Omah
15-08-2011, 09:42 PM
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-14533124
The gigantic scale of some of the world's largest wind turbines hard to comprehend.
Each blade of the latest turbines to be installed in British waters stretches for a staggering 60 metres - that's slightly longer than the entire wingspan of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The massive rotor is about the same size as the London Eye and, if laid on the ground, would cover most of two football pitches. The towers that hold the blades aloft are about 100 metres high, which makes them taller than Big Ben.
THIRTY of them, constructed for the Swedish power company Vattenfall, are being installed in the Irish Sea off the coast of Cumbria. This is the newest of a DOZEN offshore wind farms around the UK, a key part of the government's plans to use green energy to try to meet tough targets for cutting carbon emissions.
Each designed to generate 5 MW of electricity, these leviathans have nearly twice the output of earlier models - part of a trend in this fledgling industry of gradually increasing size.
The new wind farm, known as Ormonde, stands off the coast near Barrow-in-Furness. The logic of planting turbines out at sea is that the winds are usually stronger than on land - and there are fewer people likely to object. But the challenge of fixing foundations to the seabed and then constructing and maintaining these structures means the bill is huge - this ONE wind farm is costing £500m. And its total power output - when the wind blows - is due to be 150 MW. By comparison, a conventionally-powered gas or coal station might produce 1,000MW.
At the moment, price is the great weakness of offshore wind. Right now, it's the most expensive means of generating electricity, costlier even than nuclear. The power companies earn an attractive subsidy for power produced this way but the costs will find their way on to household bills and critics warn that this could make offshore wind highly unpopular.
If you think that's madness then read on :
Current plans call for 18,000 MW of offshore wind capacity by the year 2020 - that would amount to roughly a quarter of the country's entire electricity output.
The big unknown is whether plans for really massive offshore wind farms, the so-called Round Three projects, will go ahead. These are slated to be on a world-beating scale, forests of giant turbines standing in deeper waters, but at the eye-watering cost of well over £100bn.
Love them or hate them - turbines are sprouting up in a seascape somewhere near you. The question, as energy bills rise, is whether they are the right solution for Britain's consumers.
A solution that's more expensive than nuclear to implement but less productive than conventional coal or gas while costing the consumer more in order to lower carbon emissions seems bonkers to me, but then I'm not part of the internation state/industrial business complex making billions out of the projects ...... :hmph:
The gigantic scale of some of the world's largest wind turbines hard to comprehend.
Each blade of the latest turbines to be installed in British waters stretches for a staggering 60 metres - that's slightly longer than the entire wingspan of a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. The massive rotor is about the same size as the London Eye and, if laid on the ground, would cover most of two football pitches. The towers that hold the blades aloft are about 100 metres high, which makes them taller than Big Ben.
THIRTY of them, constructed for the Swedish power company Vattenfall, are being installed in the Irish Sea off the coast of Cumbria. This is the newest of a DOZEN offshore wind farms around the UK, a key part of the government's plans to use green energy to try to meet tough targets for cutting carbon emissions.
Each designed to generate 5 MW of electricity, these leviathans have nearly twice the output of earlier models - part of a trend in this fledgling industry of gradually increasing size.
The new wind farm, known as Ormonde, stands off the coast near Barrow-in-Furness. The logic of planting turbines out at sea is that the winds are usually stronger than on land - and there are fewer people likely to object. But the challenge of fixing foundations to the seabed and then constructing and maintaining these structures means the bill is huge - this ONE wind farm is costing £500m. And its total power output - when the wind blows - is due to be 150 MW. By comparison, a conventionally-powered gas or coal station might produce 1,000MW.
At the moment, price is the great weakness of offshore wind. Right now, it's the most expensive means of generating electricity, costlier even than nuclear. The power companies earn an attractive subsidy for power produced this way but the costs will find their way on to household bills and critics warn that this could make offshore wind highly unpopular.
If you think that's madness then read on :
Current plans call for 18,000 MW of offshore wind capacity by the year 2020 - that would amount to roughly a quarter of the country's entire electricity output.
The big unknown is whether plans for really massive offshore wind farms, the so-called Round Three projects, will go ahead. These are slated to be on a world-beating scale, forests of giant turbines standing in deeper waters, but at the eye-watering cost of well over £100bn.
Love them or hate them - turbines are sprouting up in a seascape somewhere near you. The question, as energy bills rise, is whether they are the right solution for Britain's consumers.
A solution that's more expensive than nuclear to implement but less productive than conventional coal or gas while costing the consumer more in order to lower carbon emissions seems bonkers to me, but then I'm not part of the internation state/industrial business complex making billions out of the projects ...... :hmph: