But why should it fall? You've got a nice view of some fields and turbines. It's only a problem for people who hate them, and they have always been a minority, and now must be a shrinking one.
On the counter-side to that argument, at least if there's some turbines in the fields out the back of your house generating megawatts of power for your town, you can be pretty sure that they won't be about to build anything less desireable prison/asylum/heavy_industry etc on the land, and you'll always have acess to the beautiful countryside around you.
Because it ruins the look of natural landscape. My mum lives in an area of outstanding natural beauty, and thankfully it is forbidden to build on these Wind turbines.
This may be true in many areas, however people use the ruin the landscape argument in areas where the entire forest/swamp landscape was destroyed to grow corn/beans. What bad does a bunch of elegant white turbines do? In fact, now that there ate literally thousands of them up, they actually make the landscape more interesting.
I'm beginning to appreciate them now, but only after some 're-framing' of my thoughts about them. I slowly began to see the purpose to them, their work and benefits, so perhaps they still look ugly as f*uk, but that may be just one element to them, and I choose not to dwell on that. Having said all that, I'm not going to 'reframe' every belief that I hold, as "Clean energy' is not just a snappy ad banner; in the long run, I don't see many downsides to it, nor any devilish jiggery-pokery.
I don't get why people would not want to see these magestic creators of clean energy, when I see majestic wind turbines in the distance I feel nothing but pride that man has harnessed the energy of nature and that every new windmill is a step away from the old dirty polluting energy production that has killed and caused suffering to millions of people as much as it has brought benefit, clean energy is truly amazing and liberating.
They can be rather unpleasant to live too close to. There are both noise and light problems. Haworth also glosses over how difficult it is (and has been) to adapt the grid to wind power. The 10% figure he quotes and calls "nonsense" probably was close to the truth back then. The grid has had to be improved a lot to accommodate 18%.
please restate the following phrase for the class "a stand-by safety feature to which to divert flow in case of an upstream shut-down" or provide a link that describes the function of the thing in question with accurate grammar, because what you said is not what you mean.
Love this episode, this is exactly the sort of thing that I was hoping my patreon money would pay for. Car reviews are still great but the story behind renewables and battery tech is equally exciting and deserving of screen time.
He's got a PhD in physics and he's responsible for renewables at GE in Europe, Africa and Asia with $2 billion in revenues and he also has publications in journals like Nature and Science. I agree, well presented!
I am completely addicted to Fully Charged, Robert is a joy to hear & watch I have learnt so much from the show! Roberts humour is completely on my wave length. Johnny & Robert are a good pairing, both bright sparks with their own brands of expertise. The amount of organising that it must take to produce the videos must be phenomenal.
Just this coming Monday I'll be enrolling on a doctorate in offshore wind structures - I'm really excited about it. My supervisor tells me it should reduce the cost of offshore wind significantly.
About 15 years ago, I was deadset against wind farms. I thought, as I live in Scotland, that they spoil the landscape and makes it look ugly. Now, as I have gotten wiser and more interested in green technology I love them, I want to see more of them!
Your episodes are improving every month. This episode was really BBC quality or better. Great job by you and your team. Nice drone video clips too. Another point for putting wind turbines in farm fields or pastures is that tall trees are usually not a problem. One bit of encouraging news from the USA is that an additional 2 GW of wind energy installation was approved for construction in Iowa (a heavily farmed state).
Very nice vid. Those are just off the A14, and it always makes me warm inside when I drive past. When you see how much of the UK _doesn't_ have any turbines, you realise how much potential there is. Fascinating to know that we can get 40% c.f. in the UK inland on a boring flat bit. That's a big step up from the 22% at the time McKay wrote SEWTHA. I would really like to talk to this chap some more about exactly what the limits on wind and PV penetration on the grid are, and what the implications/costs for storage/backup/demand management are. It's a complaex subject hugely argued about online, and hard for the layman to get good, reliable detail on.
You did some very effective *silent messaging* here. Subtle but *very powerful*. Subliminal imagery to stomp on three of the biggest "arguments" of the fossil fuel propagandists. Arguing quietly. Quite clever, actually. *Image 1:* All those *big birds* flying by. None of which managed to kamikaze themselves. And all of which are clearly still alive, despite the presence of a big wind farm on their flight path for the last two years. *Image 2:* The *rural rhythms* of the hay baling etc going on in the background, just a typical day on the farm.. Sure, wind turbines "take up a lot of space". But that "space" is mostly in a vertical plane, rather than a horizontal plane. Total amount of "space" actually "taken up" is maybe 2% of the land area. The rest is just typical English countryside, and life goes on as normal underneath, completely oblivious to the giant energy machines above. *Image 3:* The drone footage, revealing just how gosh-darn *pretty* the entire scene is, even with the turbines there. If this is "industrialisation of the countryside", I think I can live with it. (I live in the province of Mpumalanga, one of the most intense coal mining areas of the world. Anyone who thinks the countryside is uglified by wind turbines should come and have a look at what happens to an area once an open-cast coal mine starts up.)
Thank you Robert and Charles for a most informative video. Why has the government taken this approach to wind power? No one has asked me if I mind having huge wind turbines near my home. I'd love it, and would proudly show them off to visitors. Where do they get the idea that we, as a nation, would rather screw the planet than have wind turbines? Surely a public information campaign is in order, at the very least to explain that bigger turbines = cheaper electricity.
It’s interesting to see this video, only 3 years on (Autumn 2019), we have offshore wind power that costs less than wholesale prices, we have 8MW turbines and we have Terrawatt+ wind farms being built in around 18 months...
Amazing that four years on 1 turbine in the North sea will provide as much power as this whole wind farm, (13 megawatts). Not to say they should not be installed on land as well. I too think they are majestic, particularly in the landscapes as in this video.
Excellent video. Clearly the UK government really needs to get off it's bottom and get it's priorities right. Perhaps this video could be shown prime-time on TV? Your presence Mr. Llewellyn would guarantee an audience.
Well done! Now vote Democrat, please Iowa. I know Hill is not the most inspiring politica (way too "Selena Meyer") but for Goodness sakes, look at the alternative.
I love these, having stood directly under a few in Norfolk I think they are rather graceful and beautiful. Just a modern version of the old windmills we used to mill flour etc. I'd have no objection to having then near me.
Those are so beautiful. In Sweetwater, Texas there are windmills from horizon to horizon. Absolutely stunning to behold, day or night. There is also a Tesla Supercharger location there now.
*These to me are a lovely sight, just like the Windmills of old Amsterdam, each time I drive in my super clean Diesel down the M1 or A14 to make me feel less Guilty. Although achieving regularly 70+ MPG with a light right foot, wind Power is Great, and in a Valley as well.*
Brilliant video! The world needs more engineers who not only know their stuff, but know how to communicate to ordinary people and make things clear. This guy certainly delivered. I think the cost question is a fairly complicated one. As pointed out here, the U.K. grid can absorb more intermittent renewable energy without having to employ storage. But at some point storage is needed. Pumped hydro is extremely cheap as well as energy efficient if - and only if - you are close to a dam. EVs can play a big role in delivering a stream of still useable capacity, although to make this efficient and easy standards are needed that don't exist at the moment (to ensure the various packs can plug into such a system without too much overhead/engineering having to be done). But how should the cost of storage be accounted for? On the one hand, it is a consequence of intermittancy, and as such logical to attribute to any intermittent source. On the other hand, combined with prioritized delivery for intermittent sources the storage may just as well be used as the capacity reserve - typically from natural gas plants or nuclear plants, which have slow response times and need some time to modify their output. Probably I am talking nonsense and just sharing my confusion, but I am really not sure how to think about this. Nor do I have any real sense of what ballpark storage costs would actually be relative to the production cost, so I don't even know how big this problem is! I did spot one error. He said "some countries have gone to 80-90% renewables". But Norway is at 98%. In fact, we are a net exporter and make more renewable electricity than our total electricity consumption. But our domestic use is 2% EU-mix because electricity prices are higher in Europe much of the time and our energy companies make more money by selling some on the continent and re-importing at times when prices are lower. Anyway, he was of course speaking of intermittent renewable sources, and hydropower isn't intermittent. In fact it is eminently controllable and can respond quite quickly to changes in demand. I still remember a day in school when I was probably about nine when a guy from the local energy company came in to tell us about their job. He explained how they turned up the taps and increased production every day when the news began and people were turning on their (CRT) televisions. For reasons that have never become clear to me any small mismatch between consumption and production results in a change in the frequency of the AC voltage, nominally 50 Hz, and this was their primary way of knowing whether to increase or decrease output. I digress, but only because this was an inspiring video. I love the EV stuff, but it is important to include the larger context now and again!
Yes we have been at 140% a couple of times over the year, and with the 2 GW extra turbines coming online before 2020 we could make up to 250% on good days and around 200% on minimum days. We actually have a real time site that shows how much CO2 and power we generate at a time, and where it goes. www.energinet.dk/Flash/Forside/index.html
I frequently travel along the Minnesota / Iowa border in the US which in the last decade it has seen an explosion of wind farms. There is something eerily beautiful about the sea of blinking red warning lights they generate.
Very informative video. One thing I like to see is how wind farms are often put on land that is being used for something else. In the video, I could see the hay bales. In Texas where I live, they have wind farms married up with cotton fields. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone.
I think turbines are fantastic. There's almost a utopian magnificence to them. It really makes you feel like you're living in the future. Some people call them an eyesore but they often forget the alternative. I live in South Wales where we have Aberthaw (coal), Barry (gas) and Baglan Bay (gas) and they're all bloody hideous in comparison to a bunch of turbines.
I don't know if you read these comments Bob..but so far Red Dwarf XI has exceeded all expectations.thanks to all the guys that made it possible.thank you for making me laugh for all these years and thanks to Craig and co too.becoming a patreon to this channel was my thank you to you all.massive respect and love to you all.
It's just a question of time. We in Holland earn money because loads of tourists come looking at them. Admitted, the wind mills are a bit older then the ones in the video, but that's the whole point. Just be patient and these things not only produce clean electricity, but jobs in the tourism business as well!
Great video. We could have done with someone like Charles to explain our community wind energy project, which got scuppered by a naysayer claiming mineral rights on the land to block our project.
As lived 16 years lived in UK/Scotland the Biggest natural resource in UK is Wind & tidal. All energy can be shifted to Renewable. Sadly Govt had been very slow. More renewable mean less Gas & Oil from Russia & Middle East.
Thanks for this, really interesting and I always wondered about those outage questions myself! As for people not wanting them because they 'ruin the landscape', they actually 'change the landscape' and I think you'll find that we as a species have been doing that for centuries! Personally I see them as majestic and a sign that we're heading somewhere good! Felt odd watching an Amazon Fire advert with Clarkson beforehand though! :D
Where I live Near Mojave, at the far west side of the Mojave desert, we have Huge 120m height onshore stations. Our area alone produces a little over 6.5% of california energy needs in 2014. The info about all this is a little hard to find, but it's out there.
You did not comment on the straw being loaded onto a lorry in the background, probably for Elean power station near Ely. So as well as producing wind energy, grain for food, the land is also producing thermal power sustainably.
I'd happily have one of these in my back garden. You'll always get the moaners and whiners that don't want them in one location but don't provide any alternative.
That's true, but it is an unfair comparison. The energy density of wind (and sun) power is very much lower than that of fossil fuels. You therefore need much more of the production equipment and land to produce the same amount of energy. Whether the UK can power itself fully on wind even without any concerns for what they look like isn't clear to me. If you have read David MacKey's excellent (and free!) book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" you will know that a few years ago it certainly looked impossible.
It's likely not possible from domestic wind but there are other sources such as solar PV and wave/tidal energy. There's also importing renewably generated electricity from say Scotland. Even if 60% of the British electricity usage is provided by wind/solar that is still a strong reduction in coal and oil usage. There is no requirement to be able to achieve 100% before installing as much renewable generation as is feasible.
They are noisy. I would want free energy to have one xD But having them in the fields in the village I would not care less about any noise they produce for how green the energy is.
I've stood under one, and I've climbed up it while it was working. Fairly old, at nearly 10, so relatively modest in size, and not the windiest of days, so it wasn't going full whack, although it wasn't that slow either. Basically, I wouldn't want one literally in my back garden, I think it would be that low-level hum that would interfere with sleeping even if you didn't notice it during the day. The drop off in noise as you move farther away is so rapid, however, that I'd be happy with having one at the end of the road. However, no one is seriously suggesting we all have turbines of this size literally in our back gardens, or even at the end of our roads.
Hydel power can serve as the storage unit for all these intermittent power sources like wind and solar. When wind is available use half of the power to pump downstream water up into the dam. And when these sources aren't producing any power, use the extra water to generate extra electricity. Basically like a battery pack, but very big one, and a very cheap one.
its called Burton Wold wind farm. since the turbines have been put in the public are no longer allowed near the place yet it used to be publicly accessible to everyone.
In Spondon Derbyshire some clever bugger installed two large wind turbines that hardly ever run they installed them in the flight path of east midlands airport and when they run they block the radar coverage to the north for the airport. The turbines can only be turned on if the wind is blowing in certain direction as not to interfere with the planes because they have to land into wind and take off into wind. It's s been reported that the radar will have to be changed or the turbines for them to ever run at the same time. My comment on this is what a cock up.
Large wind turbines for energy compared to fracking for gas, give me turbines every time, great source of energy for at least 20 years rather than the fracking industry that looks for new drilling opportunities every couple of years with its attendant pollution , its a no brainer!
I love the look of big wind turbines. I just don't understand why so many people think that they're a blight on the landscape.
But why should it fall? You've got a nice view of some fields and turbines. It's only a problem for people who hate them, and they have always been a minority, and now must be a shrinking one.
On the counter-side to that argument, at least if there's some turbines in the fields out the back of your house generating megawatts of power for your town, you can be pretty sure that they won't be about to build anything less desireable prison/asylum/heavy_industry etc on the land, and you'll always have acess to the beautiful countryside around you.
Because it ruins the look of natural landscape. My mum lives in an area of outstanding natural beauty, and thankfully it is forbidden to build on these Wind turbines.
This may be true in many areas, however people use the ruin the landscape argument in areas where the entire forest/swamp landscape was destroyed to grow corn/beans. What bad does a bunch of elegant white turbines do? In fact, now that there ate literally thousands of them up, they actually make the landscape more interesting.
I'm beginning to appreciate them now, but only after some 're-framing' of my thoughts about them. I slowly began to see the purpose to them, their work and benefits, so perhaps they still look ugly as f*uk, but that may be just one element to them, and I choose not to dwell on that. Having said all that, I'm not going to 'reframe' every belief that I hold, as "Clean energy' is not just a snappy ad banner; in the long run, I don't see many downsides to it, nor any devilish jiggery-pokery.
I don't get why people would not want to see these magestic creators of clean energy, when I see majestic wind turbines in the distance I feel nothing but pride that man has harnessed the energy of nature and that every new windmill is a step away from the old dirty polluting energy production that has killed and caused suffering to millions of people as much as it has brought benefit, clean energy is truly amazing and liberating.
They can be rather unpleasant to live too close to. There are both noise and light problems.
Haworth also glosses over how difficult it is (and has been) to adapt the grid to wind power. The 10% figure he quotes and calls "nonsense" probably was close to the truth back then. The grid has had to be improved a lot to accommodate 18%.
Peter Lund
There is plenty of land to build it far enough away, to my knowledge they have not asked to put them near to people's dwellings.
Which would you rather live near? A windmill or one of these? www.alumni.hbs.edu/PublishingImages/stories/bulletin/2015/march/slideshow/boomtown08.jpg
The sour gas (hydrogen sulfide) flare is the problem and less the oil pump.
please restate the following phrase for the class "a stand-by safety feature to which to divert flow in case of an upstream shut-down"
or provide a link that describes the function of the thing in question with accurate grammar, because what you said is not what you mean.
Love this episode, this is exactly the sort of thing that I was hoping my patreon money would pay for. Car reviews are still great but the story behind renewables and battery tech is equally exciting and deserving of screen time.
I agree the more people understand how far renewables have come, the more ridiculous Hinkley Point C nuclear power station will seem.
Alert! DO not mention Hinckley Point C!!
Totally! I've started my own channel where I explore similar topics!
A great interview. He should be promoted! Really good presenter.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Llewellyn
He's got a PhD in physics and he's responsible for renewables at GE in Europe, Africa and Asia with $2 billion in revenues and he also has publications in journals like Nature and Science. I agree, well presented!
Well said Clive. My sentiments exactly.
Sincerely
JF ( UK )
Touché Clive. Must get one.
Yep, the Series 4000 Mechanoid is a versatile and remarkably adaptable unit... Yay, Kryten!
6:00 Awesome talking to a real Engineer not just the marketing guy from a big company.
Another great episode with another guest who speaks with great clarity on camera
Gy
Exactly how I like my fullycharged show most: educational discussions with a very interesting speaker, keep it up!
I am completely addicted to Fully Charged, Robert is a joy to hear & watch I have learnt so much from the show! Roberts humour is completely on my wave length. Johnny & Robert are a good pairing, both bright sparks with their own brands of expertise. The amount of organising that it must take to produce the videos must be phenomenal.
Just this coming Monday I'll be enrolling on a doctorate in offshore wind structures - I'm really excited about it. My supervisor tells me it should reduce the cost of offshore wind significantly.
Good Luck! What exciting news. I think you will have a great future ahead of you and your work will benefit the planet.
Thank you. :)
Congratulations and good luck. It's a brilliant industry to work it, I take my hard hat off to you sir!
I watch fullycharged, not only to see renewables going forward but also when I have bad mood, thank you so much Robert! 👍
Excellent episode - really informative with the pertinent questions asked. Thanks Robert, more like this please!
Beautiful aren't they, so soothing to watch...
Absolutely LOVE it. We have big wind farms out in the eastern part of Washington State where I live and I want to see more.
Brilliant video and discussion. Thank you!
Brilliant video!! Love it ! Really great questions ! Straight to the point ! 👍🏻
About 15 years ago, I was deadset against wind farms. I thought, as I live in Scotland, that they spoil the landscape and makes it look ugly.
Now, as I have gotten wiser and more interested in green technology I love them, I want to see more of them!
That last shot of the wind turbines was sick!
Excellent interview! Thank you for this unique expertise from an industry professional.
Your episodes are improving every month. This episode was really BBC quality or better. Great job by you and your team. Nice drone video clips too.
Another point for putting wind turbines in farm fields or pastures is that tall trees are usually not a problem. One bit of encouraging news from the USA is that an additional 2 GW of wind energy installation was approved for construction in Iowa (a heavily farmed state).
Better than the BBC, least this channel isn't full of pedophiles and pedophile protectors.
What an utterly fantastic piece of journalism. Really enjoy your videos Robert, keep up the great work.
Very professionally, answered many questions I had, you get better and better and better, thank you
Very nice vid. Those are just off the A14, and it always makes me warm inside when I drive past. When you see how much of the UK _doesn't_ have any turbines, you realise how much potential there is.
Fascinating to know that we can get 40% c.f. in the UK inland on a boring flat bit. That's a big step up from the 22% at the time McKay wrote SEWTHA. I would really like to talk to this chap some more about exactly what the limits on wind and PV penetration on the grid are, and what the implications/costs for storage/backup/demand management are. It's a complaex subject hugely argued about online, and hard for the layman to get good, reliable detail on.
You did some very effective *silent messaging* here. Subtle but *very powerful*.
Subliminal imagery to stomp on three of the biggest "arguments" of the fossil fuel propagandists. Arguing quietly. Quite clever, actually.
*Image 1:* All those *big birds* flying by. None of which managed to kamikaze themselves. And all of which are clearly still alive, despite the presence of a big wind farm on their flight path for the last two years.
*Image 2:* The *rural rhythms* of the hay baling etc going on in the background, just a typical day on the farm.. Sure, wind turbines "take up a lot of space". But that "space" is mostly in a vertical plane, rather than a horizontal plane. Total amount of "space" actually "taken up" is maybe 2% of the land area. The rest is just typical English countryside, and life goes on as normal underneath, completely oblivious to the giant energy machines above.
*Image 3:* The drone footage, revealing just how gosh-darn *pretty* the entire scene is, even with the turbines there. If this is "industrialisation of the countryside", I think I can live with it.
(I live in the province of Mpumalanga, one of the most intense coal mining areas of the world. Anyone who thinks the countryside is uglified by wind turbines should come and have a look at what happens to an area once an open-cast coal mine starts up.)
Thinking the whole video, "Just imagine trying to hold a conversation in any fueled powerplant."
@@haydentravis3348 Hydro power. Zero fuel, loud AF.
Thank you Robert and Charles for a most informative video. Why has the government taken this approach to wind power? No one has asked me if I mind having huge wind turbines near my home. I'd love it, and would proudly show them off to visitors. Where do they get the idea that we, as a nation, would rather screw the planet than have wind turbines? Surely a public information campaign is in order, at the very least to explain that bigger turbines = cheaper electricity.
Thanks, we really enjoyed this! Nice mix of business and engineering!
Watching this, even as a pacifist, it's really difficult not to want to punch some people (the current and previous government) very hard on the nose.
#democracy
bobmamipoko The worst form of government apart from all the others.
Charlie KB YUP, OIL OIL OIL; MONEY MONEY MONEY.. Those stupid conglomerates. Guess why there are only few electric cars in the world today
bobmamipoko VERY TRUE; when majority of ppl wins, they rule the world.. That's why
Life wouldn't be the same without you guys making the world laugh.
I love how quiet they are.
Amazing and great info. It is beautiful and simple. In the USA we have so much open space and windy areas. I hope to see more and more
What a delightful video. Informative and clear, beautifully shot, even the music was nice.
Beautifully shot with excellent audio. Thanks.
It’s interesting to see this video, only 3 years on (Autumn 2019), we have offshore wind power that costs less than wholesale prices, we have 8MW turbines and we have Terrawatt+ wind farms being built in around 18 months...
Amazing that four years on 1 turbine in the North sea will provide as much power as this whole wind farm, (13 megawatts). Not to say they should not be installed on land as well. I too think they are majestic, particularly in the landscapes as in this video.
I bet a drone can pass right through those spinning blades...that would be an epic shot.
looks kinda fast
Excellent video. Clearly the UK government really needs to get off it's bottom and get it's priorities right. Perhaps this video could be shown prime-time on TV? Your presence Mr. Llewellyn would guarantee an audience.
In Iowa in the USA Mid American Energy is currently supplying over 45% of it electricity from wind and in another 3 years it will be over 80%.
Well done! Now vote Democrat, please Iowa. I know Hill is not the most inspiring politica (way too "Selena Meyer") but for Goodness sakes, look at the alternative.
Dont vote Hillary , she will go to war with Russia and as you know, no country has ever won a war against Russia, thats how good they are.
I live in a country where more than 45% is wind energy. And peaks well over 100% on windy days.
Iowa has 5,255 megawatts of coal-fired generating capacity. It also has 3,631 megawatts of natural gas-fired generating capacity.
Great show, brilliant interviewee - so good to see someone talking so clearly about such an important and interesting topic.
Great bit of analysis. Thanks
I love these, having stood directly under a few in Norfolk I think they are rather graceful and beautiful. Just a modern version of the old windmills we used to mill flour etc. I'd have no objection to having then near me.
Those are so beautiful. In Sweetwater, Texas there are windmills from horizon to horizon. Absolutely stunning to behold, day or night. There is also a Tesla Supercharger location there now.
*These to me are a lovely sight, just like the Windmills of old Amsterdam, each time I drive in my super clean Diesel down the M1 or A14 to make me feel less Guilty. Although achieving regularly 70+ MPG with a light right foot, wind Power is Great, and in a Valley as well.*
Fantastic interview really insightful to hear some of the questions being asked I’ve had in my head for a long time. Thanks for this
Brilliant video! The world needs more engineers who not only know their stuff, but know how to communicate to ordinary people and make things clear. This guy certainly delivered.
I think the cost question is a fairly complicated one. As pointed out here, the U.K. grid can absorb more intermittent renewable energy without having to employ storage. But at some point storage is needed. Pumped hydro is extremely cheap as well as energy efficient if - and only if - you are close to a dam. EVs can play a big role in delivering a stream of still useable capacity, although to make this efficient and easy standards are needed that don't exist at the moment (to ensure the various packs can plug into such a system without too much overhead/engineering having to be done). But how should the cost of storage be accounted for? On the one hand, it is a consequence of intermittancy, and as such logical to attribute to any intermittent source. On the other hand, combined with prioritized delivery for intermittent sources the storage may just as well be used as the capacity reserve - typically from natural gas plants or nuclear plants, which have slow response times and need some time to modify their output. Probably I am talking nonsense and just sharing my confusion, but I am really not sure how to think about this. Nor do I have any real sense of what ballpark storage costs would actually be relative to the production cost, so I don't even know how big this problem is!
I did spot one error. He said "some countries have gone to 80-90% renewables". But Norway is at 98%. In fact, we are a net exporter and make more renewable electricity than our total electricity consumption. But our domestic use is 2% EU-mix because electricity prices are higher in Europe much of the time and our energy companies make more money by selling some on the continent and re-importing at times when prices are lower. Anyway, he was of course speaking of intermittent renewable sources, and hydropower isn't intermittent. In fact it is eminently controllable and can respond quite quickly to changes in demand. I still remember a day in school when I was probably about nine when a guy from the local energy company came in to tell us about their job. He explained how they turned up the taps and increased production every day when the news began and people were turning on their (CRT) televisions. For reasons that have never become clear to me any small mismatch between consumption and production results in a change in the frequency of the AC voltage, nominally 50 Hz, and this was their primary way of knowing whether to increase or decrease output.
I digress, but only because this was an inspiring video. I love the EV stuff, but it is important to include the larger context now and again!
one big wind turbine per village payed for by that village is the way to go. love the show
Very informative and the production quality was very nice as well. I really enjoyed this episode.
Nice one fellas. Good to see some aerial shots : )
Great news New Zealand produces 82 % of its electricity using renewables we have wind 💨 hydro geothermal and solar.
Diversification of the energy matrix in my country, Uruguay, managed to meet about 94% of electricity from renewable energies.
we now live in Brasil and there are many wind 💨 generators and solar here. too
Denmark sometimes produces more than 100% of its total energy from wind turbines! :D
Yes we have been at 140% a couple of times over the year, and with the 2 GW extra turbines coming online before 2020 we could make up to 250% on good days and around 200% on minimum days. We actually have a real time site that shows how much CO2 and power we generate at a time, and where it goes.
www.energinet.dk/Flash/Forside/index.html
That's a really cool website! Is it available in english perchance?
can you do a video on domestic wind turbines and what's allowed/disallowed. Thanks.
Also what ones actually work and which ones don't.
I frequently travel along the Minnesota / Iowa border in the US which in the last decade it has seen an explosion of wind farms. There is something eerily beautiful about the sea of blinking red warning lights they generate.
Love it. He seemed to know his stuff, and a nice sounding chap.
Very informative video. One thing I like to see is how wind farms are often put on land that is being used for something else. In the video, I could see the hay bales. In Texas where I live, they have wind farms married up with cotton fields. Nothing like killing two birds with one stone.
Loved this ep. Saw part of it on the non recap recap, but much more detail.
Absolutely brilliant
Need more videos like this instead of the fancy fancy car ones that really touch few folks in reality.
Extremely informative episode Robert! Great interview with great conversation.
Those turbines look incredible.
My favourite youtube channel. Amazingly well done. Love it.
Windmills are beautiful
I think turbines are fantastic. There's almost a utopian magnificence to them. It really makes you feel like you're living in the future. Some people call them an eyesore but they often forget the alternative. I live in South Wales where we have Aberthaw (coal), Barry (gas) and Baglan Bay (gas) and they're all bloody hideous in comparison to a bunch of turbines.
I should add that Aberthaw is apparently co-fired with biomass as well as coal.
Barry looks awesome.
They are a blight on the country side.
More brilliant info Robert well done love the program.
I don't know if you read these comments Bob..but so far Red Dwarf XI has exceeded all expectations.thanks to all the guys that made it possible.thank you for making me laugh for all these years and thanks to Craig and co too.becoming a patreon to this channel was my thank you to you all.massive respect and love to you all.
Loved this.
Another informative show ..go UK !
wind turbines are really beautiful. i dont understand why somebody wouldnt want to see them.
It's just a question of time. We in Holland earn money because loads of tourists come looking at them. Admitted, the wind mills are a bit older then the ones in the video, but that's the whole point. Just be patient and these things not only produce clean electricity, but jobs in the tourism business as well!
Rinoa Super-Genius Cuz everytime they see it; they lose their money
Great show and interview as usual.
What a quiet place...
excellent video. great channel.
so relaxing
I actually find wind turbines to be quite aesthetic
Idk why lots of people hate or dislike them.
Terrific interview
Great video!
Why do you need a hard hat in the middle of a field?
In case a turbine blade flies off of course.
Protection against bird poo? :-D
Blown Fox Insurance.
Gamma ray protection 👽
Because they will protect them from falling wind turbines. 'Duh..'
Nope, I have no clue.
Great video. We could have done with someone like Charles to explain our community wind energy project, which got scuppered by a naysayer claiming mineral rights on the land to block our project.
As lived 16 years lived in UK/Scotland the Biggest natural resource in UK is Wind & tidal. All energy can be shifted to Renewable. Sadly Govt had been very slow. More renewable mean less Gas & Oil from Russia & Middle East.
getting to be one of my favourite channels
Brilliant interview.
I notice they were very loud, too. Stopped to look at some by my dad's home in Iowa--couldn't hear them over the crickets in the fields.
very nice, thank you.
Thanks for this, really interesting and I always wondered about those outage questions myself! As for people not wanting them because they 'ruin the landscape', they actually 'change the landscape' and I think you'll find that we as a species have been doing that for centuries! Personally I see them as majestic and a sign that we're heading somewhere good! Felt odd watching an Amazon Fire advert with Clarkson beforehand though! :D
Great interview... and nice drone shots!
"The only way to describe it is Massive wind", yet the title is Big Wind. Keep it up Robert.
Where I live Near Mojave, at the far west side of the Mojave desert, we have Huge 120m height onshore stations. Our area alone produces a little over 6.5% of california energy needs in 2014. The info about all this is a little hard to find, but it's out there.
You did not comment on the straw being loaded onto a lorry in the background, probably for Elean power station near Ely. So as well as producing wind energy, grain for food, the land is also producing thermal power sustainably.
I'd happily have one of these in my back garden. You'll always get the moaners and whiners that don't want them in one location but don't provide any alternative.
Darren Boss Quite right. And, let's be honest, they're more attractive than a bloody coal/gas-fired station. They're almost magnificent.
I think they look like majestic moving artwork.
That's true, but it is an unfair comparison. The energy density of wind (and sun) power is very much lower than that of fossil fuels. You therefore need much more of the production equipment and land to produce the same amount of energy.
Whether the UK can power itself fully on wind even without any concerns for what they look like isn't clear to me. If you have read David MacKey's excellent (and free!) book "Sustainable Energy - without the hot air" you will know that a few years ago it certainly looked impossible.
It's likely not possible from domestic wind but there are other sources such as solar PV and wave/tidal energy. There's also importing renewably generated electricity from say Scotland.
Even if 60% of the British electricity usage is provided by wind/solar that is still a strong reduction in coal and oil usage. There is no requirement to be able to achieve 100% before installing as much renewable generation as is feasible.
"There's also importing renewably generated electricity from say Scotland." - Scotland is part of the Britain, so doesn't count as an import.
Misleading that you can't see offshore wind farms. The ones along Shoreham will be visible.
Really love the channel
Thank you for the informative video :)
they are so elegant
Put one in my back yard, I would be happy.
Hate it so much when I see people campaign not for them to be put up close to there village.
They are noisy. I would want free energy to have one xD
But having them in the fields in the village I would not care less about any noise they produce for how green the energy is.
I've stood under a few in both light and strong winds and there is just the faintest swoosh. Under what conditions are they noisy?
I don't understand this. How noisy can they be? In the video they are having a conversation right in the middle of a wind farm.
It depends on the wind direction - in the video the turbines were behind them.
I've stood under one, and I've climbed up it while it was working. Fairly old, at nearly 10, so relatively modest in size, and not the windiest of days, so it wasn't going full whack, although it wasn't that slow either.
Basically, I wouldn't want one literally in my back garden, I think it would be that low-level hum that would interfere with sleeping even if you didn't notice it during the day. The drop off in noise as you move farther away is so rapid, however, that I'd be happy with having one at the end of the road.
However, no one is seriously suggesting we all have turbines of this size literally in our back gardens, or even at the end of our roads.
Great video, presenting and info ;0) Thanks :0)
Hydel power can serve as the storage unit for all these intermittent power sources like wind and solar. When wind is available use half of the power to pump downstream water up into the dam. And when these sources aren't producing any power, use the extra water to generate extra electricity. Basically like a battery pack, but very big one, and a very cheap one.
Extremely cheap where land costs a cup of coffee per acre.
its called Burton Wold wind farm. since the turbines have been put in the public are no longer allowed near the place yet it used to be publicly accessible to everyone.
Your videos is so good! Keep it up!
Great interview!
that was so informative!!! thank you! can we just get on wind and solar already! its on my roof!
Really good info here. It's jut a bit better to watch at 1.25 speed as the GE guy speaks at a sleep inducing pace (if played in normal speed)
In Spondon Derbyshire some clever bugger installed two large wind turbines that hardly ever run they installed them in the flight path of east midlands airport and when they run they block the radar coverage to the north for the airport. The turbines can only be turned on if the wind is blowing in certain direction as not to interfere with the planes because they have to land into wind and take off into wind. It's s been reported that the radar will have to be changed or the turbines for them to ever run at the same time. My comment on this is what a cock up.
Nice camera work :)
Yeah I know this. The power cables running down towers can handle the twists and stretching up to three full turns from the nacelle. :)
Large wind turbines for energy compared to fracking for gas, give me turbines every time, great source of energy for at least 20 years rather than the fracking industry that looks for new drilling opportunities every couple of years with its attendant pollution , its a no brainer!