Whaaattt?

I think the biggest p

roblem with wind power is that the owners of the wind farms are guaranteed income, so, too windy they turn them off, we pay, overproduction, we pay, they build them and then watch the money roll in regardless of if we need the energy or not.

While all the time keeping gas power stations on line for when the wind doesn't blow.

I think hydro power would be fairly restricted here as we only have the right kind geography in certain places.

 

Plus, the wind turbines don't have a very long lifespan and the defunct ones aren't recycled.

 

The generators and gear boxes are recyclable, copper, rare earths (magnets), if towers are steel that can be recycled.
The blades are trickier but recycling of these is being worked on.
Lifespan is 20 to 30 years longer than most cars, phones, computers etc and I'll be gone before then.

 

Wales and Scotland have a number of pumped storage hydro schemes, some are being enlarged.
Batteries yes you can have large battery systems for storing surplus energy, however all the various chemistries would have difficulty getting planning permission, the Nimbies would be very vocal even if it was proven to be a safe design.
Then there are ideas like compressing gas into underground storage systems and releasing through a turbine generator system, you can also liquefy air and then evaporate through a turbine generator, a massive flywheel spinning very rapidly has been suggested. Even if you can get planning permission none of these are overnight solutions

 

I was reading an article recently about the blades currently going to landfill and some of the towers being left as they are too costly to remove. Hopefully things will progress on this front so they are not only "green" whilst in use.

 

We need to stop wasting all the energy required to store every single word we write electronically.
Some is obviously useful particularly when it can be uncovered whe criminal behaviour is involved but what someone ate for dinner, took a trip to the shops, planted a rose, etc. - stuff like that surely doesn't need to be floating about for all time. I suppose you could say it would be a "historical" record but I doubt whether future generations are going to find that kind of information exactly rivetting
On a slightly different note, I heard something on the radio this morning which suggests that the number pf people who read a book ( hard copy or otherwise ) is reducing at a greater rate than ever before.

 

When I was on the farm the manager went down the road to a farm that was going over to solar panels.
They told him the land could be returned to agriculture if needed, he was fairly skeptical, he said the amount of concrete going in to support the panels would cost millions to dig out before you could ever consider cultivating the soil again.

 

And concrete is seriously not environmentally friendly, so that has to be weighed against any benefits from the panels. Plus what happens to the equipment at the end of its life? If disposal is not green, that's another minus in the overall equation.

I completely agree re data storage, @Philippa. Using monumental amounts of energy to store every tweet, every spam email, every YouTube video for all eternity is just utter madness.

 

With the concrete pads and the cabling you use those for the next generation of solar panels or wind turbines.

 

French engineers have developed a bladeless wind turbine which is being trialled in Normandy - smaller, lighter and quieter and less dangerous for nearby human residents as well as wildlife, especially birds.

Do solar panels need a big concrete foot? Round here you can get them on new roofing for car parks, factories, agricultural buildings and these last usually just have concrete or metal upright posts and a roof rather like a Dutch barn. Supermarkets here have a requirement to cover a percentage of their car parks with solar panels.

 

I read up on these last year, see Bladeless wind turbines - The latest in wind energy | Repsol and Vortex Bladeless | Innovative Wind Power
They can be made quite small and generate proportionally less power.
These were based on a Spanish idea.

 

Mine are held on the roof with metal straps fixed to the roof timbers.