Potential sites for new mega-solar farms

[Agent_zed]

I'm not sure you've quite grasped the enormity of the crisis young people are likely to face if nothing significant's done to mitigate climate change.

Oh I understand it, I have a young son who will grow up into that world. It plays on my mind constantly. I don't know how we get past the people blocking it though. Ulimately the only thing that can make it change is the government imposing rules to make people change. That requires all the people that are being 'bought' by big business to be ousted. It requires intelligent decisions to be made to push our energy infrastrure in the right direction and it requires citizens to get on board and make personal changes.

 

[treeturner123]

Complete and utter nonsense.
The distribution of wealth has been steeply upwards for a long time now, with inequalities getting ever more severe.
At the same time top rates of tax are at an historical low.
This is a major cause of our decline in world terms and a deliberate ideological tory policy.
It's also a major opportunity to claw back these ill-gotten gains and increase public spending.
"Wealth inequality is high and rising and more marked than income inequality. In the UK, the bottom 50% of the population owned less than 5% of wealth in 2021, and the top 10% a staggering 57% (up from 52.5% in 1995). The top 1% alone held 23% (World Inequality Lab, 2022)."

Google the topic - you will find page after page saying much the same thing https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/

Yes, Jacob, but the top wealth owners also provide, I think from memory, around 1/3rd of the total income tax take in this country. They also buy more and more expensive goods and therefore pay much more of the total VAT.

These two taxes are two of the major sources of government income.

So, given that there is a limited total wealth, would giving (how?) more to the bottom, increase, decrease or leave the income tax/VAT tax take the same?

I think we know the answer to that.

Phil.

 

[Jacob]

Yes, Jacob, but the top wealth owners also provide, I think from memory, around 1/3rd of the total income tax take in this country.

Yes but it's not enough

They also buy more and more expensive goods and therefore pay much more of the total VAT.

They also buy more and more expensive goods, which means they have more than they need!

It's weird how so many people leap to the defence of the extreme wealth of so few. I blame the media, plus the old habit of grovelling deference to "our lords and masters".

 

[treeturner123]

Anyway, we have strayed well of the subject and to return, while I am all in favour of wind farms and solar farms, my big concern is that the easiest and therefore cheapest site to develop are also generally the areas of best farming land. We are therefore in danger, because no recent government has thought of farming and seems to treat Jeremey Clarkson as joke, of REDUCING our farming output and therefore being even more reliant on imports which, just to remind all, although may be cost less cash have the following issues:-

Are not as fresh
Cost more carbon to move
Are produced generally with less thought for the environment
And, for livestock, are almost certainly produced to lower welfare standards than UK farming.

Phil

 

[ian33a]

We live in an old house, much of it either cob or solid stone and we are 1.5 miles from a nine rotor wind farm.

The owners of the wind farm subsidise our electricity bill to the tune of just under £140 a year for the inconvenience of having the turbines. To be honest, I think that it is a fair trade as the turbines actually don't contribute any appreciable noise and, being an engineer by profession, they have a certain attraction in my eye on account of their gracefulness, energy contribution and structure.

It's difficult to insulate our house much more than it already is without mucking up the look of it - and that's the last thing that we want to do. We have solar panels on the back of the garage and workshop roof and a bank of batteries to soak up the excess solar power. It's about the best that we can sensibly do, or afford to do. So many owners of old houses are just like us.

Drive a few miles in any direction and a solar farm will appear. Rows upon rows of solar panels sprinkled upon the hillsides, occasionally glinting in the sun. Same is true for other land based wind turbine farms. We also see individual ones, often quite close to the road - quite colossal structures.

To me, they are not a blot on the landscape, mostly they sit quite well and, being completely honest, it seems daft to me to open ourselves up as a nation to fossil fuel dictators when we have golden opportunities here and now which are cleaner. So, so, many of the wingers and complainers who hate the idea of renewable energy sources on their door steps are doing so based upon the thought of how it might be rather than how it actually is.

As to building on decent farm land, yes, it is a problem, but so is importing cheap produce from half way across the globe and undercutting UK farmers. No wonder so many of them have rented out their land to renewable energy producers, it's a safer and more profitable deal for them.

Something positive needs to be done and, if done in a practical and sensitive fashion there is so much to be gained.

 

[treeturner123]

Yes but it's not enough

They also buy more and more expensive goods, which means they have more than they need!

It's weird how so many people leap to the defence of the extreme wealth of so few. I blame the media, plus the old habit of grovelling deference to "our lords and masters".

Before I am really rude, I can assure you that I am not in any way grovelling, just trying to be a bit more objective that some on this forum.

As far as 'Buying More than they need', Do you really NEED all the tools you have acquired over the years...? Surely you only NEED, 7 pairs of socks and, say 5 shirts plus a few T shirts? I could go on.

Phil

 

[Jacob]

Anyway, we have strayed well of the subject and to return, while I am all in favour of wind farms and solar farms, my big concern is that the easiest and therefore cheapest site to develop are also generally the areas of best farming land.

Wind power best on high ground not good for farming

We are therefore in danger, because no recent government has thought of farming and seems to treat Jeremey Clarkson as joke,

Yes we all think he's a joke, just not a very funny one.

of REDUCING our farming output and therefore being even more reliant on imports

Less meat production world wide is an inevitable item in terms of reducing CO2 and methane.

.......
And, for livestock, are almost certainly produced to lower welfare standards than UK farming.

I doubt this is true. The whole point of Brexit was to reduce regulation and quality controls, as forced upon us by EU. We chose the downward path.

 

[Spectric]

The owners of the wind farm subsidise our electricity bill to the tune of just under £140 a year for the inconvenience of having the turbines.

If you think what they are generating then that is a really insignificant amount of compensation and have you thought about any impact on your house if you ever decide to sell it ?

Wind power best on high ground not good for farming

Much better at sea where they get plenty of less turbulent air due to no hills and buildings.

 

[Agent_zed]

If you travel through france there are thousands of wind turbines in the fields. Makes no difference to farming as far as I can see, except for the small amount of space directly underneith.

solar panel farms seems less sensible to me as it is on good farming ground in most cases and I'm suspicious that if it is then classes as brown field site it might one day become a housing estate.

Imo a law needs to come in to make all new buildings to have solar. They built a new lidl in my town a couple of years back. Could have easily covered the roof in panels and offset most/all of their energy requirements. Same with schools.

 

[paulrbarnard]

I'm not sure you've quite grasped the enormity of the crisis young people are likely to face if nothing significant's done to mitigate climate change.

Not sure how you classify climate change as an older people problem. Everyone is contributing there.
That said maybe we shouldn’t worry about climate change as there is an increasingly high probability of a global conflict which would likely involve nuclear weapons. Putin, Trump and Xie are all boomers so I guess you can blame that one on the older generation.

 

[paulrbarnard]

Complete and utter nonsense.
The distribution of wealth has been steeply upwards for a long time now, with inequalities getting ever more severe.
At the same time top rates of tax are at an historical low.
This is a major cause of our decline in world terms and a deliberate ideological tory policy.
It's also a major opportunity to claw back these ill-gotten gains and increase public spending.
"Wealth inequality is high and rising and more marked than income inequality. In the UK, the bottom 50% of the population owned less than 5% of wealth in 2021, and the top 10% a staggering 57% (up from 52.5% in 1995). The top 1% alone held 23% (World Inequality Lab, 2022)."

Google the topic - you will find page after page saying much the same thing https://equalitytrust.org.uk/scale-economic-inequality-uk/

Wealth distribution a Tory problem? Have you looked at the wealth distribution for China and Russia?

 

[Phil Pascoe]

or India.

 

[Jacob]

Wealth distribution a Tory problem? Have you looked at the wealth distribution for China and Russia?

I see no connection? They are not part of the UK.

 

[Chris152]

Not sure how you classify climate change as an older people problem. Everyone is contributing there.

It's younger people who'll have to live through the consequences - that was the point I was making in the sentence you quoted. And we can be sure that if things play out as badly as looks possible, conflict and wars will follow that.

 

[Spectric]

It's younger people who'll have to live through the consequences

But is that not always the case, the younger generation are living with what decisions are made by the older generation until they become the older generation and then make the decisions. The real problem is that too many bad decisions seem to be made because they benefit that current generation without enough thought for the future generations who will pick up the tab. Nuclear waste is a good example where we just want to dig a hole and bury it which will be a very unpleasant legacy for the future generations who will need to address it and how will they judge us for that decision.

 

[treeturner123]

Wind power best on high ground not good for farming

Yes we all think he's a joke, just not a very funny one.

Less meat production world wide is an inevitable item in terms of reducing CO2 and methane.

I doubt this is true. The whole point of Brexit was to reduce regulation and quality controls, as forced upon us by EU. We chose the downward path.

Jacob

Take your blinkers off, look around you and realise what farming does actually do. In any case, have you never realised that a field of broccoli is far less environmentally friendly than a field of livestock?

One is a monoculture with no mixture of species, the other is a well integrated and often very long standing micro environment that we should encourage.#

As far as Clarkson, yes, he seems to do foolish things, but it is to make the point which clearly you and others don't get because it's so easy to pop down to Aldi and not care where the produce you buy comes from.

 

[paulrbarnard]

I see no connection? They are not part of the UK.

I never put you down as a Little Englander. Live and learn I suppose.

 

[treeturner123]

I see no connection? They are not part of the UK.

The connection is, Wealth distribution, not location.

 

[Spectric]

The connection is, Wealth distribution, not location.

They are very much linked, we are thinking of the distribution amongst the people but what about the wealth distribution between countries where we are seeing a drain from the west to the east and lets not forget Amazon who are having a massive impact on UK retail and have essentially moved UK retail abroad.

 

[Jacob]

Jacob

Take your blinkers off, look around you and realise what farming does actually do. In any case, have you never realised that a field of broccoli is far less environmentally friendly than a field of livestock?

Not in terms of CO2 and methane production. These are the bigger issues by far.
It's easy to confuse other environmental issues with the one big CO2 issue hanging over us.