Sunday, April 5, 2009

Kamikaze

aquas1198

Last year 9 wind generators began operating on top of Takanoyama behind Tsunozu and Uyagawa. I was surprised to learn that it was a public works project of the prefecture in partnership with Gotsu City.

s1521

Another 12 have now gone up on the beaches at Asari and Kuromatsu, this time erected by a new local company Gotsu Wind Power.

star1045

While not the biggest in Japan, with towers of 80 metres and blades of 45 metres, they are pretty impressive close up.

star1053

The towers were made in South Korea and the generators are from Germany and Finland.

star3457

Japan lags far behind other countries in wind power generation, not because of a lack of wind, but because there is no national grid. There are 10 seperate regional power companies that don't share excess electricity across their borders.

star3455

Iwami generates a miniscule amount of hydro-electric power, and most of our electricity comes from the coal powered Misumi power station. There is a nuclear power station on the coast up near Matsue. (built on a fault-line of course!)

2 comments:

  1. Just couldnt resist letting you know how much I love the title!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks Jodie... glad someone noticed :)
    BTW, we hope to get some goats so may get back to you for tips...

    ReplyDelete