Why is the UK so far behind in harnessing wind turbine technology?

Question

Why is the UK so far behind in harnessing wind turbine technology?

Answer 1

because the industry is run by greedy shareholders who want to s***w every penny they can out of normal hardworking people. how much profit did they make last year. they dont care about the environment and certainly have no interest in providing cheaper energy. money is their god.

Answer 2

i think that since people dont like them, we should just put them up and down every motorway and major road in the country. i dont see how there could be any problem with that idea.

Answer 3

NIMBY - not in my backyard

Answer 4

In what way is it far behind in harnessing wind turbine technology?

Certainly the large manufacturers with their technology are based overseas

Here it is a long process to site a wind farm - planing permission etc. and there is an additional problem that the good areas are far from the population (such as in the Scottish Highlands). We could build wind farms there but the cost of the infrastructure to move the electricity to London for example would be huge for the amount of electricity generated.

Remember also that when the politicians quote "Could power a town the size of ...." they mean when the wind is blowing at its optimum speed - it doesnt do that often and so it isnt that relaible form of energy, we still need traditional methods for when the wind isnt blowing. Tidal power is more predictable but there are still times when the tides are small. Solar energy is possible but solar panels expensive - we could use plants as the energy gatheres and burn them, but that uses farmland

All the options need looking at together and we need a mix of all technologies to guarantee a constant electricity supply

Answer 5

the uk has this thing about seeing 'views' of the landscape

i would like to see 28 in buckinham palace grounds so charles could whinge until he dies of camilliaosis

Answer 6

you have to give it to clive.. he said it all..

Answer 7

Name a modern industrialized nation that operates profitable (Not Subsidized), dependable, and efficient wind turbines. Those evil power companies would love to not have to burn and pay for coal, natural gas, etc... Imagine the increase in their profit margins!

Answer 8

Perfectly Flawed has part of the answer - do any of us want a massive windmill thingy going around and around somewhere next to our house?  No thanks.

Our ancestors had the best idea here in London and did not waste much time with windmills.  Instead they took full advantage of the tidal flow of the River Thames and built dozens of 'tide mills' along the banks of the river.  One, possibly from the 13thC has just been dug up here at Greenwich.

London is famous for it's Tide Mills, yet modern Londoners seem entirely unaware of this fact of our history - blimey!

Look at it like this - the River Thames had a tide race of about 8 knots [about 10-12 mph] all day in and all day out.  You use the tide in both directions - free power. No matter what the wind does, you'll always have the tides.

Tide mill - Wikipedia, the free encyclopediaPossibly the earliest tide mill was located in London at the Thames, dating back to Roman times. [1] The earliest excavated tide mill, dating from 787, ...

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tide_mi...

[PDF] A POSSIBLE ROMAN TIDE MILL BY ROBERT SPAINFile Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat - View as HTML

A POSSIBLE ROMAN TIDE-MILL. By. Robert Spain. ABSTRACT. During the years from 1988 to 1992 a massive building development within. London gave archaeologists ...

http://www.kentarchaeology.ac/authors/00...

JSTOR: Early Tide Mills: Some ProblemsIn his edition of the Domesday Book (London, 1833), 1:124, Sir Henry Ellis, the editor, writes referring to the Dover mill: "This must have been a Tide-Mill ...

http://www.links.jstor.org/sici?sici=004...

TIDE MILLHistory records show that tide mills once functioned on the rivers. Thames (London Bridge), Tiber (in besieged Rome), and Danube ...

http://www.springerlink.com/index/j11075...

The River Lea Tidal Mill Trust Ltd.Photographs and a virtual Mill. Gallery of images (photographs, maps, etc) · How a tide mill works - requires Flash 3 or later ...

http://www.housemill.org.uk/

The last surviving windmill in London is the Brixton Windmill, built by an Irish miller family in the early c1800s.

Brixton Windmill

The Windmill. 22 Blenheim Gardens. Brixton, SW2 5BZ. Tel: [phone]. Opening Hours : Doors 8pm... How to get here..... The nearest tube is Brixton on ...

http://www.windmillbrixton.co.uk/Locatio...

Answer 9

Because it is a crappy and expensive way to generate electricity.

Answer 10

As well as the NIMBY factor we can count short sighted politicians and their occaisional habit of looking after the vested interests of big corporations in there as well.