Are any of you guilty of nimbyism - objecting to solar farms?

M0nica

Just noticed that wind power currently accounts for only 1% of our current power consumption. That is the problem with wind, one day it is all over you like a rash, the next day it avoids you like the plague.

All those hundreds of wind turbines, offshore and on, currently producing next to no power at all.

A cold calm day in January there will be hardly any renewable power, so we do need nuclear and fossil fuel available, even if we only use it when neeeded in the future.

MaizieD

^sheep are always rotationally grazed, moved onto fresh pasture every 3 or 4 weeks to prevent parasite build up.^

I really think not, Katie59. Sheep around my area (and there are a lot of sheep around my area) stay on the same fields for months at a time. Where are you getting your information from?

That’s what they should do, it’s good practice, sheep can be very unproductive if left on the same land.

Katie59

M0nica

Just noticed that wind power currently accounts for only 1% of our current power consumption. That is the problem with wind, one day it is all over you like a rash, the next day it avoids you like the plague.

All those hundreds of wind turbines, offshore and on, currently producing next to no power at all.

A cold calm day in January there will be hardly any renewable power, so we do need nuclear and fossil fuel available, even if we only use it when neeeded in the future.

Please read my post from around 5pm yesterday and remember that there are more sources of renewable energy than those 2 you mention.

We will probably have to keep some fossil fuel capacity for emergencies. But nuclear must be phased out, we certainly don't need to invest in any more. By-products from a nuclear industry will make dealing with carbon look like a walk in the park.

Sorry, just noticed you didn't mention specific sources. But I think you were talking about solar and wind.

Katie59

MaizieD

sheep are always rotationally grazed, moved onto fresh pasture every 3 or 4 weeks to prevent parasite build up.

I really think not, Katie59. Sheep around my area (and there are a lot of sheep around my area) stay on the same fields for months at a time. Where are you getting your information from?

That’s what they should do, it’s good practice, sheep can be very unproductive if left on the same land.

Why are you so reluctant to tell us the source of your information, Katie59?. This is sheep husbandry nonsense. where are you getting it from?

Volver Neither hydro, geothermal or sun can fill the gap between variations in wind power in this country. None can play a significant role other than in the margins.

Ennergy from the sea, tidal lagoons, or in sea generators can. Nuclear is going to have to play a significant part until we have fusion. It might not be what we want, but when you compare the damage that theoretically be done by a nuclear incident - and no major incident has done so yet with the damage coal has done over the centuries, and is still doing and the many millions of people whose death has been hastened or directly caused by the coal industry from pit face to domestic hearth, it is the preferable option.

I have spent most of my life living near nuclear facilities of various kinds and it has never caused me a moment's worry. I am aware of the potential dangers, in the same way I am aware of the danger of a large metiorite strike, but I am also aware of the probabilities. Coal killed my grandmother and caused her a lifetime of ill health - her and millions more in this country alone.

As a scientist and living close enough to a nuclear power station, bring it on. Nuclear power is very much the future of clean green energy. The more investment the better and great news that rolls royce will be manufacturing the mini nuclear power plants for all over the uk

Solar is also a way forward but not those awful massive solar panel fields which should be used for food production. I am glad to see that solar tiles have now been developed and will be the next stage in going solar in the uk, every building could have them and they will not look ugly. They just need light and not sun.

There is hope for self sustaining energy in the uk

M0nica its such short termism that has got us where we are. The attitude that everything else is just not good enough so we better stick with what we’ve got. We need it all, barrages, solar, wind, geothermal, everything. We need to keep some fossil fuel capacity in the background. But nothing will ever convince me that nuclear is the future. It’s not useful to compare it with coal because we don’t use coal any more. We used coal when we didn’t know how damaging it was, and now we do, we’ve stopped using it. We can’t sail ahead and use nuclear saying well at least its better than coal, when we are just storing up a disaster for the future.

There is, whether you are worried about it or not, a danger from the very existence of nuclear power stations. Chernobyl, Fukoshima, Three Mile Island. Maybe Zaporizhzhia next? But that is only one aspect. The by-products of nuclear fission are radioactive for 10s of thousands of years. We don’t know how to deal with them. Currently, the idea is to hide them in a deep hole and hope that future generations think of a way of sorting it. Taking this route just so that current politicians get to say they have solved the energy crisis is not the right thing to do. And I include all politicians, British, French, whatever.

I wonder what kind of scientist you are karmalady? Physicist, chemist, biologist? You know that that these mini-reactors of Rolls Royce’s are as big as a football pitch? “Mini” is all relative. When I hear people say that nuclear is the clean green fuel of the future it makes me so angry, because people who say that don’t know what they are talking about, sorry. (Just for info, the kind of scientist I am is one that got their PhD from studying photovoltaics and alternative energy sources.)

“Why are you so reluctant to tell us the source of your information, Katie59?. This is sheep husbandry nonsense. where are you getting it from?”

Family are in farming and this is how they look after sheep, and what all should be doing and mostly are

M0nica

Chestnut i do look at telegraph poles and think them ugly, ditto pylons at times.

But since, neither I, nor any other poster on this thread, has a problem with solar farms, beyond, on occasion, their siting, which applies to telegraph poles, pylons and any other human-made prominent feature in the landscape, it is not really an issue.

I didn't mean posters on this thread, but rather people in general, who complain that wind turbines or solar panels are ugly, but have been looking at pylons and telegraph poles for many years and have accepted them as a necessary blight on our landscape.

Katie59

“Why are you so reluctant to tell us the source of your information, Katie59?. This is sheep husbandry nonsense. where are you getting it from?”

Family are in farming and this is how they look after sheep, and what all should be doing and mostly are

OK, Katie59. I give in. All the farmers in Weardale are doing it wrong...

Katie59

“Why are you so reluctant to tell us the source of your information, Katie59?. This is sheep husbandry nonsense. where are you getting it from?”

Family are in farming and this is how they look after sheep, and what all should be doing and mostly are

The part of Northamptonshire where I live is a big sheep-farming area, and most of the fields have sheep on them 365 days a year!

Volver No argument with you, in principle, but in times of urgency we need to concentrate time money and effort on those forms of alternative energy that can provide large quantities of energy. Currently the best for this are wind and water. Once we are virtually emission free, then we can explore the smaller scale low volume sources.

M0nica

Volver No argument with you, in principle, but in times of urgency we need to concentrate time money and effort on those forms of alternative energy that can provide large quantities of energy. Currently the best for this are wind and water. Once we are virtually emission free, then we can explore the smaller scale low volume sources.

I think we generally agree M0nica. There is a lot of dismissal of renewables on here though and a lot of misunderstanding.

Just seen this on Twitter M0nica ?

twitter.com/RussInCheshire/status/1563444566300438528

volver

M0nica

Volver No argument with you, in principle, but in times of urgency we need to concentrate time money and effort on those forms of alternative energy that can provide large quantities of energy. Currently the best for this are wind and water. Once we are virtually emission free, then we can explore the smaller scale low volume sources.

I think we generally agree M0nica. There is a lot of dismissal of renewables on here though and a lot of misunderstanding.

I can't see anyone 'dismissing' renewables. They are a long term solution, so of course we should be putting everything we have into building wind farms and solar panels, and any other form of renewable energy. But even if we managed to get enough renewable energy for 68 million people could this be relied on all year round? How long would it take to get it up and running and what do we do in the meantime?

Coming late to the discussion but for what it’s worth we have a number of solar farms near us, one very close and honestly you don’t really know they are there behind the hedge.

Except they don’t crop and slurry spray the field anymore. And there’s loads more birds and butterflies around.

Win, win, really.

I can't see anyone 'dismissing' renewables.

7:35 this morning. 22:56 on Thursday.

I agree that we need to do something to cover us in this emergency. But a big part of why we are in this emergency is that no governments have planned ahead to reduce our reliance on gas, which would led to a more balanced supply. So we need to start doing something about that now, not wait for the next crisis.

Just because something is a low percentage of the total now (e.g. wind in Andrew Neil's tweet) that doesn't mean it has to be a low proportion forever,

I have a question about geothermal volver and you seem to know a bit about it?

If it becomes a big thing and we draw large amounts f heat from the ground will it affect the ecosystem and the lives of all those little underground creatures?

Has anybody done any research on it? I can’t find anything.

Totally agree with you about no government thinking ahead.

Long term thinking sadly lacking.

Lathyrus

I have a question about geothermal volver and you seem to know a bit about it?

If it becomes a big thing and we draw large amounts f heat from the ground will it affect the ecosystem and the lives of all those little underground creatures?

Has anybody done any research on it? I can’t find anything.

I don't know a lot about it but I'll have a go ?

The heat is there anyway and is just "going to waste". It is generated far below the surface of the earth so I can't see it affecting ecosystems. My friends' house in Germany has a "pipe" or something below it that ducts the heat from far below the surface to their house and they use it for heating.

There's this, from National Geographic. education.nationalgeographic.org/resource/geothermal-energy

Thanks. I thought of it nearer the surface perhaps and cooling the temperatures there.

Mamardoit

The Sahara desert isn't in the EU. I doubt if Maggie could have stopped them.

I'm all for solar and wind power. However I do think solar panels should be in place on all warehouses and similar before valuable farmland is used. We are a small island with an ever increasing population and we need to produce food just as much as we did in WW2.

A bit late in responding but Thatcher didn't want to stop it, she just didn't want to join in the project. Probably didn't want to commit financially and she often didn't like EU projects.

In any event it still hasn't happened although there have been many studies with varying results.

Chestnut

biglouis I have always said this, that no-one seems to object to the pylons in the countryside and the telegraph poles in the street, which all look hideous if you actually look at them. Yet they complain about wind turbines looking ugly.

People may not complain about existing structures but
they do complain about new proposals. I used to live in Suffolk, close to the coast and I don't recall anyone who didn't mind the miles of pylons marching across the countryside.

There are proposals for yet more pylons to carry power from Sizewell 3 across the county all the way to Tilbury despite the possibility of offshore transportation. As far as I can tell undersea transportation has been rejected in the original planning applications because it would significantly reduce the impact to communities in the north of England and in Scotland. Whatever that means.

13 MPs have written to the Minister for energy and climate change asking for the consultation to reconsider the undersea option.

Sizewll 3 is to be built and operated by EDF and the Chinese Nuclear Power Corporation. Do we really want foreign ownership of yet more utilities?

Katie59

“Why are you so reluctant to tell us the source of your information, Katie59?. This is sheep husbandry nonsense. where are you getting it from?”

Family are in farming and this is how they look after sheep, and what all should be doing and mostly are

I don't recall seeing Welsh mountain sheep being rotated from field to field every month or so. I thought that they were left on the hills until brought down for the winter.