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British Court Rejects Donald Trump's Attempt To Block Wind Farm (nytimes.com)
HughPickens.com writes: Sewell Chan reports at the NYT that Britain's highest court has unanimously rejected an attempt by Donald J. Trump to block the construction of a wind farm near his luxury golf resort in northeast Scotland. Trump has vowed to stop further development on the project if the offshore wind farm — 11 turbines, which would be visible from the golf resort 2.2 miles away — goes forward. Trump spokesman George A. Sorial denounced the ruling as "extremely unfortunate for the residents of Aberdeen and anyone who cares about Scotland's economic future" adding that the wind farm will "completely destroy the bucolic Aberdeen Bay and cast a terrible shadow upon the future of tourism for the area. History will judge those involved unfavorably, and the outcome demonstrates the foolish, small-minded and parochial mentality which dominates the current Scottish government's dangerous experiment with wind energy."
Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, withdrew Trump's status as a business ambassador to Scotland last week after Trump called for Muslims to be barred from entering the United States. Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen has stripped Mr. Trump of an honorary degree it awarded him in 2010. Trump's mother was born in Scotland and moved to the United States in the 1930s. " I think I do feel Scottish," said Trump at one time.
Nicola Sturgeon, first minister of Scotland, withdrew Trump's status as a business ambassador to Scotland last week after Trump called for Muslims to be barred from entering the United States. Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen has stripped Mr. Trump of an honorary degree it awarded him in 2010. Trump's mother was born in Scotland and moved to the United States in the 1930s. " I think I do feel Scottish," said Trump at one time.
Slashdot sure seems to have one hell of an axe to grind with Trump.
I think if history judges the presence of this wind farm unfavorably, they can, you know, just tear it down. It seems much easier to undo the damage of a wind farm than it does, say, a coal plant.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
Fixed that for him.
.. or there will be hell toupee.
Have gnu, will travel.
Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen has stripped Mr. Trump of an honorary degree it awarded him in 2010
You kind of have to question why they awarded it in the first place.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Wind Farm? Not Off My Back Porch
But another obstacle is a political heavyweight with a famous name, a local Cape Cod address and hardline opposition to the project.
U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy's primary residence is in Hyannisport, Mass., on the Kennedy family compound. It's one of the closest landfalls -- about 6 miles -- from the proposed site of the 440-feet turbines, which would be visible from his house as well as other surrounding coastlines.
In all fairness, Kennedy's aides were probably afraid he'd try to drive over to the windmills out at sea.
All your fossil fuel lifestyle is belong to un-Scottish.
Adapt. Or Die.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Listen all you Scots, Trump's mouthpiece says that experimenting with wind energy is not only dangerous but foolish, small-minded and parochial. Just say no.
A blow hard is trying to stop a wind farm?
It seems much easier to undo the damage of a wind farm than it does, say, a coal plant.
Very true. Also, it seems much easier to undo the damage of a bumbling ineffective government than it does, say, an idiotic megalomaniac fascist dictator.
Some residents from Woodland, North Carolina, filed an amicus brief stating: "it's gonna suck up wind from Scotland".
he was trumped. . .
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
So is the US when it did this to the poor poor Kennedy: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/new...
You'd have thought someone with his name would like all things wind-related.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Could you cite the particular examples of fascist statements made by Donald Trump — and explain, why you feel so about them?
Be sure to offer full verifiable quotes, rather than paraphrases, however... Thank you!
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
I think if history judges the presence of this wind farm unfavorably, they can, you know, just tear it down. It seems much easier to undo the damage of a wind farm than it does, say, a coal plant.
Yeah, using that logic, we should be able to build just about anything anywhere, as long as it can be torn down.
They'll suck up all the wind, and there won't be any left!
Puts a wind farm a mile from your house.... I am sure all the cynics and comedians here would to love have about a dozen of these 300 ft. tall monsters... roaring in the background behind their home.
5 out of 6 people enjoy Russian Roulette & 6 out of 7 Dwarfs are not Happy
I'll bet in 100 years or so, wind farms are looked on as quaint tourist attractions, kind of like windmills.
Maybe he's afraid the turbines will use up all the wind and effect games at the gold course.
Aberdeenshire and Grampian attracted
1.62 million visitors in 2011.
Palm Springs attracts around 1.5 million visitors, and it is adjacent to the San Gorgonio Pass Wind Farm, with over 3000 wind turbines!
Tell that to all the rich (liberal) folks who stopped a wind farm in Nantucket...
With the SNP ruling the country, there is actually an underspend of government taxes. Though that might be due to the Labour MP's on the FETA council that didn't approve the funding of regular maintenance of the Forth Bridge, causing it to be caused to be closed when a crack was found.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Slashdot sure seems to have one hell of an axe to grind with Trump.
Trump's supporters are all low-class, uneducated, white males who drive rusty pickups(*) and want to take their country back.
<MorganFreeman>Didn't you get the memo?</MorganFreeman>
This seems to be the attack narrative passed around the news sites right now: if you're a trump supporter, you're low class.
(Subtext: "You wouldn't want to be considered low class now... would you?")
Slashdot readers are highly-educated, well paid, with liberal and progressive viewpoints. Of *course* we bash Trump.
The elites have completely misread the situation and still don't quite get it. Trump's support is real, and name-calling and ridiculing is not going to change peoples' views. If you can't counter his positions with real arguments you will be ignored.
The standard attack is to take something Trump said, extend it to mean something beyond all reason, and ridicule the beyond-reason meaning. So for example, he has a war on women (for ridiculing one woman's behaviour one time), he's Joe McCarthy (for wanting a registry of Muslims), he's Hitler (for wanting to ban Muslims), and so on. I actually read an article informing me that Trump hates people with chronic fatigue syndrome (for saying Ben Carson has low energy).
One thing I *haven't* seen is a rational explanation of why a temporary ban on Muslim immigration isn't a common-sense response to an immediate problem. It's not unconstitutional, it's no less against "American Principles" than going to war on false premises, ordering the death of a citizen, or secret lists and laws. It's also fairly easy to implement - think it through a few minutes and you'll see that detection is relatively straightforward(**).
People don't seem capable of making the rational arguments, they'd rather point out how ridiculous his hair looks.
It's disingenuous, and the voters have caught on.
(*) Fair disclosure: I drive a pickup, although it's not rusty.
(**) For those with little imagination, I refer you to any of a number of people who vetted refugees during WWII, such as Oreste Pinto. His books are a fascinating read.
I think if history judges the presence of this wind farm unfavorably, they can, you know, just tear it down. It seems much easier to undo the damage of a wind farm than it does, say, a coal plant.
What's so hard about tearing down a coal plant?
Oh... You are trying to imply the "global warming is man made" idea is truth... Silly rabbit, we don't have any clue if this is true or not...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
That wasn't approved until Kennedy was dead. So they didn't anything to him.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
How's that?
My age is showing, but I was witness to the dismantling and removal of a research reactor which had operated for decades on the campus of the college I attended. They hauled it off in pieces and then built a lecture hall in it's place.
There is nothing to prevent you from returning a nuclear plant site to it's original form, if you really wanted too.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
We already know from the summary that Trump is not a real Scotsman.
We don't need more arguing along those lines from Trumpgnostics with a hardon for anything that feels anti-Obama to them.
Regardless how retarded it may be.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...whether to make joke...about...trump is a wind bag...or...about....ridiculous hair blowing away...
Giant windmills constantly turning just makes scenery more awesome.
N4st0r, trixx0r h0bb1tz0rz! Th3y st0l3 0ur pr3c10uzz!
This article is not technical. It's pure politics. Just like that other website. That other website has the excuse it's run by only a few people, with little money. Not this website. I'm disappointed in you slashdot.
I think he was referencing the mercury pollution from coal plants, which we have a very good idea is true.
Trump's such an ass. I would have no problem enjoying any place with windmills 2.2 miles away.. that's practically on the horizon.
I'm glad they told him to take a hike.
So some university takes exception to something Trump says on the campaign trail and withdraws an honorary degree... How's that relevant to Trump loosing in his effort to block the construction of some windmills?
Oh yea, it's bash the Republican front runner time... So he gets two demerits, for saying something un PC about some specific religion they don't like AND for being on the wrong side of the "green" movement.
I think Trump is a joke, but come on people, stop feeding him by reacting to is stupid inflammatory statements. It's clear he doesn't care about either of these things and the press coverage of them only strengthens his candidacy by keeping his name and face on the front page. PLEASE let him drift off into obscurity... Unless you really secretly desire to have him as president of the United States because if he wins the nomination, that's exactly what he will be on January 20th 2017.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Well if the reactor melts down than the radioactive material can escape the containment vessels and get into groundwater. Then it's hell to get rid of.
No, you're crap.
It seems like you are under the illusion that Trump is something other than a catchphrase spouting blowhard racist 1%er who doesn't give a shit about anyone or anything but Trump. Renewable energy is important, Trumps view from his golf course isn't.
Look I'll grant you that every media outlet has a narrative whether they are trying to or not (hint though: the left's isn't the only one).
But seriously, with Trump, what is there to filter? Where is the missing narrative of the time he proposed a policy that made any goddamn sense whatsoever (another hint: yelling at somebody you don't like is not a policy)? I mean, there are people with whom I strongly disagree on how implement solutions (i.e. Cheney: I hate you but you are a clever sumbitch), and then there are complete lunatics brimming with extreme personality disorders proposing things that make a bridge to the moon sound sane.
Please tell me, what did I miss? I would honestly like to know what actual action Trump has proposed that you (or anybody) thought was appropriate, feasible and constitutional?
You don't read or comprehend too well do you.
I think he was referencing the mercury pollution from coal plants, which we have a very good idea is true.
Not only that, you know the pollution of elemental uranium in the environment comes more from coal plants than nuclear plants? True story. Mercury is the least of our concerns, but not so great as the pollution from Carbon. I forgot though, Republicans, for financial reasons like to pretend that carbon doesn't exist or has no effect on the atmosphere. Science deniers need to be ineligible from holding public office. The world would quickly become a much better place.
They hauled it off in pieces and then built a lecture hall in it's place.
When they haul it off in pieces, they don't just disappear. They have to be securely stored somewhere. And even if they can return the site to a useful state, the original claim was that it was easier to do this for a wind farm, not that it was impossible to do it for a nuclear power plant.
the less right they are.
So, given Trump's hairpiece is leading in the republican polls, he must be the most wrong.
Much as I loathe Trump, and what his luxury development has already done to sully what was a beautiful "bucolic bay," wind farms can be a crime against, well, everything: beauty, heritage, peace, spirituality.... The peerless vista of the Slieve Bloom in Ireland somehow ended up as a site for a wind farm. The most beautiful land in the world, where the faeries live, if they live anywhere; and they went and put those huge iron towers there, destroying all kinds of magic.
Yeah, using that logic, we should be able to build just about anything anywhere, as long as it can be torn down.
You forgot the part about it not damaging the environment while it is in use like a coal plant does. Any alleged damage (specifically to the tourist trade) caused by a wind farm is completely reversible.
Nobody cares what Trump thinks.
Sigh.... On the upside the Scots are through the centuries used to obnoxious overlords trying to tell them what to do and how to behave so they probably could'nt give a "#T% bagpipes hoot about the threats of some random yank who is trying to strong arm them. I mean seriously ? I find it particularly interesting that this man is actually trying to become the President of the United States of America... Once a country most Europeans actually looked up to and respected with great gratitude for the sacrifices the American public have made for them in the past, it is a respect that however is fading quickly in Europe thanks to the behavior of the political establishment. One can only wonder if the good people of the USA will wake up in time and reclaim their country from those that are making it look so bad to so many of their friends and help America re-find it's moral compass and rightful place in the world as a true leader... I can just say I am thankful that I have real American friends so I know the established political elite does not speak for all the people. Good luck to you America on the upcoming election, may your people choose wisely and carefully when the time comes to decide your future that holds so much promise not just for yourselves but for the world! Go deep and investigate what the established political elites are truly up to before you go and make your voice heard.
MS, ALS, Aphasia ? http://globability.org - Me http://einarpetersen.com
Structures built in/on the ocean aren't typically torn down. The metal superstructure would either be dismanntled and sold for scrap, or just dumped into the nearby sea if the scrap value isn't high enough. The concrete foundations would either remain, or if they're judged to be a hazard to shipping they'd be blasted into small pieces and left in the sea. I'm not sure what would happen to the fiberglass blades. They're not typically recyclable, but aren't heavy enough to sink and form an artificial reef. So they'd probably have to be transported back to shore and buried in a landfill.
Yes the damage from the coal ash and exhaust makes it pretty much the worst possible choice for power. However, for an equivalent MWe of generation capacity, the amount of steel and concrete needed to construct wind turbines is about 5x more than for a coal plant, an order of magnitude more than for a nuclear plant, and two orders of magnitude more than needed for a gas plant.
Wind is even worse if you compare based on the actual amount of electricity generated, since wind has about half the capacity factor of coal and gas, and nearly 1/4th that of nuclear. (Capacity factor is what fraction of the plant's generating capacity is actually fulfilled on average over a year of operation. Wind is around 0.25, coal and gas about 0.4-0.6, nuclear around 0.9.)
Note: I don't oppose wind. I actually support it, as its cost has come down enough that it's starting to become cost-competitive with nuclear and coal. I just try to counter the misinformation put out there by the unicorn and rainbows crowd who've convinced the public that wind, solar, and hydro have no drawbacks. Every power source has drawbacks, and picking the right one requires an honest and thorough comparison of all the real advantages and drawbacks.
Clearly this is the best compromise.
What damage? You **DO** realize that all the Rare Earth mining in China does vastly more damage than all the current Coal plants combined to make ONE wind farm. But, hey, feelz and all- and carbon...let's not forget carbon...
In a local TV interview he expanded on the tweet."The turbines are made in China for the most part and certainly outside the United States, but mostly in China. They are a bird killing machines, they kill birds,"
Current estimates are that windmill are the cause of 3 out of every 100,000 human-related bird deaths and are way, way below #1, windows (think "Trump Tower") and #2, domestic cats. As to the place of manufacture, at least those windmills are imported from the USA. Yes, Made in America. But the Donald has never been one to let facts interfere with a good sound byte.
Kevin Oberman, Network Engineer, Retired
You can - and people do - decommission nuclear reactors safely. That's not the point. The point is how much it costs to do so. Nuclear reactors are really expensive to safely decommission.
Although to be fair if you include the cost of damage to the environment that coal produces, then there's no comparison, coal is far far more expensive than any other form of power.
A fool and his hard drive are soon parted.
Tell that to all the rich (liberal) folks who stopped a wind farm in Nantucket...
Sure, why not? Why would it be different for one certain group of people, unless you are trying to make this a political argument to a simple technical statement.
Anyone who opposes Donald Trump is awesome. Even Jeb Bush.
I actually love seeing the wind farms in the distant ocean view, it looks absolutely amazing to be perfectly honest with you.
The ones off the SW coast of England around the Blackpool and Southport regions looks pretty damn neat. There are so many of them there.
I dunno, maybe we are a minority.
Like some crumbled up concrete and scrap metal is a problem to get rid of, we do it all the time with old buildings... Concrete is inert so you can us it as fill someplace or put it in a land fill and the metal can be recycled. Radioactive you say? Not for that long if the plant is run correctly and allowed time settle. Plants that have incidents and don't shut down clean like Three Mile Island Unit 2 can get messy, but it's really a only a matter of time.
The only real problem at nuclear power plants these days is spent fuel rods, but that's more of a geo-political issue than a technical one. We know how to reprocess these things and get the nasty parts into forms that are stable enough for long term storage. It's really a small percentage of the total mass that's an issue, we just don't want to take the steps necessary to make it easy to store.
The wind turbines I've seen are not exactly the picture of recyclability. The blades are carbon composites or fiberglass as are the cowlings and that box at the top of the tower that keeps the rain off of stuff. None of that is easily recycled. There is quite a bit of metal and other stuff you can melt down and reuse I guess but how's that much different than any kind of industrial situation?
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Wind turbines at 2.2 miles and Trump is whining? Oh, horrors! Aberdeen needs those turbines. That whole section of Scotland is in dire need of jobs and an economy not based on the whims of Tourists.
You can tear a coal plant down but the ground is poisonous for a long time.
http://www.bitsofscience.org/m...
Basically, huge amounts of soil downwind of mercury plants (and you know.. when the wind is calm, that means all immediately around a coal plant) are contaminated. It's literally too expensive to clean up. Other toxins are present as well.
Wind plant construction areas might turn out to have a similar risk but wind power plants are unlikely to have any more impact than any other normal construction.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
can't raise red flags without being called an ignorant or a pro-(something evil).
Anyone who relies on ad hominem attacks is a moron or a charlatan in regards to the subject matter.
So I encourage raising legitimate red flags, and then mocking anyone who replies with such.
Wind power production has MORE than lived up to the hype. It's the single fastest growing power source by a WIDE margin precisely because it's been so phenomenally successful and the turbines trump is opposed to are some of the most productive in the world (coastal turbines in Scotland and the north sea are under wind damn near 100% of the time). Turbines are so cost effective up there (even with the cost of sinking foundation into deep water) because the wind never stops blowing and it blows with enough force that the turbines are almost always at maximum spin efficiency.
Coastal wind power is so effective that Denmark gets nearly 60% of their power from it and Scotland could EASILY be an exporter of power to the rest of the UK if they fully built out their wind resources.
OK, will do. Nimby douchebags come in all shapes, sizes, political affiliations and degrees of wealthiness.
I'll do the same favour for those who whine about the insignificantly small numbers birds killed by wind turbines* while conveniently ignoring the massive environmental damage done by alternatives like coal-fired power stations.
*interesting fact: the older, smaller (and therefore more densely packed on the ground), faster spinning turbines did kill a fair number of birds. The newer, much larger, much slower moving turbines installed for the last decade or two kill almost none.
That wasn't the claim. The claim regarded the comparative ease (and therefore cost, since in business ease/cost are pretty much the same). I don't think he was commenting on the environmental impact of energy generation, at all.
Coal plants have lots of bricks/mortar/concrete, built on site boilers/turbines/etc. so they're difficult to disassemble, and it's difficult to recover the investment by moving the equipment elsewhere. There's have a large footprint to restore, usually involving rail lines.
Removing wind turbines isn't much more than a bit of unbolting (you ever see them put one up?), and moving them to somewhere else would be pretty simple. There's not a lot of infrastructure left to clean up, just some relatively compact footings (and for sea-based ones, those can probably be left in place without harm), and much of the original value can be retained.
"National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
he wanted to build exclusive golfcourse/housing in an environmentally sensitive wetlands
so he greased some local Palms and now he's upset that the rich potential homeowners will be less likely to splurge if their pristine picturebook views are 'destroyed' by an offshore wind farm -probably the first time he's sided with environmentalists given that he has ruined a national heritage site with the golf resort
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1943873/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2
If enough people watched this it would be the end of his farcical 'campaign'
there's a follow up documentary called 'A Dangerous game' http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3714626/?ref_=tt_rec_tti
This sequel to You've Been Trumped (2011) investigates how big land developers like Donald Trump use golf as an excuse to build massive luxurious resorts on the expense of the locals and their ecosystem, and abuse natural resources.
I'm just sayin'
Devil's advocate: maybe not, if you count price.
You have unstated the difficulty in dismantling a nuclear plant. If was as easy as you claim, why would it cost about $100 million and take 5 years? There is no way that a wind farm would be that hard.
Wind turbines have the ultimate recyclability: reuse. You could easily relocate the entire wind farm to another site with less vocal neighbors.
Oh, you are talking about OLD dirty plants which don't have modern emission controls.... You can still remove the plant and make it appear nothing was ever there, mercury contamination not withstanding.
Yea, there are LOTS of things we've done in the past which we will never clean up... Take a look at what's going on around Pitcher OK. Talk about an environmental nightmare and all from mining lead, we are NEVER cleaning that one up. There are lots of scars we as humans will leave on this planet which are going to be around for a long time. Windmills, coal plants, roads and a whole host of things we've done. It's part of living on the planet.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Trying to parse that. Is it some sort of Scottish turn of phrase?
Nuclear power plants are big things. Gas fired plants are big things too. Hauling off one is expensive because it's big. But being expensive does not mean it's impossible or impractical to do. Both Windmills and power plants can (and are) disassembled and removed... Which is all I'm saying.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
OK, let's see:
- pulling down a big fucking factory is a lot harder than pulling down some concrete poles.
- fixing a big fucking hole in the ground (open-cut coal mine) is a lot harder than pulling down some concrete poles.
- decontaminating the fucking soil after you pulled down the fucking factory is a lot harder than pulling down some concrete poles.
I'm somewhat surprised that a smart chap like yourself needed a silly rabbit like myself to point those out, but that's ok, no need to feel too embarrassed.
You're welcome.
The news in my country did a segment on wind farms and revealed they were extremely loud, which can't be healthy. But "the golf resort 2.2 miles away" should have room to plant trees or erect sound baffles. Trump would be better served by claiming damages or beautification costs, since he has make alterations and we know he doesn't like paying for them.
I'm sure he'll be rigging up the place with holiday lights as far as the eye can see. Arrogance is ignorance, much?
http://gamehacking.org/vb/threads/12747-nensondubois-codes http://twitter.com/nensondubois_
They're off shore and you can't hear them above the sound of the waves.
Both Windmills and power plants can (and are) disassembled and removed... Which is all I'm saying
And nobody ever said otherwise, only that it is far easier to dismantle one than the other.
Yes, exactly like those studies that show that a special pixie dust from a naturopath cures cancer and sometimes even done by the same people!
From looking at what the "victims" all have in common it looks like redneck corrupt crony politics is the major cause of windmill syndrome. The instant cure is being able to make money from a windmill.
There's a good reason for that with the stupid charging at windmills using invented anecdotes, which is what the "studies" that show a problem all turned out to be. There are a large number of professionally run investigations into the matter that didn't turn up any problem, but those are conveniently ignored by either real or pretended ignorance.
The Harford website has a bit about radioactive waste that you probably should read instead of guessing.
The short story is lots of neutrons zipping around make everything they hit in large numbers radioactive, so there is a hell of a lot more to worry about than the fuel rods. In a lot of ways the fuel rods are easier to deal with than very large volumes of medium and low grade waste.
Typically jet engines so they are tiny in comparison.
It's hard to quantify the damage as well. What value is put on a large pit left to slowly fill with water for decades if ever?
You are comparing apples to aardvarks - wind does not fill the base load niche. Unless you have a square wave of demand with huge jumps then you need something other than base load.
The thing that will hurt Aberdeen the most is being associated with Trump!
He's crashed his own bicycle four times recently so it's a pretty good bet that he'll fail if he tries.
If reality was a novel the editor would have thrown the Trump plot out by now as ridiculous unless he was secretly working for Hillary. Unfortunately reality is full of far more stupidity than anyone would be bothered to read.
Very similar experience at KU's research reactor-- a LEED Gold building now sits in its place.
However, the original reactor was quite tiny-- less than 100kWt IIRC. I think "cleanup" took about a week, although I didn't go back into the building for another couple years.
That said, a few tons of concrete and a little extra waste isn't exactly the same order of magnitude.
There are plenty of good reasons to oppose Trump without fabricating a charge of racism.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
So the Brits are douchebags for wanting to decrease reliance on fossil fuels? What does that make you?
And I suppose that you are the authority that decides what is valid science.
About 90% of the population of the U.S. believes in a religion of some sort, and all of the religions of which I'm aware deny science in some manner. You are proposing to prevent 90% of the U.S. population from holding public office.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
The news in my country did a segment on wind farms and revealed they were extremely loud, which can't be healthy.
You're right, watching non-credible news stories is extremely unhealthy.
If you ever see a wind farm, go in for a closer look and listen, they are less noisy than your average car and we seem to accept those every-fucking-where on earth...
And I suppose that you are the authority that decides what is valid science.
About 90% of the population of the U.S. believes in a religion of some sort, and all of the religions of which I'm aware deny science in some manner. You are proposing to prevent 90% of the U.S. population from holding public office.
Respect the validity of science and the progress that is obtained through civil discourse.
Valid science, over time leads to consensus, this is because we live in a universe of cause and effect where when the right questions are asked and investigated, answers are found and usually lead to more questions that lead to more discovery. Religion does not do this, it keeps harping on the same points until it's members correct course and drop their superstition. Science has an error correcting mechanism called "the Scientific Method". Religion has no such error correcting mechanism which is why it is so useless.
On your claim that 90% of the US population is religious, you are pulling that number out of your ass. It is more like 22% if you are talking about christianity and if you want to say that the world is 90% christian you would be more wrong, The religions with the most members are Buddhists and Hindus. Atheism is not a religion but it is clear that it is on the rise and not charted by questionnaires that don't have an atheism option. There is no way in hell that 90% of the US is religious. You have fallen for the tea party talking points about the US being a christian nation. It is claptrap that is not based in fact. The founding fathers of the US were humanists who had little use for religion in any form.
You need to check your facts before you start posting such idiotic crap.
This is a good point since only windmills use magnets and Faraday's principle of induction to generate electricity. Other power plants use magic.
Coal plants do plenty of measurable damage that have nothing to do with "global warming". Thousands die every years from respiratory problems caused by atmospheric pollution. They also pump out tons of toxic waste, some of which is more radioactive than produced by nuclear power plants.
You forgot to inform us that wind power will slow down the rotation of the earth if we switch to it big time.
I wish I had mod points and that they still meant something. Been years since I've seen a comment so well placed. Huzzah to you.
Please... Bush may have been an idiot and very well may have been the worst president in several decades. But fascist dictator? That's a bit too far.
to be fair if you include the cost of damage to the environment that coal produces, then there's no comparison, coal is far far more expensive than any other form of power.
To be fair, nuclear energy has always been the most expensive way to generate power: safely storing nuclear waste is not free. just FYI, most waste is stored on site, and most sites have been over-capacity for some time, and costs go up as temporary on-site nuclear waste storage increases, which it continues to do. There really has never been a comparison, cost wise, until you hide the massive cost of the massive R&D (which reached success as part of a war effort), as well as the massive government subsidies still necessary to even begin building a plant.
Coal is a polluter. But you can't factor in the cost of the damage it has caused the environment when that cost is never actually covered. No one is spending katrillions cleaning up coal, so its not at all fair to say "coal is costing us this." Nuclear, otoh, requires neverending babysitting cost.
No—it's a causeway joke.
I'm rational, I know my vote doesn't mean jack... whereas if you read this very comment section there are hundreds of people that believe that not only does their vote mean something, but if they could do the incredible of changing someone's mind (through insults, at that), that the two or two hundred votes mean a thing. Your vote might mean something depending on where you live, but most likely, the candidates won't even bother visiting your state let alone think of you for a nanosecond. From the perspective of someone that can't afford to buy legislature watching others in the same boat, it'd be hilarious if you guys didn't take it so seriously.
But it's great entertainment for me, so carry on picking a tribe and waging war against people that are more like you than those you defend. I've been called cynical by the very people that, once stripped of their preconceived notions (read: lost enough money to no longer be paid lip service - on both sides of the aisle; everyone is alike more than they are different, trust me), tell me how terrible the system is. You gotta' love the irony and bring a big bucket of pop corn. Chances are, if you're reading this, your vote is a waste of natural resources. If that's not your thing, your vote is a waste of your time. Once you can accept that, you can grab a bucket of pop corn and enjoy the show.
If I mod you up, it doesn't necessarily mean I agree with what you've said, sorry.
Who are these tourists he's talking about? Who are these people that can't stand the sigth of a windmill? And how do they feel about street lights, overhead electrical cables, fences, walls, lighthouses, cars and stuff? I'm serious. I'd like to build tourism in my local area and I would like to know all of the things we should try to take legal action to get rid of.
On another note, if Trump is so concerned about what people find offensive, maybe he should look into getting a $5 haircut and getting his lips surgically sealed.
You asked what's so hard about tearing down a coal plant. Cleaning up toxic waste is hard. Besides, the Minimata convention on mercury set a date of 2014 for new coal plants and 2019 (not here yet) for old coal plants to control their emissions. So basically every coal plant in the world except those finished being built sometime in the last 11 months which won't be decommissioned for a couple decades. And that's only for coal plants in nations that follow the Minimata convention. And those controls will still only stop 90% of mercury emissions and 40% of sulfur dioxide emissions. So there will still be mercury contamination. For wind, you might be left with a few concrete mooring anchors or a concrete foundation if the company goes bankrupt. And a concrete foundation would be pretty easy to clean up with little toxic risk.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
they might get so powerful, they could take us on a trip around the universe.. :o)
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Oh, you are talking about OLD dirty plants which don't have modern emission controls....
New plants with modern emission controls are also dirty.
What did you think, that combustion suddenly could be done without emissions?
Saying that moderns plants are clean just because they are an improvement over old plants is a bit like saying that Hitler was a nice guy just because he wasn't as bad as Stalin.
"...some university.. "? This is Aberdeen University. You know, the closest city to Trump's resort. His spokesman even talks about Aberdeen Bay.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
Yes the damage from the coal ash and exhaust makes it pretty much the worst possible choice for power. However, for an equivalent MWe of generation capacity, the amount of steel and concrete needed [berkeley.edu] to construct wind turbines is about 5x more than for a coal plant, an order of magnitude more than for a nuclear plant, and two orders of magnitude more than needed for a gas plant.
But you need to look at it over it's total lifetime not just its construction phase. Yes it might take more resources, but once built the lack of fuel required means that beyond some minor maintenance work they generate no pollution. Over the course of a 30-year life they completely offset any increase during construction.
Wind power production has MORE than lived up to the hype. It's the single fastest growing power source by a WIDE margin precisely because it's been so phenomenally successful and the turbines trump is opposed to are some of the most productive in the world (coastal turbines in Scotland and the north sea are under wind damn near 100% of the time). Turbines are so cost effective up there (even with the cost of sinking foundation into deep water) because the wind never stops blowing and it blows with enough force that the turbines are almost always at maximum spin efficiency.
Coastal wind power is so effective that Denmark gets nearly 60% of their power from it and Scotland could EASILY be an exporter of power to the rest of the UK if they fully built out their wind resources.
More in fact:
Wind power generates 140% of Denmark's electricity demand
http://www.theguardian.com/env...
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
And certainly easier to undo than the destruction of protected and scientifically valuable coastline so that some rich asshole can build a fucking golf course.
Trump can go fuck himself.
Unlike the sight of Trump in golf pants. That won't hurt tourism.
Of course news about a fake are Fake News.
... whomever the TV tells them to.
After all, it was the TV that came up with the phrase 'hate speech', and then the Jewish owned media that used this phrase over and over, tens of thousands of times, until stupid, paid off politicians thought it was 'reality' and started to try to enact laws to prevent this made up phenomenon.
How dare non-muslims think they can get away from muslims! What a 'hate' crime that is...
So why don't muslims want to live around their own kind, in their own countries?
Nuclear power plants are big things. Gas fired plants are big things too. Hauling off one is expensive because it's big.
Wrong, wrong, and also wrong. Nuclear power plants are radioactive things. Hauling one off is expensive because it's radioactive. Larger things are decommissioned for less money all the time.
Gas-fired plants are probably the cheapest of the massive plants to decommission by far, because they don't involve radioactives as do nuclear or coal, and they involve less concrete than a wind farm.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That's actually rather cheap. In the UK our old plants are projected to take 95 years to decommission, and the final cost is not yet known. The government built the plants, sold them for £1 with the promise that decommissioning costs and insurance would be covered for the buyer, and I'd now on the hook for both.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
There are plenty of good reasons to oppose Trump without fabricating a charge of racism.
Agreed, Trump isn't racist. He just panders to and fosters it in other people.
Right got a reference for that? The reason it appears the trusses where not replaced is that it would require the bridge to be shut similar to what is actually happening right now.
So given the new bridge was incoming at the very least delaying the replacement till after the FRC was open and the FRB could be shut without causing disruption the risk modelling probably said this was the smart option.
But hey why not deflect everything away from the government who where ultimately responsible, but too busy trying to arrange and win an independence referendum with lies about how rich all the oil was going to make us, to actually get on with running the country.
I wonder what it looks like when you have to add the steel, concrete and other materials to mine the coal, transport the coal, dispose of the ash, fuel to move the coal to the "resource price" of the coal-fired power station comparison? The thing about wind is the fuel delivers itself.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
True. The racism is just the cherry on top.
"I know I will be modded down for this": where's the option '-1, Asking for it'?
> "extremely unfortunate for the residents of Aberdeen and anyone who cares about Scotland's economic future"
This was one of the arguments people made aboutthe wind farm in NW Ohio. Rich people telling everyone you have no idea how bad this is going to make things!!! Years and a hundred wind mills later and everything is fine. All the dire end of world warnings were bullshit and better yet the people who had headaches, anxiety, etc from the turbines being near them all went away as residents realized that windmills as renewable energy is working fairly well.
And solar panels will suck all the energy from the sun and stop plants from photosynthesizing.
When you cant win, ad hominem.
This may have been true in the early 90s, but not today. The cool thing about technology is that it advances. When you hear Republicans screaming about it, turn the channel.
The poor thing about education seems to be that people are getting less and less of it.
I don't understand this hatred of the appearance of wind turbines. I think they look very striking.
I always thought Trump would be pro-wind. I guess that's only if it's self-generated.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
And you **DO** realise that not all wind turbines use permanent magnets, and plenty of research is under way to reduce or remove reliance upon them for the rest of the turbines. Coal plants will still always be coal plants. You're not too good at this "logic" thing...
Like Coal doesn't have a radiation problem too.. Shesh people... Crushing it before you burn it is pretty dangerous from a radio activity perspective.
Also, no, most parts of a nuclear plant are NOT radioactive, unless there has been some kind of abnormal event. The bulk of the plant, including the containment structure, can just be jackhammered apart and hauled away like any other kind of plant. It's not like they are all glowing blue inside or something...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
More in fact: Wind power generates 140% of Denmark's electricity demand http://www.theguardian.com/env...
That's kind of misleading. The headline give you the impression this is a constant thing. Digging down into the article, says this happened on a "unusually windy day" at 3 AM. That 140% number is a outlier at a very specific time under very specific conditions and that may not happen again - or maybe it will. However, it is not the norm.I didn't see anywhere in the article what the average was or even a mean for days where windpower alone meets all need.
In the end, the article is a propaganda piece designed to pump up wind power as a solution.
Privatising the profits and socialising the losses? Gee who could have possibly predicted that.
Okay thanks for pointing that out to me
blindly antisocialist = antisocial
So basically, he really *is* tilting at windmills...
Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of.
Like Coal doesn't have a radiation problem too.. Shesh people... Crushing it before you burn it is pretty dangerous from a radio activity perspective.
Yes, yes it does. Coal sucks. We all agree that coal sucks, so saying "coal also sucks" when someone says "nuclear sucks" is a stupid fucking waste of time. Stop it.
Also, no, most parts of a nuclear plant are NOT radioactive,
We're not talking about those parts, stop bringing them up like they're relevant. The part we're talking about is the part that is, which is what differentiates it from cleaning up a natgas plant, or a wind farm. And it is expensive to dispose of correctly.
Every form of power has its problems. However, the only forms of power rapidly finding ways to mitigate those problems are wind and solar. Wind killed some birds, we figured out how to make it kill barely more birds than trees, and way less than houses with clear windows in them — even if you just count the houses the windmills can serve. Solar has had some problems with toxicity, modern panels are required to be landfillable without leaching toxics. Nobody has a nuclear plant that's not expensive to decommission. Nobody has got a proven way to safely store nuclear waste for the necessary time scale. Even reprocessing leaves some material behind which cannot [yet? still...] be reprocessed. I'm not against nuclear in principle, I'm against nuclear in practice. When a wind or solar farm goes wrong, the impact is minimal. When a nuclear plant goes wrong, the impact is eternal — at least on the time scale of human societies.
Coal sucks, we all know coal sucks. At the very best, burning it involves releasing sequested carbon. Let's stop. We could be making biofuels. It's not hard to grow algae. It's not hard to scrub NOx if space is not a consideration like it is on an automobile, so even using diesel generators (and running them on biodiesel from algae) would be cleaner than any fossil fuel. You can make crankcase lube out of veg oil, too. How crap coal is has no relevance to how crap nuclear is.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Except in places where the wind predictably blows 24x7 and has for all of recorded history.
Like, for example, certain places in Scotland.
In those places it provides base load quite nicely; you'll only need storage or grid interlinks to other sources during hurricane events powerful enough to safety the turbines.
(But of course since the grid does have interlinks, and large scale energy storage is a solved problem, the whole "can't provide base load" meme is mostly nonsense anyway.)
Please stop posting stupid anti-green talking points when you haven't bothered to do any research at all. I understand that you think environmentalists killed Jesus and Bambi, but for chrissakes....
Well, if you put solar panels between the sun and the plants, yes, it could happen. They did that one time in the Simpsons.
lucm, indeed.
Or a golf course.
You forgot to inform us
Who is that "us"?
I see three possible explanations:
1) you have multiple personalities
2) you lack the backbone to speak for yourself and therefore need to hide behind a mysterious group
3) it never happens that you have an idea of your own so you're automatically taking a group-thinking position
It's ok to be a sheep but next time at least try to be a funny one so you bring something to the conversation.
lucm, indeed.
For Pete's sake...
Neutron flux is pretty much non existent in the bulk of a containment structure and the parts that are close "cool" rapidly from a radio active perspective. The only time there is any significant issue is when you have a containment structure like Three Mile Island Unit 2, where the core material got out of the primary coolant loop, and where the abrupt shutdown of the chain reaction left undesired fission byproducts about that would normally be allowed to burn off by slowly reducing the power output. In the end, the difficulty of removing the materials is about the same as similar materials from other kinds of industrial plants, you just have to wait sometimes.
I assure you, the vast majority of the containment structure is totally safe to handle with the same protective gear you should use for jackhammering concrete the day after the fuel is removed from the reactor. For the rest, it's just a matter of removing the high level fuel assemblies and waiting for the containment structures to cool down radioactively. But all this is fully understood and the whole plant can be removed in time. IF that's what you want.
I watched them do just that as a college student, where they dismantled a research reactor in the nuclear engineering building, jack hammered the containment structure into little pieces and hauled it away. Nobody was wearing any special gear beyond hard hats and the dust masks you can buy at the local big box store. I think I saw film badges and a couple of guys scanning for radiation once and a while, but apparently nothing kept them from removing the huge block of concrete and building a bunch of class rooms there.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Um... No...
Typically natural gas plants are huge boilers, just like coal plants, but use different fuel.. With the huge cooling towers and all.
What you are describing are the exception and not the rule, they are small inefficient affairs designed to provide local peek load coverage in a hurry. Being inefficient they are used as rarely as possible, but being small means they are flexible and can go from zero to full output in a very short time.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Lets just say it this way. Industrial electrical production is a mess no matter how it is done. In fact just about ALL industrial scale operations are an environmental mess in one way or another. And let it go..
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Just because you can "dump shit into the ocean", doesn't mean you will. If this were a private commercial venture, then I would totally agree with you.
This is a government run project, and as such, costs aren't always the bottom line. Sometimes, they actually do what's right. You know, the people who fought for wind power would presumably fight to keep (or even clean up if they lose the fight) things from being thrown away in the worst possible way. Also, not sure why you thought fiberglass wouldn't sink. Fiberglass boats are much smaller and lighter than a massive fiberglass blade...
Also, a quick google of "wind turbine blades" seems to indicate that modern blades are made of Carbon Fiber which is much more reusable / recyclable. http://www.windsystemsmag.com/article/detail/149/composite-materials-for-wind-blades also indicates that the skin is only made of the fiber and the core is made of wood.
Also, just out of curiousity, are you factoring in coal and nuclear fuel's transportation environmental costs? The strip mines, workers, dynamite, train tracks, forest destruction for roads to carry the coal and uranium back? Also, the buildings needed for depleted uranium?
Where is it?
Trump's mother is a ALIEN. She is not a US citizen, and I DEMAND to see 'Donald Trump's' (if that is his real name) physical, LONG FORM ORIGINAL birth certificate.
But you know we wont see it because he is a dirty, ginger, haggis eating scottie'.
He is a plant, obviously.
He is here simply to turn america into a sheep fucking nightmare clone of the dirty island his kind come from.
He is being enabled by a fifth column that knows his dirty secret and will use it to blackmail him into supporting their causes.
Don't be fooled! 'Trump' (if that is his real name) is not American!
He is not from here but was born in the back of a burnt out Jensen in the strange foreign land of Scotland while his mother drunkenly tried to get the wheel-less car to start up to take herself 'to hospital' as these crazy foreign people say.
He wears a kilt under his PANTS! Look closely when he is giving speeches.. You will see the wrinkles and folds from it through his pants..
He tries to hide it, but this strange crazy clothing is part of his so-called 'culture'.
Don't believe a word he says unless you see his birth certificate. Then you will know the truth.
Lets just say it this way. Industrial electrical production is a mess no matter how it is done. In fact just about ALL industrial scale operations are an environmental mess in one way or another. And let it go..
The status quo is lots of coal, which even you agree is harmful. Why would I want to let it go? Why would you want to let it go? That makes no goddamned sense.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Well, now that's a different subject... Why do we need to keep using coal? Because it's cheap and our competition on the world economic stage has no problem using the option to best us if they can. We must compete, or be swept into the dustbin of irrelevance, where our collective wealth will evaporate into faint memories of better times as we are plundered by those more capable.
I'm not a Ron Paul supporter, but he is right in that it is the economic might of this country which determines our place in the world. It is what we produce, the wealth we generate that matters because without it, we have no way to defend ourselves. We would have no resources to build arms, field military force and face those who would willingly dominate us by force.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that it's *only* coal, or that we shouldn't be environmentally careful in our choices of energy supplies, but that we need to be looking at the bigger picture and not throwing out the cheap energy resource we have in abundance out unless we are willing and able to still compete effectively with the rest of the world. If we choose wrongly, hobble ourselves too much, and lose, we loose much more than we loose if we just burned the coal.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Also you are comparing input energy without accounting for energy return on investment, wind is way better than coal.
In 1975 the Liberal ACLU got the US Supreme Court to order most nuts out of the asylums. This, along with the Jimmy Carter economy (double-digit inflation, double-digit unemployment, AND double-digit interest rates) are what cause the HUGE jump in homelessness that started in the late seventies and has never fallen back to the pre-1975 rates. The idea that Reagan or any other responsible politician wanted all the crazies on the loose is itself nuts. Had that ACLU lawsuit failed, we might not be having all the mass-shootings these days which have nearly all been either terrorism OR crazy guys on (or recently off of) their meds.
http://www.thenational.scot/ne...
“Expansion joints allow the bridge to cope with additional stresses,” said Carson, “and clearly the new fault is all about a structural failure to cope with those stresses.”
In 2009 a report by FETA’s staff said: “The advice given previously to members was that the joints had reached the end of their service life and required to be replaced as there were concerns over their reliability.”
Shortly before the discussion, however, the timetable for the Forth Replacement Crossing was published by the Scottish Government.
As a result FETA ordered a review of its projects, and the report stated that the “review team concluded that it would be possible to delay the replacement of the joints until 2016”. The report added that “inspection and monitoring levels would have to be increased significantly, key components such as pins and springs would have to be replaced and in some cases modified to improve performance”. The report concluded that the delay would result in “a saving to the public purse of over £6 million”.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Lots of religions don't deny science, but rather have doctrines that cover questions that can't be answered by science. There is no scientific proof that there is no God, or that we don't have immortal souls, or anything like that. There's no scientific evidence for them, and some of them (the immortal soul, for example) are implausible by any scientific standard, but not disproven.
If a religion disagrees with science on any topic that science can cover, it's almost certainly wrong, but not all religions do.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
And the containment structure, and everything inside it, becomes the sort of waste I'm writing about obviously. What is it with people giving lectures on something they have not considered? Think about the process - the primary loop contains a lot more than fuel rods!
I'm not saying it's a difficult problem, just that pretending that it is not real like silly fanboys do is stupid and counterproductive. Better to consider it rationally using real information instead of running the danger of being mistaken for a silly fanboy or useful idiot.
I suggest you try to find an example of such and you will learn a little in the process.
It's anti-green to point out that small units such as windmills have an obvious niche filling in the demand curve? Really? Please explain.
My post above was about comparing things for the same purpose with each other, and in that niche windmills starting looking pretty good in the 1990s before all of the improvements and the economy of scale of the current designs.
Wasn't it the Democrats supporting it and the Republicans speaking out against it in Mass though?
Ok, Research done and you and I are both right....
The most popular kind of natural gas fueled electrical generation plant is a "Combined Cycle" plant. This is where the fuel is combusted in a your turbine and the waste heat is used to generate steam that powers a secondary generator. Such plants are about 50-60% efficient where a steam only plant is 35-40 and a turbine alone is less.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
One last time.... If you do this properly and don't try to rush a decommissioning, radiation is not an issue. The tiny fraction of waste material that remains an issue is not that "hot" radioactively to start with and all you do is wait awhile and the problem goes away on it's own. The only real issue is the waste fuel assemblies, but they are not a serious problem because we have designed into the system ways to deal with this.
The *only* time decommissioning might not be possible as planed is if the plant has experienced some kind of fault where the fuel assemblies didn't stay together or if it had to be abruptly shut down. In these cases, because the toxic radio active waste wasn't able to be burned off by the continued neutron flux as happens in a controlled shutdown, they remain dangerous for centuries. Thankfully there are only really three examples of this and two which where of any consequence to public safety. In these cases, you simply wait longer, but you can still remove the plant eventually, though it may be your grand kids the complete the job...
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
I propose that 90% of the US population that currently holds public office be banned from holding public office.
Don't make an optimistic guess - learn!
Unless Nuclear Engineering has changed in the last 20 years, on this subject I am well informed....
Look, They just opened the reactor where they made the plutonium for one of the first two nuclear bombs to the PUBLIC as a national park and once a year they let folks tour the "Trinity site" where the first nuclear explosion took place. Both areas where extremely dangerous less than 60 years ago, but you can walk around them safely now. Neither of these sites where planned to be decommissioned like current power plants, where we have gone to lengths to contain the real nasty bits in the fuel assemblies, which are dangerous but pretty small considering, and have systems that can safely handle them. You pull the fuel out of the core and there isn't much left that's dangerous. Most of the stuff left will be pretty safe to handle in a fairly short time, say a few years at most.
"File to fit, pound to insert, paint to match" - Aircraft Maintenance 101
Yeah, like the liberal Bush family.
The rules that we have to adhere to in the oil industry in the same waters is to clear the seabed to 6ft below current mudline. And I've been on rigs when we've been doing this - which sometimes involves large amounts of explosives. If you happen to be driving between Aberdeen's East (Dyce) heliport and the city centre, you'll see a sculpture made from a piece of 20in casing that has been treated this way. (Or is it 18 in? I've never actually taken a tape measure to it to check.)
Even if it weren't the law, and the area wasn't one that was regularly trawled, then the fact that the area of the wind farm is routinely used for a holding pattern for ships waiting for a pilot boat into the harbour would discourage cavalier leaving of remains on the seabed.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"
So more material used to construct per MWe and less full days of generation than other sources. But if you factor in that it has a free fuel source, how much would that balance out? Or zero pollution control needed, no waste storage, no long term health effetcts? Or or or... lots of factors to add up. It seems oddly skewed to only focus on those two factors.