Should we put turbines everywhere?

[AE-NMidlands]

Reading Moxi's

I wonder if Ripple want to build a single unit behind my cottage ? We get good westerlies and today the easterlies are snapping down the nantiles valley and up over the shoulder of moel tryfan at around 30mph gusting to 42mph.

They could plug it into my house direct as I have a spare three pin plug socket at the back of the cottage .

That said because we’re on the edge of the national park I presume there would be some sort of outcry , most likely from people who live no where near us!
Moxi

I wondered if some places should be sacrosanct? National parks aren't necessarily, but to my mind some views are definitely worth preserving.
An example is that it is claimed that the railway to Windermere cannot be electrified because of objections on visual grounds, but that it completely untrue, and all the authorities are in favour of it.
On the other hand, I supported the petition to prevent turbines being put on the Howgill Fells: The view of them (the fells) from the mouth of the Lune Gorge is absolutely superb and I wouldn't want to see it change, while there are many other places where windfarms could happily spread across the landscape.
I know we have a climate emergency, but there are literally millions of roofs without pv, a shockingly wasteful housing stock and other places to put turbines. Why not go for these first - there is probably more than enough scope for the UK to become a net exporter of electricity...
What do you think?
A

[Mart]

I genuinely like the look of WT's, so for me they enhance the view when added.

I suspect it would be next to impossible to remove an old historic 'windmill' from any site due to the beneficial view(s) that it brings.

Many (many) years ago I watched a TV series called windfarm wars, showing the battles that were taken to get a windfarm installed. The measure of objection seems to revolve (pun intended) around whether folk could see it. This involved flying balloons up to the height of the proposed WT's at each location. Apparently being able to see a WT was a bad thing.

But my biggest takeaway was a phrase oft repeated throughout the series and used by many. They referred to the placing of a number of WT's across several square miles of countryside as 'industrialising the landscape'.

Two things wrong with that statement. Firstly, WT's take up very little land/view, yes a windfarm may cover 10's even 100's of square miles, but the number of WT's is relatively small, as is the land area and view that they occupy.

Secondly, the countryside in question was undoubtably beautiful, certainly to me, being the rich English patchwork quilt of farms and fields and crops of multiple colours. So pretty much 100% of the land was taken up by farming fields, farm buildings, farm hedges, and farm access roads, nothing 'natural' about it anymore. And farming is an 'industry' is it not?

[Moxi]

Mart couldn’t agree more so that’s a big plus one from me

Moxi

[Moxi]

I should also say that the hill behind comprises two rough grazing fields of low quality then a slate spoils tip and abandoned slate workings so essentially and arguably a brown field site. Yes there will be places where it’s not suitable or sensible to build but there are many good sites with willing local communities.

Plus let’s not forget it’s not so long ago that a lot of us suffered from condensate cloud obfuscation from the Trent valley coal fired stations so you don’t need to be next door to something to suffer loss of amenity.

I don’t fly but I suffer from cloudy strata cumulus seeded from passenger aircraft passing overhead but I don’t campaign to stop flights.

Similarly this week we had a company investigating a tidal lagoon in the Dee - first people out of the NIMBY camp are ecologists ! Special site for wading birds - the lagoon takes up a fraction of the Dee and if we didn’t build the lagoon then how long will the Dee estuary stay as it is with rising sea levels and increased coastal storms and tidal surges ??

I despair sometimes - personal interest sometimes needs to give way to national need.

Moxi

[nowty]

I do have a counter view in certain cases, being that I am (probably was now) a paraglider pilot and the sport needs accessible hills to take off from. In Spain about 15 years ago there was a battle of immense proportions to save the take off area at Peña Negra near the small town of Piedrahita, about 50kw east of Avila and 80km south of Salamanca.

Its an unbelievable mecca for paragliders and the local town lives off the business from the visiting pilots. The local topology gives a unique convergence zone of thermal lift for flights of 100's of km's. Back in 2007 I made my best flight ever from there of 138 km taking off at 1:30pm and landing at 8:30pm.

There are plenty of other places to put the wind turbines, but as this site already had access by a road the main reason for it was it would have been cheaper for the wind farm developers. Landowners wanted to cash in, council officials, police and judges were bribed. Barbed wire fences were put up illegally in front of the take off on locally safeguarded land and the police threatened to arrest anyone who removed it.

It would have killed the local community and in the end the whole community came out and besieged the town hall and eventually they won. The place remained specially safeguarded.

Piedrahita from 2007

[Moxi]

You hit the nail on the head there Nowty when you said the local community were against it - I’m talking about experts who are wheeled out for their opinion but have no other investment in the area other than their core interest as an academic or local government bodies who feel they are there to object to everything unless there’s something in it for them.

Moxi

[Mr Gus]

When turbines went up in sight of us the expectation was distancing itself from village objectors, actually there was very little objection compared to the local tip expansion.

In the last 3 years a farmer sold off land, an estate was built, it is both nearer than ever to the turbines & closer to the tip, many folk had no inkling of the breaches by the tip, again wind turbines never enter the conversation.

New homes block our view of the turbines across the fields.

Considering the density of W/T since say 2002 in 2022 we need to ask others what they will commit to if it is deemed nimbyism!?

Train viaducts & bridges & tracks "were" alien to landscapes back in time, how that has changed.

We are 20+ years in where commercial wind in the UK is concerned, I could say "enough" you are ruining the fen signs which as it's flat = pretty darn prominent, & argue if they are not prepared to take their share why do we have to suck it up instead!? ..do we matter less?

Reminds me of the hypocrisy of the rspb spouting off about & against wt's ..whilst building one on their bird orientated nature reserve! (Sandy Heath).


Not an answer for the above just a reminder.

And it's patently ridiculous to allow big vehicles in national parks but crucify folk for solar, ..& new housing not to have solar from the outset, that plastic conservatory!? ..monstrosity, ..that fume emitting suv parked 18 hours per day on the road ..fine!? ...wtf!?

[Joeboy]

I was on the Banff coast earlier today and it was blowing a hoolie. Seems there are plenty of quite large 2 blade WT's on farms. Sometimes multiples yet the swathes of larger turbine I'd expect just aren't there. A strange one I thought. Lots of PV though. It seemed the wrong way round?

[Mart]

Mart couldn’t agree more so that’s a big plus one from me

Moxi

Many thanks.

But actually, re-reading it, it may have come over slightly wrong, or not been worded well. I'm not for putting them absolutely anywhere, and as per the OP's opening words, I do feel that some areas will be sacrosanct since the view has meaning. Let's be silly and say popping one in the middle of Buckingham Palace, if it was the only suitable location in the UK and would solve AGW, fine, but obviously better sites with less genuine visual objection will be available. Nowty's example is great too, if you have choices, then unless there's no alternative, other interests should be considered.

I do believe it's a matter of getting used to stuff, and how things simply become normalised over time. I've mentioned this before, but I do think it should be repeated (endlessly). When the Gov started their quarterly public attitude surveys over 10yrs ago, RE got massive support, PV tops, off-shore wind close behind, but onshore wind trailed somewhat with about 67% support and 12% against. After 10yrs the support had grown into low 70's, whilst opposition had fallen to 8%. I think that's incredibly important ..... 1/3rd of opposition disappeared across the time period that onshore wind impacted us both visually and financially. So reality was clearly not as bad as expectations, otherwise opposition would have grown with deployment.

So I understand the fears that drive Nimbyism, and genuine concerns need to be considered, and fears addressed, but objections along the grounds of 'I'll be able to see it' don't really rate with me at all, since 'the view' has been changing since mankind starting building anything/everything, and we need to embrace change no matter how much it scares us.

Question - Does anyone know of research/surveys from areas contemplating WT's in the past, and people's opinions? I know that the majority support WT's, but the majority don't necessarily live close by (not including those that can see one, as they are visible across too great an area), but I thought I recalled some surveys that showed that even locals now tend to support WT rollouts, or to be clear, more support than object.

I love 'ours' a 2.5MW beauty about 1.5 miles from our house, which still makes me smile after 10yrs when I see it when walking the dog, and visible from about 10 miles away, so technically, objectionable to a land/sea area of about 314 square miles including most of Cardiff ..... Ouch!

[Gareth J]

I find it such short termism that anyone cares about the view that much. They have such a relatively minute lifespan and they're so low impact long term I think they should be everywhere grid demand and supply of wind exists. If they help get us out of a hole right now, great. If it turn out there's something cheaper/better/less impactful in 50yrs time, they can be melted down and the lump if concrete turfed over, restoring the precious view.

Local opposition should be curbed by free local electric when there's oversupply. Should help get the n+1th turbine up and help manage grid/storage.