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People oppose everything. * Lattice overhead powerlines? Eyesore (should use the new T style ones), house values, wind noise, hums, WiFi interference, cancer,

People oppose everything. * Lattice overhead powerlines? Eyesore (should use the new T style ones), house values, wind noise, hums, WiFi interference, cancer, access roads, hazard to planes, birds * T-frame pylons: boring (https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/13/electricity-pylons-britain-duller-place-national-grid-t-pylon-design https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/apr/13/electr...), eyesore (we prefer the lattice ones), most of the above too * Underground: damaging to the environment, end stations are eyesores/light polluters, more construction traffic, should be HVDC not AC, house values * Solar farms: waste of good land (golf courses are fine) noise somehow, construction, eyesore (but a 400 acre field of stinky bright yellow rapeseed is OK), house values * Onshore Wind farms: all the birds all the time, access, eyesore, noise, dangerous, should be offshore, house value, waste of land, I heard on Facebook the CO2 takes 500 years to pay back * Offshore wind farms: eyesores, radar hazard, all the birds, house values somehow, navigation hazard, seabed disruption * Build an access road: destroying the countryside, dust if not surfaced, drainage, house values * Don't build an access road: destroying roads, HGVs on local roads, house values * Nuclear: literally all the reasons plus scary Some of them are fair on their own, but it really adds up to a tendentious bunch of wankers at every turn who think the house they bought for 100k in 1991 and is now worth 900k is the corner of the universe. > As a foreign influence I'm sure these people would never take foreign cash: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93k584nvgeo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93k584nvgeo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyk1j92195o https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/clyk1j92195o

arethuza 1y ago
We can see a lot of windmills from our house - probably at least 60 in a few different windfarms. They are all nearly 40km away, but I actually like seeing them. There are others much closer, which I also rather like seeing (closest is about 2km) but you can't see them from where we live.
- grues-dinner 1y ago
  I also actually really like the look of wind turbines. They seems to be just the right blend of graceful, majestic and futuristic. The old 2-blade ones are a bit visually noisy as they look like they oscillate, but they're basically extinct now. I am somewhat sympathetic to, in the case of wind, low-frequency noise complaints, but I strongly suspect most of them are just tacked on for good measure.
  - rwyinuse 1y ago
    Yeah, I get why people don't want wind turbines right next to their house, but also in my country I see people in the countryside complaining about turbines that are literally in middle of a forest, many kilometers away. It's just pathetic, especially since we're talking about economic backwater, where tax revenue and jobs from those turbines are a significant plus.
- Loughla 1y ago
  I don't mind them in the distance. I would love if these stupid things were 40km away. The closest is like 500 meters away from my house. They're awful. I live in the country for the peace and quiet and dark at night. Now with a wind farm, there is a constant background hum that reminds me of living near a highway in the city, and a swishing noise that's louder than the cicadas and other night time bugs. Also, the red blinking safety lights do actually keep me up at night, but I might just be very sensitive to light. I fully supported and still support the wind farm, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to host a turbine (and therefore benefit at all from these things). But, I really, really, really don't like the side effects at all. Is that NIMBYism?
  - lillecarl 1y ago
    500 meters is very close, if it ACTUALLY affects you negatively I'd say your concerns are valid, but at 2km it's only going to be the skyline, which isn't your property unless you're in NYC.
  - tpxl 1y ago
    > Is that NIMBYism? No. You recognize the drawbacks and still support the project for the good of others. That's the opposite of NIMBY, it's a high level of emotional maturity.
  - bee_rider 1y ago
    I live in the country near a highway, if we could ban anything louder than a cicada I’d be quite happy to save us all a lot of fossil fuels!
- grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
  Yeh I'm about 2km from a large wind park, it's the least obnoxious thing imaginable. Jogging through them at night with their dim red blinking strobes or watching them work overtime on a windy winter day is great and gives you a sorely needed feeling of optimism and hope for the future. Yes directly underneath them there is some gentle swooshing noises but I think beyond 500m it's basically imperceptible. Nothing I'd call offensive, car traffic is easily 10x worse. The young folks that I've talked to locally, overwhelming share the same perspective. The opposition has to come from folks who cannot see the bigger picture and just view them as some kind of excessive ugly infrastructure. Not properly recognizing / or caring about the societal benefit of clean abundant energy or the future. I kind of find it interesting that a lot of historical landscape art from northern Europe featured windmills. Nobody viewed them as a blight back then.
  - gambiting 1y ago
    I live about a mile down from two large wind turbines and you can absolutely hear them, especially at night - it's a low droning noise that especially on quiet nights and in the summer when you have your windows open it actually bothers me to a point where I considered selling the house multple times already - but decided that rolling the dice on noise pollution and ending up with something even more annoying just isn't worth it. >>Not properly recognizing / or caring about the societal benefit of clean abundant energy or the future. I think we should devote every single spare inch of land to wind turbines and harness as much of wind energy as possible. But I won't pretend like the bloody things are not keeping me up at night when I can hear them.
    - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
      I'm assuming it depends a fair bit on the model of the turbine. The park near us is rather new so I'm sure they are using the latest options.
      - jjkaczor 1y ago
        May also depend on the age of the people nearby - am reaching an age with some level of hearing loss and I don't hear many low frequency - or high-pitch noises much anymore (drone of insects, or mosquitoes - squeaky voices of small children, etc.), so I probably wouldn't hear the turbines as much as a person with better hearing.
vlan0 1y ago
The problem is, and always has been, land owners and their ego.
HPsquared 1y ago
House prices are the UK's version of "the spice must flow". The whole Ponzi scheme is dependent on that market, as there isn't much else. Too big to fail.
- devnullbrain 1y ago
  Specifically, concern for house prices in a really myopic way. It's 'preferable' to hamstring the place you live in than to turn it into somewhere with a functioning economy that people want to live in.
- array_key_first 1y ago
  If it makes you feel better, it's the same in the US. Some cities self destruct in pursuit of maintaining real estate prices. Of course, once they self destruct, prices plummet. Nobody considers that part.
myrmidon 1y ago
There is no need to speculate on Reform members being on the take when they are literally pleading "guilty" in court: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6xwy015ngo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6xwy015ngo Scum.
Forgeties79 1y ago
Saw multiple people on HN literally 2 days ago complaining about how noisy solar is. Absolutely baffling.
- gambiting 1y ago
  What's noisy about them? The transformers? Or something else?
  - Forgeties79 1y ago
    Yeah they claimed the associated hardware for it was noisy. I don’t want to link to the actual comments because that’s kind of mean spirited, I’m just pointing out that I’ve heard people complain about the noise from solar and it’s pretty wild to me. I’ve been in close proximity to pretty large arrays and in plenty of homes with them on rooftops. You don’t notice them at all. They also don’t make the air around them unbreathable
  - throwaway34564 1y ago
    I have a residential solar installation, and the inverter makes some noise when the relays are switching between import and export. I'm not complaining - although it was indeed surprising
flerchin 1y ago
> tendentious bunch of wankers Lovely turn of phrase. I'm going to work it into my next tech talk.
ElevenLathe 1y ago
I assume from context that the "house values" you and several other apparently British posters are using is what in the US we would call "home prices"? Or have I guessed wrong and it is being used more like "family values"? If the latter, what kind of values are meant?
- port11 1y ago
  It's home prices indeed AFAICT. It's fairly bloody-minded ti think house prices will go down with nearby renewables, it'd be a small blip if any at all. Give me wind turbines around and take away the cars and delivery motorcycles.

arethuza 1y ago

We can see a lot of windmills from our house - probably at least 60 in a few different windfarms. They are all nearly 40km away, but I actually like seeing them. There are others much closer, which I also rather like seeing (closest is about 2km) but you can't see them from where we live.

grues-dinner 1y ago
I also actually really like the look of wind turbines. They seems to be just the right blend of graceful, majestic and futuristic. The old 2-blade ones are a bit visually noisy as they look like they oscillate, but they're basically extinct now. I am somewhat sympathetic to, in the case of wind, low-frequency noise complaints, but I strongly suspect most of them are just tacked on for good measure.
- rwyinuse 1y ago
  Yeah, I get why people don't want wind turbines right next to their house, but also in my country I see people in the countryside complaining about turbines that are literally in middle of a forest, many kilometers away. It's just pathetic, especially since we're talking about economic backwater, where tax revenue and jobs from those turbines are a significant plus.
Loughla 1y ago
I don't mind them in the distance. I would love if these stupid things were 40km away. The closest is like 500 meters away from my house. They're awful. I live in the country for the peace and quiet and dark at night. Now with a wind farm, there is a constant background hum that reminds me of living near a highway in the city, and a swishing noise that's louder than the cicadas and other night time bugs. Also, the red blinking safety lights do actually keep me up at night, but I might just be very sensitive to light. I fully supported and still support the wind farm, even though I knew I wouldn't be able to host a turbine (and therefore benefit at all from these things). But, I really, really, really don't like the side effects at all. Is that NIMBYism?
- lillecarl 1y ago
  500 meters is very close, if it ACTUALLY affects you negatively I'd say your concerns are valid, but at 2km it's only going to be the skyline, which isn't your property unless you're in NYC.
- tpxl 1y ago
  > Is that NIMBYism? No. You recognize the drawbacks and still support the project for the good of others. That's the opposite of NIMBY, it's a high level of emotional maturity.
- bee_rider 1y ago
  I live in the country near a highway, if we could ban anything louder than a cicada I’d be quite happy to save us all a lot of fossil fuels!
grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
Yeh I'm about 2km from a large wind park, it's the least obnoxious thing imaginable. Jogging through them at night with their dim red blinking strobes or watching them work overtime on a windy winter day is great and gives you a sorely needed feeling of optimism and hope for the future. Yes directly underneath them there is some gentle swooshing noises but I think beyond 500m it's basically imperceptible. Nothing I'd call offensive, car traffic is easily 10x worse. The young folks that I've talked to locally, overwhelming share the same perspective. The opposition has to come from folks who cannot see the bigger picture and just view them as some kind of excessive ugly infrastructure. Not properly recognizing / or caring about the societal benefit of clean abundant energy or the future. I kind of find it interesting that a lot of historical landscape art from northern Europe featured windmills. Nobody viewed them as a blight back then.
- gambiting 1y ago
  I live about a mile down from two large wind turbines and you can absolutely hear them, especially at night - it's a low droning noise that especially on quiet nights and in the summer when you have your windows open it actually bothers me to a point where I considered selling the house multple times already - but decided that rolling the dice on noise pollution and ending up with something even more annoying just isn't worth it. >>Not properly recognizing / or caring about the societal benefit of clean abundant energy or the future. I think we should devote every single spare inch of land to wind turbines and harness as much of wind energy as possible. But I won't pretend like the bloody things are not keeping me up at night when I can hear them.
  - grumpy-de-sre 1y ago
    I'm assuming it depends a fair bit on the model of the turbine. The park near us is rather new so I'm sure they are using the latest options.
    - jjkaczor 1y ago
      May also depend on the age of the people nearby - am reaching an age with some level of hearing loss and I don't hear many low frequency - or high-pitch noises much anymore (drone of insects, or mosquitoes - squeaky voices of small children, etc.), so I probably wouldn't hear the turbines as much as a person with better hearing.

vlan0 1y ago

The problem is, and always has been, land owners and their ego.

HPsquared 1y ago

House prices are the UK's version of "the spice must flow". The whole Ponzi scheme is dependent on that market, as there isn't much else. Too big to fail.

devnullbrain 1y ago
Specifically, concern for house prices in a really myopic way. It's 'preferable' to hamstring the place you live in than to turn it into somewhere with a functioning economy that people want to live in.
array_key_first 1y ago
If it makes you feel better, it's the same in the US. Some cities self destruct in pursuit of maintaining real estate prices. Of course, once they self destruct, prices plummet. Nobody considers that part.

myrmidon 1y ago

There is no need to speculate on Reform members being on the take when they are literally pleading "guilty" in court: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6xwy015ngo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cj6xwy015ngo Scum.

Forgeties79 1y ago

Saw multiple people on HN literally 2 days ago complaining about how noisy solar is. Absolutely baffling.

gambiting 1y ago
What's noisy about them? The transformers? Or something else?
- Forgeties79 1y ago
  Yeah they claimed the associated hardware for it was noisy. I don’t want to link to the actual comments because that’s kind of mean spirited, I’m just pointing out that I’ve heard people complain about the noise from solar and it’s pretty wild to me. I’ve been in close proximity to pretty large arrays and in plenty of homes with them on rooftops. You don’t notice them at all. They also don’t make the air around them unbreathable
- throwaway34564 1y ago
  I have a residential solar installation, and the inverter makes some noise when the relays are switching between import and export. I'm not complaining - although it was indeed surprising

flerchin 1y ago

> tendentious bunch of wankers Lovely turn of phrase. I'm going to work it into my next tech talk.

ElevenLathe 1y ago

I assume from context that the "house values" you and several other apparently British posters are using is what in the US we would call "home prices"? Or have I guessed wrong and it is being used more like "family values"? If the latter, what kind of values are meant?

port11 1y ago
It's home prices indeed AFAICT. It's fairly bloody-minded ti think house prices will go down with nearby renewables, it'd be a small blip if any at all. Give me wind turbines around and take away the cars and delivery motorcycles.