Windfarm Wars

[biffvernon]

Seeing as how this is a forum for people clever enough to know where Galloway is or, if they don't, to find out for themselves, I thought it hardly necessary to point out that it's the bottom right corner of Scotland, the bit that sticks out into the notoriously windy Irish Sea and has a very low population most of whom are sheep and Belted Galloway cattle.

I saw a variety of turbines from big off-shore jobs to tiddlers on boats and caravans. The one that I got closest to was this one:
http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source ... XYM4N486nQ

[kenneal - lagger]

If you're looking from Ireland, as Roger is, it is undoubtedly the right hand corner. But if you're looking from England it's the left hand corner.

[Potemkin Villager]

But if you're looking from England it's the left hand corner.

Unless you are standing on your head and the blood has rushed to
your brain...........

[Ludwig]

mmm, getting philosophical here!

I think civilisation has always exceeded our limits since the start of agriculture, so if you want to argue for that, then the ultimate conclusion is to go back to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, which won't go down too well and is no longer feasible with our high population.

You're wrong I think. For most of history we were nowhere near exceeding our limits. If I recall correctly from "Limits to Growth", we passed the limit of sustainability (i.e. more than 1 Earth needed to sustain the population indefinitely) around 1980.

[biffvernon]

If you're looking from Ireland, as Roger is, it is undoubtedly the right hand corner. But if you're looking from England it's the left hand corner.

There. See. There are clever people on this forum who can work out the truth even when mis-directed.

[goslow]

Ludwig,

I just meant that civilisations often exceeded the limits of sustainability in their terms. Like in England we logged most of the forests by the middle of the second millenium and had to turn to coal.

[Ludwig]

Ludwig,

I just meant that civilisations often exceeded the limits of sustainability in their terms. Like in England we logged most of the forests by the middle of the second millenium and had to turn to coal.

Fair point.

[kenneal - lagger]

mmm, getting philosophical here!

I think civilisation has always exceeded our limits since the start of agriculture, so if you want to argue for that, then the ultimate conclusion is to go back to hunter-gatherer lifestyles, which won't go down too well and is no longer feasible with our high population.

You're wrong I think. For most of history we were nowhere near exceeding our limits. If I recall correctly from "Limits to Growth", we passed the limit of sustainability (i.e. more than 1 Earth needed to sustain the population indefinitely) around 1980.

Because of transportation limitations imposed by reliance on human or animal power historic civilisations were very much more localised than our current civilisation. Once the resources of a limited hinterland were exceeded those civilisations suffered Peak Everything. The rate of flow of goods could not keep up with the demands of a growing population, much like modern Peak Oil. The resource size isn't important, it's the rate of flow relative to the demand from the population that governs the peak of the resource.

The Mediterranean civilisations, were able to get much larger because they could rely on wind powered or assisted seaborne transport in the relatively sheltered Med to increase their hinterland. Bulk transport by water is much less energy intensive than land based transportation.

[Potemkin Villager]

Don't miss the next gripping episode of Windfarm Wars on Friday night at 7PM on Beeb2.

( I bet even Mobbsey is secretly watching though he has declared the series total ********s.)

Gasp as RES shoot themselves in the foot by totally alienating the one local who was open to persuasion and is now taking a court action against them over the famous noise measurements that they told him he wasn't clever enough to understand.........

I'll say it again and again, you really couldn't make this sort of stuff up. Agreeing to participate in this documentary must be one of the worst PR decisions they ever made.

It looks touch and go if Den Brook is ever going to become a nett exporter of energy.

[kenneal - lagger]

Agreeing to participate in this documentary must be one of the worst PR decisions they ever made.

I wonder if they were shown the script first?

[Potemkin Villager]

They wrote this script, judge for yourself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpIW-DGDaQI

[biffvernon]

and also http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f7I2OFrGtZ8&NR=1

[mobbsey]

I bet even Mobbsey is secretly watching though he has declared the series total ********s.

I rip a video file of the programme from the Beeb's web site for my information library (along with many other similar programmes).

Then, because I find the programme rather 'slow', I watch it on 2 times normal speed -- I get the gist of what's going on without having to sit through the painful pauses and repetition.

What I find painful about this programme is that nothing they're talking about has anything directly to do with our present problems. it's a consumer oriented vision for the affluent of a problem created by affluent consumerism. Far as I'm concerned all those willing trapped in this existential ouroboros (or is is a mobius loop? -- certainly that's why I gave up doing that kind of work ) deserve all the stress and angst it creates; if they want a different outcome, they need to break-out of that whole lifestyle and view the problem from a different perspective.

[Potemkin Villager]

What I find painful about this programme is that nothing they're talking about has anything directly to do with our present problems. it's a consumer oriented vision for the affluent of a problem created by affluent consumerism.

Nicely put.

I have just skimmed through a promising sounding report recently published by the promising sounding Centre for Sustainable Energy "Addressing public concerns about wind power".

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2 ... wind-power

For some strange reason none of the issues you raise seem even be on their radar so obviously there is no public concern to be addressed.

They have eight staff engaged in the field of what they describe as "Local and Community Enpowerment" and you would think these issues would be right up their street.

Maybe I being a tad naive and need to reread my George Orwell.

[mobbsey]

They have eight staff engaged in the field of what they describe as "Local and Community Enpowerment" and you would think these issues would be right up their street.

I've had various discussions with CAT/Paul Allen about the nature of their work, and the solutions they push, since 2003 -- with little productive outcome. I worked for local authority community education departments through the 1990s, and develop environmental distance learning packages with WWF and others. However, the problem isn't the "outreach" part of the process, it's the expectation and driving philosophy of those doing the reaching.

This is all about models. Big wind is a hierarchical consumption model -- we tell you what your problem is and then we sell you the solution we think best meets your needs.

What we need is a grassroots-based skills "problem solving" model. That involves helping people to learn the basic principles necessary to understand and sort out the problem in a way that most appropriate for them. That of course is an anathema to the general 'consumption model' because it involves people doing a lot more for themselves -- consequently they're not necessarily going to "buy" your goods (or the political philosophy that goes with it).

We need diversity, but the only way to do that is to allow the development of autonomy. Those in charge find that very difficult to do because -- from my involvement working with/for various campaign groups -- what dominants their everyday thinking is not solving the problem, it's the financial maintenance of the organisation (which, perversely, is a factor that stems from the consumption model -- since even the organisations selling solutions are required to operate in a way where they consume).

In this world the most dangerous thing you can do is think for yourself -- what's worse, that you actually start putting some of those ideas into practice. Strangely the most subversive activity I've developed over the last ten years has been my "bread soup and pie" day workshop, because it appeals to our most basic human functions; cooking, eating and socialising. Once you give people some basic skills and the confidence to use them they start developing their own solutions that meet the peculiarities of their needs, not the system they are told to consume their needs from.