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People are losing their shit in my area over this...
...the big joke is the main group behind the campaign have been using power hungry AI generated images to show how scary these pylons are!
BBC.CO.UK I'm also close to this. Someone posted a map of the proposed pylon route and expressed horror at the views it would spoil. I pointed out that it was going to devastate the scenic vista that is the A38.
MuffinMan and I are also very familiar with the battles over the huge disused mill in Belper. If it's made usable/converted it might lose it's World Heritage status - not clear how far it has to fall down before it would lose it anyway.
Closer to home, there is horror that we may lose one of the fields on the edge of our middle class "village". Most of the "village" was fields until the late 1970s, and in the 60s there was a ****ing coal mine at the bottom of the hill!
Though I saw a recent report that there are 900,000 vacant or second homes, plus brownfield sites, so there are some valid concerns on housing
Reactionary conservative pensioners upset that the world around them is changing.
Try being a a councillor in an area that's almost entirely composed of greenbelt and dealing with all this.
Fact is we have massive mandatory house building targets imposed on us from Westminster (By the Tories and then supercharged under Starmer's lot) but because 'The council is responsible for planning' the council not the government tend to helpfully catch the local heat for any and all efforts to meet these targets that they've had come down for from above.
We are going to have a very tough time in some wards in the local elections as a direct result of these plans, the peak of hypocrisy being that in one ward the Labour candidate from the party of 'build build build' is running on a platform of.. you guessed it... opposing house building!
Though I saw a recent report that there are 900,000 vacant or second homes, plus brownfield sites, so there are some valid concerns on housing
It's still a NIMBY point of view though.... "I've moved/live somewhere lovely and green, but any new homes should be in brownfield sites, not in this lovely green area... other people shouldn't get to live here."
huge swathes of land disappearing under solar panels
Solar is actually *good* for agriculture, at least some of the time and some of the places. Heat stress is a real problem for livestock and will only increase in the future (especially if we burn more fossil fuels rather than ....invest in solar). Shelter for sheep is a genuine benefit. Reduced evaporation also helps the crops grown, and water stress is again likely to get worse in the future. If panels cut out the need for artificial irrigation, there's an even bigger benefit, but most of the UK isn't at this point yet.
The shading effect doesn't affect yield that much, light generally isn't the limiting factor for growth (temperature/nutrients/water all matter too).
And of course having sheep grazing around the panels reduces (eliminates) the need for humans to cut the grass.
There's a lot of opposition near me to the proposed routes of the Peak Cluster CO2 pipeline that will bring polluting gas from the likes of that Hope cement factory for storage in the empty gas caverns under Liverpool bay.
Oh aye, our local Facebook group is alive with that. It's going to pass within 500m of our house, I hope we don't die of death because of it.
How do you sow and harvest crops under solar panels, how high off the ground do they have to be to let light and rain through?
I’ve heard the sheep argument before but not this one, my interest is piqued!
PROJECTSOLARUK.COM Search "Agrivoltaics".
Developers corrupted friends are out in force today I see.
Shortly followed by the tinfoil hat brigade?
TBH I'm mostly thinking of sheep as that's what I see round here and it's a very straightforward case. But also from a global perspective there are other areas where the heat and water issues are much greater wins.
Of course there can also be yield losses too. But it's not a simple as a hectare of solar supplanting a hectare of agriculture. Rather, it's more of a multi-crop where you get to harvest electrons as well as conventional farm crops.
And of course having sheep grazing around the panels reduces (eliminates) the need for humans to cut the grass.
We suggested geese on a norfolk PV site. Some one pointed out the geese would shit all over them.
I restrained myself from asking whether he was planning to lift them up and hold them.
Flying flocks was another solution we suggested returning to old farming practices.
The carbon storage pipelines are just pushing the problem onto future generations a bit like nuclear power waste storage.
Out of curiosity
how did we make that connection ?
I restrained myself from asking whether he was planning to lift them up and hold them.
I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have been able to keep my trap shut in the same circumstances
huge swathes of land disappearing under solar panels
Solar is actually *good* for agriculture, at least some of the time and some of the places. Heat stress is a real problem for livestock and will only increase in the future (especially if we burn more fossil fuels rather than ....invest in solar). Shelter for sheep is a genuine benefit. Reduced evaporation also helps the crops grown, and water stress is again likely to get worse in the future. If panels cut out the need for artificial irrigation, there's an even bigger benefit, but most of the UK isn't at this point yet.
The shading effect doesn't affect yield that much, light generally isn't the limiting factor for growth (temperature/nutrients/water all matter too).
And of course having sheep grazing around the panels reduces (eliminates) the need for humans to cut the grass.
I don’t really see why people are obsessed with solar panels, there’s a lot of land literally sat there looking green, a few fields of panels aren’t a big deal and just ripping thru the limited amount of fossil fuel just seems mad.
I expect there’s a whole load of anti solar arm chair critics who actual rarely set foot in the actual countryside.
I think using it for shade is great serves 2 practical purposes, I suppose the reality is they need to make it colour match where it going then people couldn’t have the argument cos they wouldn’t see it 🙂
I’m in favour of “green” energy but the huge swathes of land disappearing under solar panels
Huge swarths of farmland is ecological desert anyway so it's not great loss. Solar panel fields I would imagine could likely increase biodiversity with very little effort.
Without looking very far - from the “developer” themselves, via the RSPB -
“Berwick Bank offshore wind farm has been consented by the Scottish Government despite being in a highly important area for wildlife, especially seabirds. It is predicted to have severe impacts – the applicant predicts adult annual mortality of thousands of Guillemots, hundreds of Kittiwakes and scores of Razorbills and Puffins. The magnitude of these impacts is so significant it could likely hinder the conservation of sites designated to protect these species.”
I suspected this would be the source. They are no doubt quoting from impact analysis but it is quite selective and they certainly aren't afraid of adding their own colourful (non-scientific) language.
I'm not sure the RSPB are the bastion of impartiality you might hope. Current RSPB board member:
"Who is Ben Caldecott? Among other roles, he is a senior fellow at Policy Exchange. Policy Exchange calls itself a thinktank. I see it as a dark money lobby group, and one of the most deadly anti-environmental organisations in the UK. For instance, it published a report titled Extremism Rebellion, claiming that nonviolent environmental campaigners and campaigns could stray into terrorism, and calling for new laws to curtail them. Its proposals were adopted by the government in the draconian Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022. Investigative journalists later discovered that Policy Exchange had previously been funded by the energy interests ExxonMobil, Drax, Energy UK and E.On."
taken from
THEGUARDIAN.COM As I understand it the research into windfarm bird mortality rates that developers use in impact analysis it quite controversial, relying heavily on modelling that makes huge assumptions rather than from direct empirical evidence. One of the assumptions being the pessimistic parameters around avoidance behaviour.
There are loads of human made structures that birds manage to routinely not fly into. If you live near any onshore windfarms and regularly walk near or around them you don't really see lots of dead birds scattered around the base.
I'm not a cheerleader for blind development but the lobbying groups acting against the energy transition are formidable - well funded, well connected, and not afraid to start the odd war.
The argument against green energy development "that it does nothing for those directly affected" always amuses me. You mean other than reduced energy costs and increased energy security over time. Reducing spend on overseas imported fuel and spending on domestic production ... and the small issue of addressing climate change.
I'm beginning to not give a **** anymore if people are that stupid **** em. I'm getting on and I've got no kids so why do I care so much
According to QI last night, painting one blade black on wind turbines vastly reduces bird strikes and okay I know this conversation is about seabirds but domestic cats kill orders of magnitude more birds than wind turbines.
Ah... but people love their pets. Anyway, back to seabirds... climate change is effecting them negatively far more than any efforts to decarbonise and reduce/slow that change, including off shore wind generation. And then there's balloons and other plastic pollution...
As above, people seem to care more about fighting against the energy transition than combating climate change which will prove orders of magnitude more damaging than any collection of wind turbines. But I guess most will be dead before the real impacts of climate change happen so I guess f### all our offspring and anyone remaining for the sake of having to look at a solar panel or wind turbine
Solar “farms” and wind “farms” don’t reduce anyones bills as the price is artificially high due to contracts and links to gas fired production, and, the energy is sold on the “open” market so also kept high.
I’m all for “green” energy as I have said previously but there are far more efficient and local ways to do it. Solar panels on houses, commercial and public buildings = less losses from transmission and less direct impact on the environment.
Community energy as used to be practised around big industrial sites worked very well!
Well, reducing reliance on gas will break that link to gas prices. That price/cost link can and will be broken, but for that to work the ramping up of the share of electricity derived from renewable energy is required. More solar and wind generation is essential to escape world gas pricing. Of course local schemes (and domestic energy capture) can and should also play their part.
Well, reducing reliance on gas will break that link to gas prices. That price/cost link can and will be broken,
Its an artifical link . Political decisions could change it. Like grid access charges its all about the fake market not reality
Saw an article about this at the weekend. Maybe people are protesting about it because CCS doesn't actually work at scale, so it's a huge waste of money on a token effort to be green?
No, that's definitely not why people are objecting. It's NOMBYism with all sorts of selfish/lame reasons.
The responsible way would be to investigate methods of removing the problem at source by different production methods or capture at source.
These schemes are precisely to capture at source, then the pipeline takes it away for long term storage.
Its an artifical link . Political decisions could change it.
It’s not purely artificial, it’s been used to grow non-gas sources for the grid. Politically the link could be broken anytime, but at a cost. It will be broken soon enough… changes to the energy mix will both enable and demand that. We could be there within 18 months the way things are going.
GRID.IAMKATE.COM A slight tangent, on carbon dioxide. How is the C02 produced from brewing or industrial processes different from the C02 that is produced in the plant that the Government has just re-opened? Couldn’t this be used for food preservation etc instead of putting it under the sea? Is that too simplistic?
its not the actual cost of the energy generated tho is it? Thus its an artificially inflated cost
Nothing you buy is ever just the cost of producing it.
You know my point. tying the cost of electricity to expensive gas means the price is artifically high.
Saw an article about this at the weekend. Maybe people are protesting about it because CCS doesn't actually work at scale, so it's a huge waste of money on a token effort to be green?
A link would be handy. Economically viable and not working are two different things
Is that too simplistic?
Not really. Except for volume and timing. The “co2 plants” purify industrial byproducts. These new CCU schemes do include trying to utilise the co2 in future, but it still needs to be stored somewhere, and currently concrete production is releasing it straight into the atmosphere.
Sure there is going to be a handful of birds fly into wind turbines but is it significant?
I was reading about the alleged high incidence of birds being killed by wind turbines recently. Apparently, there’s little evidence to back that assertion up - birds aren’t stupid, (apart from pheasants, which are bred to be stupid but fast, to make the sport of blowing what few brains there are out of their heads more fun for rich people to kill). Most other birds can navigate around them, although painting one blade a darker colour allows birds to see the rotation more clearly. If widely spaced turbines cause such problems, how come fast moving birds don’t seem to have issues flying through closely spaced trees in woodlands?
Every flood alleviation scheme ever.
Thats not true. I have worked on a fair few where there have been zero issues.
Communication and engagement go a long way.
I've done the communication and engagement on big flood protection schemes in places where people have died in floods, massive freight rail lines where landholders are powerless to prevent acquisition, controversial proposed mines, changed road alignments, national marine reserves, world heritage sites, probably some other things I can't remember.
Flood protection probably was one of the least controversial because the impacts of not doing the work can be terrible. Although when it comes to needing to move people because the land is no longer defendable it can get a bit dicey.
I completely understand the NIMBYism when it comes to these things. It's scary. Someone powerful (who normally is benefitting somehow, often financially) says they're going to make a change that could impact your life in any number of ways. It’s natural to be suspicious because you can never be sure that what you’re getting told is true or not*. People fear change and they also know about all the examples of other people getting shafted.
Then when you go and stand in a community hall or sit at someone’s kitchen table to talk to them about potential impacts you don’t always have all the information available because it’s too early in the life of the project. I had a nasty three days visiting remote farms discussing impacts of duplicating a rail line through their properties. Halfway through the trip the client told us (by phone) that there was possibly now going to be a triplication… “but don’t tell them that.” We could already see how difficult it was with one line, the increase in traffic would have been horrendous.
A former colleague that used to do this type of work is going through this now. A rail line is being expanded near her house. The initial designs showed a 200+ metre buffer of forest between their property and the new line, but when work started that was massively reduced. The designs were changed but they hadn’t been told.
The best responses I've seen to these projects has been from farmers in what you might call the Outback. They find ways to tie up the proponents and cream a tidy profit. I worked on one proposed mining project where one of the impacted farmers said nobody was allowed on his land to do surveys without his personal accompaniment to ensure his protocols were adhered to. He then charged the mining company $330/hr for his time… and they needed a lot of time. Eventually the mining company went bust anyway. He must have laughed his head off.
Another sold some of his land to a multinational mining company for a rail line for a massively inflated sum more than $10m, then rented back from them in the meantime. When the boom of the time went bust and the rail project died they tried to sell it back to him and he laughed in their faces offered them the market rate (he wouldn’t tell me exact figures).
*the same goes for the people working on the project. The work I did was typically as an independent contractor as required by legislation, but ultimately, I lost trust in too many of the clients.
I’m in favour of “green” energy but the huge swathes of land disappearing under solar panels
Huge swarths of farmland is ecological desert anyway so it's not great loss. Solar panel fields I would imagine could likely increase biodiversity with very little effort.
Our local council has had its own solar farm offsetting all of its power usage for nearly 10 years. Funny to think how controversial it was when it replaced the sugar cane (not an environmentally friendly crop to grow).
The best responses I've seen to these projects has been from farmers in what you might call the Outback. They find ways to tie up the proponents and cream a tidy profit.
In amongst the genuine NIMBYism (fear of change, confusion etc) there are almost invariably some grifters too. Classic in the UK is the LTNs (again...) where some very opaque "community" groups were set up posting a mix of mis/dis information and also fundraising to take the council to court, to seek judicial review and so on. Most of that money donated by genuine residents was never accounted for, the judicial review cases that did happen were almost entirely a complete failure.
Some of the groups aligned themselves to political candidates too, (and fundraising to support their bid for local council glory), all promising to rip out the hated LTNs on day one and almost all failing to gain any meaningful support at all. Again, no accounts to show how the money was spent. By an incredible coincidence they were almost all Tory and/or Reform candidates, maybe a couple of "Independent" (ie, former Tory, not yet got around to converting to Reform).
The whole lot was grift and scam and bullshit.
To be fair Flavor Flav's campaign to have massive community sundials installed in every town and village was a bit much.
The whole lot was grift and scam and bullshit.
Yes, and in the meantime it’s had a chilling effect on active travel elsewhere as councils can’t face the fight, and local politicians who should know better have chosen it as a wedge issue based on Facebook noise rather than the reality.
Local campaigners in South Shields were objecting to a revamped cycle path. Claiming that the narrowing of the road (I've not noticed a difference while driving along it) would endanger pedestrians, as they now have to walk next to the parked cars, closer to the traffic. Except for the parking lay-by, which runs nearly the whole length, new street lighting (that's another protest) and a lowered speed limit.
IMO, the whole thing is a huge improvement. Moving the cycle path next to the grass was obviously a decision made by a cycling councillor. Previously, cycling along there on the narrower lane, next to the parked cars was a dooring waiting to happen
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Well, reducing reliance on gas will break that link to gas prices. That price/cost link can and will be broken,
Its an artifical link . Political decisions could change it. Like grid access charges its all about the fake market not reality
Yep it’s insane, they could literally lower the prices overnight by rejigging the equation they use.
Solar “farms” and wind “farms” don’t reduce anyones bills as the price is artificially high due to contracts and links to gas fired production, and, the energy is sold on the “open” market so also kept high.
One of the good things the government are actually doing at the moment is breaking this nonsensical link, so that energy generated by renewables will no longer be tied to the gas price. The legislation was being discussed this week in parliament but everyone was on about Peter Mandleson instead.
I’m in favour of “green” energy but the huge swathes of land disappearing under solar panels
Someone from the Green Party was on the radio the other day saying instead of putting solar farms in farmers fields, why not cover the roof area's of buildings like large warehouses with them. The company I'm working for is in the process of doing this at the moment and already has loads of solar powered kit that's completely replaced diesel generators out on site.
The best responses I've seen to these projects has been from farmers in what you might call the Outback. They find ways to tie up the proponents and cream a tidy profit.
In amongst the genuine NIMBYism (fear of change, confusion etc) there are almost invariably some grifters too. Classic in the UK is the LTNs (again...) where some very opaque "community" groups were set up posting a mix of mis/dis information and also fundraising to take the council to court, to seek judicial review and so on. Most of that money donated by genuine residents was never accounted for, the judicial review cases that did happen were almost entirely a complete failure.
Some of the groups aligned themselves to political candidates too, (and fundraising to support their bid for local council glory), all promising to rip out the hated LTNs on day one and almost all failing to gain any meaningful support at all. Again, no accounts to show how the money was spent. By an incredible coincidence they were almost all Tory and/or Reform candidates, maybe a couple of "Independent" (ie, former Tory, not yet got around to converting to Reform).
The whole lot was grift and scam and bullshit.
Always someone ready to take advantage of a group of people already radicalised against something that probably in reality doesn’t affect them, handy to align them to your cause as it’s less work.
Solar “farms” and wind “farms” don’t reduce anyones bills as the price is artificially high due to contracts and links to gas fired production, and, the energy is sold on the “open” market so also kept high.
One of the good things the government are actually doing at the moment is breaking this nonsensical link, so that energy generated by renewables will no longer be tied to the gas price. The legislation was being discussed this week in parliament but everyone was on about Peter Mandleson instead.
I’m in favour of “green” energy but the huge swathes of land disappearing under solar panels
Someone from the Green Party was on the radio the other day saying instead of putting solar farms in farmers fields, why not cover the roof area's of buildings like large warehouses with them. The company I'm working for is in the process of doing this at the moment and already has loads of solar powered kit that's completely replaced diesel generators out on site.
I was staying at a hotel in Benidorm with a lot of solar on the roof and did a dance to get a card from reception to charge my car.
As it wasn’t a cheap hotel I was expecting to be rinsed but was well surprised when they charged me €5 , so my trip home 108 miles was €5
Some of our local landowners, who are firmly in the fierce opposition to the energy transition camp when it comes to defending their investment portfolios, are quietly installing solar on their estates. Just far enough away from their listed buildings to not need listed buildings consent, unlike the plebs in town that are covered by archaic conservation area rules.
So little visual impact on the ground, you barely notice them and actually need to look quite hard to realise they are there.
They clearly see the economic benefits in their own back yards.