Who's got the wind up.

Yep thats what bothers me.

And all the energy suppliers keep saying they are using X amount of renewable energy, we are just mushrooms.

 

Hi Victoria

Well I'll have a go. :D Where I live, just outside Cambridge there are plans for a 10 x wind turbine farm. The cost we are told is around 50 million pounds. Why then would anyone want to invest that sort of money when the amount of electricity generated from a wind turbine is so low? (I hear you ask :D ) The answer is that almost all the funding to build these things comes from the EU and after the money has been spent, the EU continue to pay a huge subsidy for every watt of electricity generated which makes these company’s an absolute fortune. Also the farmer, who owns the land, will receive £200,000 every year for allowing them on his land, even though he can of course continue to farm around them.


The life span of a wind turbine is only 20 years, and the resources that go in to make just one is the same as making a Boeing 747. So I believe the whole thing is a scam to make money.

 

I have been looking at different energy supplies. In particular I am thinking about ways I can light and heat my new polytunnel. Only just started looking into things, but the one common factor that keeps coming up, is the cost of anything supplied in the UK. Then the cost of installation and maintenance.

I have spoken to a few people that have also been down the same road. There are only a few companies in the UK that supply and fit things like solar panels. They are all approved by some self regulating body. If a company is not approved by them they cannot supply or fit the rquipment. The government is deeply involved in it somewhere along the line.

I am not in the least bit interested in making profit for big companies or the government. However, I am interested in saving energy and money. Everything I have found out so far points to the government protecting big business and its own coffers.

People like Maplins supply small scale solar panels to power things like caravan lights and recharge mobile phones. Being a UK retail outlet they work on massive mark ups, usually about three times cost price. With that sort of cost for the most basic equipment, we are, as usual being bent over and greased up prior to a right royal shafting.

Solar power is not new. I have owned a solar powered calculator for the last 30 years and it still works as well today as it did the day I was given it.

So my fellow lemmings, until enough of us stamp our feet and demand the facts, we will continue to get shafted.

Chopper.

 

:hehe: Missed that one.

Nice pics, was that work or a holiday ?

 

Hi Chopper,

My solar electric has got an 18 watt panel that powers 2 leisure batteries. I think I need to increase to 40 watts + but cant afford it at the moment. Am toying with the idea of building a wind turbine using an alternator, that will probably be a lot cheaper than another solar panel.

I could run the feed from that through the charge controler that is already on the system, that stops the batteries overcharging.

I've run 12volt sockets to some of the rooms as well as 12 volt strip lights.

Plan being to run the lights & computer off solar when the power cuts come ( and they will)

 

This may not really but the tone of the conversation but I actually quite like them! We went down to Herme bay for the day this summer where there is a wind farm just off the coast and, I'm sure this is probably contrary to most peoples opinion but I thought it was something interesting to look at on an otherwise flat, boring, horizon!

 

Oh, I like them, especially the offshore ones, as an angler they are fantastic.

Any object placed on the sea bed very quickly gets colonised by seaweeds,molluscs & corals which offers shelter & food for fish. Plus, the trawlers can't get in there & wreck the sea bed.

We've already been thinking about fishing expeditions out to the turbines, could be as poplier as deep sea wreck fishing trips.

 

Lovely picture shiney. Here are some others near us at Foia, at 902 meters the highest point in the Algarve, there are six of them ...

 

Nice one shiney,
I was planning on going to Iceland & Peru, that was 24 years ago, had babies instead.

I find short haul flights a bit of a strain since the smoking ban.

 

Cool pics Victoria, did you go out and take them especially for us?

 

I certainly did Ziggy ... but not recently .... before you joined us. They were taken for a thread I used to post on here weekly called Country Life. The Algarve is not what a lot of people think it is ... most would not believe these photos were taken in Central Algarve where I live ... I am 20 minutes from the sea and 20 minutes from the mountains .. idyllic! :yho:

It is just incredible standing under one of them with the hrrrmmmm sound. You can't get any closer than I was standing under that one. However, it apparently drives cows, sheep, gpats (and even people living nearby), to distraction which is not so good. :(

 

John, they do all go around at the same speed but they often look like they are not because the 'heads' rotate so it's very deceving.

I've said it before and I'll say it again .. tney are lovely graceful creatures in the countryside here ... unlike electricity pylons which get bigger each year and I abhore on the horizon.

I live in the middle of orange orchards and this is what the electricity folk put up a couple of years ago ... fortunately out of my view .. and these things get bigger and bigger ....





These are a 'blot' on our beautiful horizon .. NOT the turbines. Well, that's our view.

PS Yes, that's a guy on the top ... s00k