Everyone should be a biologist?

[chattius 2,523]

Since germany did a law to stop all nuclear powerplants there is a search for alternatives. One obvious is to use offshore wind energy. But then how to bring the power to south germany where it is needed. So some crazy people try to place wind power plants on every hill in the mid german mountains. Sadly that is the place I live.

The problem is that the government gives money for each new wind power plant and guarantees a certain price if selling the power.

So currently we have the stupid effect that north germany is producing more power already than needed and sells it cheap to neighbour countries (because of the to few exisitng powerlines to south germany). So in these countries the prices drop while in germany the prices raise and raise because of the guarantee for the price and south germany has to buy water energy from alpes countries.

So I see no sense in more wind power plants just for money making if there is no power grid or a power storage for calm wind days.

The state government did a map where wind power plants could be built and six 300metre towers with 80m radius for the rotors would be around our house.

So what to do? State interrest versus personal interrests, costly thing at court.

The best quick solution are strangely endangered species. If an endagered bird of prey is having a nest closer than 1.5km or endangered bats or small birds are closer than 200m the rotors wouldn't be allowed.

 

So I have some new friends:

the Mopsfledermaus (pug dog bat or in english Barbastelle).

Rotmilan (red kite)

...

and some I hold in reserve to bring them up whenever a new discussion starts.

 

I see a great future for biologists who are also lawyers. I may not be the only one who doesn't want a wind power plant in the backyard and not everyone grews up with knowing the animals as a young child already.

 

 

[masteff 64]

Yes, impact on birds has been used in the US to block some wind towers. In many places it is a true concern but in a few places it is merely because the local residents think wind towers are an eyesore.

 

Hopefully your government fixes the incentive program, so only the proper amount of electricity is generated and not an excess that wastes money. I'd bet the manufacturers of wind towers helped to write the incentive program.

[chattius 2,523]

The place the rotors would be is already used for a sort of sun energy. Squares with small trees of different ages for wood pellets heating. The valleys hold the centuries old trees which are high quality and it would be stupid to chop them for support roads for wind energy.

Wood pellets have all what wind and sun energy doesn't have at the moment. Using the energy even if there is no wind or sun, very short transport because of local users, ...

[gogoblender 3,069]

Since germany did a law to stop all nuclear powerplants there is a search for alternatives. One obvious is to use offshore wind energy. But then how to bring the power to south germany where it is needed. So some crazy people try to place wind power plants on every hill in the mid german mountains. Sadly that is the place I live.

The problem is that the government gives money for each new wind power plant and guarantees a certain price if selling the power.

So currently we have the stupid effect that north germany is producing more power already than needed and sells it cheap to neighbour countries (because of the to few exisitng powerlines to south germany). So in these countries the prices drop while in germany the prices raise and raise because of the guarantee for the price and south germany has to buy water energy from alpes countries.

So I see no sense in more wind power plants just for money making if there is no power grid or a power storage for calm wind days.

The state government did a map where wind power plants could be built and six 300metre towers with 80m radius for the rotors would be around our house.

So what to do? State interrest versus personal interrests, costly thing at court.

The best quick solution are strangely endangered species. If an endagered bird of prey is having a nest closer than 1.5km or endangered bats or small birds are closer than 200m the rotors wouldn't be allowed.

 

So I have some new friends:

the Mopsfledermaus (pug dog bat or in english Barbastelle).

Rotmilan (red kite)

...

and some I hold in reserve to bring them up whenever a new discussion starts.

 

I see a great future for biologists who are also lawyers. I may not be the only one who doesn't want a wind power plant in the backyard and not everyone grews up with knowing the animals as a young child already.

Funny you made this post Chattius. Just two nights ago, in a click/net voyage, I ended up doing a lot of reading on Wind Farms here, and I saw some info Windfarms, and their uses.

Some people were complaining that the constant rotor motion can make them get anxiety.

This true?

 

 

gogo

[Knuckles 904]

There's a HUGE conterversy going on where I live. For the last several years a company has been trying to install 130 wind towers out in Nantucket Sound (a body of water that separates Cape Cod from the Islands).

 

Been in courts for at least 10 years now. They did a survey and supposedly I won't be able to see them from my beach, but another said I would see a row of them just visible at the horizon. I really don't have a big issue with them since they will be about 5 miles off-shore and I think they are only about 300 feet tall. My biggest complaint is the area won't directly benefit with reduced electric bills.

 

The power generated by them simply goes into the electrical grid for the whole region. Supposedly it'll look something like this.

 

[gogoblender 3,069]

My biggest complaint is the area won't directly benefit with reduced electric bills.

 

 

This to me is everything. It means someone is going to benefit, but not the locals who have allow the windmills to go up. Power like this seems cool, specially if it's not as horrible as burning coal, but, as others here on topic have stated, let there be more incentive for the locals

 

 

gogo

[chattius 2,523]

Offshore rotors at coasts can be smaller because of the different heat storage of water and earth there is more wind at coasts. In our region the constant wind ( as in numbers making it cost effectiv ) starts several hundred feet above ground, so big towers and big rotors are needed. The power lines would be using masts, so forests along he lines would have to be chopped.

[SX255 630]

Well, the chopped forest line could be considered also a forest fire prevention line. And it’s not like the area now becomes a dead zone. Tall grass will come back, then the bushes, and eventually everything else.

[chattius 2,523]

We don't have this big forest fires.

Also our area is measured, digitalized, ... So in case of a fire Sprengschläuche will be used. It are water hoses full of water which contain ropes of an explosive material. The igniters are computer controlled (area, wind, fire speed, ground...) and ignite just at a certain distance to the fire. They will do a water curtain which stops the fire (hopefully), but exercises worked fine. The last 'fire' we had was a farmer who burned wheat with a fungus disease when a sudden fall wind blowed the sparks hundreads metres away, over the 10m stripe he had plowed.

Took 12 minutes from alarm to be there with our scout car and 1 minutes of its high pressure impulse gun to extinguish the fire in the forest. Was the last fire fighting event we had in a forest. Way more often we have to cut people out of cars after a crash.

Fire prevention lines in our area which has a lot of fall winds would have to be so big that there wouldn't be a forest anymore

 

The explosive water hoses are used when demolishing high buildings. The dust wave after the crash of the building is stopped by creating water curtains, see the pictures here.

http://www.feuerwehrgeschichte.de/spezial/lf_2rsystem.htm

The problem with forest fires is: the igniters and the explosives are high tech and under the weapon export stop. So giving them to civil persons, as are firefighters, is a lot of bureaucratzy. Our company works with explosives and is mid in a forest. So in our case the water hoses are stored at the company not at the fire dep.

Our computer simulation of a wind power tower and a failure in the gearing causing a fire did sparks in an area of 500m atthe planed height. If these towers are build, they should be build on hills with no forests. But this conflicts with: in our district each of such a hill has a castle on its top