UK energy

[Cugel]

Get an e-car, especially one with a large battery, and become part of the solution to providing a far cleaner and more efficient national power supply without the need for vast nuclear power stations and similar money pits!

Your e-car becomes, with ten million others, a huge virtual battery for general use when the windmills and solar panels are at a low ebb. You know it makes sense!



https://www.theguardian.com/environment ... ional-grid

[UpWrong]

I see the Millipede has prioritised solar farms over food production by overuling obections to 3 large scale developments in the East of England, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgxqn9v0jdxo. Was this wise I ask myself.

There's no shortage of agricultural land in the UK, we're using less as productivity improves, but if there was, the most effective way to fix it is reducing meat consumption, which has the side effect of benefitting the environment.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... l-land-use

I'm not convinced. I don't know the details but I understand the planning commission was not in favour of this. It wasn't just a bunch of NIMBYs. And I think food security trumps energy demand. We all have to eat and if this is prime arable land being used then it's a bad choice.

[Paulatic]

Through my entire lifetime I’ve witnessed prime arable land being taken out of production. Taken for housing, roads, vehicle storage, factories used and unused, chasing non producing grants and no doubt countless things I can’t think of just now.
Do you think this mere 2500acres is the straw which broke the camel’s back?
I’m sure I could graze some sheep amongst the panels keep the grass down for them

[Cugel]

I see the Millipede has prioritised solar farms over food production by overuling obections to 3 large scale developments in the East of England, https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cgxqn9v0jdxo. Was this wise I ask myself.

There's no shortage of agricultural land in the UK, we're using less as productivity improves, but if there was, the most effective way to fix it is reducing meat consumption, which has the side effect of benefitting the environment.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati ... l-land-use

I'm not convinced. I don't know the details but I understand the planning commission was not in favour of this. It wasn't just a bunch of NIMBYs. And I think food security trumps energy demand. We all have to eat and if this is prime arable land being used then it's a bad choice.

The Cambrians of Wales - AKA The Green Desert of Wales - is a large area in which the only significant farming is sheep farming. The case against sheep farming is very compelling, even for the sheep farmers, as it produces hardly any income and has to be heavily subsidised, produces very little meat and sees an enormous wastage of wool that, now, nobody wants. Sheep farming also badly degrades the land into - a green desert bereft of the wide bio-diversity places like The Cambrians used to have a long time ago before the blasted wooly beasts arrived.

There's a case that putting windmills and solar panels in this desert will not only be relatively unobtrusive but will greatly improve the bio-diversity. It would also provide far more well paid jobs than sheep farming! And, personally, I greatly enjoy walking through the windmill-peppered forest near here, which is lush and also free of pylons.

Perhaps the only real bugbear is the means by which the electricity is transported to elsewhere. Grid iron pylons are not exactly attractive and also vulnerable to the ever-worsening big-storm events. Cable burying is possible. Burying is said to be expensive to implement and to maintain if they need digging up. But who knows the truth of such costs when it's various commercial firms doing the estimates?

[Cugel]

Through my entire lifetime I’ve witnessed prime arable land being taken out of production. Taken for housing, roads, vehicle storage, factories used and unused, chasing non producing grants and no doubt countless things I can’t think of just now.
Do you think this mere 2500acres is the straw which broke the camel’s back?
I’m sure I could graze some sheep amongst the panels keep the grass down for them

No more sheep! Put in greenhouses and grow .... anything you like.

[Mike Sales]

Perhaps the only real bugbear is the means by which the electricity is transported to elsewhere. Grid iron pylons are not exactly attractive and also vulnerable to the ever-worsening big-storm events. Cable burying is possible. Burying is said to be expensive to implement and to maintain if they need digging up. But who knows the truth of such costs when it's various commercial firms doing the estimates?

The Pylons – Stephen Spender



The secret of these hills was stone, and cottages

Of that stone made,

And crumbling roads

That turned on sudden hidden villages.



Now over these small hills, they have built the concrete

That trails black wire;

Pylons, those pillars

Bare like nude giant girls that have no secret.



The valley with its gilt and evening look

And the green chestnut

Of customary root,

Are mocked dry like the parched bed of a brook.



But far above and far as sight endures

Like whips of anger

With lightning's danger

There runs the quick perspective of the future.



This dwarfs our emerald country by its trek

So tall with prophecy:

Dreaming of cities

Where often clouds shall lean their swan-white neck.

[Cugel]

Windmills in Fforest Brechfa:

[Cugel]

Pylons around The Lune Estuary transporting lecky from Heysham nuclear power station:

[UpWrong]

Yep, let's stop focussing on the needs of Southern England and provide solar power to the northern powerhouse. There's plenty of non-arable land in the Pennines where solar farms can be located.

[axel_knutt]

The food security argument's just an contrivance of the NIMBYs who don't want solar.
All current and future solar put together uses about half what's used by airports and golf courses:
.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-i ... -farmland/
.

The calories beef yields from all this land could be produced by arable farming using just a thirtieth of the area:
.

[Cugel]

Golf courses - plant the lot with large trees, fruit bushes (especially brambles and goosegogs) and other useful growths! Most golfers will be more than happy to become MAMILs instead, with oodles of shiny new bikes and I'm-a-TdeFer togs. They can even have their own cafes with snobby membership rules.

Just lately the ladywife has been concocting various nut burger and similar. These are nutricious and V-tasty. No cow, pig, chicken or lamb murdering required. We're down to the occasional sausage as our only meat .... but Cadi the collie, although a food-seeking missile eager to eat anything and owt, won't countenance meat-free. Perhaps I'll train her to hunt down and eat sheep farmers? That would be sweet revenge for the eight years of mistreatment she received from one up in North Wales.

I'll tell her to make it quick, as I'm not sure I could stand their screams.

[pwa]

Golf courses - plant the lot with large trees, fruit bushes (especially brambles and goosegogs) and other useful growths! Most golfers will be more than happy to become MAMILs instead, with oodles of shiny new bikes and I'm-a-TdeFer togs. They can even have their own cafes with snobby membership rules.

Just lately the ladywife has been concocting various nut burger and similar. These are nutricious and V-tasty. No cow, pig, chicken or lamb murdering required. We're down to the occasional sausage as our only meat .... but Cadi the collie, although a food-seeking missile eager to eat anything and owt, won't countenance meat-free. Perhaps I'll train her to hunt down and eat sheep farmers? That would be sweet revenge for the eight years of mistreatment she received from one up in North Wales.

I'll tell her to make it quick, as I'm not sure I could stand their screams.

Just to balance that out, the only sheep farmer I regularly speak to has about half a dozen collies that always seem to me to be healthy and well behaved. The oldest is retired from working and is a softie, always coming over to get a tickle behind the ear.

I don't eat meat, but my dog does. I know some people reckon dogs can tolerate a meat-free diet, but I am swayed by the similarity of my dog's teeth to those of a wolf.

[pwa]

The food security argument's just an contrivance of the NIMBYs who don't want solar.
All current and future solar put together uses about half what's used by airports and golf courses:
.
Land use #1.png

Land use #2.png
https://www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-i ... -farmland/
.

The calories beef yields from all this land could be produced by arable farming using just a thirtieth of the area:
.

Land use #3.png

Solar farms can be bleedin ugly though, and I wonder if the folk who are so keen on them enjoy holidays in the UK countryside, or if their enthusiasm is based on the fact that they fly away for their holidays.

The problem for me is that if I don't want to see solar farms, I want them to be on flat land not close to hills. But that would put them on some of the most productive land.... I think the only practical way to keep our landscapes is to allow a limited amount of solar in lots of places, making the negative impact in any individual location tolerable.

But one of the big downsides of renewables is having to put new grid infrastructure through some of our least spoilt landscapes. That needs careful handling to minimise the negative aspects.

[853]

The Cambrians of Wales - AKA The Green Desert of Wales - is a large area in which the only significant farming is sheep farming. The case against sheep farming is very compelling, even for the sheep farmers, as it produces hardly any income and has to be heavily subsidised, produces very little meat and sees an enormous wastage of wool that, now, nobody wants. Sheep farming also badly degrades the land into - a green desert bereft of the wide bio-diversity places like The Cambrians used to have a long time ago before the blasted wooly beasts arrived.

There's a case that putting windmills and solar panels in this desert will not only be relatively unobtrusive but will greatly improve the bio-diversity. It would also provide far more well paid jobs than sheep farming! And, personally, I greatly enjoy walking through the windmill-peppered forest near here, which is lush and also free of pylons.

I can see an obvious problem with solar panels, in that this is not a level or particularly flat area. I think it would be difficult (and therefore expensive) to install the rows of solar panels facing south at the same height and angle.

I've no objection to the windmills, however, and think it might be a successful way to help camouflage the sheep as they're the same colour

[pwa]

The "Mid Wales Desert" isn't a desert, and I have never understood how some idiot could have come up with that name. It is one of those special regions where people from more populous parts of the UK can go to be in a place with few people and not a lot of man-made clutter. Just the earth and the sky, and the wildlife that thrives in such places. I have had some of my finest cycling moments moving though that landscape. We would lose something if we clutter it up with loads of infrastructure. And we would be repeating the arrogant appropriation of chunks of rural Wales that happened when valleys were flooded to provide a water supply for distant urban areas. I feel very uncomfortable with it.