| Gone with the wind........ |
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| Environment | |
| Written by Danny Penman | |
Jumping Jack in action.
“Hold on!” shouts skipper Ian Greenwood in his soft Scouse accent. “We’re going to accelerate.” He wasn’t joking. I feel a violent tug backwards as Energy One rears its nose out of the water and leaps into the distance. Before long we are smashing into waves at 25 knots. It feels like being lashed to the mast of a man-o’-war in the battle of Trafalgar. Within moments we’re battered, bruised and soaked to the skin. The skipper smiles at us landlubbers as only a gnarly old sea dog can. I am here to take a closer look at the world’s biggest wind turbines which are being built in Britain’s newest wind farm at the mouth of the River Mersey. Erecting a wind farm, I am told, is Big Engineering in the spirit of Watt, Stephenson and Brunel. And when we approach Burbo Bank it’s clear that the turbines are absolutely enormous. The tips of the turbine blades tower 430 feet above us. The blades are longer than the wings of the new A380 superjumbo jet and weigh in at 17 tonnes apiece. The nacelle, the oblong box at the top which houses the electricity generator, is as big as a double decker bus and weighs 170 tonnes. Each turbine even has its own electric lift. Well, would you want to climb 1,000 steps with an enormous bag of spanners slung over your shoulder? Each turbine is capable of powering around 3,000 homes and the £150 million farm will produce enough electricity for about 150,000 people. The list of superlatives surrounding Burbo is endless but to my mind the most amazing thing about the turbines is their sheer graceful beauty. The engineers have clearly taken their design cues from the outstretched wings of a Kingfisher. On the day I arrived, engineers were erecting the last half dozen of Burbo’s 25 turbines. Each one is erected in just eight hours flat. It requires an amazing degree of coordination between hundreds of people split into two shifts. Each shift races the other to erect a turbine in the shortest possible time with the loser buying the drinks at the end of their two week work stint. It’s good natured competition but the banter – in a mixture of Scouse, Danish and Dutch accents – is deadly serious. I can’t make out a word of it but the chattering seems to consist of long strings of map coordinates and technical jargon. As we approach Burbo Bank it feels like the whole of Liverpool Bay is on a war footing. RIBs (rigid inflatable boats) skim back and forth between the turbines, acting as waterborne taxis. Tugs from Britain, Denmark, Holland and Ireland steam between the turbines offloading men and supplies. Floating power stations lie at anchor with cables trailing across the sea to the work crews beavering away inside the turbines. With all these boats whizzing past, not to mention the giant container vessels, supertankers and passenger ferries steaming up the Mersey, Burbo Bank has its own sea-traffic control centre. 
We are just in time to see Jumping Jack lower its creaking legs to the sea floor. I am reminded of the War of the Worlds when the Tripods land and begin their shuddering conquest of planet Earth. Jumping Jack is piled high with thousands of tonnes of equipment. Two huge nacelles and six blades are laid out on deck. Half a dozen shipping containers full of spare parts, generators and general bric-a-brac are piled up at the far end of the ship. The air is full of swirling diesel fumes and the screaming sound of engines on full bore. After what seems an age, Jumping Jack shudders and begins lifting a 260 foot long tower from its deck and places it gingerly on the steel topped foundations of turbine number 21. Eight men scurry up from the yellow foundations and begin guiding the tower the final fractions of a millimetre into position. Amazingly, the whole tower and crane are so perfectly balanced that the men move the 190 tonne assembly entirely by hand. It snaps into position with a reassuring clunk that resonates through the foundations and into the sea. The men soon begin the mammoth task of tightening 120 huge bolts weighing a pound apiece. The high-pitched whining of electric wrenches echo through the tower. It’s loud enough to startle even the raucous scouse seagulls bobbing about in the sea. The men then scurry up to the top of the tower ready for the arrival of the bus-sized nacelle. Each of the three blades is then hauled up by Jumping Jack and bolted into place. Although each lift is short, lasting only a few minutes, it takes about two hours for the engineers to tighten up hundreds of bolts and connect up huge coils of wiring. It’s the kind of thing that would exhaust you or I but the engineers relish it. A little later I chat to them and they are full of love for the job. It is clear that they began playing with Meccano when they were children and have never stopped. The pieces just became bigger. Scott Properzi, a Canadian engineering supervisor who now lives in Denmark, can hardly stop smiling and waving his arms about. “I love them,” he says. “I don’t understand why all the lobby groups hate them. What’s better, global warming or wind farms?” Whilst many people love the idea of wind power (although perhaps not in their backyard), there are some protestors who absolutely loathe it and would prefer nuclear instead. Angela Kelly, Chairman of Country Guardian, a group that opposes wind farms, predicts that “offshore wind will be a disaster” for the environment. “Just because you can’t see marine life doesn’t mean it won’t suffer. If the developers get their way then our natural heritage will be gone in the twinkling of an eye. “The people behind it are just big fat businessmen. They’re not environmentalists. All they care about is collecting huge subsidies provided by us, the tax payer.” 
The turbines dwarf the workers who beaver about just above the yellow section.
In a few years the next generation of turbines will come on-stream. Five and six megawatt turbines, enough to power 4,500 homes, are being tested. In the not-too-distant future, experts are predicting turbines big enough to power 8,000 homes will become available. The tips of the turbine blades will reach 850 feet into the sky - nearly 100 feet taller than Canary Wharf. These turbines will make Britain the Saudi Arabia of wind energy. Dr Derek Taylor, a renewable energy expert at the Open University, says: “We have one of the best wind resources in the world and it’s the quickest and most economic way of cutting carbon dioxide emissions. “Offshore wind energy could be the North Sea oil and gas of the 21st century, a world-class industry supporting upwards of 50,000 jobs by 2024 and generating a higher proportion of the nation's power than a revived nuclear industry. Around a quarter of the UK’s power could be comfortably produced from the wind within twenty years. In the longer term up to a half could be.” Britain lost its lead in wind power to the Danes two decades ago but we are now in with a fighting chance of regaining it. Offshore wind power is an emerging industry that will soon be worth tens of billions a year. Our lead in offshore oil and gas as well as specialist shipbuilding, cable laying and logistics puts us in a strong position to export our skills and technology to the world. The Germans and Danes may build the turbines but it is likely that British companies will be designing and constructing the wind farms – and that’s where the real money will be made. By late afternoon the wind begins whistling in from the Irish Sea and we’re forced to turn for home. On our way back to shore, as the storm petrels dive into the sea beside us, the radio proclaims that China is now building two new coal fired power stations a week. It has overtaken the US as the world’s largest polluter. It’s depressing news. Britain producers only five percent of the world’s greenhouse gases so it raises the obvious question: “Why bother cutting emissions?” Self-interest is the answer. Megalomaniacs in the Middle East and Russia make the case for renewable energy better than any environmental pressure group. We are now a net importer of energy and that makes us very vulnerable indeed. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions is nice but not being at the mercy of Middle-Eastern dictators is even nicer. Add this page to your favorite Social Bookmarking websites           |
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