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Suddenly...Windmills! Millions of them!

If we don't like the aesthetics of the generic windmill, we can always try to incorporate it into a building, such as the Pearl River Tower (u/c) in Guangzhou.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pearl_River_Tower

pearlrivertower.jpg
 
Ontario proposes pushing wind turbines 5 km from shore

Offshore wind turbines should not be closer than 5 kilometres from the shoreline, Ontario’s environment ministry has proposed.

If approved, the guideline would appear to pose problems for Toronto Hydro’s proposed wind development off the Scarborough Bluffs.

Toronto Hydro wants to erect up to 60 turbines in Lake Ontario on a reef that runs two to four kilometers offshore, from the east end of Toronto to Ajax.

Earlier this month, the company installed a device to measure wind speeds in the area.

Toronto Hydro has said it chose the site because of the shallow water on the reef. Farther offshore, the water is much deeper and the turbines would cost much more to install.

Tanya Bruckmueller of Toronto Hydro said the company needs time to study the ministry proposal, and plans to participate in the consultation process.

The ministry will hold public consultation sessions in the fall on the proposed guidelines, and a 60-day comment period has opened on the Ontario environmental registry. (Registry number 011-0089.)

In addition to the 5-kilometre exclusion zone, the environment ministry is proposing that off-shore wind proposals would have to go through a “stringent and comprehensive application process.”

Energy Minister Brad Duguid said the proposed guideline provides clarity to proponents of wind power projects and to people who may be affected by them.

“I think it sets to rest the concerns of some moderate people who were concerned that if they go to the beach, they could be looking up at a huge wind turbine,” he said in an interview.

The 5 kilometre zone is in the mid-range of zones proposed by several U.S. states, he said, and will affect different wind project differently.

“Some will be able to adjust, others will certainly be impacted,” he said
 
That guideline sounds reasonable...until you realize that it is a total arbitrary and useless piece of beaurocracy. How many offshore wind projects does Ontario really expect to get proposals for? How many players are even capable of owning, operating, or constructing such facilities? 5 km is meaningless, but what it does is provide an excuse for someone to avoid having to make a common sense decision.
 
TrickyRicky said:
That guideline sounds reasonable...until you realize that it is a total arbitrary and useless piece of beaurocracy. How many offshore wind projects does Ontario really expect to get proposals for? How many players are even capable of owning, operating, or constructing such facilities? 5 km is meaningless, but what it does is provide an excuse for someone to avoid having to make a common sense decision.
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IMO 5 km is indeed arbitrary but also somewhat reasonable, as it seems the closer the windmills are to populated areas the more objections they get. By historical standards, 2-4 km is very, very close for offshore windmills, but 10 km is not as big of a deal.

There have actually been many potential sites proposed in Ontario as listed in that Helimax study, and a large proportion of them would be located greater than 5 km offshore, and would provide higher wind speeds and more consistent wind speeds to boot.

I suspect that arbitrary 5 km number is also partly the Ontario government's easy-way-out solution to the Toronto Hydro windfarm fiasco, but nonetheless I do think it's justified. The fact that the Toronto Hydro proposal had the windmills at 2-4 km from shore is one of the reasons I oppose it. It's just too damn close. If it were 10 km offshore, I might support it... well if there were better and more consistent wind speeds. The proposed site by Toronto Hydro is not a 1st tier and probably not even a 2nd tier option in terms of wind speed and reliability and therefore the ROI will be low.

The only reason IMO Toronto Hydro wants that very, very close offshore site is that it's really the only site they have access to, and someone in the executive there wants the PR. The anenometer installation was Toronto Hydro's method of bypassing the Helimax report commissioned by the Province of Ontario, as Toronto Hydro could spin their own anenometer results any way they wanted. Now, the Ontario Ministry of the Environment has headed off Toronto Hydro at the pass by introducing this arbitrary, but ultimately reasonable, restriction on proximity to shore. Kudos to them.

BTW, the guidelines in the UK are also 5 km. So, it's not as if there is no precedent for this number.
 
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The well connected and well financed NIMBYs in the Beaches and the Bluffs will not let this through without a fight. I was in the Beaches on Saturday and counted a tleast six signs against the plan.
 
The main problem with wind power is that turbines are usually isolated from cities (i.e. where the power the they generate is consumed), and so it puts a huge strain on transmission capacity because of the long distances involved. And of course transmitting power over longer distances likely results in more loss of electricity during transmission to begin with. So when the government proposes a minimum 5 km distance between shoreline and the off-shore turbines, and thus force even longer distances between the generators and the consumers, I can only shake my head. Power generators should be located as close to consumers as possible.
 
AGTO said:
Me too....armchair engineers like yourself always make me laugh.
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It is not being armchair engineer, asshole. It is research based peer-reviewed scholarly journal articles. What makes me laugh are idiots like you who find themselves with absolutely nothing to add to the discussion and therefore have to resort to insults to be able to have something to say.
 
5 km is pretty insignificant for transmission costs, especially if on the Scarborough bluffs it'd be just 5 km from civilization. Plenty of other major power stations are much farther away than that, yet find it very economical to transmit over those long distances. If 5 km gets you better generating capacity or less environmental impact (not talking about NIMBYs here,) then I don't see why you shouldn't do that instead of 2. Heck, if you'll get more generation in the middle of Lake Ontario, I don't see why you wouldn't do that (assuming you can overcome the costs associated with that.)

I don't have much of a problem with wind turbines going up in denser, human populated areas. Even in rural farmland, I think they fit right into the natural landscape while reminding you of human settlement just the same as a road, farm field or cell tower. Just drive down through southern France and you have wind turbines at the crest of every hill. It's actually a beautiful sight, and I don't see how anyone could be annoyed by it. Ditto for offshore turbines (I think these are especially beautiful.) While almost any other symbol of industrialized society may be considered a blight to the natural landscape, I think that wind turbines are alone in not having a negative appearance. They're simple, elegant, and remind us of a human society that's becoming more in touch with the environment.

I also think the concerns of noise or physical damage is pretty absurd. I remember seeing something on discovery channel about people that put a wind turbine up next to their house to power it and others in their community. And I don't think they have hearing damage or ruptured organs. The bluffs are already experiencing a lot of erosion, and I don't think turbines even 2 km away would have much more of an effect on that. So I really don't get the NIMBYs for this one. I'd love to have a windmill in my backyard. Heck, I might pay for it.

Wind is a great power source. While it does have reliability issues, there are ways to solve that. I bet you could turn some of the water towers in the GTA into big water batteries, pumping up when there's spare electricity and letting the natural usage generate power when there's not. And there's plenty of room for wind turbines in urban areas (probably much more once these claims of physical damage get rebuked.) Vertical turbines on apartment buildings, traditional turbines in parks and ravines. Since it's basically a single capital cost and then low check up maintenance costs after that for decades, I don't think it's as much where it's economical to do, but where you'll get the very best bang for your buck.
 
I'm just going ignore AGTO. He obviously doesn't know anything, otherwise he would have had something of substance to add to the thread other than just insulting people..

Second_in_pie said:
5 km is pretty insignificant for transmission costs, especially if on the Scarborough bluffs it'd be just 5 km from civilization. Plenty of other major power stations are much farther away than that, yet find it very economical to transmit over those long distances. If 5 km gets you better generating capacity or less environmental impact (not talking about NIMBYs here,) then I don't see why you shouldn't do that instead of 2. Heck, if you'll get more generation in the middle of Lake Ontario, I don't see why you wouldn't do that (assuming you can overcome the costs associated with that.)
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The problem with transmission is mainly with the large scale installations only as wind turbines have fluctuating output and can easily overload the transmission capacity if there is a lot of them. And of course if the distance is increase arbitrarily like this, it only makes it worse. Other types of power stations can have constant output so the longer distances is not as big a deal... Of course 5 km is not a lot and I'm not saying there will be huge consequences, if any. Just saying distance and transmission is the main disadvantage of wind power if it is a major power source. So instituting an arbitrary minimum distance that serves no purpose other than to placate the paranoia of few people doesn't seem like a good idea.

And I agree, the wind turbines are not a blight on the landscape. Clean air is more important than aesthetics anyway.
 
doady said:
And I agree, the wind turbines are not a blight on the landscape. Clean air is more important than aesthetics anyway.
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Though as always, it ain't what they are, it's the place that you build'em. That is, you wouldn't want them *literally* in your back yard--which is why wind farms are typically located on uninhabited or minimally inhabited acreage (or in the middle of water, as proposed here)
 
Well, this is a surprise. All Ontario offshore wind farms are now d-e-d dead. Not even ones > 5 km from shore are allowed now.

Ontario stops offshore wind power development

The Ontario government has called a stop to any offshore wind power projects in the province’s portion of the Great Lakes, until further scientific study is done.

In an announcement that stunned both wind power supporters and opponents, the province – which has strongly supported a shift to renewable sources of power – said Friday that it will not proceed with any offshore wind projects “while further research is conducted.”

No offshore wind projects had yet received full approvals, but several were in the planning stages and one had already received a contract to sell electricity to the province under the “feed-in-tariff” program that pays high prices for renewable power. That contract will be cancelled, applications will be suspended and no more will be accepted, the province said.
 
Well, if all else fails, we can generate electricity through headgear. Like, Mayor Ford would look great wearing one of these
propeller_beanie_hat.jpg
 
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