Why don't they paint wind generators sky blue?

ICBM

mart said:

Or the nuclear option with its enviable safety record and touching optimism that we'll get the waste problem sorted soon, even though we've made no progress on it in fifty years.

We could always store it in the contaminated zones at Chernobyl and Fukushima. No-one is going to be living there for hundreds of years anyway, and they're plenty big enough.

Rocker

Sporky said:

Rocker said:

Wind turbines are not a lotta use on a frosty winter morning either.

You do know they're powered by wind, not temperature, right?

@Sporky, on a frosty winter morning there is NO wind

Sporky

Rocker said:

@Sporky, on a frosty winter morning there is NO wind

Citation needed.

Nitefly

That stuff in the sky above Drax is just water vapour.  The big structures are cooling towers, to cool the steam which has just driven the turbines that generated the electricity.

According to their website, Drax burns 70% renewable biomass and 30% coal.

http://www.drax.com/about-us/

Bellycaster

Bucket said:

Bellycaster said:

Surprised no one has suggested Heritage Cherry Burst.

Sparkly purple.

And I thought you were a Green Lover....pffffft

Headphones

Over the years we've spent a lot of effort trying to work out the best colour schemes to hide things from an observer (even done a bit of it myself).

In the context of hiding these devices from view, there's a simple answer - you can't!

There's also little option to soften any visual impact, beyond making them non reflective so they don't flash as they turn.

A ground observer will always see them as a silhouette against a sky (which will have some illumination content if you can see, even at night).  The brightness can effectively never be matched (at least passively) so you'll always see it.

It might be possible to achieve some match in sky colour, but that varies hugely through the time and seasons, even in one locale, so in practice can never be done effectively.  A quick look at the various underside colours of military aircraft and the different shades of warships across navies makes this crystal clear.

The brightness matching has rarely been attempted in practice, with one of the very few successes being the RAF U boat chasing during WW2, but that took a separate lamp and genny - not really a renewable energy solution.

menamestom

lustycourtier said:

Rocker said:

TimmyO said:

I think they are beautiful. Honestly.

You ought to try living in the shadow of one..........

I live less than a mile from 9 brand new ones, and think they are beautiful things. the pylons next to them however are hideous things.  

lustycourtier said:

Rocker said:

TimmyO said:

I think they are beautiful. Honestly.

You ought to try living in the shadow of one..........

I live less than a mile from 9 brand new ones, and think they are beautiful things. the pylons next to them however are hideous things.  

Yeah, but it would be a bit of a shame to generate all that power, but then not bother distributing it?   So to that end, pyons are quite important, if you want electricity and shit?

robgilmo

ICBM said:

mart said:

Or the nuclear option with its enviable safety record and touching optimism that we'll get the waste problem sorted soon, even though we've made no progress on it in fifty years.

We could always store it in the contaminated zones at Chernobyl and Fukushima. No-one is going to be living there for hundreds of years anyway, and they're plenty big enough.

Not hundreds, hundreds of thousands of years

mart

Nitefly said:

That stuff in the sky above Drax is just water vapour.  The big structures are cooling towers, to cool the steam which has just driven the turbines that generated the electricity.
....

So they manage to burn 9 million tonnes of coal per year and produce only ... water vapour? Wow, that's some impressive technology that manages to clean the output so much.

ICBM

robgilmo said:

ICBM said:

We could always store it in the contaminated zones at Chernobyl and Fukushima. No-one is going to be living there for hundreds of years anyway, and they're plenty big enough.

Not hundreds, hundreds of thousands of years

Certain areas close to the reactors, yes. But parts of the larger exclusion zones may be habitable again much sooner, especially at Fukushima where there was a much more limited release of heavy isotopes with very long half-lives.

Did you see the recent documentary on the building of the new cover for the Chernobyl reactor? Remarkable engineering - essentially something the size of a sports stadium that has to be built to tolerances that mean the whole thing will be airtight, last for up to a hundred years, and moved into place as a single unit. The idea is to allow the old 'sarcophagus' and the reactor building to be safely dismantled robotically over up to the next hundred years and the most radioactive parts to be sent away for storage or treatment elsewhere, which will shorten the time the complex is dangerous. Of course it will probably cost more than building all the nuclear power stations in the world put together...

There's also a Chinese (I think) company who wants to use the exclusion zone for the world's largest solar generation site. It would seem ideal given that it's now useless for habitation or agriculture. I would say storing the world's spent nuclear fuel in it as well would solve two problems at once.

RandallFlagg

mart said:

Nitefly said:

That stuff in the sky above Drax is just water vapour.  The big structures are cooling towers, to cool the steam which has just driven the turbines that generated the electricity.
....

So they manage to burn 9 million tonnes of coal per year and produce only ... water vapour? Wow, that's some impressive technology that manages to clean the output so much.

Drax emissions are subject to strict EA emissions limits just like all other fossil fuel burning plants, the emissions stack has a monitoring system installed and the EA will inspect regularly and check historical data from the emissions system. Breaches are extremely serious and could result in immediate voluntary plant shut down. The air around the plant is perfectly safe and clean enough.

If you really want to help reduce emissions, stop using electricity because renewables alone will never provide enough power for human consumption, and stop eating farmed meat as well so less cows fart methane into the atmosphere.

The efforts of the UK to reduce emissions are like pissing in the wind as we only produce 1% of the worlds emissions of CO2.

RandallFlagg

You might find this useful:

http://www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk

ICBM

RandallFlagg said:

If you really want to help reduce emissions, stop using electricity because renewables alone will never provide enough power for human consumption

Actually not true, it's just that the types of renewables being currently promoted won't. If we could properly harness wave, hydro, tidal and geothermal power we would have more generation capacity than we can ever use. Wind is at best a short-term loss-leader.

RandallFlagg said:

The efforts of the UK to reduce emissions are like pissing in the wind as we only produce 1% of the worlds emissions of CO2.

Also true - the important player is China. They've now announced an end to building new non-renewable capacity after 2020 - although whether they can achieve that is another question.

What will solve the problem in the end is that we're getting close to the tipping point where renewable isn't just the right way to generate power, it's the *best* way - once it becomes cheaper (which it will, because it's inherently more efficient if it can be done on a big enough scale), simple economics will do the rest. That's the reason we don't use steam railway locomotives any more - not because they were dirty, but because they were inefficient.

Cutting energy use is also more efficient, so once the new technology becomes cheap enough to offset the initial purchase cost, that will have the same effect. LED light bulbs are a perfect example.

RandallFlagg

Commercial viability of renewables is challenging and wave power faces huge technological challenges and has always been 20 years away. There is a view that wave power will never be commercially viable.

mart

RandallFlagg said:

Drax emissions are subject to strict EA emissions limits just like all other fossil fuel burning plants, the emissions stack has a monitoring system installed and the EA will inspect regularly and check historical data from the emissions system. Breaches are extremely serious and could result in immediate voluntary plant shut down. The air around the plant is perfectly safe and clean enough.
...

So, one minute it's all water vapour and then the next it's not all water vapour but it is "perfectly safe" and "clean enough" according to some EA standard that has been negotiated with the power companies. 

And you wonder why I'd prefer to live near a wind turbine than a power station?

RandallFlagg said:

...
If you really want to help reduce emissions, stop using electricity because renewables alone will never provide enough power for human consumption, and stop eating farmed meat as well so less cows fart methane into the atmosphere.
...

Agreed - reducing energy consumption is key, which is what I have been doing myself for about thirty years. But I reckon that the tiny difference I can make on my own is going to be dwarfed by a few wind turbines.

RandallFlagg said:

...
The efforts of the UK to reduce emissions are like pissing in the wind as we only produce 1% of the worlds emissions of CO2.

Hmm, in the previous paragraph you argued that if I want to see any change, I should do my bit. And in the next paragraph you're arguing that if we do our bit as a country it'll make no difference. It's difficult to know where to start unpicking such a nonsense cycle of contradiction, so let's not bother.

For me it's still simple and clear, a clean wind turbine is a preferable source of energy to a polluting fossil fuel power station or a toxic waste producing nuclear power station. Since we as a country will continue using electricity and continue generating it, I would rather we did that as cleanly and sustainably as we can.

RandallFlagg

mart said:

RandallFlagg said:

Drax emissions are subject to strict EA emissions limits just like all other fossil fuel burning plants, the emissions stack has a monitoring system installed and the EA will inspect regularly and check historical data from the emissions system. Breaches are extremely serious and could result in immediate voluntary plant shut down. The air around the plant is perfectly safe and clean enough.
...

So, one minute it's all water vapour and then the next it's not all water vapour but it is "perfectly safe" and "clean enough" according to some EA standard that has been negotiated with the power companies. 

And you wonder why I'd prefer to live near a wind turbine than a power station?

RandallFlagg said:

...
If you really want to help reduce emissions, stop using electricity because renewables alone will never provide enough power for human consumption, and stop eating farmed meat as well so less cows fart methane into the atmosphere.
...

Agreed - reducing energy consumption is key, which is what I have been doing myself for about thirty years. But I reckon that the tiny difference I can make on my own is going to be dwarfed by a few wind turbines.

RandallFlagg said:

...
The efforts of the UK to reduce emissions are like pissing in the wind as we only produce 1% of the worlds emissions of CO2.

Hmm, in the previous paragraph you argued that if I want to see any change, I should do my bit. And in the next paragraph you're arguing that if we do our bit as a country it'll make no difference. It's difficult to know where to start unpicking such a nonsense cycle of contradiction, so let's not bother.

For me it's still simple and clear, a clean wind turbine is a preferable source of energy to a polluting fossil fuel power station or a toxic waste producing nuclear power station. Since we as a country will continue using electricity and continue generating it, I would rather we did that as cleanly and sustainably as we can.

Well good for you. But I'm still not sure if we should paint wind turbines blue or not 

Rocker

Electricity production is responsible for only a small portion of the annual CO2 produced. It is considerably less than 20% in fact so reducing what is a small percentage makes very little difference in reality. Makes politicians look good as they can claim to be 'doing something about limiting the production of CO2'. The big culprits, who won't be touched, are transport, agriculture and heavy industry.

ToneControl

Rocker said:

Electricity production is responsible for only a small portion of the annual CO2 produced. It is considerably less than 20% in fact so reducing what is a small percentage makes very little difference in reality. Makes politicians look good as they can claim to be 'doing something about limiting the production of CO2'. The big culprits, who won't be touched, are transport, agriculture and heavy industry.

Not sure that's accurate, but we'll all be in electric cars soon, and heating will have to be electric in the long run

ToneControl

ICBM said:

RandallFlagg said:

If you really want to help reduce emissions, stop using electricity because renewables alone will never provide enough power for human consumption

Actually not true, it's just that the types of renewables being currently promoted won't. If we could properly harness wave, hydro, tidal and geothermal power we would have more generation capacity than we can ever use. Wind is at best a short-term loss-leader.

did you read that book
http://www.withouthotair.com/c14/page_87.shtml

we have nearly the highest tidal range in the world,  7m I think, up to 15m
worldwide average is 2m or 3m
also we lots of coast per person, most countries have little or none
Even then ,  tide and wave are only  a small amount compared to what we need in the UK

Rocker

ToneControl said:

Rocker said:

Electricity production is responsible for only a small portion of the annual CO2 produced. It is considerably less than 20% in fact so reducing what is a small percentage makes very little difference in reality. Makes politicians look good as they can claim to be 'doing something about limiting the production of CO2'. The big culprits, who won't be touched, are transport, agriculture and heavy industry.

Not sure that's accurate, but we'll all be in electric cars soon, and heating will have to be electric in the long run

The percentages are accurate. If homes were built and insulated to a sufficiently high standard (passive heating) we would need much less energy for heating. By the time electric cars are commonplace, a better system of electricity generation will be in place. That is a long way down the road.....