Loath er,
I'm a bit confused about your post because you are appear to doubt Ford's efforts this in area but without anything to back it up, all your criticisms seem to be in the form of questions you don't know the answer to;
From the Ford website:
Ford's Dagenham
Diesel Centre, completed in 2004, is home to London's first large-scale
wind power project. The project consists of two wind turbines, each 85
meters tall with 35-meter blades. During the first full year of the
project's operation (2005), the turbines generated 6 million
kilowatt-hours (kWh) of electricity, more than enough to power the
Centre. The Dagenham Diesel Centre produces high-performance,
fuel-saving diesel engines, which are assembled in sterile conditions,
as required for the latest high-precision common-rail fuel and turbo
systems.
The Dagenham Diesel Centre expanded during 2006,
and it will expand further in 2007. Construction of a third wind
turbine, to be completed in early 2008, will add more than 3 million
kWh of annual production, so that the Dagenham project will represent
half of all planned wind power capacity in the London region.
Are you saying Ford are lying to the public and their shareholders Loather? If so, what evidence do you have for such an assertion?
One factory that represents half of all the wind power capability in London would appear to be rather impressive but if it's a lie then do tell all as such a thing needs 'outing' frankly. As at 1 June 2008 there are 174 UK grid-connected wind farms containing
2,012 wind turbines with the capacity to generate 2529 MW. Is this all a waste of time then?
From The Telegraph:
The
use of wind power at Ford's Dagenham plant is saving over 6,000 tonnes
of CO2 a year, while nearly twice as much waste has been diverted from
landfill sites, the manufacturer said.
Wind turbines that were
installed at the plant over three years ago have prevented the emission
of 6,500 tonnes of CO2 every year and other eco-efficient processes
have prevented over 12,600 tonnes of waste from being disposed of by
landfill.
The work that Ford is doing at Dagenham was recognised with a nomination at the Business in the Community awards this month. Acknowledgment has also been made of Ford's 1.4/1.6-litre engine line by the Business Commitment to the Environment group.
Stuart
Burn, technical specialist with the automaker, said: "We are delighted
that our eco-efficient production at Dagenham is recognised. Not only
are we minimising Dagenham's environmental impact, we are also helping
the consumer.
"Ford Fiesta models powered by these new 1.4- and 1.6-litre engines emit under 120g CO2/km – putting them in the £35 road tax category."
Output at Dagenham is set to reach a million engines
a year by 2009. The plant is powered by 3.6-megawatt capacity turbines
which produce over six million kilowatt-hours of renewable electricity.
The figures being bandied about here would need to be bulletproof I'd say given the quantities involved and the ease at which FMC could be disproved when claiming to offset the emissions of the vehicles compared to the saving on emissions in actually creating the engines in the first place at the plant.
It's windy enough for someone to consider the following:
From This Is London:
Plans to build the world's largest wind farm in the Thames Estuary moved a step closer today.
Ministers
are expected to give permission for 341 turbines to be placed along a
144-mile stretch off the Margate coast, and for a smaller 100-turbine
farm off the Thanet coast.
The Department for Trade and
Industry says the two projects will make a "significant contribution"
to the Government's target of sourcing 10 per cent of energy from
renewable sources by 2010.
However, the £1.5 billion Margate
scheme still needs to overcome objections from Swale Borough Council
which has objected to the building of a substation near the historic
village of Cleve Hill.
The consortium behind the bid, London
Array, says it has changed its plans to address concerns about the
construction and siting of the substation.
If permission is
granted, the Margate farm would generate enough electricity for 750,000
central London homes. The first turbines would be in place by 2008 with
the scheme completed by 2011.
Experts have estimated it will save
1.9 million tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by replacing coal and
gas-fired power stations, and the projects have won the approval of
Friends of the Earth despite concerns about the impact on the coastal
landscape. But some conservation groups still oppose them.
Mark
Hedges of Country Life magazine said: "Wind farms create a low hum
which drives locals we've spoken to wild.” London Array has warned that
if construction does not start soon the project may be delayed because
so many engineers are being sucked into the 2012 Olympic scheme.
So how hard can it be for FMC to simply point their windmills to the west where the prevailing wind comes from in the part of the world? I presume it's fully adjustable anyway but that said vertical axis turbines do not need orientation into the wind, although
the earlier versions, sometimes known as ‘eggbeater’ turbines required
a power source to start rotating because of their high torque. More
recent innovations have helical blade designs that have low torque and
can operate without external power. Vertical axis turbines are
particularly suited to small wind power applications because they have
a small environmental impact and no noise, but have not yet scaled up
to the 5MW + turbine size of horizontal axis designs.* (*source - renewable energy centre)
Can't see the problem really.