Thousands of offshore wind turbines are to be built off the holiday coasts of Cornwall and South Wales under Crown Estate plans to accelerate offshore turbine expansion. The Telegraph has more.
Thousands more giant wind turbines are to be constructed around Britain’s shores under plans set out by the Crown Estate, which owns and manages the seabeds around England, Wales and Northern Ireland on behalf of the King.
The Crown Estate wants to open up swathes of the Celtic Sea – stretching along the coasts of North Cornwall, South Wales, and out to the Scilly Isles – for renewable energy generation, as well as areas off the coasts of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire – home to popular resorts.
The plans have been welcomed by wind and power companies but condemned by fishermen who said wind farm expansion threatened their industry and its communities.
The Crown Estate entered into partnership with Great British Energy, the new state organisation set up by Ed Miliband, the Energy Secretary, to develop renewable power.
The U.K. currently has 2,800 offshore wind turbines with the capacity to generate 15 gigawatts (GW) of power. They produced 15% of British electricity last year. Another 12 GW of offshore wind capacity is under construction and a further 11 GW has planning approval.
The Crown Estate report suggests expanding the total to as much as 140 GW by 2050 – a nine-fold increase – meaning several thousand more wind turbines will be needed. Such an expansion would grow low-carbon energy capacity but would also risk treasured sea views being transformed by distant spinning turbines.
Modern wind turbines average 850 feet and could be visible from up to 35 miles away. A Crown Estate spokesman said it was too early to say how many would be visible from the coast.
New wind farms will also potentially impact fishing, sailing, shipping and the beaches and communities where cables connecting them to the National Grid come ashore.
Worth reading in full.
Wind turbines are no use on a still winter’s day of course and always need to have a fossil fuel back-up on standby – a drawback that can’t be mentioned often enough because it’s so disastrous for their cost-effectiveness and is often omitted by the Government and in the press.
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How topical. In a surprise to nobody (well, nobody here anyway), Baroness Brown, a long-standing member of the Climate Change Committee, has been receiving in excess of £100k p/a from various Renewable Energy interests:
https://unherd.com/2024/09/the-baroness-making-a-fortune-from-net-zero/
It depends what you mean by “blight”. Some years ago, on a holiday trip on some of the rivers in East Anglia I came across a lot of them (ground mounted, not out at sea), and they were quite interesting, especially on.a pretty flat landscape.
There is a species of bird of prey that also finds them “quite interesting” in Germany. They are called the Red Kite. They have been virtually wiped out in Germany because of the huge amount of turbines. You see birds of prey are always looking down for food and do not see the blades coming. —–“Quite Interesting” you might find.
Exactly well put.
I’ve read that it’s not the blades hitting them as much as they are caught in the vacuum behind the blades, and their lungs are ripped out.
It’s unbelievable, so here’s an article on the subject:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/wind-turbines-kill-bats
Germany has around 40,000 turbines and the highest electricity prices along with Denmark who also use huge amounts of wind and the UK who has plenty of wind and plans to have more despite the lesson from Germany who are destroying their Industrial base because of the huge manufacturing costs. Wind is the dumbest possible way to produce electricity, and whenever you hear a proponent of renewables state that wind is now much cheaper than fossil fuels it is a bare faced lie. —Wind is part time energy that is not “On Demand”, and therefore requires 100% backup whose cost has to be factored in. Fossil fuels (coal and gas) are full time energy that provide electricity all day and night, are concentrated energy compared to the diffuse wind and sun. Using wind is a political decision based on adhering to the UN Sustainable Development Agenda. This agenda does not concern itself with the impoverishment it causes where millions are forced into energy poverty and where cold kill far more people than heat ever does, and high energy prices leave many poor and elderly COLD.
Germany is an interesting study. The claim is more and more wind turbines are needed to overcome the intermittency problem, but ten thousand becalmed wind turbines produce no more electricity than a thousand.
The more wind in the mix, the greater the intermittency affect, the more gas generation is needed burning gas on stand-by.
Brilliant point! “…Ten thousand becalmed wind turbines produce no more electricity than a thousand.”
What find amazing is that so many Arts, Humanities and Social Science graduates, from both universities, need this pointing out.
Yes and for every watt of wind power you need the same amount as back up ticking over in the background. This is like needing two cars, because one only works some of the time. So greatly increasing cost —–But Miliband will lie straight to our face and proclaim “wind is now cheaper than fossil fuels”
Well just a minute.
The Telegraph also reported the other day that planned 55GW of off-shore wind was in doubt because there was a lack of construction crews, materials, ships and other infrastructure.
All these grand plans – 1.5 million houses – overlook that they can only be achieved if sufficient resources are available. They cannot be turned on like a tap.
All resources are scarce. Since resources – such as labour, manufacturing, transportation, etc -are not idle waiting for something to turn up, and generally their disposition is planned years out, these grand initiatives can’t just be started overnight – and quite possibly will never happen.
I tell you what will for sure never happen. —Net Zero by 2030. If you take heating alone, there are 21 million gas boilers in the UK. It is never going to be the case that all of those will be replaced by Heat Pumps. Imagine all the almighty clutter in 21 million houses of pipes and radiators removed, floor boards ripped up all at huge expense all in 5 and a quarter years time? Miliband and the Labour Party are braindead eco socialist dreamers, and we are doing all of this for what?
It’s to destroy our industrial base.
Arts and Humanities graduates don’t know we have one, or understand that is how we can afford Arts and Humanities graduates in the first place.
Follow the money!
Let’s hope you’re right!
Surely, we can outsource the construction to foreign workers, as we always do?
Germany has growing, ‘spare workforce’.
The only way to understand Starmer’s policies is spite.
They worked out how to destroy Britain’s heritage – cultural, Christian, freedoms, personal wealth – in the fastest way.
Pensioners are typically small c conservative, so they got hit.
Brits enjoy Cornish sea views, so they’re on the list.
The nest egg you grafted for over a lifetime, they want that too.
Your ability to keep warm in winter, travel freely, speak openly, are all targeted.
None of this is for the country’s benefit, just a political punishment beating dressed up as ‘tough choices’.
Their goal is to demoralise, impoverish and browbeat whilst stealing your money, freedom and choices.
The MSM bleat about Starmer not understanding what he’s doing. He knows exactly what he’s doing.
Red, through and through.
Time for people power, direct action, civic resistance.
100% agree.
Will Jones said, “Wind turbines are no use on a still winter’s day of course and always need to have a fossil fuel back-up on standby.”
Absolutely. That’s what happened in the Texas Blizzard a couple of years ago: the wind turbines froze, and the solar panels were covered with snow.
Offshore Wind Will Blight Our Coast
‘Such an expansion would grow low-carbon energy capacity.’ And in that sentence we can see how deep the carbon lie has become embedded in the minds of so many people.
I
CO2.
… and the fantasy of the Climate Emergency.
Since all the activists have resorted to lawfare, successfully apparently, why can’t we plebs do the same on the grounds that Ed Milliband is going to harm our human rights by making us cold
and vulnerable ?)
The activists have cancelled the proposed new coal mine. That would have increased our energy security, which Milliband is in charge of. What can’t we take him to court ?