MONADHLIATH RING OF STEEL & BALMACAAN: LATEST!

Clickable map (edited to add Druim Ba Scoped Power Plant)

or… JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT COULDN’T GET ANY WORSE…..

Today’s news is that SSE (Scottish & Southern Energy) are holding meetings to discuss two new wind Power Plants: Stronelairg and the Balmacaan. You can see them both on the map above. I have had to estimate the position of the Stronelairg Power Plant from the descriptions SSE have given in their Scoping Report as cunningly, their report refers to attached maps but does not attach them… Strange, eh? You can see that Scoping Report HERE.

Both Plants will be using turbines even bigger than those proposed at Dunmaglass – 135m to tip. (Dunmaglass’s are 125m)

Without seeing the true horror of Stronelairg laid out on a turbine map, I went on to the Balmacaan Scoping Report. You can see this Scoping Report HERE. And this time they did provide a turbine layout therein.  Now then – Hold on to your hats, girls, because this one takes some getting used to: (Look away if you are of a nervous disposition…)

Clickable map

UNBELIEVABLE! One of the most wonderful walking landscapes in the whole of Scotland and this is how they want to look after it…

So – if you want to see the Monadhliath & the Balmacaan for one last time, I suggest you drag your sorry backsides up there smartish, for tomorrow it will be gone forever.

Here are two (clickable) pictures taken in the Balmacaan in 2006 on my TGO Crossing of that year. Magnificent Wild Land.

A Heartbreakingly Beautiful Place (and the capitals are important here…)

24th March EDIT:

I have added the Druim Ba Power Plant to the location map at the top of this blog post which is just to the north of the Balmacaan Plant. This is another Power Plant in the pipeline, of about 30 Turbines. It will be massively visible.

MONADHLIATH’S RING OF STEEL

(Clickable map)

There has been a lot of talk recently about the rapid acceleration in wind power plant approvals in the Highlands of Scotland. I thought I would make it clear, just for the Monadhliath Mountains, where the plants are sited:

FARR                       40 TURBINES         BUILT

DUNMAGLASS          33 TURBINES        APPROVED

CORRIEGARTH         20 TURBINES         PLANNING SUBMITTED

KYLLACHY                19 TURBINES         SCOPED

ALLT DUINNE           31 TURBINES         SCOPED

(The line that runs from west to east across the map is part of my TGO Challenge route for this May.)

You can see from the above map (please click on it to enlarge) that the Monadhliath Mountains are well and truly doomed. I have ringed the areas only where the actual turbines are to be sited. These do not include the additional access tracks that are required to get the turbines up to these power plants. These haul roads are to be 5m wide – considerably wider at bends – to allow access for the turbine towers, nacelles, blades, cranes and all the plant necessary to build and maintain the turbines.. It does not show the additional pylons and associated power lines to get the power to the National Grid.

The sheer size of these new turbines is breath-taking. This image is taken from RES’s own Dunmaglass website:

For a truly shocking impact of this mass industrialisation you need only to go to RES’s own website for just Dunmaglass Wind Power Plant to see the Zone of Theoretical Visibilty (ZTV) map for Dunmaglass. I would stress that this map only extends for 40km from Dunmaglass. For ease of viewing, I have shown this map below:

 

Now I don’t know about you, but if I was choosing the colour coding for visual impact for turbines on the surrounding land, I would expect the largest “number of turbines viewed” colour choice to be in red. This mob have chosen yellow. Strange that, eh?

You will note that there is an awful lot of yellow on the map above. Indeed, from the western Cairngorm tops ALL the turbines at Dunmaglass will be seen. As they will from the Strathfarrar, Affric and Glen Orrin Hills.

Now take a deep breath and pause awhile before considering this next bit.

The above ZTV map is JUST for Dunmaglass. Now, in your mind’s eye, construct the maps for each of the other power plants I have listed at the start of this post. Now overlay all these ZTV maps on top of each other.

Absolutely Shocking, isn’t it? Imagine what the Allt Duinne scheme will look like from the Cairngorm National Park… being right on the very border of the park. On the surrounding hills and moorland, there will not be one place for miles and miles and miles around where you will not be able to see the Monadhliath Power Plants.

I mentioned at the start, that this post was just dealing with the turbines for the Monadhliath Mountains. You can find all the other power plant that are either built or in the pipeline on the map HERE. PLEASE have a look at this site. The scale of the proposals are absolutely jaw dropping.

Scotland’s Wild Places are well and truly, and let’s not mince words about this, fucked.

COVER ME IN CHOCOLATE AND THROW ME TO THE LESBIANS

I found myself in the deepest, darkest recesses of my garage this afternoon. As far as I can recall, my garage hasn’t fulfilled it’s purpose of housing motorised transport for over ten years now. It is stuffed full to the rafters with cages of equipment, paint tins and piles of cardboard boxes; some of which have followed my every house move; that’s eight houses or so.

One of the boxes was labelled, intriguingly, “Alan’s Stuff”. It was still taped up – unopened for some thirty years.

Treasure!

Well – treasure of sorts: Amongst the artefacts carefully stored were old university files on gravity dam designs, files of calculations for launching steel truss bridges over railway lines, some wonderful old notebooks lovingly detailing epic walks done as a teenager, boxes of 35mm colour slides of quite fantastic structural engineering projects undertaken, and then, at the bottom of the box, a small neat stack of simple white envelopes addressed to me: Old love letters.

All in date order from my time at university, all in perfect condition. First Class stamps were 9p at the time.

I have sat in Mission Control this evening reading the happiness of youth that seems a million years ago, the memories washing wonderfully over me.

Go on. Go into your garage and find your thirty year old unopened box. I can guarantee it will make you think back and smile.

RES FM RADIO SHOW

Sorry about the radio silence there, but as mentioned earlier I was invited by Dave Lintern onto Resonance FM with Andy Howell to discuss the issues affecting wild land in Scotland. It was great fun and the time flew by with barely enough time to discuss such an important topic. If you could let me know your thoughts on it it would be appreciated.

Many thanks to Dave for the invite.
You can find the show below:

Wild Land Campaigning With Alan Sloman And Andy Howell by Selfpoweredradio on Mixcloud

A WAKE FOR THE WILD: THE WILDERNESS’S COFFIN

Behind the scenes a lot has been going on. Perhaps “behind the scenes” is an apt description of the manufacturing process. A wonderful gent known on a few blogs as “Shap” has been burning candles at both ends (and in the middle too) behind the flame proof curtains of the theatre and has been making a labour of love - a beautiful lightweight coffin that shall be carried on the Wake for the Wild to the point of the highest turbine on the Dunmaglass Estate Power Plant.

Shap with the bare lightweight coffin

We had a brief conflab and decided that the right colour would be black. And it had to be waterproof. An Lo! The handles are next…

As I said to Shap: “That really is quite a beautiful coffin!”

I suppose that’s one of those phrases that, even in your most fevered imaginations in the various bars across the breadth of Scotland, you never ever thought you would ever hear yourself saying...

Later today, at 5:30pm I will be appearing on David Lintern’s show on Resonance FM with Andy Howell and amongst other things we will be discussing the forthcoming “Wake for the Wild” Protest.

There will be more shortly on here detailing the protest. Stay Tuned!