People may picture a conventional offshore gas platform when they hear the words “gas development”, but that is not what is being proposed here.
The development concept would have no routine offshore gas combustion, flaring or power generation. The offshore installation would be powered from shore, so there would be no need to burn gas offshore to generate electricity. The production system would be designed as a closed system, with no routine release of gas or production discharges to the sea.
Drilling would also be temporary, lasting only a matter of months.
The only permanent structure above sea level would be a small Nominally Unmanned Installation, or NUI. The current concept is approximately 30 metres high and around 22 km offshore. At that distance it would be barely discernible to the naked eye and would typically appear as little more than a tiny feature on the horizon.
The image below is of a copy of that in our current advertising at the Sea Terminal and the airport. A correctly scaled NUI is actually present in the image — but at that distance it is only around three pixels on high on the screen resolution. It is genuinely a case of “spot the NUI”.
Environmental impacts, drilling effects, emissions, marine ecology and the risk of accidental releases would all have to be properly assessed and independently regulated before any development could proceed.
The following two images are illustrative images from Maughold using a camera with a 51mm focal length lens. The centre of the image is looking 110 degrees from North from an elevation of approximately 100m above m.s.l. The viewing angle is approximately +/-20 degrees. The NUI is approximately 19km distant. The turbines shown are 330m tall, the nearest ones approximately 13km distant.
Maughold head Gas installation illustrative view
The images below are taken from Maughold Head from a 3m elevation camera point. The zoom is a simulated 70mm focal length camera lens (from a 50mm focal length lens.)
Studies have shown that this closely matches what people perceive when they view distant objects, rather than the “true” visual image with a 50mm focal length lens usually quoted.
Turbines are 350 height to top of tip, similar to the proposed Mooir Vannin turbines. Distances to the turbines are correct for the proposed layout.
The gas installation NUI is typical for the East Irish Sea approximately 30m in height, and is sited ~18km from the camera position.
Both images are illustrative but true to life. The windfarm image is included to show relative impact and to demonstrate the integrity of the NUI image. Both images were created with the same visual assumptions of atmospheric conditions.
