Wind farm

Well, in case anybody hasn't seen the latest Town Crier, it seems there is to be a meeting in Penicuik town hall to discuss the possible wind farm. It is to be held at 10am on 24 October. As this is a Wednesday I suspect that there will be a number of people who will be reluctant to take time of their work to attend.

Midlothian Council has announced that the special Planning Committee meeting scheduled for October 24th has been cancelled.
It appears that there are still consultees responses outstanding and the papers will not be prepared in time.
There will be an update of the situation at the next scheduled meeting of the Council's Planning Committee on Tuesday, November 13th when it is likely that a new date will be set for the hearing.
The Council will still provide an opportunity for applicant and objectors to present their views to elected members at a meeting which will be held in Penicuik.

Well, it shouldn't be long now before we know whether the council supports a wind farm or not http://edinburghnews.scotsman.com/midlothian/Decision-day-looming--for.3748075.jp

This is quite an interesting article about a community that has decided to acquire a stake in the wind farm that has been built in their area http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/scotland/Fintry39s-green-revolution-means-power.3761482.jp

Do you have any personal thoughts on this, Andy?

It's certainly a difficult choice to make. Nobody really wants to have these monsters on their doorstep. It would be interesting to know what the benefits are likely to be to the community though. However, time is running out and decisions need to be made about how we are going to obtain the power we need over the next 20 years. There is no doubt we are going to need coal and gas fired power stations for backup, but they are not going to provide all our energy needs. The next choices are wind/wave and nuclear. If nuclear is ruled out (as it seems to have been) and wave power is not good enough at the moment, then the only other choice is wind power.

Therefore, if campaigners keep fighting to stop the wind turbines being put up there may not be enough time to fill Scotland's energy gap. For example the proposed project in the Western Isles seems like a good idea but not for some of the population who live there http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/4149487.stm

I suspect that there are likely to be quite a few cases like that in the near future. Hard decisions are going to have to be made about whether to build these wind farms all over Scotland and unfortunately they are not going to please everyone. Does anyone know how many wind turbines are needed to fill the gap that will happen when the remaining nuclear stations are closed?

On the recent discussion on the news, when the Scottish Parliament were declining new nuclear power stations there were mixed messages. The SNP said Scotland was an exporter of energy and there would be no shortfall. Labour, business and TUs seemed to have a different opinion.

I'm unsure if anyone really knows, Andy. And I'm concerned that this has fallen into party political stances rather than trying to establish clear facts. I would tend not to be confident in any of the statements at the monent.

It may be the case that Scotland is a net exporter of power at the moment. However, it is a fact that the current nuclear power stations will be coming to the end of their lives within the next 20 years or so. Therefore, it is also a fact that we have to find some way of filling the energy gap that is ahead of us or we will have to import power from the rest of the UK. If nuclear was to be an option you would have to start building soon. If it is not, then you need to find some other way apart from coal or gas. In theory it will probably be possible to use wind power to fill the gap but as I said tough decisions are going to have to be taken.

One thing that I hope is that if the wind farm is given the go ahead then they will have to bury the cables that connect it to the National Grid rather than put up pylons.

Planning permission for the wind farm was refused by MC Planning Committee this afternoon.
Details will be on the Council web site tomorrow.

Excellent news!

But will that be an end to it, or is there an appeal process? Lets hope the Planning Dept sticks to its guns!

Strangely enough I was wondering that as well. I had a look at the E.ON website to see if there was any press release or information on what comes next but there was nothing. However, I think you may be right and if they can appeal I'm sure they will. At the end of the day it might be the Scottish Government who have to make the decision and they may or may not agree with the council's decision.

My fear is that, having been knocked-back on Lewis, they mind be gifted Auchencorth as a small compensation by the government.

Here is a summary of the reasons for the council's decision to turn down the proposal http://www.midlothianadvertiser.co.uk/news/Wind-farm-plan-decision.3770240.jp

By the way, if anyone missed it there was an interesting article in the Sunday Post which gives quite a good overview of the power supply situation http://mysite.wanadoo-members.co.uk/deathsender/windpower.pdf

Also, remember that the more houses that are being built in the future means more power will be needed to run them.