Wind farms - should they be curbed?

The Severn Barrage could have provided 5% of the countries electricity requirements reliably in all weathers. Why did concerns about birds stop that being built when it never stops wind farms being built?

All the government subsidies seem to be going to the least efficient forms of renewable energy wind farms and photovoltaic cells, which only produce power in daylight - and winter nights are long and dark and get longer and darker the further north you go. The government's money should be going to tidal, and hydro power, power and gas generated from waste and nuclear.

The best use for wind and photovoltaic power is to produce hydrogen for use in transport to replace hydrocarbons and biofuels grown on farmland.

Flickety I agree with every word you say. Fact is...they do not do the job for which they have been invented. When will people, other than those who ultimately reap a handsome reward, listen to reason.

Well said, Flickety! Exactly what DH is always saying, and I agree.

Well quite. Re, what they look like. That's what dinorwig pumped storage is for flicketyb and we are very lucky to have it. It is a way of storing electricity , basically - well energy that can be turned back into electricity anyway. Pump it up at night when there is excess electricity and use the water to drive turbines when it is needed.
What would make wind more useful world wide is more ways of storing electricity. Preferably ones that do not require major re-modelling of lakes and the insides of mountains. But it is wonderful and a highly recommended tourist attraction in Llanberis.

The problem with wind turbines is that they are just not very efficient. They only generate power when the wind is blowing and then often work at considerably less than full capacity. Average annual production is generally less than a third of full capacity, often much less. They also generally do not generate power when the weather is extremely cold because cold periods are usually accompanied by calm conditions - or gales, when they also have to shut down. This means that most of our conventionally powered power stations will need to continue in use to provide the back-up for high demand periods when the wind turbines arent turning.

Offshore where winds can be very variable and gust from force 2 or 3 to force 8 or 9 in seconds and back they can overwhelm the electricity grid. Grid controllers have compared running a grid with a significant proportion of the power coming from wind turbines with riding a bucking bronco and government and the eelctricity industry are already putting in extra measures to restart the grid should it be forced into having to shut down to shed load suddenly when dealing with a surge of wind power. The probability of this happening grows as each large windfarm comes on stream.

Denmark has already introduced a moritorium on more windfarms for just that reason. It also has the most expensive electricity in Europe because so much of its power has to be bought on the spot electricity market on a day to day basis to balance the erraric supply of wind based power.

I find it so frustrating that so much debate is about whether people like them or hate them, whether they are noisy or distracting and nobody ever seems to ask about whether they actually do the job they are meant to do, whether they really can replace conventional power stations and why the consumer should pay such a huge premium on their fuel bills to feather the nests of the shareholders of the companies building and operating them.

I wonder what reaction the traditional kind of windmill provoked when it was first invented? The sort people now try to preserve and restore.

Hello emilyharburn. I agree. Noticed a very fine one next to the Tesco warehouse in Daventry the other day when driving up the A5. I think Cambridgeshire are due a few, don't you, as it is so empty and windy and they have got rid of most of the hedges for growing grain.

I like wind farms. The windmills are beautiful. They are a signal to all of us that we are creating sustainable energy. They do not pollute. I feel cheerful when I see them. I would prefer wind farms to nuclear power.

A friend of ours installed one medium sized turbine on his land. Last time we asked he was finding that it interfered with his wireless internet.
Fracking agenda is being is driven by the oil companies.

Just discovered this thread. My brother in USA (West Virginia) has had 60 - yes, 60 - wind turbines installed on the hill over his home. He bought the land 40 years ago and thought he'd live out his days in this peaceful rural back water. He may live out his days there, but the "peaceful" element has faded.
I think the first issue with these is that without researching them properly, politicians (everywhere) jumped on the green energy bandwagon and assumed that because this is renewable energy, these must be a "good thing".
The arguments against have been mentioned in previous comments, but were little known and/or not considered in the rush to be seen to be doing the right thing. The earliest ones are much noisier than more recent models. My brother says that intrusive noise is a problem depending on which way the wind is blowing, but that the worst intrusions occured during construction. And of course no one yet knows just how long they will last and if the cost will be justifiable over the long term.
So - the long and the short of it seems to me to be that their worth has yet to be proven and meanwhile, beautiful countryside is blighted. I'm with those who think they add NOTHING to the natural landscape!
Brother Bill says now that they've pretty much "wind turbined" WV, fracking is the next big thing. Apparently the US govt is interested in WV only for what it can get out of it. Treat this as an advance warning for the UK.

I think the little house sized turbines face too much of a planning problem with objections from next door neighbours. A lot of the farms around here have the middle sized ones which seem to work really well.

Sorry, I am talking about tiny wind turbines like Dave an Sammy put on their house to show how green they are.
Not cars or washing machines.

Been inside that 'electric mountain' quite amazing
Don't accept that the cost in initial carbon footprint outweighs the benefits of long term use. Or why are we building more 'energy efficient' cars, washing machines, etc.
I too need to get on with my day. Breakfast and a hot cappuccino beckons. ,

Apparently not jodi by the time you factor in the cost of making them, transporting them and actually running them (because you have to convert DC electricity into AC if you are going to use it and there is always an energy loss at this point), they may well use more carbon than they can ever save.
The point of having a mix of generation is that we are blessed with a national grid. There is a fantastic pumped water storage hydro facility in N wales that can feed huge amounts into the grid at the flick of a switch and is wonderful way of smoothing out ups and downs in production. Cup final on telly - a person under a mountain in Llanberis knows just when everyone is going to turn their kettles on at half time - they flick a switch and the surge is dealt with.
(Jess retires to get on with her day, with warm glow at the thought of one of her all time favourite bits of engineering )

What happened to the small windmills, about the same size as TV aerials, that were designed to fit onto roofs or sides of houses to generate some percent of electricity?
If we could use such devices to generate even a small proportion of our own energy this would save money and cut down the need for more power stations. Not far from where I live is an educational Eco Centre. It has a small, discreet windmill in its grounds to generate electricity and it uses geothermal power.
Isn't this the way forward???

Wind power is apparently considered constant as it feeds into the National Grid and the wind is always blowing somewhere close by. A nuclear power station on the other hand does periodically shut down completely, no power at all, and these outages can last days.
Turbines are ok in the right place. Lowestoft has an enormous turbine on the harbour named Gulliver, and he's quite popular with the locals. The small group just off shore of Great Yarmouth also has it's own appeal but I think that nothing, not wind turbines, or power stations, or pylons, or anything else should be built in our remaining areas of wilderness. And definitely no fracking - anywhere.

We recently moved from a Welsh valley which had been a mining valley now all green again. There has been permission given for a number of wind farms which will encircle the whole area. There is a minimum recommended distance a turbine should be from a house - this is being ignored with some of these turbines. There are also people who have needed to try and sell their houses due to the whining sound the turbines make. The ones they are intending to put up in the South Wales Valleys are I believe ones which were intended for use at sea and so are taller than normal.
The life of a turbine is about twenty five years and there is no provision for the removal of these turbines when they are of no further use. The farmers who allow the turbines on their land are very handsomely paid by the energy companies and of course we are also paying a premium on our fuel bills.
As somebody has already said the wind is not a reliable source of energy and to produce the shortfall of energy needed at any time a power station which can be on line very quickly is needed.
As if turbines were not going to be sufficient blight on the Welsh hills there are also companies who are applying for fracking permits. The dangers of this process, due to the chemicals required to extract the gas, are massive. It will all be too late when the water courses are polluted and we have a shortage of clean water.
Until I found out some of the facts regarding the turbines I too thought they were fine. Living with them may well be another story.

Ok! Sorry!

I have just deleted a huge rant, JO5, as I am in danger of letting myself be well and truly reeled in! I will just say, they are quite big moors but they are better quite big moors without the addition of wind turbines. Nuff said!

No no, I totally agree, the Yorkshire Moors are so beautiful - and in many ways very similar to the Swiss Jura - and I agree totally unsuitable for wind farms.

I don't like them on agricultural flatland in fact I don't like them anywhere but then I'm a NIMBY.

I'm sorry Artygran. I just thought they are quite big (the moors). And you've already got Fylindales (sp?). They could take those down and put the turbines there perhaps?

I have just come across this thread. I take issue with the first poster who said "they are ok in the right location - North Yorks moors, etc., but not in pastoral countryside".... To some of us, the N. Yorks moors are our pastoral countryside - one of the last wilderness areas left in Britain. Why should they be a blot on our landscape, just because it's a bit windier here? Can someone can show me the logic of technology that has to be shut down when there is too much wind because the grid can't cope with all the extra electricity it generates, and can justify the huge subsidies that the government has to pay out because they are shut down?

A carbuncle on our beautiful landscape. Every time we travel I see more wind turbines being erected and my heart sinks. Every place I hold dear has an abomination sited there.
Not enough wind and they don't work, too windy and they have to shut them down.

Well I come from Wales - but I was recently in S of Spain where they have some serious mountains. Different league I'm afraid. Re-spec where it is due. Our uplands are after all deforested landscapes that have been trashed by our farming etc in the past.
I agree, with our tides and rainfall, you would think some moderately sized hydro would be possible. And yes, Severn barrage would have been cool.
I think commercial level fusion is still pie in sky. Couldn't build an energy policy on it. Even with lots of renewables, gas/coal/nuclear is going to have to be the workhorse I'm afraid.