I do have solar panels on my roof and it seems very likely that critters of all kinds would recolonise the land under the panels as they are on legs.
I read somewhere that covering 2% of the Sahara with solar panels would power most of Europe. Using batteries would buffer times when the sun isn’t shining. Recent events show we really need to look for alternative energy sources. Living near the Bristol Channel I am all in favour of a tidal barrage but unfortunately it isn’t happening any time soon. Hopefully plug in “balcony” solar will be available soon - my garage roof is standing by!
But should we fix our energy prices? We move to a fix tomorrow that’s slightly more than the variable rate. At least there is no exit fee, should prices come down during the year.
I thought I read somewhere that the panels or associated infrastructure pollutes the soil such that it can no longer be used for agriculture. Utterly crazy if this is true to deploy them on agricultural land. Homes, large car parks and buildings makes sense if it can be done safely.
You’d imagine wind turbines could be decommisioned safely even if large lumps of concrete weren’t removed.
Let’s hope we get much closer to a truly viable cheap energy solution in the next 50 years ago assuming we haven’t wiped ourselves out by then.
Indeed, as others are said we are plagued with short termism at the moment, reading an apolitical essay from John Major on this he recently surmised … recent governments are tending towards short term knee jerk sound bite policies with increasing less insight to impact, leading to sharp corrections later as new crisis are created.
We are now about to enter a new crisis it appears, a UK food shortage crisis, from many causes. Until know it has fuelled in a major part cost of living, but now it appears the government is needing to prepare for food shortages as well as price rises this year… several reasons I know…but one is that agricultural loud may become less fertilized and ore expensive to intensively farm because of what is happening in the world… so handing over productive critical food growing land to solar panels is completely crazy. To quote Major if we carry on like this we will be in ‘deep doodah’.
With all these vast storage ware houses popping up by major trunk routes, why doesn’t the government require they have solar panel… and leave are critical food growing land alone and let it provide the crucial food resources for the nation.
We are straying into the political here Simon but we have always had a food crisis in the modern era. We , the UK, imports approximately half of our food consumption ( 48% and now rising) and have done for many years. We are subject to the market fluctuations of world events. Like many things in the UK that have changed, we have not either produced our own food, nor made our own goods. We have taken the path of cheap imports which is fine when circumstances favour us, but we have never had any long term plan for when circumstances change.
No no no… I have deliberately kept this apolitical… please DO NOT bring [party] politics into this….
Currently the UK provides the majority of its own food, 55 to 60%, so to assert the UK does not produce its own food is clearly false… perhaps its narratives like that lead to misinformed distorted views?
But yes you illustrate a point well cheap imports and reliance on cheap labour for corrections has brought short term to mid term appeasement since the Second World War at the cost of longer term structural issues, liking increasing lack of self resilience and low productivity.
I am not a farmer but a quick internet search reveals
“ The National Farmers’ Union says the UK imports 45% of its vegetables, the vast majority of which come from the EU.
Britain also buys 84% of its fruit from overseas”
And from the Global food security program
“ The UK is not self-sufficient in food production; it imports 48% of the total food consumed and the proportion is rising. Therefore, as a food-trading nation, the UK relies on both imports and a thriving agricultural sector to feed itself and drive economic growth.”
No one said the UK is currently self sufficient, which was my point…
Currently and I quote from the official UK Food Security 2024 report below
“The UK currently produces about 60% of its domestic food consumption by economic value, part of which is exported. This means just under half of the actual food on plates is produced in the UK, including the majority of grains, meat, dairy, and eggs. This figure would be higher without exports. UK supply comprises domestic production excluding exports, plus imported food. The production to supply ratio, important for understanding the UK’s self-sufficiency, has remained stable over the last two decades, and for crops that can be commercially grown in the UK has been around 75%.”
So it is a nuanced picture if focussed on what the average person consumes as we are also a significant food exporter… and if exports were funnelled internally in a major crisis our resilience would be higher but not high enough for self sufficiency, and our eating habits would need to change significantly.
We have organic veg, grown by Jimmy about 8 miles away. He delivered a bag of lovely fresh veg just yesterday. Our tomatoes come from the Isle of Wight, about 20 miles away, until Jimmy’s are ready in the summer.
We buy British if it is available. We prefer to choose in season fruit and vegetables. I try to grow a few things in the garden.
While organic is more expensive British is not necessarily.
Interestingly there were very good reductions on single malt whisky yesterday. Perhaps those will ‘peater’ out following the removal of tariffs resulting from the King’s visit.
