Wind turbine planning ruling

[Tarrel]

Easily done. Both have pretty wacky haircuts.

[emordnilap]

Are you sure you're not confusing him with Boris Johnson?

Well, the yanks could be that daft.

[emordnilap]

Oh, just as an aside, Trump is currently repairing and protecting the Doonbeg course (it involves relocating the fifth green and the fourteenth hole) following severe damage from the repeat of the, err, once-in-a-hundred year storms we recently had.

I won't mention irony if you won't...

[RenewableCandy]

Golf clubs are usually irony. Except when they're woody, of course.

[emordnilap]

Tee-hee.

[biffvernon]

Bishopthorpe Windfarm Inquiry - what I told the Inspector:
http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/

[vtsnowedin]

Bishopthorpe Windfarm Inquiry - what I told the Inspector:
http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/

Well said Biff.
I'll exercise a bit of rare discretion here and not comment further on the topic. After all I don't play golf, don't much like the "hair piece" and don't live in the UK, but I must say the thread is very amusing reading. Carry on!

[Blue Peter]

Bishopthorpe Windfarm Inquiry - what I told the Inspector:
http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/

Very powerful piece. Did it generate any reaction? or is it just a queue of people having their points recorded?


Peter.

[biffvernon]

There was a queue of people saying, "I think they will spoil the view", or various comments on that theme. One bloke, representing the local nimby organisation, spent spent almost two hours saying "We think they will spoil the view", until the Inspector persuaded him to shut up.

One woman listed a very long list of diseases, most of which I have never heard of but sounded truly terrible, that collectively combine to produce 'Turbine Syndrome'. This condition is brought on by the low frequency amplitude modulated emissions from the turbines.

One must always be ready to learn new stuff.

[kenneal - lagger]

'Turbine Syndrome'. This condition

is bought on by hysteria!

[kenneal - lagger]

This article in the Telegraph about a comparison made by David MacKay between wind, large scale PV and fracking is interesting more by the omissions that the Professor has made.

I wrote this to him to ask about them

I have just read the piece in the Telegraph about your comparison of fracking, solar and wind energy sites and was concerned that while you have made the point that a fracking site would incur about 20,000 truck journeys you have made nothing of the intrusion of installing a piped system of water delivery and disposal. Nor have you mentioned the energy and capital cost of the polluted water treatment and disposal. Neither have you mentioned the probable 40% per year depletion rate which would mean that the wells would have to be refracked after two years and redrilled completely after three or four years.

In the US between 30 and 50% of gas production has to be replaced each year due to depletion of the wells and the investment rate is more than the returns at their current prices. (Information from http://shalebubble.org/shale-monster/ and other web sites)

Exxon has pulled out of Poland sighting the fissured and faulted nature of the European shale beds compared with the US and the UK's beds are similar to the European beds. While this might or might not cause mini earthquakes it does lead to the distinct possibility of transference of polluted fracking fluids via faults into the ground water. If this should happen in the south of the UK, where there is already a limited water supply from the chalk aquifer, it would be catastrophic for the national economy. What point in having fracked gas if we have to use it for desalinating or otherwise treating our drinking water?

Then there is the long term problem of sealing the spent wells. The concrete plugs used are notorious for failing after a few years under the corrosive onslaught of the acid, radioactive ground water. This failure occurs even where the six or seven concentric steel drill pipes that are necessary to ensure the fracking does not cause leaks have been used.

We frack at our peril especially when we could save 80% of our domestic gas use by properly insulating our buildings to near PassivHaus standards on a bulk contract basis. If the government printed the cash to pay for this and lent it out to be reclaimed on the "Green Deal" basis whether it was "economic" or not would not be an issue.

This comment from Professor David Smythe of Glasgow University confirms my fears that the real danger of faulting is not the earthquake risk but the transmission of fracking fluids up to the surface or near surfacce.

[Potemkin Villager]

Prof David MacKay, who stood down from the Government role at the end of July...........

He didn't stand the heat and all the political shite for long, now back to a comfy low pressure well paid tenured academic billet!

Don't blame him really. Who would want the job from hell?

It just shows that merely clever people are not going to do the biz.

I was very impressed by his book but not by him lending his reputation to all this old bollox.

[biffvernon]

Indeed. While under the government pay, he is not allowed to say anything without ministerial approval. Even when off the pay-roll he will have to toe the line if he wants a gong.

[emordnilap]

Bishopthorpe Windfarm Inquiry - what I told the Inspector:
http://biffvernon.blogspot.co.uk/

Very good, excellently put, good man.

Quick pointer, meant to be helpful Biff:

The Planning Inquiry into the Bishopthorpe Farm (Newton Marsh Extension) Windfarm in Lincolnshire was having it's public session today.

Always useful to read it out in full: The Planning Inquiry into the Bishopthorpe Farm (Newton Marsh Extension) Windfarm in Lincolnshire was having it is public session today.

[biffvernon]

ARRRGGGGHHHHH Apostrophe apocalypse.