Wind farm threat to Bullecourt area

[NigelS]

Daily Telegraph (9/11/17) reporting on the threat of a wind farm being built on a site at Bullecourt where, according to a local farmer, "At the first stroke of the spade, they'll come across bodies, that's for sure. How many bodies risk being crushed by the bulldozers? It's sad, at a time of non-stop centenary ceremonies to commemorate the sacrifice of all these soldiers."  Fury over 'outrageous' plan to erect wind farms on major First World War battlefield in France

 

NigelS

[Gareth Davies]

How are the wind turbines a threat?

[Terry_Reeves]

I go into big sigh mode when I see "fury" and outrage" in a news report. This outpouring is often invented by the press simply to draw attention to an article that has not really been thought through. It might just be that human remains are recovered by such a project and perhaps identified.

 

Just out of interest, some remains from the first battle of the English civil war at Edgehill in Warwickshire are buried under the largest ammunition depot in the country at Kineton which was constructed in WW2 or shortly afterwards - no fury and outrage then. Life moves on.

 

TR

Edited 15 November , 2017 by Terry_Reeves

[Gunner Bailey]

On 11/9/2017 at 15:51, Gareth Davies said:

How are the wind turbines a threat?

 

They sit in a very large hole. I had 24 near my house in France and they moved a lot of earth installing them.

[Gareth Davies]

Yes. But that is not a threat.  

[Gunner Bailey]

It's not if the turbine sites are properly excavated by archaeologists first.

[Gareth Davies]

Indeed. 

[chaz]

having travelled around Northern France we have wind turbines local and can see from our house, while travelling around, we often say "at least the farmers can still grow crops around", near us in Wiltshire we have two glass fields, two places where two or more fields have been covered with solar panels. dead land underneath, I have heard farmers can let sheep graze underneath BUT after a while the grass dies from lack of sunlight.

As long as the ground is well "cleaned" of anything important for a decent area, allowing for the work transport needed, then cant see a problem. although, I would prefer it were left alone.

[Knotty]

Aesthetically not a looker, then neither are pylons, but they are essential and not threatening provided they are respected as with any energy supply source.

 

On 09/11/2017 at 14:22, NigelS said:

At the first stroke of the spade, they'll come across bodies, that's for sure

 

From the above paper quote if that is the case, if they do find remains then the appropriate authorities will be obliged to step in, which is more than can be expected at this time without any planned archeological digs taking place.

 

Yes I would prefer not to have them but as TR says above - life moves on.

 

John

[NigelS]

1 hour ago, Knotty said:

From the above paper quote if that is the case, if they do find remains then the appropriate authorities will be obliged to step in, which is more than can be expected at this time without any planned archeological digs taking place.

 

Provided, of course, that the appropriate authorities are indeed notified. It's likely that these days there is greater sensitivity and better control than in the past. I've heard it said - & this is, I'm afraid, only hearsay - that no human remains were found during the construction of the A19 route in the vicinity of Glencorse Wood & the Polygon near Ypres some years ago.  Considering the nature of the fighting through that area this seems rather improbable unless the post war recovery units did a remarkably thorough job, but more likely that the scale of the work & the size of the plant used for the construction work meant that remains were unfortunately, shall we say, 'overlooked'.

 

NigelS

[Knotty]

Agree NigelS and all points taken, but I feel that road construction methods are substantially different to a wind farm and as such there will probably be a greater “chance” of remains being found.

I suppose we will just have to play the “wait and see” game.

[Frank_East]

There will be an emphasis on still more ramping up of windpower generation capacity throughout the world if the increase of carbon dioxide emissions is to be arrested...now over 400 ppmv.....something like 340ppmv 30 years ago. Installation of windpower units does not involve deep set civils on the site except for site of the wind turbine tower but other civils such as access roads and laydown areas,if planned, tend to be shallow.

 

I would think within the the planning approval package there will be mandatory requirements for the reporting of any remains found to the local authorities. 

 

(Just as an aside,the dynamic aspects of generation to meet UK load demand which the other day there was 8000 MWs of windpower on the system because of wind availability and no coal burning plant running. Later in the week, little windpower generation available ....load demand met by calling on 10000 MWs of coal plant generation......one plant was called on with an offer of £800/MWh...80p/Kw at the peak.Nuclear output is usually consistent at about 7000MWs and usually the French interconnector is exporting 2000MWs into the National Grid)

 

(Such are the uncertainty of windpower generation....yesterday morning windpower generation was running at 6500MWs while coal generation output was around 4000MWs....this morning 7500MWs of coal are on the system and windpower generation is at 4500MWs.)

[trenchtrotter]

Scheme now scrapped. 

 

TT

[mva]

22 minutes ago, trenchtrotter said:

Scheme now scrapped. 

 

TT

indeed : https://www.romandie.com/news/865145.rom     and : https://france3-regions.francetvinfo.fr/hauts-de-france/australie-salue-abandon-projet-eoliennes-site-1914-1918-bullecourt-1369683.html