Wind Power in Lincolnshire
Oil painting by Biff Vernon
O.K., so this isn't actually our own wind turbine. It's down the road near Mablethorpe but we do use a lot of renewable energy at Tithe Farm. The central heating is run from a straw burner and we keep really cosy in winter with two wood burners. We buy barley straw from our neighbouring farm, barley producing less ash than wheat straw, and burn oak off-cuts in the wood-burners. Summer 2006 sees the building of about 12 square metres of solar thermal panels to heat our water.
We buy our electricity from Ecotricity. The turbine in the picture is one of a pair of Enercon E-40 600kw turbines, installed in June 2002, for Ecotricity, at the sewage works west of Mablethorpe. Eight more have been constructed at the neighbouring Baumbers Farm in the autumn of 2004 but some sad people don't like them. Much better to build more of those nice clean nuclear power stations...er...well not here of course... somewhere else...a long way away...in someone else's backyard. Anyway wind turbines are noisy...aren't they? Well, actually, no. This design does not have a gearbox. Noise from gearboxes was a problem with older designs. I've stood underneath the Mablethorpe turbines and a few hundred yards downwind of them. The loudest sound I heard was the wind rustling the grass and water trickling in the dyke. These turbines are silent. And just so beautiful.
Ecotricity have now been given planning oermission for 20 Enercon E-48/800 to be sited a couple of miles from our house at Conisholme Fen. Find out about this proposal from the online exhibition. They should be built during 2007.
Of course the best energy 'source' is conservation, so let's talk about double glazing. And here is David Fleming on Tradable Energy Quotas.
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Energy and the Common Purpose Descending the Energy Staircase with Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) by David Fleming Published by The LEAN ECONOMY CONNECTION PO Box 52449 London NW3 9AN
ISBN 0-9550849-1-1 Price £5.00 +£1p&p |
We bought it 17 years ago for about £1000 from McDonalds, Engineers, Louth. After a few years the galvanised steel chimney rusted through and fell over so we replaced it with a brick chimney - much prettier. The steel observation flap rusted and has been replaced with a bit of ceramic tile but that's no problem. The chain connecting the thermostat to the air inlet flap broke and was replaced with baler twine. Maintenance cost over 17 years - zero.
You need a supply of straw - in the little bales, which most farmers don’t make anymore, and a big shed to store it. We've tried wheat, barley, bean and rape. Bean and rape are very hot but clog the chimney with tar. Wheat produces a lot of ash but is cheapest. We settled on barley and it produces less ash and little tar. We also chuck in anything else that looks vaguely burnable. Junk mail is welcome!
You also need somewhere to get rid of the ash and no immediate neighbours because there is a bit of smoke when first lit. There's a good deal of work involved in shifting bales and, maybe weekly, emptying a barrow of ash. We have a large old house and it provides background central heating but we also have two wood burners in our two most used living rooms. We burn one bale per day October to May, two in cold weather. Its great for burning large pieces of scrap wood - you only need to cut it up into five foot lengths.
Ours has a nice little brass label saying its rated at 60000btu but I've no idea how they arrived at this figure - it depends what you put in. Hottest fuel found so far is a leylandii hedge.
If you don't mind a bit of work and live in the country with plenty of space a straw burner is a cheap, reliable and environmentally sound way of heating a house.
Farm 2000 is another supplier of straw burners.
The Log Pile Woodburner stuff
British Hydro Association First port of call if you happen to live by a stream
Strategic choices for managing the transition from peak oil to a reduced petroleum economy by Sarah k. Odland
This is just the summary:
| It is by now obvious that world
oil production faces serious constraints to expanding. Exploration and refining infrastructure is operating at capacity, yet it may not be profitable to invest in capital expansion. New oil discoveries have not offset the yearly depletion of existing fields since the 1980’s. Whether or not world oil production will peak in 2005 or 2025 is not the critical question; we have already rolled over to a sellers’ market because demand exceeds the rate at which oil can be supplied. With little sign of demand abatement from the US or Europe and skyrocketing demand from China and India, we are drawing down the capital of our oil endowment at an alarming rate. From this point onwards, we can expect supply disruptions, price spikes, and oil shocks. The petroleum-based world economy has therefore reached a tipping point. Fierce competition for the remaining oil resources will increasingly drive the markets, as well as national and foreign policies. The strategic choices we make now about how the 2nd half of the world’s oil should be used will determine how violently and abruptly we descend Hubbert’s Peak. Since a finite resource problem cannot
ultimately be solved from the supply side, we must use every tool at our
disposal to reduce demand and develop substitute energy sources. Market
pricing and oil shocks will undoubtedly play a significant role in demand
destruction in However, the biggest hurdle to overcome in reducing oil consumption is human nature. Denial is the first recourse, followed by a fighting instinct to preserve the status quo. Cataclysmic perceptual and behavioral shifts will be required before individuals voluntarily reduce their oil consumption. Education and discussion of the issues surrounding peak oil are crucial if we are to manage our inevitable transition away from fossil fuels with any hope of preserving a civilized society. As for the post-carbon economy, there is currently no viable plan B. A full-scale transition effort is urgently needed. The top priority should be to buy as much time as possible to develop sustainable alternative energy sources. Individuals, villages, states, and governments need to begin investing in mass transit, energy efficiencies and renewable energy. Before they will agree to that, they need to believe that the future value of those investments is worth forgoing other investments or consumption today. Once people grasp the realities of peak oil, a longer investment horizon becomes possible. We must value the world’s remaining oil resources as our primary, ever dwindling asset to build the bridge to the future. |
©Biff Vernon 2002, 2003.