Rotarians are given a talk on giant windfarm

May 15 2008

HAMILTON Rotary enjoyed a talk by club member Ian Brown at their latest meeting on the development of windfarms in the county.

With the aid of a video, Ian, a construction, design and management manager, referred to the recently-completed windfarm at Blacklaw.

Located in the central belt of Scotland, the Blacklaw project straddles the boundaries of South and North Lanarkshire and West Lothian. Ian advised members that the land used for the windfarm had large tracts of coniferous forest and moorland and included an abandoned opencast coal mine. This mine had been only partially worked but was left unrestored.

The concept of the project was considerable in that it required the opencast mine to be re-opened in order to provide a source of on-site road stone. Coal was recovered as a by-product of the operation and its recovery yielded revenue to offset the cost of restoring the area to nature conservation and agricultural land after use.

The 450 hectares of woodland was removed and a floating road constructed over a bog in order to service the site.

The development eventually provided for 42 wind turbines of impressive dimensions that produce 125 megawatts of electricity that is sold directly to the grid.

This project forms part of the government’s commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and will reduce the need to generate electricity by other means.

Throughout the development of the scheme, ecological and environmental groups were consulted.

It is reckoned that, apart from the visual impact, the habitat management plan has encouraged a variety of wildlife to return.

Past president John Burn proposed the vote of thanks at the end of the presentation.