as well .

 

yhh i agree, willow coppice is a carbon netural soarce of energy

[Taupotreeman]

Just been watching the news here and it looks like NZ is trialling a world first tidal turbine. Anybody interested can look it up on crestenergy.com.

[Treewolf]

My view, for what it's worth (probably not much) is that wind farms are utterly pointless. They are a symptom of the human race's denial of the inevitable - that the earth cannot sustain an ever-growing human population of destructive, resource-consuming parasites. We obsess over issues like hybrid cars and renewable energy, but unless we can address the bigger issues of global population etc then the human race is ultimately doomed. Since we can't even achieve world peace, what hope is there for global agreement on anything.

 

Ulitmately I think that the human race is incapable of self regulation and survival. The good news for the "save the planet" brigade is that the planet will be completely fine long after we have either wiped ourselves out, or nature has done it for us! It will be different, but probably better without us.

 

For the avoidance of doubt, I don't suggest that the things we do to be "green" now are pointless, I just think that they are not enough. To ensure the survival of the human race indefinitely we need to do so much more, and address issues that are so huge we are simply not capable of even discussing them rationally now. When did you last hear a politician talk about population control? What woudl be the pulic reaction if one did?

 

That's cheered you all up!