Originally Posted by Luckypants (Post 1382835)

Good, you have the damn things then. I'm not against wind energy per se, nor even in my back yard. It's the amount of turbines needed to make a difference. They turn the area where you live into a massive industrial landscape - not what folks who live here want to see, hear or walk and ride around. The economics of wind power are well dodgy, as are their green credentials.

I'm all for nuclear, it is well managed in this country. The French have the right idea, went for nuclear in a big way and don't need to rely so much on fossil fuels. We need to tell the green lobby to get lost and go for it big style as well - as we should have done in the 80's and 90's.

Originally Posted by the_lone_wolf (Post 1382819)

true, electric cars can't work right now because they're ultimately coal powered and battery technology is frankly, crap.

Originally Posted by alpinestarhero (Post 1382836)

There should be small farms dotted arund the country

What about people having small wind turbines on their roof-tops? It might only generate enough electricity to say power the lights, but thats not a bad thing.

Matt

Originally Posted by Luckypants (Post 1382850)

Well I would agree with that, but the economics do not stack up without a massive subsidy in the form of the Climate Change Levy which is piled on our electric bills and used to subsidise wind energy (amongst others). Without this, it is not economically viable. So to get a return, companies build MASSIVE wind farms to gather economies of scale. Then to increase the efficiency they cut down any trees in the vicinity that interrupt the laminar wind flow. (Hardly green is it?) Around here, if all the applications for wind farms go ahead there will be about 5000 acres of forest felled to improve the wind how is that green FFS? And the trees will be left to rot, as the timber market is very depressed at the moment (cheap Russian imported timber) . This will release all the CO2 trapped in the wood back into the environment....... It's all ******** brought on by a target obsessed government. If they took a holistic approach to this then wind, hydro and tidal power could help with the country's needs. Grrrr desecration of the countryside for no gain. And don't get me started on the sites chosen for these monstrosities.......

Micro generation is a good prospect, especially micro hydro. The problem with all the micro generation schemes is cost and reliability. No wind = no power. No water in the summer = no power. You still need the 'spinning reserve' of coal / oil / gas / nuclear to make up the shortfall when nature is not playing ball.

Originally Posted by tomjones2 (Post 1382849)

I getting a lot better though, someone has realised a car recently that had a proper range, short charge times and reasonable performance, i reckon 15 years to proper commercially available cars.

Originally Posted by tomjones2 (Post 1382849)

I wonder if green peace has come up with a solution from where all this magic electricity will come from?

Originally Posted by alpinestarhero (Post 1382858)

I didnt think about it like this (concentrating on other stuff...thats my excuse anyway). I do however understand that theres gotta be energy spent to make energy saved...

...how much greenhouse gas will be emmited to make all this "green" stuff?

I think there should be something done about landfills; they release alot of methane (more potent greenhouse gas than CO2) and other sources of methane (cant stop the natural sources, but could do something with man-mad sources?)

Matt

Originally Posted by tomjones2 (Post 1382879)

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/blog/cl...ution-20070718

Our windswept island has more than enough wind, wave and tidal power potential to meet all of our energy needs many times over. Between them, wind, wave and tidal power could deliver more than twice as much electricity than the proposed new fleet of nuclear reactors in the same timeframe - and the renewables would come online more quickly, require no fuel and won’t have the danger or cost of the nuclear waste.

Greenpeace seems to think that wind, wave and tital are the way forward. Nice idea but personaly I'm not convinced. Its going to be a lot of windmills about.

Originally Posted by Luckypants (Post 1382877)

BUT WHY ARE WE LOCATING THEM IN NORTH / MID WALES, ISLE OF SKYE, NORTHERN SCOTLAND ETC WHEN THE FOLKS THAT WANT THE POWER ARE IN THE SE ENGLAND?