Take 100 billion pounds, a plan to create 60,000 jobs, and the urgent need to end an addition to fossil fuels, and what do you get? The first steps in Britain’s plan to develop its offshore wind farm capabilities. The UK recently announced plans for two massive turbine farms, and has set a target of producing 33 gigawatts of renewable energy by 2020 – a 3000% increase over current capacity.
Two offshore turbine fields have recently been unveiled in Anglesey and in the Bristol Channel. The wind farm in the Bristol Channel is a 1.5 gigawatt windfarm developed by RWE, while the one in Anglesey is a massive 4.2GW project that will sit happily in the Irish sea. To give you a sense of the scale, this windfarm will cover an area of 1,300 square miles or 2,200 square kilometers, or roughly 330 thousand football fields.
So far nine wind farm locations have been selected in the UK. Once the nine locations have been unveiled, the entire project will be one of, if not the, largest windfarms in the world (and certainly a contender for largest offshore windfarm). Greenpeace has stated that Britain is currently leading the development of offshore wind power, and the nation is aiming to have all of it’s wind farms up and running by 2020.
Via BBC
Ok so 33gw of offshore wind will according to you cost 100bn pounds. After taking into account capacity factor then that’s about 10gw. A modern nuclear reactor costs somewhere below 5bn and will produce up to 1,6gw.
In other words, it would cost about 30bn in nuclear reactors to produce as much power as those 100bn pound wind farms. Must be nice to have 70bn to throw away.
Once a wind farm is built maintenance is relatively easy. The cost of maintaining a wind farm is considerably less over the life time of its use than a nuclear reactor. With a reactor youve got teams of people working on them at all times, chance of accidental meltdown and very dangerous waste produced that must be hidden away deep in the earth. Overall these technologies that are being implemented today do cost more. Its for that reason that they were never pursued in the past. People are only now realizing that the extra cost will provide an even greater benefit in the long run.
I read all about this in the Scotsman. What a lofty plan. Why can’t we do something like it?
anyone else think that its kinda weird that the UK is willing to spend 100billion pounds on a wind farm that will be done around 2020, and not to mention they have already come up with a food security plan…and btw their hasn’t been a brand new fully active nuclear plant since the 80′s.. one of the reasons is that it produces far to much toxic waste and theirs a high chance it can blow up at any time.
scantando, wrong. Operations and maintenance is more expensive for wind power, off shore wind is actually about twice the average o&m cost of a nuclear power plant. With a modern reactor design it’s physically impossible to have a melt-down and high-level waste per year can be measured in kilos. The rest gives off less radiation than the screen you’re looking at right now.
john.m, again, it’s physically impossible for a modern reactor design to “blow up at any time”. It just isn’t possible.
I think this argument is taking the wrong route. There shouldn’t be a singular power source to power the whole of the UK and both wind and nuclear are viable options for this energy mix. Nuclear reactors, especially the newer fast-breed designs, are incredibly efficient and create barely any nuclear waste. If all the energy you will use in a lifetime was powered by nuclear energy, the amount of high level nuclear waste left would barely your hand.
Lets stop this foolish squabbling!
May 2010 update; yes and oil spills are extremely unlikely if not impossible with modern deep water rigs.
How much will it cost to mine refine, secure and transport fuel for the wind farm?
What’s the price for securing, storing transporting, spent fuel and decommissioning the hot reactor and storage materials for that wind farm?
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