Proposed Calderdale Wind Farm

UKBouldering.com

Help Support UKBouldering.com:

Not that i know anything about wind farms or energy production, but when i see the turbines dotted around my parents in SW Cumbria, I’m always in awe of how we can use our natural landscape to produce power. I think there are quite beautiful (though haven’t seen a huge concentration of them except for offshore farms).

If they impacted on someone’s peace, such as hearing them from their house, then i wouldn’t agree with the location. But otherwise i think they are great!
 
You'd need to unpack what exactly you think you mean by saying 'my conscience'.. because that leaves me scratching my head.

More for lower ongoing cost of living (sans salary) than signalling my virtue or saving carbon.

I thought that was a strange statement. I’ve not done a thorough audit of my footprint but I confident it’s below average for the Uk. Appreciate some signalling across the population would be involved driving societal change, but still, strange to me to suggest that’s what it’s about vs living a self-examined life. Simply curbing excesses would count for a lot.
 
James Malloch said:
If they impacted on someone’s peace, such as hearing them from their house, then i wouldn’t agree with the location. But otherwise i think they are great!

All infrastructure that we need for modern society to function impacts on peoples peace. Train lines, motorways, factories, power stations, electricity pylons, water treatment plants, substations...

Its all a question of what impact is acceptable, because infrastructure investment guarantees impact. I imagine you'd be able to hear this proposed wind farm from a very small number of houses up on the moor. Personally not convinced I'd cancel a project for that!
 
petejh said:
Johnny Brown said:
Good effort. The main drive for me limiting my footprint is my conscience. I think if what was happening was more widely understood we'd soon see some big changes. Hopefully the last 12 months is a blip, but it could equally be a new paradigm. If so, we're in deep shit.

It's certainly understood by me. I've been tracking the storms and rainfall and notice the extremes - I noticed how close the UK was in January to catching the 130mph+ hurricane 'Ingunn' that hit Norway and only by chance very narrowly missed us - pretty much unmentioned in the UK media.. it was about 3-4 days after worst of the winter storms that did actually hit us. Would have been devastating, and appears only a matter of time before we get one like that*.

You'd need to unpack what exactly you think you mean by saying 'my conscience'.. because that leaves me scratching my head.


* onshore wind turbines.. :-\

Obviously climate change is a big part but hasn’t the El Niño event in 2023 also been a big driver in temperature rises into 2024 too? I’m assuming that’s what’s causing the water surface temp rises, correct me if I’m wrong though!
 
It's the 'my conscience' bit I was puzzled by. I'm less puzzled now you've said that you believe this:

'Simply curbing excesses would count for a lot'

We don't agree. Firstly the word 'simply' shouldn't appear in the same sentence as 'curbing excesses' when talking about energy use on a scale that's meaningful in global terms. Secondly I don't think they (individual actions) would 'count for a lot'. It needs engineering and top down change* imo. Based on that, I questioned where your 'conscience' comes into it, because using the word conscience implies you believe you can make choices that will make a meaningful difference - and being that I believe you aren't doing anything (because you can't) that will have any meaningful impact whatsoever, conscience doesn't come into it. I'd like to not make my tiny part of the world any worse for future generations (would hope better), but my individual choices around carbon emissions don't factor into that because the scale involved, even scaled up within realistic bounds, is inconsequential to the global issue of carbon emissions.


* for e.g. everyone being made (not politely encouraged) and paid to insulate, put up solar/wind, change to smaller vehicles, pay a realistic carbon tax on manufacturing from China (or anywhere else) so that people in the west are fully aware of the upstream reality of the stuff they buy, etc.
 
It needs both. Ultimately the population is composed only of individuals, the other entities are legal fictions, controlled by individuals. Change must come from them, because it can’t come from anywhere else.

Carlos, there was a massive (I.e. bigger) El Niño in 2015-6. Less than a decade ago. It didn’t put us out of ‘ordinary’ bounds. There has also been a big volcanic eruption, and some changes in shipping emissions. Hopefully they’ve all added up for a freak year. Or we’re entering a powerful feedback loop, the feared tipping point. Another 12 months and we’ll know.
 
Johnny Brown said:
If anyone doesn't know what I'm talking about:

PR_fig4_timeseries_era5_sst_daily_60S-60N_1979-2024.png


We're currently about 4 sigma above the average over the last 40 years.

Although comparing climate and weather is always risky, I doubt it is a coincidence that the last 18 months are the wettest England has ever experienced.

Well that’s a terrifying graph!
 
Genuine question for those who know.

Is onshore wind not a quick and easy fix to electricity production that is also pretty temporary. If we come up with a better way in the future they can be just removed and the land put back to how it was with very little long term damage.

Or is this not true.

I don't mind them and wont ever sign a petition against them, can see the big Middle moor ones from my house. I can live with a bit of visual pollution for the greater good, if the top of stanage was proved to be the best site for them i wouldnt object.
 
gme said:
Genuine question for those who know.

Is onshore wind not a quick and easy fix to electricity production that is also pretty temporary. If we come up with a better way in the future they can be just removed and the land put back to how it was with very little long term damage.

Or is this not true.

100%. The only lasting negative visual impacts are the roads, which can take many years to blend in again, oh, and siting them on deep peat - that should just be banned really! (it's becoming economically unviable anyway as it's such a pain the hoop to build on anyway.

Foundations, buildings, cables, buildings etc. all pretty easily removable and land reinstated. I'm working on various life extension and decommissioning projects at present.

It's nigh on impossible to get planning consent in England, and now the government has gone and put a surcharge on remote sites to pay for the infrastructure (fine) but also to encourage, via pricing signals, more development in the areas where....nimby's block them.

Offshore is clearly easier to digest, but it's most expensive, more dangerous, and quite a bit less carbon-saving (all those ships for survey, install, O&M).

We considering rooftop solar, but instead are looking to get in on the next round with Ripple - there you buy a chunk of the solar/wind farm and get fixed bills forever - without having to faff around with panels, maintenance, installs etc. (we're a block of 3 flats, so it would be complex).
 
Im no expert but broadly speaking yes, I’d agree. The main thing for me is they are proven technology that can be implemented now.

However some of the uplands targeted are among the small percentage of the country that hasn’t been developed before. Some of that is ecologically valuable, can’t simply be restored and I think it’s reasonable to think carefully before whacking them anywhere.

With so much of the country in private ownership, you’re also at the whims of individuals rather than being able to take a broader overview of where might be best. Planning obviously gives some control, but is purely reactive when a proactive approach would be better.
 
Additional thought. What do you think the grandchildren and great grandchildren will be more appreciative of - a nice view, or a functioning renewable energy system and hopefully a functioning ecological system,

If all is well, and the planet doesn't tip into disaster - they can always remove them and reinstate the land. They can then appreciate the nice view.


Pete - your mine analogy is a bit false - you can't reinstate an open pit mine.



And yes, JB, places of true ecological value should be protected.


Oh, and onshore they are can be up to 200m tip height, 250m+ offshore. Commonly 149.9m tip height onshore as it saves a load of hassle with radar etc. as far as I remember (I don't work in development)
 
Fultonius said:
Offshore is clearly easier to digest, but it's most expensive, more dangerous, and quite a bit less carbon-saving (all those ships for survey, install, O&M).
You're the windpower expert so I'm keen to learn.

To me, almost anything that displaces fossil fuels and eventually leads to more carbon being left in the ground seems a good thing so I'm in support of this Calderdale windfarm.

Looking more long term, my impression was that as we get ever higher penetration of renewables into the generation mix it will become ever more important to have generation that keeps working on the least windy days. Floating wind farms in exceptionally windy parts of the sea look to be great for that.https://energynumbers.info/uk-offshore-wind-capacity-factors

I'm totally in agreement with Pete's point about the need for mines. The proposed lithium mine in Serbia (for instance) really needs to go ahead IMO.

About the metallurgical coal mine in Cumbria that SpiderMonkey mentioned -don't we need to be investing in using hydrogen etc for reducing iron ore rather than in carrying on with high emitting steel production methods? I know steel is needed now (not least for windfarms etc) but we have to transition steel making technology ASAP too.

I also agree with the need for rapid build out of nuclear. Our failure on that is a travesty. It is so shameful considering how France and Sweden were able to build zero-carbon electricity grids 40years ago and only took 15years or so to do so.

Above all, I concur with everyone who has been saying how we all need to be consuming less crap. I'd be all for setting mandates on stuff such as fuel efficiency etc. There are a lot of private jet flights in the UK -shouldn't be happening IMO. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/30/uk-is-worst-private-jet-polluter-in-europe-study-finds
 
Johnny Brown said:
Carlos, there was a massive (I.e. bigger) El Niño in 2015-6. Less than a decade ago. It didn’t put us out of ‘ordinary’ bounds. There has also been a big volcanic eruption, and some changes in shipping emissions. Hopefully they’ve all added up for a freak year. Or we’re entering a powerful feedback loop, the feared tipping point. Another 12 months and we’ll know.

Makes sense and yeah the feedback loop is terrifying, once that permafrost is gone the leaking of methane is pretty much guaranteed we are so fucked. Truly terrifying… let’s hope it’s a blip like you say :(
 
Given the numbers going in offshore, do we really need onshore ones too? From my window I can see the 114 already in place for Seagreen on the horizon. https://www.sserenewables.com/offshore-wind/operational-wind-farms/seagreen/ with Berwick Bank and Marr Bank soon following.

Or is demand just going to hike as more people switch? Sad thing is it doesn't matter much what we do in the UK, there is a big island across the way full of people who don't even believe in climate change, and it looks like they may just be reloading to shoot themselves in the other foot. MADA.
 
My view is that we all have to go all in at avoiding climate change. That is our only hope. We may fail because people elsewhere continue to emit lots, but if we don't try then we certainly fail. In the UK we have plenty of the World's worst emitters (the private jet, super yacht massive). Just normal UK people like me are up there on a global scale of who is emitting the most. As a nation, we are making a political decision to not address this. If we were to turn that around, it could inspire the rest of the world.
 
Just a dope on a rope but have spent 18 years in the energy sector, so I get a slightly different view than than average and have the same personal interest as any of you. I’ve worked coal, oil and gas and wind for extended periods of time.
Wind has its issues, the turbines fault out regularly (usually software, which is often a quick fix but mechanically too), they don’t produce a lot of power per unit and obviously are really variable in production. Generally the number of turbines required is double the max power production for the contracted power supply. E.g. if 100 turbines at max production generate the agreed upon power you will have to build 200 to allow for inconsistent production.
The positives of wind is that it can be expanded quickly, cheaply (relatively speaking) and incrementally. This is pretty important due to availability of funding and the disconnect between/differing interests of for profit corporations and governments.
A wind turbine costs between approx 2 and 10 million, which while a lot of money is relatively small compared to something like hydro or tidal (which would run into the billions). This allows renewable energy to slowly expand at the rate of available funding be it private or public.
The negative side of this is it allows the for profit entities to just expand incrementally just enough to keep in line with changing regulations. I’m in the US so (like with many things) a couple of steps behind Europe but I’m sure the underlying pattern is the same.
For profit entities are not dynamic or interested in the greater good as much as keeping shareholders happy. They knock up another wind farm while band aiding their existing non renewable facilities together waiting to see which direction energy production will take. Most existing infrastructure is well past its obsolescence date, upgraded only in the emission scrubbing to comply with regulation. This is one reason why countries such as China have far better fossil fuel technology. The big disconnect being that a lot of energy production research is heavily dependent on public money and not always in conjunction with the corporations that would ultimately have to implement it on a for profit basis.

As far as the bigger renewable picture goes there are quite a few options Hydro, Geothermal, Tidal, Wave, Wind, Solar. Most of these have variable production (and to a lesser degree huge upfront costs). This leads to a whole other problem, The Energy Grid. In order to allow for variable production (especially with the potential for increased demand from EVs) the Grid needs to contain an element of energy storage. This is again a huge upfront cost (how and who pays it?) and the current technology (and R+D funding) is behind where we need it to be to transition on mass to 100% renewables.

Obviously power production is one large piece of the puzzle along with transit. I’m yet to be convinced that EVs are scalable to even all of the passenger car market (aforementioned mining expansion, charging infrastructure, increased demands on the Grid) let alone air, shipping, freight, agricultural and plant.
The transit industry for me shares the same issues with the interests of corporations and the people/governments not being aligned. Solid state batteries will hopefully have a big impact but I’m not sure EVs are anything but a short term solution. Meanwhile who is working on the long term solution?
 
Ferret, my Dunning–Kruger style solution to intermittency would be to have loads of predominantly offshore wind (eg 150GW nameplate capacity for the UK), together with about 30GW of traditional normal nuclear (eg boiling water reactors as in https://euanmearns.com/the-hitachi-advanced-boiling-water-reactor/ ) and a massive liquid-air-energy-storage system in tandem with the nuclear. The waste heat from the nuclear would be used to boil off the liquid air to provide the required power boost whenever it wasn't windy enough. When there was excess wind, the excess energy would be stored as liquified air (as in https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2013.08.077 ).

I'm puzzled as to why such a setup doesn't seem part of any public conversation I've come across. I'd love to have someone who knew about such things point out where I'm deluded from an engineering perspective. Obviously such an idea (like all sane electricity proposals) is only suited to a 1970s style regulated monopoly utility economic model. But it seems to me that the required political battle to get the required economic arrangements is contingent on having a compelling engineering model at the end of it.
 
Vaclav Smil is essential reading to understand this issue. Buy his 'how the world really works', read pages 189 - 204, feel sad, and move on with a greater understanding of the reality of what needs to be done versus what can be done, compared to the total bullshit regularly heard and reported. All you need to know about how absurd it is to think along lines of 'it's essential that we build onshore windfarms in the UK in the effort halt global warming' is there. In climbing training terms - it's like someone who climbs 6a sport, with a goal to climb 9c, thinking that buying a squeezy ball to work their fingers will make a meaningful contribution to the gainz required.


* I love renewable power btw.
 
There are theoretical solutions to the energy storage problem (splitting and recombining water being one of them).
Having a balanced portfolio of renewables that provide different energy variances instead of just banging up wind turbines would also reduce the storage needs.
Geo (where possible), hydro, wave all have the ability to produce electricity constantly all be it with a variable output.
I’m sadly with Pete in not being hopeful that governments globally (with differing priorities) can work with or enforce capitalist entities to produce a large scale solution in any meaningful timeframe
 
petejh said:
Vaclav Smil is essential reading to understand this issue. Buy his 'how the world really works', read pages 189 - 204, feel sad, and move on with a greater understanding of the reality of what needs to be done versus what can be done, compared to the total bullshit regularly heard and reported. All you need to know about how absurd it is to think along lines of 'it's essential that we build onshore windfarms in the UK in the effort halt global warming' is there. In climbing training terms - it's like someone who climbs 6a sport, with a goal to climb 9c, thinking that buying a squeezy ball to work their fingers will make a meaningful contribution to the gainz required.


* I love renewable power btw.

Which chapter Pete? ebook page numbers are all over the place.
 


Write your reply...

Latest posts

Back
Top