In my last post I promised pictures of turbine spares and a
wrecked turbine blade but, before we get to them, here are some pretty flowers
to be going on with.
Here next is my route past the last of the turbines before I
turn and head towards the small village of Handras. This is a walk I’ve taken
many times now and without diversions (like one I took recently to try and get
a look at an array of solar panels) totals 6.5 miles. The number of occasions
when I haven’t gone for a long walk each day since arriving here I can count on
one hand. I am also eating little in the way of carbs and the effect has been
gratifying. Since that time I stepped on the scales just after Christmas and
saw I had edged over 14 stone I’ve lost over 20 pounds. I am in fact just a
pound or so away from the supposed upper limit of my BMI, which is ridiculous,
because I can hardly be classified as overweight when I need a belt to stop 32
inch waist jeans from falling round my ankles.
Here’s the spare parts store for the wind turbines. You can
probably see why it reminded me of a NASA museum, though the turbine blades
look like a row of high-tech canoes.
And here is that wrecked turbine blade.
That they are often sited in beautiful countryside I have no
objection to at all. I guess my thoughts about spin dizzies and James Blish are
relevant here. Being a long-time reader of science fiction I’m quite attracted
to the idea of chunks of high-tech machinery sitting in wilderness. I don’t see
the wilderness as being destroyed, rather enhanced by the contrast.
3 comments:
What surprises me, is how goddam big they are now getting.
Some of the models on trail now for sea deployment are huge.
http://www.4coffshore.com/windfarms/turbines.aspx
I'm not concerned about birds, but the only ones I've ever actually been near to were in New Mexico, and they were OBNOXIOUSLY LOUD. As in "near a hovering helicopter" loud. And they were probably a quarter of a mile away.
I guess the ones here are the smaller version, Neil. Still, they are impressive.
dlw, these are loud too, but you need to have a fair degree of fitness to get close enough to them to hear ... unless you take a 4x4 up the mountain.
Post a Comment