Wind Turbine?

Wind - when the wind blows.... we could be generating our own energy...




We're looking into a Gaia 11kw wind turbine for the big cow field. It'll need planning permission of course - and wind. But the databases put us safely inside the 'doable' range of wind speeds. We reckon, very roughly, that we (and the business) use about 28,000 kWh a year, and that a 18m high (to the centre of the blades) turbine might produce about 31,000 kWh a year.

It wouldn't get rid of our entire electricity bill though. Here's how it works. You get paid 23p per kWh 'feed in tarrif' (from April 2010) whether or not you use the juice - but on a still day we'd still be drawing power from the National Grid, and paying for it.

At first I thought this meant there was no incentive for being frugal - just turn up the heating when it's windy - which seemed a shame. But thinking about it, it would make us much more aware of our Energy use patterns, trying not to exceed our own generating capacity and therefore incurring a bill, especially as it's not going to be windy all the time.

I know there are lots of voices against wind power, but we have to throw everything we've got at cutting our fossil energy use - renewables, energy efficiencey, maybe even nuclear though I hate the thought. Personally, I think they are very elegant, unlike pylons, which no-body ever seems to raise an eyebrow about.

I think David Attenborough had it right when he spoke at the public enquiry into a wind turbine for Glyndebourne opera house in Sussex last year: "there's always a good reason for somebody else to do something else somewhere else."

Well, we've had the full site survey (from Greenthinking, a Devon firm). Now we have to do the maths and think about taking the leap. It will be a big investment with an unknown pay-back time.

But I would love to have a wind turbine...

Himalayan Balsam bashing

Maggie has been Himalayan balsam bashing - not here though. Thankfully there's none on the farm. But it's in the nearby Halsdon Nature reserve, run by the Devon Wildlife Trust...

Today they had a volunteers' day pulling the stuff up by the roots and loading it onto a tractor.

The trust have helped us a lot with advice about our culm grassland sssi, so we like to turn up and help them out sometimes too.

Himalayan Balsam is a pretty flower, also sometimes called 'policeman's helmet' because of it's shape. But it's invasive and grows in vast stands over 6ft high that shade out everything else. It's not native to Britain - it was introduced in 1839. It has explosive seeds that can shoot themselves up to 7m away, and it loves damp soil so it spreads along the banks of rivers.

Perhaps it's saving grace is that it's easy to pull up - it seems odd that such a giant plant can have such a feeble root system - but then if it falls over it just roots again from the leaf nodes.

So controlling it is an ongoing battle that has to be fought pretty much every year once the plant has got a foothold. Still, it was a beautiful day to be out there....

here are a few Himalayan Balsam links:

Advice from the Royal Horticultural Society on Himalayan Balsam

A wikipedia article on Himalayan Balsam

And an advice sheet on Himalayan Balsam from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology