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The last government intentionally banned the cheapest source of energy, onshore wind, from being built in England, by making it so that a single complaint coul
by ZeroGravitas 2y ago
The last government intentionally banned the cheapest source of energy, onshore wind, from being built in England, by making it so that a single complaint could stop a project.
I cannot believe this article talks about planning constraints and energy prices and doesn't mention that.
- giantg2 2y agoI hate the large scale turbines. I'm sure small scale or other designs are OK. But screw the large turbines. Where I grew up they outsourced the jobs and then we were left with ugly giants ruining the once beautiful mountains. It's on par with strip mining (aesthetically).
- cr__ 2y agoI like em.
- giantg2 2y ago[flagged]
- thinkingtoilet 2y agoWhere do you think coal and oil comes from? It's ok as long as other people's environment is destroyed for non-renewable energy but not your environment for renewable energy?
- giantg2 2y agoLol, they used to mine coal under that very mountain (until it was outsourced). It's not like we have some insular life. The region is economically depressed. People would rather have jobs while destroying the environment than not have jobs while destroying the environment and recreational value simultaneously.
- kibwen 2y ago[flagged]
- roenxi 2y agoHave they ever used that technique in the UK? I don't think the UK has mountains suitable for mountaintop removal - they are famous for their underground operations. I've always filed mountaintop removal mining as one of those "weird things Americans do" approaches. Probably associated with unusual geology or something.
- giantg2 2y agoI think the UK had the none-mountainous version of strip mining - open pit mines. I think there aren't any in operation currently, and I'm unsure if they were for coal or just other commodities.
- nkali 2y agoEven if not, the collieries in Wales, built on top of coal shafts, were quite industrial-looking/landscape-runining. https://museum.wales/articles/1260/Nantgarw-Colliery---once-the-deepest-coal-mine-in-south-Wales/ https://museum.wales/articles/1260/Nantgarw-Colliery---once-...
- 6LLvveMx2koXfwn 2y agoWe used the technique until we ran out of mountains, hence current lack of mountains.
- giantg2 2y ago[flagged]
- marliechiller 2y agoand all of them are horrendously bad for the environment, the end.
- johnnyanmac 2y agoSure why not? Maybe it's a geographical/cultural difference, but there are so, so many mountains in the western US. it's a good part of why the game Oregan Trail was made. Before carving roads around and through mountains it was a truly treacherous journey. US also jury has so much land to begin with. We can certainly afford to retrofit a few mountains without fundamentally disrupting the ecosystem. We're very bad at moderation, sadly.
- triceratops 2y agoWhen is that?
- alabastervlog 2y agoThey're one of the only pieces of technology that I think often (not always) improve the appearance of a landscape. Maybe also lighthouses. Sometimes.
- giantg2 2y agoLighthouses have only become aesthetic because of their rarity rendering them as quaint or nostalgic. Modern versions and their impacts would be largely protested.
- Nasrudith 2y agoI suspect the real reason behind objections to technology being visible is basically "It makes me feel old by highlighting that I came from a time before X and now everyone will just become accustomed to X!".
- Propelloni 2y agoAnd I'm like "whoa, I'm living in the future!" It's awesome!
- walthamstow 2y agoPeople forget that the natural landscape of Britain is forest. The enclosed fields people think are natural countryside are in fact an entirely human creation.
- dontlaugh 2y agoEcologically, it is basically barren.
- xaldir 2y agoWhat? Pastures? Grassland are actually good for biodiversity.
- Myrmornis 2y agoI'm sorry you're saying people think agricultural fields are natural vegetation?
- walthamstow 2y agoYes. The gently rolling fields of grass, sheep, rape and wheat are considered a national symbol of our natural environment in need of protection from dastardly human creations such as wind turbines. This is the 'green and pleasant land' that William Blake wrote about.
- rsynnott 2y agoI’m not sure anyone consciously thinks that, but the kind of nostalgic “old England” thing is big on fields and grass, not so much forest.
- milesrout 2y agoThe "natural landscape" is a pretty meaningless concept in Britain. Are moors not natural landscapes because they were formed hundreds or thousands of years ago? Is it natural when animals do something but not when humans do it? Or is it natural when hunter gatherers do something but not when agriculturalists do it? Or is it natural when non-industrial people do it, but not when industrialists do it? And why does your chosen definition matter? Is the natural landscape better than human-modified landscapes? Is a change always fine if the starting point was created by humans? If you replaced the ancient figures carved into the chalk in England with wind farms would that be fine because they arent natural features?
- lenkite 2y agoAren't these also massive mass bird slayers ? The last I read, over half a million birds were killed (official under-estimate) by wind turbines in UK alone every year
- triceratops 2y agoAnd the Exxon Valdez and the Deepwater Horizon were good for birds? Bringing up bird welfare to oppose wind turbines is bullshit. If people cared about birds or wildlife we wouldn't be in this mess at all.
- zdragnar 2y agoIt's usually the types of birds that are affected that upset people. Many ideal locations for windmills (in particular mountainous regions, dunno about offshore) happen to also be ideal places for threatened or endangered large raptors. Likewise, there's the (unproven) connection with noise generated by offshore wind farms disturbing wildlife migration and movement, especially among whales. It'd be nice to know that we're not replacing one disaster with another, though I'm out of date on my personal research as to whether any of these concerns still warrant further investigation.
- triceratops 2y ago> Many ideal locations for windmills...happen to also be ideal places for threatened or endangered large raptors. The person I replied to was making a quantity-of-birds argument. Not an endangered species argument. > there's the (unproven) connection with noise generated by offshore wind farms disturbing wildlife migration and movement Do they make a lot more noise than giant cruise ships? Luxury yachts? I don't see much of a movement to ban those. It's almost like people decide the things they want to have for themselves (undisturbed views), then make up whatever noble-sounding reasons (whales, birds) will preserve those things.
- zdragnar 2y ago> Bringing up bird welfare to oppose wind turbines is bullshit. If people cared about birds or wildlife we wouldn't be in this mess at all. Your comment seems to be a blanket opposition to bird welfare in general, not a limited critique of quantity harmed. I do think the distinction remains important, hence why I made my post. > Do they make a lot more noise than giant cruise ships? Luxury yachts? Given that the ships are itinerant and their turbines are much smaller, I do believe the type of noise pollution they generate is qualitatively less harmful. I imagine the scale is something along the lines of: 1. windmills 2. sonar 3. marine vehicle engine and turbine noise Windmills take the top spot for being a constant barrage over a large area. Sonar gets the second for the extreme volume some ships (esp. military) are capable of producing, though there are far fewer of them. Marine vehicles come last. There's a greater danger of animals being hit by fast moving boats (for example, manatees) than discombobulation from engine and turbine noise.
- hermitcrab 2y agoI disagree. I think they are rather pleasing to look at. Especially compared to a coal fired power station.
- alvah 2y ago"The cheapest source of energy" trope again. Intermittent energy (electricity) != on demand electricity.
- cupcakecommons 2y agothe denial of capacity factor makes me want to tear my hair out
- cycomanic 2y agoCapacity factor is calculated into lcoe, what's your point? Moreover, downtime for wind turbines is much less of an issue for a grid than large power plants (even with a significantly higher capacity factor), because you run into much bigger issues if your GW plant is down, compared to a couple of MW (and no the probabilities of all your renewables mix going down at the same time is very low, unless you're Luxemburg).
- Manuel_D 2y agoCapacity factor is calculated in. But intermittency is not. The issue is that once demand is saturated during periods of peak production, the excess energy is wasted so the effective capacity factor drops as adoption grows. E.g. once you saturate daytime energy demand, further investment in solar energy yields no more useable energy. Intermittent sources are a good way to supplement dispatchable sources of energy like gas plants or hydroelectricity. But as a primary source of energy, they're not feasible without a massive breakthrough in energy storage.
- adgjlsfhk1 2y agoit's possible (and fairly easy) to build infrastructure that only turns on when there is excess energy
- Manuel_D 2y agoYou can see the breakdown of electricity usage here: https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-electricity.php https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/use-of-elect... For residential uses, heating, cooling, and refrigeration are the main uses. For commercial electricity use: computing, refrigeration, cooling, and ventilation. For industrial electricity use: machine drive (lathes, mills, etc.), process and boiler heating, facility heating and cooling, electrochemical process. The only categories that I guess could be easily shifted is process and boiler heating. But some industrial processes need to run uninterrupted for weeks. Machine drive, perhaps, but then workers would not be able to work a regular schedule. Not to mention, industrial applications in total is less than 25% of electricity use. Demand shifting is a lot easier said than done. I see it proposed very frequently, but I've yet to see a detailed plan for what electricity uses will be shifted, and how.
- Jtsummers 2y ago> Similarly, in the U.K., any individual who sues to stop a new project on environmental grounds—say, to oppose a new road or airport—generally has their legal damages capped at £5,000, if they lose in court. “Once you’ve done that,” Bowman said, “you’ve created a one-way system, where people have little incentive to not bring spurious cases to challenge any new development.” Not directly stated about wind power, but there is this account of why lawsuits might be common, slowing and derailing projects because the damages if you lose in your complaint are capped at a relatively low figure (not low for the average person, but not that expensive either).
- robertlagrant 2y ago> not low for the average person, but not that expensive either I think this is very high for the average person.
- alibarber 2y agoI'd wager that for the sort of person who has the desire to care deeply about stopping windmills being built (perhaps feeling a need to 'conserve' the old way of doing things), instead of say, worrying about putting food on the table - this is pocket change.
- chgs 2y agoBut not for someone thinking their £2m house will “lose value” There are a lot of rich people in the U.K.
- FirmwareBurner 2y agoOf course, but I think a country can't survive long term if it's focused on raising the property prices of those with already expansive houses especially given the demographic slowdown/collapse. Or am I crazy?
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- blibble 2y agowouldn't have mattered due to the screwed up energy pricing system, if there's a single watt of electricity in the grid produced by burning gas, we pay for the entire grid output as if it was gas
- roenxi 2y agoThat is how literally everything in a market gets priced. When you buy an X, the price of it naturally trends to match the most expensive X that will be sold. In this case X is a watt of energy. But you can substitute any good or service.
- caseyy 2y agoCan you explain this? In commodities market, the strike price is between the lowest price seller and the highest buyer. In the goods market, individual buyers buy depending on their elasticity of demand unless the good has inelastic demand (rare). Neither matches what you seem to say.
- roenxi 2y ago> In commodities market, the strike price is between the lowest price seller and the highest buyer. The lowest seller price is the highest demanded price among all the sellers. All the sellers bar one would typically be willing to sell for a slightly lower price. As it is said; prices are set on the margins. Imagine that every seller has a secret price they are willing to sell for and that is some statistical distribution. The market price will be the highest price in that distribution that actually gets sold. Most sellers aren't selling for their secretly acceptable price, but for a higher price determined by the seller with the highest demands. The distribution, if it is ever discovered, becomes the supply curve.
- littlestymaar 2y agoNo product on a real market ever works like that (otherwise all goods of the same kind would cost the same everywhere in a country, priced at the marginal cost of supplying it to the most remote island community, which everyone can attest is not how markets work). Such a behavior only happens on artificial markets that have been designed for that purpose to match an ideological vision of how an “ideal market” should behave. Turns out the “ideal market” is a dystopia instead of the intended utopia.
- badgersnake 2y ago> I cannot believe this article talks about planning constraints and energy prices and doesn't mention that. It doesn’t fit their agenda.
- pas 2y agowhat's their agenda? (honest question, I'm not from the UK/US)
- pjc50 2y agoAs we can see down thread, people have got into a terrible mess of duelling propaganda and gone mad about wind power. We can have cheap clean energy, it requires a small amount of change, oh no, let's destroy everything instead. I'm going to start suggesting that planning should have a local referendum: approve this set of projects and you'll get cheaper electricity. Disapprove and your bill goes up. Democratic choice, but with consequences.
- InDubioProRubio 2y agoThere is something poetic, about the last charge of dying ideologies being an attack and defense of windmills. We will see a return of composure as central element communications culture. If you get emotional or irrational angry, you are considered possessed, ridden by loas and not worthy of communication. "I say Sir, the rabble seems to be quite in tatters and without a plan, all back and forth on windmills, but ultimately in the dark."
- isaacfrond 2y agoThat would not work. Just include a few million in your budget to convince the population of SmallVille and you can start building your coal-fired power station.
- pjc50 2y agoThe UK is still implementing the Large Combustion Plant Directive ( https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/1973/2015-12-31 https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/1973/2015-12-31 ), so separate UK level legislation would be required to legalize any new coal plant. Very unlikely scenario.
- Retric 2y agoCoal is dead in the UK, from 30% in 2014 to 0.5% in 2024. They went a full month with zero coal electricity generation back in 2020 and 2025 will be entirely coal free. Even natural gas is in decline.
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- stuaxo 2y agoOnce Solar looked to become the cheapest, Liz Truss gov tried to restrict that too.
- fransje26 2y agoShe had time for that, before the lettuce wilted?
- DrScientist 2y agoI see a lot of irrational online hate for wind power - even going as far as wanting to dismantle offshore farms. I do wonder who is fermenting this - the obvious place to look here is the fossil fuel industry - they have the means, the motive and a track record of flexible morals. A lot of currently very rich and powerful people lose in a world where most countries and even people can generate most of the power they require.
- dan-robertson 2y agoI’m not sure this is a fossil fuel industry thing. I think there are just people who really dislike the appearance of windmills in the landscape. Onshore, it is often better to put windmills on hills where they will be more prominent and so any one windmill can be ‘local’ to many people. Offshore, wind farms may ‘spoil’ a view out to sea, though they are also harder to oppose. P.s. I think you meant to write fomenting
- alt227 2y agoI come from Cornwall in the UK, and whenever I go back there I am struck by how many on shore windfarms and turbines there are there. As you drive through the countryside they are everywhere. I have asked hundreds of local people what they think of them over the years, and not one of them have ever said anything about them spoiling the view. The farmers love them as they get subsidies for putting them on their land, and generally people think they are doing a good thing and are happy to tolerate them. I personally dont think this is an issue with spoiling the view .
- Dylanfm 2y agoIt's not as simple as just installing more wind turbines. The grid needs improvement and we need things like regional pricing. See https://wastedwind.energy https://wastedwind.energy for example.