Solar Panels

[JohnD]

I will believe in the sincerity of thatched-cottage dwellers when I see them marching to demand a coal-fired station on their doorstep, or a nuclear reactor.

Wanting the advantages of cheap power, provided only that the infrastructure is somebody else's problem, is a very unconvincing position.

Your Australian link shows that the claims are unconvincing. How's your "generalised anxiety?"

 

[bernardgreen]

I will believe in the sincerity of thatched-cottage dwellers

You will only believe what you want to believe no matter how much factual evidence is put in front of you.

 

[JohnD]

I certainly won't believe that roads, pylons and power stations must only be sited close to the poor and weak, and never close to the rich and influential, no matter how many spurious excuses you think of.

Tell me that you sincerely believe huge chimneys and cooling towers are preferable to windmills.

Except, obviously, if they are built next to somebody else.

 

[bernardgreen]

and never close to the rich and influential,

One rich and influencial person near here has campaigned to get permission to install wind turbines on his property in order to make him even richer. And he lives on that property.
He doesn't like the things now they are built operating.

 

[wv62]

Tell me that you sincerely believe huge chimneys and cooling towers are preferable to windmills.

Modern cooling towers are actually quite small and not towers any more. Basically they are large radiators with bloody huge fans. Personally would rather see them (and a CCGT or Nuke) power station rather than miles and miles of windmills.

 

[bernardgreen]

A friend in Germany lives about 1 km from a new coal / lignite fired power station that is about to be built. No cooling tower, the waste heat will be used to supply a district heating scheme for several hundred homes.

 

[JohnD]

Perhaps your village would complain about the construction traffic and the trains. And digging up the streets to lay pipes.


Did it hold meetings and set up a campaign to try to stop the windmills?

 

[bernardgreen]

Did it hold meetings and set up a campaign to try to stop the windmills?

Not these but another project was sucessfully blocked. A large local employer put their weight behind the evidence against the project.
Did you miss the bit about the person who, less than a year after his erecting wind turbines, has changed his opinion about them. Not yet at the point of removing them, maybe the contract prevents them being taken out of service.

 

[SimonH2]

Hence infrasound created by a non weapon will have some effects on the human body

Personally, if a large diesel is left idling close by, it can make me feel nauseous in quite a short time. It's clearly frequency dependent, as some affect me more/quicker than others. As a rough guess*, I'd say it's the ones down around 10Hz* or so that seem to affect me.

* Based on a low idle speed of (say) 300 RPM (that's what I vaguely recall some of the tractors I drove could idle at) which is 5 rev/second. And a 4 cyl 4 stroke will do 2 power strokes per rev.

I will believe in the sincerity of thatched-cottage dwellers when I see them marching to demand a coal-fired station on their doorstep, or a nuclear reactor.

Not a thatched cottage dweller, but where I live there's a nuclear power station down the coast one way that's still open, another up the coast shut down a few years ago, and the coal fired station across town from where I am now also shut down a few years ago - none of them do/did bother me at all. There's a new nuclear station planned for up the coast - and I'm all for it.
As for windmills, you can hardly go anywhere round here without them being an eyesore - on-shore, off-shore. Wouldn't mind quite so much if they actually had to pay the costs of what they do to the rest of the supply industry - instead of stuffing a lot of cost onto everyone else (ie ultimately me as a bill payer) and getting a fat subsidy to boot (which also inflates my bill). And then some of the windmill supporters have the hypocrisy to complain about subsidies (or guarantees, or whatever) for other types of generation

 

[SimonH2]

Not yet at the point of removing them, maybe the contract prevents them being taken out of service.

If he's paid for it himself, then he'll be thinking about how much he's got invested in it - but if he can cope with the loss then he could take it down.
More likely it's been built by a co-operative of some sort - and he'd committed to leasing the use of his land for a minimum of 25 years (typical quoted life of a windmill I believe) and would have to buy them out to get out of that.

 

[ban-all-sheds]

I will believe in the sincerity of thatched-cottage dwellers when I see them marching to demand a coal-fired station on their doorstep, or a nuclear reactor.

Reminds me of the comment someone made in the USA when they passed a law to treat corporations as people so that they could make political donations:

"I'll believe that a corporation is a person when I see the State of Texas execute one."​