Lesson video

Hello, my name's Mrs. Harking.

The title of today's lesson is Wind farms: a decision-making exercise, taken from the unit, Natural resources: can Earth meet our needs? We're going to be practising decision-making skills, which are essential for our day-to-day lives, whether it's deciding which chocolate bar to buy or maybe something far more significant, such as where to locate a wind farm.

It's important that we make decisions based on how sustainable those decisions are.

I hope you find today's lesson useful.

Let's get started.

The outcome for today's lesson is to explain the human and physical requirements for wind farm sites and to evaluate potential site locations.

Here are some keywords that are useful to know before we start the lesson today.

First of all, wind turbine.

This is a device that generates electricity from wind power.

A wind farm is an area where a group of wind turbines has been placed to generate electricity.

Sheltered is a location that's protected from harsh conditions, such as strong winds.

Electricity grid is a network of wires, power stations, and systems that deliver electricity from where it is produced to where it is used by consumers.

So the electricity grid includes the wires that bring electricity to our homes.

Please pause the video now if you feel that any of these would be useful to write down before we begin.

Today's lesson is in two parts.

Firstly, the ideal site for a wind farm, and then we're moving on to the decision making.

So let's start with the ideal site for a wind farm.

Izzy asks, "Do you live near a wind farm? How would you feel if one was built close to your home?" Feel free to pause the video to discuss this now.

The ideal site for a wind farm is an unsheltered location, so that means that the area is windy, it's not sheltered from the wind, far from densely populated areas, so not very many towns or cities in the area, an area with high potential wind energy, near the electricity grid, cheap to build on, and not in a protected area.

Let's take a look at a few of these in a bit more detail.

So first of all, it is important that the site has high wind speeds.

Without that, there is no point in putting a wind turbine there.

So it cannot be sheltered.

For example, you might have flat land, so there's nothing to stop the wind there.

Offshore.

Offshore locations tend to be quite windy, 'cause again, there's nothing to shelter the area from the wind.

And high altitude locations, so at the top of hills can be quite good 'cause there's no relief that's going to be higher and prevent the wind from reaching the wind turbines.

There is some differences in cost attached to the different sites.

So onshore wind turbines are generally cheaper to instal due to the easier access and lower infrastructure costs.

However, offshore wind turbines are more expensive due to the complex installation, maintenance challenges, and the need for specialist equipment.

So if you think about it, you aren't able to access it by normal vehicles, you'd have to be accessing the site with by boat, and if you are installing them into the sea bed, you're actually having to build underneath the sea, which adds another level of complexity.

Some wind turbines actually float, so there's a whole other element involved there.

The majority are attached to the seabed.

Time for a check for understanding now.

True or false? In an area with steep relief, it is important to locate a wind turbine at the bottom of a valley.

Well done.

It's false.

Why is that? Well done.

So it's important that the site has high wind speeds and cannot be sheltered.

So the top of a hill would be a far more appropriate location than the bottom of a valley.

Right, another check for understanding now.

Which site is most expensive to build a wind farm on? Is it A, offshore, B, high altitude land, or C, low value land? Remember, high altitude means maybe at the top of a hill.

Well done.

Yeah, so it's offshore, with all those added complexities of being out at sea.

So let's have a look at some other considerations.

Being near the existing electricity grid is really helpful, as it means long networks of cables and transformers are not needed to transfer electricity to the grid.

Many areas also protected, meaning construction products, including wind farms, are very unlikely to get planning permission from local councils.

What we can see here on the map, it's national parks that are in Scotland, England, and Wales and these national parks aim to preserve the natural beauty and the ecosystems in the area.

So if you decided to build a wind farm in one of these locations, it'll be far harder to get planning permission.

You can see the darker green patches are showing where they're located around the UK.

There are many other areas that are protected from many different reasons.

So looking at the protections on the land to start with before you choose a site is a really important consideration.

NIMBYism stands for not in my backyard.

It's a term used to describe the opposition by residents to proposed developments in their local area, including wind farms. So it could be that if you were about to have a wind farm built near you, that you might actually oppose it for one of many reasons.

Let's have a look at some of the reasons people do oppose wind farm developments.

They do argue against it.

Let's have a look.

So they're noisy, they're dangerous for birds, and wind farms are ugly and lower property prices.

People can get very upset about potential wind farms developments.

Let's have a look at the facts behind this.

So just taking a look at one opinion, they are noisy.

We have a graph on the right here that shows the decibels versus the noise source.

For a quiet rural area, the decibel level is normally about 30.

That's how noisy it would be generally in that area.

This would be slightly higher, about 35 decibels for a quiet rural area with wind turbines.

Now, a refrigerator, fridge, tends to make about 45 decibels worth of noise, and city car traffic tends to be more like 70 decibels.

So you can compare different noise readings here to form an opinion.

To what extent do you agree with the resident? Hands up if you strongly agree.

Agree.

Disagree.

Strongly disagree.

Interesting.

Time for Task A, now.

I would like you to complete the table.

We have a column for Feature at the beginning.

Our features are low land surrounded by hills, offshore location, far from large settlements, and in a national park.

For each of these you need to tell me, is it a good site for wind turbines, in column two, and then why is this, in column three.

Pause the video now to give yourself time to do the task.

Well done, everyone.

Let's take a look at some answers.

So, for our first feature, low land surrounded by hills, you probably put no, it is not a good site for a wind turbine.

That is the correct answer.

It is not a good site.

Why is this? Your answer may look something like this.

The hills will shelter the site, reducing the wind speed, which is obviously essential for wind turbines to actually make any electricity.

Offshore location is our next feature.

Is this a good site for wind turbines? Yes, it is, and this is because it's unsheltered so it's a windy site.

Now, you could have said that it's not a good site because it's expensive to build.

I will also accept that, although to be honest, in reality there are quite a lot of offshore wind turbines, so probably the best answer here is yes.

The next feature is far from large settlements.

Is this a good site? Yes it is.

And that's because there's less opposition due to NIMBYism, and fewer people are affected by noise pollution.

Lastly, we've got in a national park.

This is not a good site for wind turbines, and this is because it's very unlikely to get planning permission from local councils due to the protections put on the land.

How did you get on? Would you like to edit anything or add anything to your answer? Brilliant.

Well done.

Let's move on to the second section of our lesson now.

So, we are going to be decision making, and we need to have a look at that whole process, how it works and how to become really good decision makers.

Geographies use all sorts of different sources to gather information to help 'em make decisions.

For example, OS maps or GIS, geographical information systems, opinions, and also costs.

We've already covered opinions and costs.

I want to show you how maps can help us, and we're going to look specifically at OS maps today.

OS maps reveal important features about potential sites for wind farms. For example, can show us where settlements are.

So we'd like to avoid those locations.

Also, it can show us where in turbines already are.

You can see that here.

And also, electricity transmission pylons can be seen on OS maps, which is really helpful if you're wanting to locate your wind turbines near to the electricity grid.

Contour lines are also really useful.

They allow geographers to identify relief.

Remember, relief is the height and shape of the land.

So here, Lucas says, "I remember that contour lines that are close together are where land is steep." Andeep says that the numbers on the contour lines show how high the land is in metres, its metres above sea level.

National parks are also outlined in broad yellow borders.

So this is one of the many different locations which might be harder to get planning permission, remember.

So, identifying features such as this on OS maps can help us to avoid locations which are going to be tricky to get planning permission for our wind farm.

Time for a check for understanding now.

Which location is at the top of the hill? Is it A, B, or C? Well done.

It's A.

A is at the top of the hill.

The reason I know that is because it's got the highest number next to it, 626, and also the top of the hill often has a circle contour line at the top.

This just shows us the the highest contour at the top of the hill.

What does this symbol show? Is it A, wind turbines, B, relief of the land, or C, electricity transmission pylons? Well done.

Yes, it's C, electricity transmission pylons.

Geographers often use a cost-benefit analysis to help make decisions.

Here's an example of Laura's cost-benefit analysis used to decide on the location for a nuclear power plant.

A cost-benefit analysis looks at the disadvantages and the advantages of a site.

So the costs here are also known as disadvantages, can include economic costs, but can also include other costs that aren't to do with money, so other disadvantages to that site.

Laura has been asked to score the disadvantages from zero to -3.

If there are no disadvantages, she will give a score of zero.

If there are minor disadvantages, she'll give a score of -1.

Significant disadvantages, -2, and severe, -3.

Laura has chosen to score Site A disadvantages as -3, as there are multiple severe disadvantages.

Let's have a look at what they are.

So it's close to a major city.

So that's a safety risk, isn't it? That's quite a significant problem.

And there's a lot of community opposition.

So she's decided that it's quite a severe disadvantage and it's worth scoring -3.

She's chosen to score Site B disadvantages as -1, as there is only one disadvantage listed and she doesn't feel it's so significant.

Laura's chosen to score Sites A and B advantages as plus two, as there are multiple significant advantages for each.

You can see here that the scale she was given goes from naught to plus three this time.

Laura has then worked out the total by adding the disadvantages and the advantages scores together.

Here we can see how she's done that with Site A.

She's taken a -3, which was the disadvantages score, she's added plus two, which was the advantages score, and that has led to an answer of -1.

So the total for Site A is -1.

Laura's decided on the scores on this table.

So they are subjective.

That means possibly biassed, depending on her personal views.

So if you did this same analysis, you might actually come up with different scores.

Time for a check for understanding now.

Which site would be the better choice for a nuclear power plant? Is it Site A or Site B? Can you use the score that Laura's come up with to come up with your answer? Well done.

Yes, Site B.

So why is site B the better choice according to this cost-benefit analysis? Yes, well done.

Site B has a higher score, as the only disadvantage is loss of habitat, but there are multiple benefits to the location.

It is remote and it's coastal.

Right, time for task B now, our actual decision-making task.

Using the OS map, I would like you to complete the cost-benefit analysis for each site.

I'm going to show you the OS map quickly now.

So, this map here is our OS map, and we've got Sites A, B, and C located on the map.

You'll need to refer to this and look at the symbols on here during the decision-making process.

would like you to consider how protected the land is, how sheltered from the wind, the economic cost, the distance from the electricity grid, and the densely populated areas.

So for Site A, what are the disadvantages? What is the score for disadvantages? Remember, we're scoring it from zero to -3.

And what are the advantages? And I'd like you to score this from zero to plus three.

And then I would like you to add those two scores together to make the total score for Site A.

Then repeat this for Site B and C.

After you've completed your table, you'll be able to answer question two, which is the best site? And I'd like you to justify your choice.

That means explain why you've decided that.

Good luck, everyone.

Feel free to pause the video now to give yourself time to do this.

Well done.

Let's have a look at my answer compared to yours and see how different they are.

So, the complete cost-benefit analysis table might look something like this.

For Site A, it's a national park.

Did you pick up on that? So it's unlikely to get planning permission.

It's in a sheltered location in a valley and would require connecting to the grid.

It's not got any electricity transmission cables very nearby, so I've given it a score of -3.

You may have given it something different.

For the advantages, we've got far from densely populated areas, but that's it.

So I only scored it plus one, and my total score was -2 overall.

So, not a great site if it's a minus number.

Site B is a built-up area, so there's probably going to be some NIMBYism there.

Planning permission would not allow for the removal of a whole settlement to make way for wind turbines, so this is a really unrealistic site, I thought.

I gave it -3.

The advantages were that it was close to electricity pylons and there was a nearby Sellafield power station.

I dunno whether you spotted that one.

So it's likely to have very good connections to the grids and relatively flat land, so no shelter.

I gave this one a score of plus two, which meant the total score was -1.

So actually, still negative number.

Really unlikely that this would be a good site.

Do you agree with that? Let's have a look at the last one.

So Site C, the disadvantages were that it was more expensive to build because it was offshore, and it would require connecting to the grid.

So I did give it a score of -2 for the disadvantages.

The advantages, there was no shelter from the wind in all directions, so nice, windy site for the wind turbines.

That's good.

Far from densely populated areas, so again, less NIMBYism, that's positive, and not in a protected area, another positive there.

So my total score for the advantages was plus three, which meant the total for Site C ended up as plus one.

So I decided for question two that the best site would be Site C.

Site C is the best choice for a wind farm as it's offshore, meaning there's no shelter from wind in all directions, it is far from densely populated areas, and not in a protected area.

There will be more cost involved, but the other two sites would not be feasible as they're protected sites and they're already built on.

C is the only option that would really work from these three options.

Did you also come up with C? Excellent.

Well done, everyone.

So now it's time for our summary.

Considerations for wind farm locations include, wind speeds are higher in offshore, high-altitude flat areas as they are less sheltered.

Wind farms should be located far from density populated areas and close to electricity grids.

Many people campaign against wind farms due to the noise and visual impact.

Geographers often use a cost-benefit analysis to help make decisions, and OS maps are a good source of information for potential sites.

Well done, everyone.

Thank you for joining me today.

I hope to see you next time.

Goodbye.