Retiring wind farms

I doubt there was any protest durhamjen.
Rivers are pretty clean these days, thanks to the EU legislation and lots of money spent cleaning them up in respect to sewage pollution. Salmon are spawning in the headwaters of the Taff for the first time in, I think it is, 200 years.

Hopefully the River Wear is not a sewage dump, JessM. They are having a fish ladder there to let the fish get upriver, avoiding the hydro centre.
I think that's terrible of Cardiff Council. I hope people objected, and not just the travellers.

The biggest archmedes screws i ever saw were lifting smelly sewage water up and over a sea wall in Cardiff bay. They were huge. They were also right next to where the council had put the travellers' site, which i thought was shocking. Air full of sewage droplets!

That sounds very promising.

stacks of Google image pics A new twist on the old-fashioned water wheel.

Looks like a 45 degree angle. It's impressive, anyway.
www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/north-east-news/20-tonne-water-power-installation-7199432

So it is horizontal, with the water flowing against the screw and pushing it round to generate power ? (or maybe vertical with water flowing downwards) At first I thought that it was vertical, lifting water up to a turbine, and using as much power to do that as it generated. Got it now.

Hydro. Water. The River Wear.

What powers the Archimedes screw?

On the news tonight.
Durham is going to be the first city in the UK to have its own hydro plant.
I have been watching the building of it for a long time but had no idea what it was. It will produce enough power, using an enormous Archimedes screw, to power all the office blocks in the area, including the new NS&I offices in the city centre. Should be working from September.
Brilliant.

Of course! Derrr...

Many thanks JessM - from what you have said, that will be why our Government are looking into installing them. Off the Point of Ayre, the tide is often turbulent with cross currents and the sea level is very deep there; no doubt it is where they plan to site them. They wouldn't be a problem for boats/yachts as the cross currents make it dangerous for sailing in that area. Fingers crossed then

hollydaze had a chance to quiz DH, while on glorious walk, just across the bay from nuclear power station as it happened. Sitting on the headland like a huge cubist art installation.
Underwater turbines work well if you have an area where there are very strong tidal currents and also can get the cable ashore in a place where you can connect to grid. They are big underwater turbine blades - so you need quite deep water not far from the shore.

I still think a lot is hidden abut the consequences of nuclear accidents such as Chernobyl.

NI members seem to be very few and far between on here, if indeed there are any at all. Perhaps they have their own version of Gransnet.

My DH is a former nuclear power engineer (now retired) and I have to admit I am rather convinced by his arguments for it, rather than against it.

rosequartz

DH cannot understand why more use is not made of wave power

This is why I asked if there was anyone from Northern Ireland on here as NI has two underwater turbines for generating electricity - it would have been interesting to hear their point of view about efficiency and any nuisance factor/advantages over other types.

But tides go in and out? I don't know, not being an engineer, DH would know more.

Yes indeed putting solar on new build would be a great idea. Unfortunately the construction industry lobby against anything that would make houses more expensive to build.
The technology to harness wave power is a long way behind wind power rosequartz - much more complex technological challenge than just turning a big blade. To generate energy you usually turn a turbine - whether it is using steam (in coal, gas and nuclear) or hydroelectric or wind. Waves go up and down ...

DH cannot understand why more use is not made of wave power, and other hydro-electric power. And if new builds all incorporated solar panels then that would ease the need for the production of electricity by large corporations.

There are so many scientists out there working on the problem, all we can do is hope that they find something before too long. Otherwise we'll all be using our dogs/children to turn a wheel to generate our own electricity!

I'm glad your outcome was good, Holly and sorry you had to go through such a terrible thing.
To return to turbines, I wonder if the public at large are aware of the huge sums in subsidies that we pay to the energy companies and the millions in compensation when they have to be turned off because the grid is saturated? I am lucky enough to live in the countryside, and chose to do so because of the peace and quiet, wildlife and the fields and hedges we can see etc. The downside is the cost of petrol(no buses) no streetlights, less efficient rubbish collection and a long way to go to the shops, well worth it for the last 30 years in my eyes.
During the last 3 or 4 years, 5 turbines have sprouted within our view, 2 solar farms and if a proposed turbine goes ahead, the value of our property will fall by 20% according to an independent survey.It isn't just the appearance of turbines, they make a noise if you live near enough, and the flicker effect has caused great distress to some of our neighbours. If they were efficient I might feel differently, but the figures put out by companies are for them working full time at maximum efficiency- not something they do very often.
The effect on wildlife is detrimental in terms of loss of habitat and more devastating in the case of bats, which implode if they go too near.
A neighbour was at a recent meeting and overheard a farmer who had a turbine on his land say he gets £45,000 per year for it and he doesn't even have to get out of bed!
Sorry for the rant, but this issue has made many of us in our area really miserable over the past couple of years. I appreciate the need for carbon reduction etc. and haven't an easy answer, except for trying to be economical with electricity which is a drop in the ocean I know. But I cannot believe that wind power is the answer either.

Exactly.

janerowena

Thank you. Yes, so far so good. This was about 12 years ago and I was fortunate with the surgeon I had.

Your link shows the lengths they will go to in order to cover up the hazards of nuclear power stations.

By migrants I mean people moving within the UK from one region to another, internal migration, not migration from other countries.

I think the issue is that childhood cancers are very rare and therefore it is hard to get a useful statistical analysis of change over time.
Imagine you had 2 cases a year on average for several years. Then you get an apparent "blip" - 2 extra cases in the next 2 years. 100% increase!!! But actually it is just a blip for no reason at all.
if the population increases because people move into the area you are not comparing like with like.