Windfarm proposal
From Ms. P. Finch
Thursday 2 May 2024
If the Arabic nations need to find carbon offsetting schemes, better to be carbon offsetting to restore peat, as Moors for the Future are doing, rather than trashing the moor for turbines.
There needs to be landscape scale planning to find the least biodiverse rich areas, rather than using /destroying the last remaining areas that hang on.
Much of the areas of moorland are degraded and need restoring to sequester CO2 better and to retain the iconic wildlife which is hanging on despite human activity.
Reliance on the vagaries of the market and land ownership to decide where windfarms go is too restrictive.
Friends of the Earth with Exeter University have been mapping Britain to identify suitable sites. See this page
From Lydia MacKinnon
Friday 3 May 2024
Nick MacKinnon's new blog: Turbine 54, Bedlam Knoll is out. Please read it here.
If he's right about the transportation of aggregate to the site of the Calderdale Wind Farm- and he's spent weeks researching this - then at the very least there are huge implications for people living or working in Keighley, Ingrow, Cross Roads and Lees, Haworth and Oxenhope. This adds up to an expensive complication which may make the developers abandon the plan altogether (we can only hope).
From Robert Jones
Friday 10 May 2024
This area is of incredible beauty, and has historical links to Haworth & Hebden Bridge. Can a wind farm, be justified on the basis of the government's 'net-zero' agenda?
The first thing to note, is that the constructors, will state that the farm, will provide enough electricity to supply 'X' amount of houses.
This is always a misleading statement, in that what they are quoting is the 'nameplate' or 'installed' capacity. That is the amount of electricity that it is capable of providing, when the wind speed and its direction are at an optimum. That optimum rarely occurs.
Recently, (the Renewable Energy Foundation 2023 (UK)) presented some facts on the provision and demand of electricity for the year ending July 2023.
The installed capacity of Onshore wind energy for the UK, is 14.4GW, 23% of our total capacity. On average throughout that year, it actually provided just 3.2GW, that is 22% of its installed capacity. As a proportion of the UK demand, that equates to just 11%.
If you go to (the gridwatch site) you can actually see how little wind contributes to our needs, on a daily basis.
Most of the time, it doesn't even achieve the 3.2GW. There is also the 'trick'of curtailment, where the owner of the farm, will be paid not to produce electricity. Last year, Ofgem contacted many companies to project how much they expected to produce. They deliberately overestimated, and were paid a total of £220M for electricity, that they knew they wouldn't be able to produce.
Net-zero, is an impossible dream. We have already reached the position of diminishing returns, each incremental gain, will cost us exponentially more, financially and the desecration of our countryside.
Furthermore, the intermittency of wind and solar, as any electrical engineer will tell you, is not the technology to provision the base load energy for a country.
Can we truly justify, the destruction of such beautiful countryside for so little gain?
The only beneficiaries of this project, are the construction/ management company and the landowner.
From Jim Botten
Saturday 18 May 2024
This is not a comment but a question. The Stop the Wind Farm site doesn't seem to allow any kind of inward communication other than via HebWeb, so here I am and hoping someone can come up with an answer.
Calderdale Council made a decision on the Scoping application on 14 December. On their site it says that: "The decision is published e.g. in an online register such as Public Access", however my search abilities have not sufficed to find it. On the developer's website it says that they would publish the Scoping result as soon as it was known. 5 months later they have not.
So my question is: has anyone seen the decision? Do we know what it said?
From Caroline Mullen
Sunday 19 May 2024
In reply to Jim Botten
The Scoping Report and related docs., the Council's response (titled EIA Scoping Response, and published on 14th Dec 2023), along with the various stakeholder comments to the Scoping Report can all be downloaded from the 'Documents tab' via this link to Calderdale Council planning portal.
It is not very user friendly. It is well worth a read - especially the Scoping report and related maps etc. and Council response.
From Stuart Graham
Thursday 23 May 2024
On the Isle of Skye a company is proposing to build 145 wind turbines and interestingly they have just applied for planning permission to build a modular village to hold beds for 350 employees, kitchen and dining facilities, welfare and medical facilities, laundry, recreational areas and gym, including the formation of access, parking, internal roads and landscaping. They envisage the village to be in situ for 5 years.
From Jon T
Tuesday 28 May 2024
Will each of the windmills require aircraft warning lights?
Directorate of Airspace Policy
Is the proposed plan merely the opening gambit in a negotiation with the intention to later reduce the numbers/ heights/ damage. At which point the protests will hopefully diminish? Who knows?
See also:
HebWeb Forum discussion from Oct 23 to April 24: Large Windfarm proposal
HebWeb News: Ted Hughes Estate Backs the Campaign to stop Wind Farm 3 March 2024
HebWeb News: Stop Calderdale Wind Farm - Website launched 30 Jan 2024
HebWeb News: Walshaw Moor Wind Farm Public Meeting 13 Dec 2023
HebWeb News: Large Windfarm proposed 26 Sept 2023
Stop Calderdale Wind Farm website
Facebook: Calderdale Windfarm Action Group (against)
Facebook: Calderdale Wind & Climate Action Group (for)