Nick MacKinnon is a contract instructor of Maths, English and Medieval Historical past, and lives above Haworth, within the final inhabited home earlier than Prime Withens = Wuthering Heights. In 1992 he based the profitable Marketing campaign to Save Radio 4 Lengthy Wave whereas in plaster following a rock-climbing accident on Skye. His poem ‘The metric system’ received the 2013 Ahead Prize. His topical verse and satire seems within the Spectator, and his puzzles and issues within the Sunday Occasions and American Mathematical Month-to-month. E-mail: [email protected]
Turbine 17: Jackson’s Ridge SD 95151 36002///sheets.requirements.knots
18 September 2024 By teatime, Muttley will probably be in bother, for he could have given away each his 240 MW and 170 MW fallback positions, and he doesn’t need us to speak about one in every of them. We may even have a exceptional perception into muddle at Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd. Can this muddled firm be allowed to monkey about on such harmful floor as Walshaw Moor? In the present day we will additionally get first inklings of the situation and measurement of Muttley’s 150 MW battery storage, which is the dimensions of 1 serving the 8.1 GW Dogger Financial institution wind farms. Muttley needs to construct one of many largest battery storage methods in Europe at Shackleton above Hebden Bridge however solely yesterday he didn’t know the voltage of the Nationwide Grid.
The marvellous climate holds so I push on with the fourth website go to in every week. In the present day is T17, on the north of CWF and I hope to know the entire undertaking higher by strolling the boundary right here, which takes a dive into Bofts Gap relatively than following the watershed to the apex and angling throughout Stanbury Lavatory. I begin at Ponden Reservoir and head steeply up by means of the hamlet, previous Ponden Corridor, and the museum of farm equipment. Past the gate is Bannister Nation, although we received’t be in CWF till the positioning of T17 Jackson’s Ridge.
The observe’s blue floor is a thriller till I get house and seek the advice of the British Geological Survey. What it isn’t is the brown onsite sandstone, which is crucially too weak and porous to function a roadstone even for the restricted gentle visitors on this street as much as the Crow Hill butts. Mr Bannister doesn’t use the ineffective combination that Muttley says he’ll quarry from onsite borrow pits for roads and turbine concrete.
Crow Hill is the terminus of a streak of Keighley Blue, which in contrast to all the opposite West Yorkshire sedimentary stone is well-cemented and used as a street stone till it runs out. The BGS notes for Sheet 69 say: “Keighley Bluestone includes a tough, compact, darkish bluish gray, siliceous siltstone, chert, and claystone with considerable spines of the sponge Hyalostelia smithi and Zoophycos traces. Keighley Bluestone is interpreted as being fashioned from marginal marine, probably lagoonal, silt.” When that is throughout, one of many issues I shall most treasure is the way in which the geology has mattered, however I received’t treasure it as a lot as the e-mail Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd despatched me whereas I used to be sitting on Crow Hill.
The {photograph} above exhibits the flat mattress of one of many Crow Hill delphs, a helpful instance of a ‘borrow pit.’ There isn’t any peat, and the heather grows on the yellow boulder clay with its flat tiles of rock crushed by the glacier. The seen bedrock is Woodhouse Flags and the Keighley Blue has been labored out.
Past the final bus cease for the weapons, the observe deteriorates. We’re close to the top of the heather season, however three hives are nonetheless going; heather is principally pollinated by wind and bumblebees.
I may depart the trail on the giant KC 1902 boundary stone and head direct for T17, however a quad-bike scar over naked deep peat on the ridge of Crow Hill is less complicated. On the shapely summit (nicely, shapely for spherical right here) which should be responding to the Keighley Blue, I cease to eat a sandwich and watch the one different particular person on the planet stroll in direction of me on the need path from Boulsworth Hill. Is it Richard Bannister (b. October 1961) coming to inform me (b. October 1962) that I’ve been made in his likeness and should identify all of the beasts of the sector and fowls of the air? Can I enhance on stoat, lapwing, and curlew? Will he vogue me a mate and forbid us to eat the bilberries of the information of fine and evil?
I don’t like my telephone, however I’ve it out for the {photograph} and spot I’ve a solution from Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd to some easy questions on electrical connections and geology. I put them to Kevin Whitmore who works for Cavendish Consulting, CWF’s PR agency. I examine their web site. Sure! Muttley has cracked!
Once I discuss with Muttley in these blogs, I imply WWRE and their numerous consultants. Typically Muttley is probing the peat; generally he’s writing about getting ineffective rock out of borrow pits; generally he’s signing off new FAQs on the WWRE web site, generally he’s writing unwise emails to me. As in Wacky Races, he’s a flexible canine.
WWRE are the traders, however they aren’t the cash. The human face of the cash is the Saudi-based Dr Ghazi Mohammed Ahmed Osman, the Director of Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd. What I write right now is designed to drive a wedge between Dr Osman and Muttley. The wedge has been equipped by Muttley himself.
The cash mustn’t ever appear silly, careless, laughably incompetent, or utterly hilarious. The cash is all the time and in every single place weak and frightened as a result of it relies upon, just like the Wizard of Oz, on a confidence trick. Walter Bagehot mentioned this about monarchy, however the cash is aware of it too: “Its thriller is its life. We should not let in daylight upon magic.” From right now, the longer Dr Osman stays hitched to Muttley, the extra silly, careless, laughably incompetent, or utterly hilarious his cash will appear, as a result of Muttley has let in a load of daylight.
Walshaw Moor is beautiful and harmful. If you wish to see how harmful it’s, look into Widdop sluice throughout a storm and inform me you aren’t afraid. We should not enable an organisation dogged by carelessness and laughable muddle to monkey about on Walshaw Moor.
My inquiries to Kevin Whitmore are under. {The electrical} set is designed to embarrass Muttley and Dr Osman. CWF is supposed to be a 302 MW wind farm, and the scoping report says they’ve a suggestion to attach, however Muttley has been accepted to attach solely 240 MW by Power North West, and this reality is revealed on their paid-for entry within the Embedded Capability Register. This connection is at Rochdale substation, however till right now, a yr after the connection was accepted at Rochdale, FAQ 17 on the WWRE web site mentioned the connection had been accepted at Padiham.
The geology set are designed to embarrass Muttley about his ignorance of the weak spot and porosity of the onsite rock when crushed to combination, in order that it can’t be used as a roadstone or in concrete; and to embarrass him additional in regards to the slapdash mapping of peat depths, clearly so within the far-east of the positioning. In October I shall start to examine the entire of this survey utilizing a 3-metre avalanche probe purchased on eBay for £27.
I additionally despatched Kevin the proof for my questions. This included FAQ17 on the WWRE web site and the CWF entry on the embedded capability register of ENW, exhibiting acceptance to attach of 240 MW at Rochdale, which is 29 km away from the purpose of connection, given by CWF to the closest metre, inside a home in Shackleton.
We haven’t talked sufficient in regards to the implications of the 150 MW battery for the hamlet of Shackleton. An equivalent one is underneath building on the decommissioned Ferrybridge energy station in West Yorkshire. There isn’t any higher website for a grid-scale asset than a former energy station, as a result of all of the low resistance nationwide transmission at 400 kV is already there. Muttley is proposing for Shackleton, a hamlet with filth roads above the Nationwide Belief’s Hardcastle Crags, the identical grid-scale battery that SSE are constructing at Ferrybridge however related with a cable that’s greater than 9 instances much less environment friendly than the NG.
Is Muttley certain in regards to the measurement of his battery in Shackleton? Do the Nationwide Belief nonetheless need to “reserve their place” about CWF?
Dr Osman could marvel why there was a crack for my wedge. Had Muttley typed in 302 MW to the embedded capability register as a substitute of 240 MW, and never revealed that foolish garbage about Padiham for a yr, there would have been no crack. He has failed to keep up a constant story about his wind farm and now the narrative spins uncontrolled. The truth is, he didn’t must register in any respect. Following the grid reforms, there is no such thing as a longer first-come first-served. Extra agile schemes can soar the queue.
Muttley’s two replies (one private electronic mail and an instantly revised FAQ 17) unfold the cracks in all instructions and shred his personal scoping report. The non-public electronic mail that I opened on Crow Hill is in PR phrases “unwise” and can’t have come from Kevin Whitmore who’s a PR skilled and could also be aghast at what Muttley has handed me. The strategy I exploit to drive a wedge between Muttley and Dr Osman is to level out the self-sabotaging behaviour of Muttley, which makes him look ridiculous. Muttley’s hilarious electronic mail in reply to some easy questions on electrical energy and rock makes him look much more ridiculous. Dr Osman, curator of the all the time fragile cash, should determine if the e-mail makes him look ridiculous in entrance of all the opposite representatives of the cash.
Muttley’s weird method of not answering my solidly primarily based questions doesn’t make them go away and they are going to be put once more by somebody who can’t be given the hysterical brush-off. This “Cease calling us Muttley” electronic mail would have been superb bounty by itself, however a way more damaging and ludicrous reply to my questions appeared instantly on the WWRE web site as the brand new FAQ 17.
Who signed this off? You’re coping with a well-informed member of the group who has discovered your entry within the embedded capability register and identified its inconsistency together with your web site and your scoping report, calling into query the competence of each. In response, you launch two extra wind farms, making 5 altogether. One (312 MW) is probably sheer muddle, panic and forgetfulness that Scoping CWF is 302 MW. The opposite (170 MW at Rochdale) reveals upfront of the planning utility the existence of a deep fallback place, certainly the final ditch. All of the FAQ needed to say was “240 MW at Rochdale” which had already been given away on the Embedded Capability Register. Reasonably than launching two new wind farms at 312 MW and 170 MW, Muttley simply wanted to inform the reality in FAQ 17 in regards to the 240 MW at Rochdale. Why not inform the reality?
Listed below are the 5 wind farms that CWF Restricted have introduced on completely different bits of Walshaw Moor. Maps of Precise, Final-Ditch A and Final-Ditch B CWFs are given under.
ACME CWF: a 312 MW, 67-turbine wind farm which has an “out there” NG connection at an unbuilt substation at an unspecified place and date.
Scoping CWF: a 302 MW, 65-turbine wind farm mapped within the Scoping Report which isn’t accepted to attach wherever. The report says that they’ve a suggestion to attach with ENW, however that’s just for 240 MW, so the scoping report is unsuitable. At what level does this muddle about connection energy and site tip over right into a deliberate try to mislead? Scoping CWF has 17 dummy generators able to be conceded in planning at DESNZ when Scoping CWF turns into…
Precise CWF: a 240 MW, 48-turbine wind farm on deep peat in an SPA that basically is “accepted to attach” at faraway Rochdale and whose personal substation is at Shackleton. Its structure will probably be Scoping CWF minus the 13 generators on the harmful floor west of Greave Clough and minus the 4 Brontë generators above Wuthering Heights. Muttley’s rookie error of showing his paid-for place of 240 MW upfront of negotiations should shake Dr Osman’s confidence to the marrow. Has Muttley not perused Donald Trump’s The Artwork of the Deal? Muddle runs like Japanese knotweed and is already sprouting in Dr Osman’s cash. Is Precise CWF meant to be a secret? Does this clarify the 170 MW and 312 MW wind farms launched by Muttley in FAQ 17? Lapwings do that to cover their nests.
Padiham CWF: a phantom 0 MW wind farm that had been “accepted to attach” at Padiham from 14 September 2023 till I reminded Muttley it wasn’t, after which it was now not being pursued.
Final Ditch A CWF: a 170 MW, 34-turbine wind farm related at Rochdale and introduced in seeming panic on 18 September 2024 within the post-Padiham reply to FAQ 17. Mannequin A is Scoping CWF hacked again to east of the reservoirs, and when Emily Brontë is completed with it, it is going to be at most 150 MW. That is the dirtiest CWF of all, a very horrible wind farm.
Final Ditch B CWF: a 170 MW, 34-turbine wind farm related at Rochdale and introduced in seeming panic on 18 September 2024 within the new reply to FAQ 17. Mannequin B sticks to the shallower peat and mineralised grazing the place attainable and makes use of the present tracks, together with crucially the brand new observe that’s not on the OS map, however which everyone knows about, across the high of Thurrish Tough. This part would require some heavy-duty engineering round Mare Greave, and there will probably be an costly bridge throughout the Walshaw Dean divide. Of all of the six wind farms listed right here, Final Ditch B has by far the bottom carbon depth as a result of it makes optimum use of the mineralised grazing and present tracks.
Now, for the advantage of Dr Osman, I shall set out what’s ludicrous and incompetent in each the solutions revealed on the WWRE web site, taking into consideration that he could have signed them off himself during which case the lights are on at Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd however no one is at house. Right here is the unique FAQ 17 once more.
CWF Ltd had no intention to mislead. “We have already got a suggestion … to attach at Padiham” was wishful pondering that in some way acquired baked into humiliating error and revealed on their web site for a yr with out anybody at WWRE noticing till I informed them. Whoever signed this off didn’t perceive something about electrical energy transmission, so it was hardly stunning they thought Padiham was a suburb of Rochdale. The voltage of the NG is given as 440 KV however it’s 400 kV. Lots of people assume the NG is 440 kV, however solely one in every of them is constructing a wind farm, and his identify is Muttley. The extra ludicrous error is “KV” which is Kelvin Volts, a unit that no one had discovered a use for till Muttley determined that 440 Kelvin Volts would do for the potential distinction of the Nationwide Grid. The hearsay that Kelvin Volts could also be a former lover of Stormy Daniels can neither be confirmed nor denied.
This new FAQ was clearly written in a panic, and it will not be up lengthy. It illustrates in a compact method the hallmark muddle of WWRE. Both 312 MW is a typo and Muttley meant 302 MW, which is famously the ability of the wind farm described in his personal Scoping Report, or Muttley has let slip a plan for an much more highly effective ACME CWF with 67 generators. You determine. Dr Osman will make his personal thoughts up.
Muttley can’t declare “as much as 170 MW at Rochdale” can also be a typo as a result of the right determine, that Muttley paid for, is 240 MW at Rochdale – it’s on the ECR and he typed 240 into the spreadsheet in 4 completely different locations, I despatched him a duplicate of his personal entry with my emails and 170 isn’t a typo for 240. I feel Muttley’s thought course of went like this; “Gosh! 240 MW at Rochdale DNO is what we expect we will get previous Ed Miliband, but it surely’s meant to be a secret, so we will ‘reluctantly’ concede 17 generators and crack on. I’d higher give the little individuals 170 MW to cowl my tracks.” This way of thinking is like Basil Fawlty’s in “The Germans”. “No matter you do, don’t point out 240 MW. I discussed it as soon as, however I feel I acquired away with it.”
We now know that Muttley has a Final Ditch 170 MW CWF plan and that he’s so delicate and evasive in regards to the 240 MW actuality that he himself typed into the Embedded Capability Register, and paid for, that he would relatively reveal Muttley’s Final Stand on 170 MW. From an organisation that’s well-known for candour, that may be a hell of loads of info to reveal in a single FAQ. Dr Osman can maintain his personal inquest into this 312, 302, 240, 170, 0 at Padiham shambles. I’m solely telling him what individuals would possibly take into consideration the competence of the cash when his man Muttley blurts out two utterly sudden megawattages in a panicked response to some easy questions from no one a lot. Now let’s take note of the opposite info divulged whereas making an attempt to disregard the dazzling new megawattages.
“There are at present two choices out there to Calderdale Wind Farm to hook up with the Grid. One is for the undertaking to attach by way of Electrical energy North West at Rochdale sub-station (for as much as 170 MW) and the opposite is a direct connection by Nationwide Grid (for as much as 312 MW)”.
Word the confusion in Muttley’s thoughts about “the Grid.” Solely one of many two choices is “the Grid.” The supply at Rochdale is connection into the DNO at 275 kV. The DNO is who you ring up you probably have an influence reduce. You don’t ring the Nationwide Grid when your toaster is on the blink. The Distribution Community Operator handles the supply of electrical energy inside its locality, on this case NW England (west of the Pennines). The DNO voltage is just 275 kV as a result of the electrical energy isn’t going far. Energy loss is inversely proportional to the sq. of the voltage so 275 kV losses are 2.1 instances better than 400 kV. Dr Osman’s 240 MW may even be invisible to the Nationwide Grid management centre at Wokingham, and never a part of the balancing system involving the interconnectors, nuclear base load, and pumped storage at Cruachan and Ffestiniog. All of the a lot smaller wind farms in Calderdale are related to the Nationwide Grid so their energy may be balanced and moved in bulk nationwide. CWF is accepted to attach 240 MW to the DNO for native use solely.
No person, together with Muttley himself, may be certain what Muttley, or maybe Dr Osman, means by “direct connection by Nationwide Grid.” If he meant the Nationwide Grid are going to string 400 kV pylons from Rochdale to the cottage at Shackleton to gather his intermittent 312 MW, then each different generator in Britain can be asking why they aren’t given this Platinum service.
I don’t imagine for a second that anyone who yesterday thought the Nationwide Grid ran on 440 Kelvin Volts has right now secured a direct connection by the Nationwide Grid at a farmhouse in Shackleton. Muttley doesn’t imply “by the Nationwide Grid”. He means “to the Nationwide Grid”.
What Muttley hopes is that his costly however serviceable 132 kV buried cables popping out of his substation and colossal battery at Shackleton would possibly sooner or later be related to a Nationwide Grid substation. As he was saying solely yesterday, this may require NG to construct a brand new substation inside financial vary of Calderdale Wind Farm, and Muttley doesn’t know the place that might be or when it will be constructed and neither does the Nationwide Grid. A defensible estimate can be “Someplace inside 20 km at a while after 2038 in the event you ever get planning.” An equally defensible estimate can be “By no means” as a result of the NG has £58 billion of upgrades to realize, and Richard Bannister’s need to promote a little bit of distant grouse moor isn’t actually on their radar. It isn’t the job of the Nationwide Grid to mop up incontinent wind farms constructed willy-nilly as a result of the grouse are moody (or as Deep Stoat put it, “The brand new supervisor has misplaced the dressing room!”) and Ed Miliband has been performed by a developer who thought the Nationwide Grid runs at 440 Kelvin Volts. So, within the sentence “There are at present two choices out there to Calderdale Wind Farm to hook up with the Grid,” the phrase “out there” means two very various things. Suppose I’m at Shackleton and I need to drive to Rochdale. I’ve two “out there” choices. One is my knackered Freelander parked at Clough Foot with MoT, insurance coverage, and the keys. The opposite is the E-type Jag I ogled at a filling station in Harrogate a fortnight in the past. They’re each “out there”. I’ll depart it to Dr Osman to determine whether or not Muttley’s use of the phrase “out there” leaves him open to justified mockery from different individuals who signify the cash. This “out there possibility” would possibly as nicely be “direct connection by the Nationwide Grid to their substation in Narnia.” Competence issues. Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd need to put exhausting infrastructure in a infamous catchment, they usually can’t get a FAQ straight.
Right here is my mannequin of Precise 240 MW 48-turbine CWF, the one Muttley would relatively we didn’t point out, although “240 MW at Rochdale despatched from a farmhouse in Shackleton” is among the many few stone-cold information he has revealed about any of his 5 over-lapping wind farms projected for numerous bits of Walshaw Moor.
Precise 240 MW CWF is actually the Heather Hill massif (between Greave Clough and Walshaw Dean) plus a bridge and a really lengthy entry street to Ovenden Moor with advantages, all related to faraway Rochdale by way of a farmhouse in Shackleton and a monster battery. Muttley may scale back the CO2 emissions loads by chopping out the backbone street with advantages, however then he couldn’t get the turbine blades to Heather Hill.
The revealed structure of Scoping CWF has 65 generators, so we now know that not less than 17 of them are dummies. These dummies have been inserted to allow them to be conceded on the proper second, with out in actual fact conceding or costing something in any respect. It’s simple to identify 13 of those dummies. West of Greave Clough the terrain is rather more tough, with very deep peat, charismatic options (Scout Ridge T1 and Dove Stones T58) and in depth quick drainage into Greave Clough that may overwhelm the sluice into Widdop reservoir (T4 Pisser Clough, T14 Foul Syke, T10 Subject of the Mosses, T16 The Sod: the clue is within the names) and hit Hebden Bridge and Mytholmroyd immediately. The 13 generators west of Greave Clough are dummies.
The withdrawal of CWF west of Greave Clough is implicit within the Embedded Capability Register entry, and this defunct and harmful part of Scoping CWF, needs to be explicitly withdrawn, now, in order that these of us who’re going to mannequin the elevated flood peak don’t have to incorporate the bit that no one needs to construct anyway. This doesn’t make CWF secure, however it will present that CWF Ltd had discovered one thing from the grim tradition of recklessness that now we have seen repeatedly elsewhere within the final fifty years. I say to Muttley, “Look into Widdop sluice after a named storm and inform me you aren’t afraid of your personal wind farm.” Since 240 MW is all they need anyway, the generators west of Greave Clough mustn’t seem in any additional plans submitted by Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd.
The scoping report fails to acknowledge the well-known weak spot of the onsite combination and fails to state that the acceptance to attach at Rochdale is for a a lot smaller wind farm. Each failures are essential to the aim of the scoping report, which is to information the modelling of environmental influence. Explanations needs to be given to the consulted our bodies and Calderdale Council for these two very important failures of candour or ignorance and the scoping report needs to be withdrawn.
Three or 4 extra dummy generators are on the Brontë skyline above Prime Withens (T44, T46) and one or two rely for entry on them, perhaps T41, and definitely T62 Burnt Hill Flat, down a ten% slope from T46 Alcomden Stones. They’ve brought on nationwide and worldwide outrage, which was their function, and they are going to be withdrawn. Since I first drew this type of map, I’ve puzzled tips on how to get to T62 with out constructing a street that acts as a contour-crossing drainage channel. It’s a dummy! I visited it with the canine on this identical great spell of climate: its weblog will seem quickly and T62 could by no means be talked about once more.
Calderdale Council will reject any wind farm on Walshaw Moor on the simple grounds that it’s wholly inside an SPA, would shatter the SPA and undermine British habitat regulation, and would open the Council to huge public legal responsibility claims within the occasion of a flood within the Calder Valley. The purpose at which the dummies are conceded is when CWF is known as in by DESNZ. The dummies would possibly give Ed Miliband sufficient cowl to overturn an SPA, a cornerstone of British habitat regulation, whereas pretending that arduous negotiation has produced a 240 MW wind farm that’s much less harmful and fewer damaging to nature than the dreadful 302 MW one.
Builders and regulators play this 302/240 rip-off on a regular basis. A planning utility is perhaps for 1000 downsizer homes, when the builders need 600 household properties. What these skilled builders don’t do forward of negotiations is supply a Part-75 playground and first college for the downsizers. No marvel Muttley doesn’t need 240 MW on his web site, however he did 240 sort it into the ECR 4 instances and despatched ENW a cheque.
This cynical 302/240 ploy stays the primary risk, but it surely doesn’t work in the event you inadvertently admit the trick upfront by registering a 240 MW wind farm, does it Mr Miliband?
Now we take a look at two fashions of the 170 MW CWF introduced in FAQ 17. The apparent one is horrible.
“Final Ditch A 170 MW CWF” is the 33 generators east of the reservoirs. This model will after all emit much less whole CO2 from the peat disturbed in building and within the drying downhill of the infrastructure than the 302 MW 65-turbine CWF of the scoping report and peat survey. However it is going to be producing a lot much less electrical energy, so the carbon depth per MW will improve loads, as a result of carbon intensive overheads, just like the entry throughout Oxenhope Moor and the very lengthy connection to Rochdale, are now not divided by 302 MW, however by 170 MW or much less and the low carbon mineralised grazing west of the reservoirs has been given up.
“Final Ditch A 170 MW CWF” is a very horrible wind farm and by the point Emily Brontë is completed, it is going to be an much more costly and carbon-intensive 150 MW. There are, very sadly, a lot dirtier wind farms in Scotland, on deep peat, which additionally concerned the uprooting of Sitka spruce that we had paid for. Certainly no English wind farm will get close to the worst Scottish ones for carbon emissions? Certainly, now we have discovered our lesson about wind farms on peat.
Final Ditch B 170 MW CWF is the closest factor to a believable wind farm among the many 5 powers (312, 302, 240, 170, 0) introduced by Muttley up to now. We must do the peat emission calculation with the uncooked knowledge from the peat survey as a result of it’s probably that the grazing within the south finish has little, if any peat. The relative weights of the arguments towards CWF are completely different for Final Ditch B. Extra weight falls on the self-exhibited muddle of WWRE, the expense and disruption of offsite limestone, the expense of the connection to Rochdale and the issue of a 34.1% capability goal with a wind farm within the shadow of upper floor. The query for Ed Miliband will probably be “Is it price my carrying the albatross cravat by destroying the SPA habitat legal guidelines for a 170 MW wind farm that will probably be costly for billpayers and grindingly sluggish to construct due to the imported limestone, and never that windy, particularly as soon as I trim it to 120 MW to point out my energy and love of nature?”
Dangerous lumbering initiatives devour assets that needs to be utilized by good agile ones. Mr Miliband could have authorised loads of fast, low-cost, authorized schemes earlier than CWF get their portfolio of wind farms in entrance of him.
Muttley and Dr Osman assume Ed Miliband is “the mark” on the poker desk, the participant whose inexperience and enthusiasm may be exploited, however by revealing their 240 MW and 170 MW playing cards earlier than the flop, Dr Osman and Muttley are the marks.
Coming off Crow Hill, I reduce the nook to T17, get slowed down, and ultimately head in desperation for a small tree, the tallest factor in a mile, planted on the boundary as a residing stake. Progress slows throughout Excessive Black Dike.
As soon as on Heather Hill the strolling is way simpler. I can see the Wind Farm Archipelago from right here: Ovenden Moor, Scout Moor and Criminal Hill. I determine to return alongside the boundary markers, and this goes fairly nicely till it doesn’t. A minimum of I discover one of many stones. Does anybody know what it means?
The municipal boundary now enters the margins of the dreaded Stanbury Lavatory which is so unstable that the CWF crimson line scarpers into Bofts Gap. There isn’t any need path over Stanbury Lavatory. My father-in-law used to return up right here as a toddler within the Nineteen Thirties and soar on the peat along with his pals so they may really feel the vibrations like a waterbed, although it was late within the swinging sixties earlier than “like a waterbed” change into an efficient simile in Hebden Bridge, not to mention Stanbury. Even the intrepid Chris Goddard leaves this “peaty wilderness” clean in his guidebook. I must get again to Crow Hill however in the way in which is a strip of contorted floor known as Scotchman’s Arm.
I funk the possibility to leap a fissure within the peat and it opens right into a canyon not less than 5 metres deep with vertical partitions. I maintain working proper and ultimately cross the suction of a nasty soakaway on the canyon’s finish earlier than struggling up throughout the heather hags to Crow Hill and the blue observe house.
It’s autumn 2024. Muttley hadn’t mastered the voltage of the Nationwide Grid by yesterday, and he doesn’t know the ability of his personal wind farm even to 1 important determine. His scoping report is supposed to determine potential environmental harm, however from which wind farm? The little that was related within the absurdly giant Scoping Report has been shredded by CWF’s personal revelations, but one of many “important probably results of the undertaking” wasn’t even talked about by Muttley: the onsite combination is just too weak and porous for roadstone or concrete, so the onsite borrow pits can’t provide a lot of the rock wanted and limestone should be imported from distance by means of the densely packed valleys. This reality is definitely out there to probably the most junior Muttley. It seems within the notes to Sheet 69 Bradford BGS map, and has been described with full implications for local weather, transport and trade yearly within the West Yorkshire Combination Assessments since 2012. In case you are wanting ahead to the 2024 version, it comes out in December, simply in time for Christmas. I shall be sending a duplicate to Dr Osman in Blyth however do ship one to Muttley in Glasgow.
If Calderdale Wind Farm Ltd need to pressure me to cease calling their representatives Muttley, they should clarify to West Yorkshire Police why their 900,000 tonnes of weak and porous onsite combination pushed by means of Keighley, the West Yorkshire Combination Assessments, the Padiham Connection, 312, 302, 240, 170 MW, and the unbuilt 440 Kelvin Volt substation ‘out there’ in Narnia don’t make them resemble a cartoon canine that consistently undermines the boss. I shall have invited Chief Constable John Robins to search out 100 errors within the peat depth map in simply two minutes and should take him to look into Widdop sluice after a winter storm and ask him if he’s not afraid of Muttley and his bulldozer.
They don’t prefer it, however this canine’s breakfast of 5 wind farms made of sentimental combination earns them the M-word. If he labored for me, M*ttley can be past last written warning by now, however maybe Dr Osman, like Dick Dastardly, enjoys self-inflicted cartoon harm. If that’s the case, he’s distinctive among the many a whole bunch of representatives of “the cash” I’ve identified in my career.
Each penny spent on the scoping report for a harmful 302 MW (or is it 312 MW?) wind farm has been wasted, and far of it has been so damaging to Dr Osman’s cash that he would possibly as nicely have despatched the lolly straight to the RSPB. CWF Ltd spent £970,817 on consultants and £314,699 on surveys in 2022 and 2023. For my whole of £1,285,516, I might have anticipated somebody at Pure Energy to take a look at the suitability of the onsite rock by BGS Sheet 69 and studying the notes, and checking the West Yorkshire annual combination assessments, and to have regarded on the peat survey map and requested some questions in regards to the probed factors represented on it, and to have identified that 40 cm is the place deep peat begins. I’d have anticipated a single introduced megawattage and for the purpose of connection to be constant throughout my public retailers. I might have anticipated the hen work to rely for one of many years of a planning survey. If you wish to know the power of the SPA that Mr Miliband should put aside with out dropping the inevitable judicial evaluate, learn the RSPB’s letter in response to the scoping report.
If I have been Dr Osman, I might be asking Muttley, “Why are we spending cash on surveys once we don’t understand how huge our wind farm is even to 1 important determine?” “Why did we launch a scoping report that now we have shredded with our personal bulletins?” “Does my battery look huge on this?”
What number of extra blunders earlier than Muttley is dismissed and sued by his embarrassed shopper? I haven’t even began on the peat depth map, the place the evident errors are simple to identify, however not for Muttley. Why is it so blatantly slapdash? How can we let Muttley dig huge holes and gashes in famously harmful floor and fill them with concrete and imported limestone when he can’t even poke a stick into it constantly?
If Dr Osman needs to sue Muttley (Padiham, Rochdale, Narnia, BGS 69, limestone, 312, 302, 240, 170, 440 Kelvin Volts, hundred-error peat map, panic on 18 September 2024, “out there”, spilling the beans on the Precise 240 MW CWF, a self-shredded scoping report that value over £1 million) I repeat my supply to look as an skilled witness for the plaintiffs at my ordinary charge.
Why the muddled and now panicked rush? One reply is that the one likelihood this costly, harmful, polluting wind farm of unknown measurement has of being constructed is whether it is within the earliest wave of purposes known as in by DESNZ. Individuals inform me Ed Miliband can spot a unsuitable ’un. We can’t take that likelihood with the birds on the SPA, the Bronze Age sequestered carbon, the billpayers’ cash, and the lethal flooding, and that’s the reason we stroll to the turbine websites and write about them right here.
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That is the nineteenth in a sequence of 65 visitor blogs on every of the wind generators which Richard Bannister plans to have erected on Walshaw Moor. Generators 5, 6, 9, 11, 25, 27, 32, 33, 34, 35, 40, 43, 44, 47, 54, 56, 58 and 64 have already been described. To see all of the blogs – click on right here.
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