I have been asked to help with Exmoor's Local Plan re renewables....

[guydewdney]

As it says in the title really - Exmoor national park have asked me along to the planning meeting as a renewable energy provider within the park, to help set up the next local plan.

any suggestions? (sensible please....)

remember - I live here:-


and this is few hundred yards from my house (the river under the bridge is the river that feeds my mill)


so acres of PV on thatched houses isnt going to go down well, nor are many wind turbines...

[desperate]

Hmm, so I guess a fast breeder's a non starter then??

[guydewdney]

nope - edf have that sorted - http://hinkleypoint.edfenergyconsultation.info/



http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/yourbusiness/7879887/EDF-nuclear-deal-gives-Somerset-workers-hope-in-face-of-public-sector-cuts.html

controversial - to say the least - not only the thing itself, but the infrastructure around it - like the 'builders village' nearby

[mikey9]

Thats funny looking thatch on that house.....

[Philip R]

Packhorse bridge Allerford, Landranger map 181 same picture.

Suggest greater use of Solar thermal in the villages to displace some oilgas and Electricity, not on thatch or cottages, but on more modern property. Solar PV roofs on commercial premises. Consider low head hydro and run of river on Barle, Exe and Lynn & other rivers, need to assess fish and fauna effects, i.e. mass chopping up of trout & salmon!!

I do not think exmoor woodland would support mass burning for very long. OK for some folk in the country but not a real solution to the larger settlements on exmoor or anywhere else in the UK. If biomass burning to be carried out in larger settlement, suggest use of local CHP scheme using piped hot water round the houses (too forward thinking for the UK!! maybe I should move to scandinavia.)

Otherwise support the building of the EPRs(EDF) and possible AP1000(ANother) at Hinkley Point.

[martin]

Nukes? - herrrumph! - too little, too late, and FAR too expensive to do properly (so it wouldn't be!)

[knighty]

talk about insulation ?   kind of off topic, but worth a talk :-)

[guydewdney]

A little history of exmoor -

1) its one of the worlds first ecological disasters - iron age man, the story goes, repeated here unchecked, basically deforested the moors.

2) the woodlands behind the packhorse bridge picture above, and indeed the landscape pic above that (look - I can see my house from here) is 'new' and was planted by Sir Thomas Acland - who gave a load of land to the national trust. The woodland used to be accessable by the locals for firewood, and they were allowed to take fallen wood, and the maintainance crews would drop off wood to the local houses as part of the job. Now, the numpty in charge has decided that bugs and beetles are more importantant, and ALL, not some - ALL wood is to be left to rot. The woods are a mess, overgrown, and poorly managed (as they are man made, they need managing).

Biomass / wood is sustainable in exmoor, up to a point.

Our suggestion was that planning for RE projects should be 50% of the normal fee, and there should be a 10% discount for any project including RE elements (eg - new build / new roof including PV would be 10% cheaper if they include PV. OK - it isnt going to be a lot - but does make people THINK about it.

Incedently - the packhorse bridge house used to be thatched until about 1950...

[Philip R]

Guy,
You mentioned the construction workers camp. Other power plants have had camps including Hinkley B in the late 60s and 70's. Legend has it that the gene pool of the local villages of Stogursey and Nether Stowey were improved during the construction phase. The locality of Sedgemoor may also benefit.

Martin, you say to little too late and expensive.

Had the dash for gas not occurred in the 90s, and instead going for more Nukes,  UK plc would not now have severely depleted North sea reserves and a capable nuclear industry. At that time BNFL owned Westinghouse Nuclear (Westinghouse got out of power engineering to go into media. Siemens got the power bit and BNFL the Nuclear bit for approx 200M$.) Gordon Brown the chancellor forced BNFL breakup, Westinghouse division sold to Toshiba in Japan for approx 3.5Bn$, now worth 10Bn$ with their order book. (They want to source steel vessel forgings in UK, HMG cancelled £80M loan for forge press.)
With Numptys making business decisions like that, how will UKPLC move forward again.

To do nothing is not an option, late is better than never, too expensive, yes, better if we could have done it without the French. (Napoleon was right, nation of shopkeepers).

Best nuclear option short of fusion would be a fast reactor. Easy now we no longer have one at Dounraey.(Mrs. T. and C. Parkinson to blame) Now understand difficulties of using alkali metal coolant. Russians used molten lead, good nucleonics and metallurgically straitforward. Wait for generation 4 nukes in 2040-50. (If not departed, I 'll be waiting on platform in Bournemouth or Eastbourne).  

[martin]

I'm not going to revive the memories of old interminable threads about nukes (oh boy have we got the t-shirt on that!), save to say that I am firmly of the opinion that the ONLY reason it is back on the agenda is because of the activity of the lobbying groups paid by the nuclear industry - eventually it boils down to the fact that the only way it can be made to appear affordable is for government to throw vast quantities of money at it (much of it "hidden") that would be FAR better spent on genuine renewables and saving energy. Not everyone has swallowed the pro-nuke hype!

[dhaslam]

The problem with renewable energy is that it almost always has a visual impact.    There are a few things that don't  but may not be that  economical to do.      Building solar heat collection into a south facing roof would not be seen.  It  could be retrofitted but that would mean removing slates or tiles that would be hard to match again so really only practical if the roof has to be  repaired.     Heat  would need to be stored for winter use.       

[djh]

Our suggestion was that planning for RE projects should be 50% of the normal fee, and there should be a 10% discount for any project including RE elements (eg - new build / new roof including PV would be 10% cheaper if they include PV. OK - it isnt going to be a lot - but does make people THINK about it.

Wouldn't a policy of presumption in favour of renewable projects, at the top of the policy list, be a lot more productive than a reduction in fees? It's got to be worth trying for.

The problem with renewable energy is that it almost always has a visual impact.

Pretty much everything has a visible impact, not just renewable energy. The problem is the perception that old things are beautiful and new things are ugly. Even if a few decades proves that solar panels and new windmills and new watermills really are too ugly, they're not that hard to remove. It's not like they permanently disfigure the landscape.

[martin]

I think djh has a valuable point - we're so used to the grid pylons marching across some of the most beautiful countryside that we tend to "overlook" them with a shrug as the price we pay for "on tap" electricity, and as they've been there for some time, it's accepted as "normal", so I think it entirely reasonable to at least contemplate something as least as "visually disruptive" if needs be (I'm thinking land-based turbines) - arguably there is more good reason to put up with a loss of some "visual amenity" now than there ever was when the grid went in..........
If given a straight choice of how "attractive" pylons OR a few turbines were, I'd opt for the turbines any day - I find them attractive things that complement the view - like big daffodils!

[biff]

desperate,,
          e wud need lotsa woolie sheep for a randy ram.
                     biff

[biff]

hi guy,
      on a more sensible note,,i would expound the virtues of large solar ground fixed tracker arrays,that can be screen from immediate view.you have to be carefull with your wind turbine pitch.here in the west of ireland there has been a rush to errect large wind turbine farms without proper consideration given to the visual impact and or indepth investigation into the soil mecanics which have resulted in quite a few serious landslides blocking main roads and leaving ugly sores on the landscape.
    the reason they have invited you along is to find out how reasonable and practical you are or are not.any lecture should be short and sweet,dont hesitate to mention your brother "ernie," which means if they hit you with something you are not sure off,then mention that you are at present in deep consultation with ernie on that very subject and would shortly be coming to a proper conclusion.mention energy saving bulbs and switching off 90percent of the lights along the roads.dont try and explain unless someone demands an explaination,then give it short and sweet. the very best of luck
                                biff.