L'energie Eolienne

[Will]

Steve - amazing. We agree - I said much the same 4 posts up. Transmission lines, and the necessary transformers and substations, tend to be overlooked by too many people. There was a programme on BBC2 earlier this evening which mentioned a vast wind farm proposed for the Isle of Lewis, said to be able to supply a million homes. Of course, there are nowhere near a million homes anywhere near Lewis, and a long underwater cable will be needed. Not the most efficient transmission method by a long way...

[powerdesal]

Will, I'm not too amazed that we agree. We may not always do so but we are obviously both realists in the respect of the current (pun) topic. I must admit that I missed your previous comment about breeding more transmission lines.

I believe that there is a great deal of ignorance (lack of knowledge) in respect of the whole electricity generation scene. It really annoys me that whenever photos are used in a pollution article they tend to show the plumes of steam from power station cooling towers, to the uninitiated they look like smoke and that impression is never dispelled.

For many, many years, in the UK generating industry ( I assume France is the same ) it has been a very serious operational "crime" to have visible smoke from your power station chimney. A 'dirty stack' led ( and presumably leads) to some very rapid action by the operations staff to correct the air/fuel ratio etc etc. I do not recall ever seeing a plume of smoke from a UK power station, a heat haze over the chimney -yes, but smoke is a definite no-no.

With most (if not all ) old coal burning stations either replaced, upgraded or modified, together with 'clean-burn' technology ( fluidised beds, flue gas treatment, high efficiency precipitators etc) there is no reason to pillory the modern thermal generating station.

I do agree that reduction of power use should be the primary aim of everyone, its a win-win situation as the individual consumer saves money on their electricity (or gas / oil ) bills and valuable natural resources are husbanded for the future. I think that the environmentalists should be campaigning for Govts to award grants for substantial insulation, solar glass etc for all existing buildings, plus a concentrated education campaign in parallel.

I could go on and on but I suspect it would be a waste of effort at my level.