UK Politics
General Discussion for politics in the UK.
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Fuck yes. I live very close to a wind farm and can see them from my window. They’re marvels and, alongside the several local solar farms too, it’s such a positive feeling knowing that, regardless of the weather, clean energy is being created.
I know plenty oppose these things but having grown up next to a coal power plant, I’ll take a stunning wind turbine any day over those giant cooling tower monstrosities.
I think a lot of people struggle to tell the difference between something that changes the view and something that ruins the view. Wind turbines will change a view, of course, because they're a new addition. But there's no sense in which they make it worse!
But anything new is bad! Everything must remain the way it never was!
When the national grid was being established a lot of people were very against the pylons being erected for very similar reasons that people are against wind farms. But who wants to stand up and say they want to go back to a time where having electricity in your household wasn't a normal thing now?
People don't want power lines, solar panels, coal plants, wind turbines, etc. But of course they all want electricity. It just doesn't make sense.
Look, I get my internet through the air, why can't you send my electricity through the air?
gets struck by lightning
Fully agree. People travel for thousands of miles to see the windmills in the Netherlands. They’re no different and the beautiful white and curved designs makes them look like a true wonder of modern engineering achievement.
we just need to paint a brick pattern on the base of wind turbines
Arguably anything man-made makes a view worse, but as far as man-made structures go they're beautiful. And they give you a free wind gauge just by looking out the window. I'd rather see thousands of turbines on the horizon vs the glow of oil fields or plumes of smoke/steam.
I live relatively close to an offshore wind farm as well as a number of onshore turbines. I like them and don't feel they detract from the view - at night the red warning lights look amazing.
When the offshore ones were being planned a neighbour objected and had an artist's impression made of the view of them from his house. It made the papers and we solidly took the piss out of him because that view would only be possible if you built a crow's nest on a long poll right on top of his house and used binoculars.
What was it like next to a coal plant? Did you get ash? Coughing fits?
asthma. So much asthma. The area I grew up had 3 coal plants and the highest rates of asthma in the country, supposedly.
so, yes.
No ash or dark fumes emitted - I assume did something clever underground to capture or filter it. But plenty of steam billowed out of the cooling tower. During cooler parts of the year, the steam would freeze and turn into snow which was a lot of fun to go and have a snowball fight in late autumn.
But then again, I’m possibly just blissfully ignorant and lung cancer will get me any day now.
Ash separators and flue gas desulphurisation. That keeps the stack from having grey/brown or yellow fumes, which would contain the ash as solids to drop out or the sulphur dioxide that contributes to acid rain. Cooling towers are of course only water vapour, so as long as the visible emission of the central thin stack on a coal power station is white, it’s running clean.
Ash only once when the filters failed. You'd occasionally get "power station frost". If the wind was in the right direction on freezing days moisture from the cooling towers would freeze to give a 100m wide avenue of thick haw frost. There's a lot of big transmission lines that aren't pretty and buzz when it rains. (wind/solar don't need lines this big)