Bickerton Wind Turbines
"Avoiding dangerous climate change" is impossible - dangerous climate change is already here. The question is, can we avoid catastrophic climage change?
David King, UK Chief Scientist, 2007
The vocal residents' group SBWT has organized a campaign against the perceived threat of the development of a wind farm near Bickerton Hill in Cheshire. This page will aim to present the other side of the argument, and will encourage you not to scream "NO!" as a knee-jerk reaction without thinking carefully first.
NEWS 4/6/2008: Received a letter through the door announcing an meeting of the Bulkeley and Ridley Parish Council on 18th June, open to members of the public, to decide whether to oppose or support the Bickerton wind turbines.
Introduction
It is essential that Britain moves to renewable energy, and one of the biggest challenges which renewables in Britain must overcome is the tendency of the British public to say, "No." Britain currently gets 90% of its energy from fossil fuels, and getting off fossil fuels requires radical, sweeping changes to our energy sourcing. We need to stop saying no and start saying yes.
Energy generation
There is presently a wind monitoring mast at the Bickerton site, which will measure the wind speed. These data will enable the power which would be generated at the site to be estimated.
The Whitelee wind farm being built near Glasgow in Scotland has 140 turbines with a combined peak capacity of 322 MW in an area of 55 square kilometres. The average power produced is smaller because the turbines don't run at peak output all the time. The ratio of the average power to the peak power is called load capacity and it varies from site to site; a typical factor for a good site with modern turbines is 30%.
Prof. David Mackay: Sustainable energy without the hot air.
The possible development at Bickerton will comprise not more than five turbines, which, putting in a load factor of 22%, would generate an average power of 2.5 MW. The current consumption, in terms of energy per person, in the UK is 125 kWh/day, meaning that the Bickerton turbines would generate enough energy for 480 people.
The Eddisbury MP Stephen O'Brien's assertion that the environmental cost effectiveness over a 25-year life span "moves into negative territory" when the emissions involved in construction are taken into account [Crewe Chronicle, 15.10.2008] is false. To work out the impact of the construction costs, we shall estimate the carbon intensity of wind power in grams of carbon dioxide per kWh of energy produced.
Building five 125 m tall turbines (for the sake of the argument) would consume 1250 t steel and 125 t concrete [psnoby]. Assuming 240 kg CO2 per cubic metre of concrete [3pvf4j], the concrete's footprint is around 30 t CO2. From Blue Scope Steel [4r7zpg], the footprint of steel is about 2.5 tons of CO2 per ton of steel. So the 1250 tons of steel has a footprint of about 3125 tons of CO2.
Over a 25 year lifespan (22 000 h), at an output power from above of 2.5 MW, this gives us a carbon intensity of 57 gCO2 / kWh. This is comparable with nuclear power (the IPCC estimates that the total carbon intensity - including construction, fuel processing and decommissioning - of nuclear power is 40 gCO2 / kWh), and much less than the fossil fuel benchmark of 400 gC02 / kWh.
Cost to birds
Do wind turbines kill "huge numbers" of birds? The following is a short extract from David Mackay's book Sustainable energy without the hot air:
"Wind farms recently got adverse publicity from Norway, where the wind turbines on Smola, a set of islands off the north-west coast, killed 9 white-tailed eagles in 10 months. I share the concern of BirdLife International for the welfare of rare birds. But I think, as always, s important to do the numbers. s been estimated that 30 000 birds per year are killed by wind turbines in Denmark, where windmills generate 9% of the electricity. Horror! Ban windmills! We also learn, moreover, that traffic kills one million birds per year in Denmark. Thirty-times-greater horror! Thirty-times-greater incentive to ban cars! And in Britain, 55 million birds per year are killed by cats.
"...what I really hope is that decisions about cars and windmills are made by careful rational thought, not by emotions alone. Maybe we do need the windmills!"
Site
The wind monitoring mast is at SJ 514 516, approximately halfway between Maiden Castle and Cholmondeley Farm Shop.
Links
Professor David Mackay's excellent book "Sustainable energy without the hot air" - a must-read for anyone wanting to read a realistic view of how Britain must change its energy policy.
ReadYourMeter.org - a website provided by Cambridge University where you can upload your electricity meter readings, helping you to understand your own energy consumption.
Banks Developments' website about the wind monitoring mast at Bickerton.
Flood Maps - a site which generates maps showing the effect of sea-level rise
