Alex 'Butcher' Salmond has destroyed Scotland [windfarms]

Telegraph - UK ^ | October 20, 2012 | James Delingpole

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Today is the Scottish National Party conference in Perth. At some stage, SNP leader Alex Salmond will no doubt be crowing, as he is wont to do, about his success in transforming Scotland into the "Saudi Arabia of renewables". This is inaccurate. What he has actually done is transform Scotland into the Saudi Arabia of tourism, which is to say he has turned a once-beautiful country into a vast, inhospitable desert which no one in their right mind would want to visit.

Scotland's landscape was, until recently, one of the great glories of our national heritage. What made it so special was its vastness, its remoteness, its stark, unspoilt magnificence. Though, of course, man has played his part in shaping it – the stone walls and bothies built by crofters, the patchwork colours on the hillside caused by burning sections of heather on the moor in order to provide new shoots for the grouse – but till now his presence has been discreet and has enhanced the country's beauty rather than detracting from it. No more, however. Wind farms have ruined everything.

This must-read article about the devastation wrought on just one part of Scotland – remote and rugged Caithness – says it all. It was written by a man who genuinely loves and appreciates nature – as opposed to all those misanthropic environmental zealots who are destroying the planet while pretending to save it with "renewable energy". Here's a sample:....

[hoosierham]

The envirowhackos believe in magic!

Wind driven power makes sense only in very limited areas for very specific uses.

The cost to extract energy from the wind and get it to the end user is not economical ,and probably never will be.But if all the coal,nuclear ,and hydro plants are shut down,THEN wind and solar become absolutely wonderful!

[chimera]

And when their subsidies run out, they are often abandoned and left to rot. There are no laws that require wind turbine owners to bank funds for future cleanup of abandoned sites (unlike nuclear energy, which is required to maintain an adequate decommissioning fund). If you think they are ugly when they are running (which they are), this is what you are left with:

[driftless2]

I’ll disagree with Delingpole on this one. I took a trip through a lot of Scotland last May-June, and it’s still breathtakingly beautiful. Can’t recall seeing much or any wind turbines. Not to say that it might yet become a problem.

[Dr. Sivana]

The new variety of windmall reminds me more of the "Tripods" that take over earth than the old variety (See the "White Mountains" trilogy).

[Gandalf_The_Gray]

Windmills are not only next to useless in reliably generating electricity, they are a blight on any landscape.

I've spent a lifetime as an engineer and I have to say that windmills not only blight the land scape and prove a danger to wild birds, they are a terribly inefficient depending as they do on the vagaries of the weather. The greatest flaw in the current crop of wind turbines is the placement of all of the heavy mechanical equipment atop the tower. If it becomes necessary to service any of the rotating equipment you need to bring in a crane somewhat taller than the tower. Servicing the rotor bearings (beyond an oil change) would require dismantling the blades and the pitch control. Servicing the speed increasing gear box or the generator itself would require removal of the components to the ground to allow disassembly and would seriously unbalance the pod housing at the top of the tower unless the blades were removed as well.

A better approach would be to place the mechanicals at the base of the tower and go with a vertical axis turbine. In truth it would solve some problems but nothing can remove the necessity for 100% fossil/hydro/nuclear backup of any wind power scheme.

Regards,
GtG

[SunkenCiv]

Scotland will fit right in the EU, and will do as it's told.

Note: this topic was posted 10/20/2012. Thanks Cincinatus' Wife.