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I took a stroll recently through the countryside around Swindon, UK, where there’s a massive new solar farm on formerly arable land. One thing I only just real
by danw1979 6mo ago
I took a stroll recently through the countryside around Swindon, UK, where there’s a massive new solar farm on formerly arable land. One thing I only just realised was how the view from the ground is so badly affected when you’re down amidst the endless rows of panels - they reach well above head height.
It’s basically like walking through a industrial estate, just with more grass in between. Really very bleak.
Give me an onshore wind farm over this.
- teamonkey 6mo agoAre you sure it’s arable land? The majority of solar farms in the UK are built on low-grade land that aren’t suitable for growing food.
- ghighi7878 6mo agoGreen grass is still good to look at.
- teamonkey 6mo agoThere is grass. Grass is allowed to grow around the panels. It’s great for biodiversity.
- cjrp 6mo agoI wonder if that will remain the case. The input costs for farming are increasing (seed, fertiliser, energy), the output is becoming less predictable (flood, drought) and the grants from DEFRA which are meant to smooth things out have dried up somewhat since Brexit. If farmers are offered a guaranteed income for a field, I suspect they'd take it.
- teamonkey 6mo agoSee the adjacent link I posted about projected land use.
- Animats 6mo agoNeeds a beauty strip of trees around the panels.
- dylan604 6mo agoYeah, 'cause shade is precisely what's needed for a solar farm
- swsieber 6mo agoAround, not over. Trees are a well studied thing where can you pick different species for different characteristics, like height, and growth speed.
- dylan604 6mo agoTIL shadows from trees only project down directly under the tree and never project away from the tree itself. My entire life experience has been rendered useless.
- fluoridation 6mo agoUltimately, everything we build we build for ourselves, and people will generally prefer something that's nice to look at, if slightly inefficient, over the thing that's optimal at the cost of every other parameter.
- ben_w 6mo agoAssuming they're talking about this one: https://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/25299826.swindon-solar-farm-bring-jobs-energy-funding/ https://www.thisiswiltshire.co.uk/news/25299826.swindon-sola... It's obvious from the scale of it that the fact of how shadows move over the course of a day isn't going to make much difference, even if they go much above the height of the panels, which they don't need to in order to hide them from people at ground level.
- 01HNNWZ0MV43FF 6mo agoMost of the new solar farms do plant them, it just takes decades for trees to grow big enough to hide the panels Personally I like the panels
- nitwit005 6mo agoThat just sounds like endless corn fields, only solar panels.
- simmerup 6mo agoClimate change is an existential threat, it's switch to green power asap or burn the world our kids will live in
- carefree-bob 6mo ago[flagged]
- simmerup 6mo agoIt is 100% an existential threat, but the existential bit happens in 100 years so of course you're not going to see it materialize over night
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> It is 100% an existential threat, but the existential bit happens in 100 years No, it’s not, and no, we don’t know that. Humans will survive climate change. Rich countries will survive, too. We will all suffer. Economically, healthwise and aesthetically. But that’s not existential. Framing it as such is disingenuous and counterproductive.
- simmerup 6mo agoRCP8.5 is pretty much ruled out by people as unlikely for some reason, even as we have the major super power on the planet pulling out of the Paris agreement on climate change. There is clearly a temperature at which this planet will not support human life, and we could definitely get the planet to that temperature if we don't change course and reach net zero. Saying its not an existential threat is just wild to me.
- JumpCrisscross 6mo ago> There is clearly a temperature at which this planet will not support human life, and we could definitely get the planet to that temperature There is such a temperature. We are not getting to it in half a century at current emission rates, even with zero curtailment. If you have a source that shows the opposite, I’d be happy to read it.
- pjc50 6mo agoHow much extra on your electricity bill are you prepared to pay to not see it?
- danw1979 6mo agoI seem to have come across as a nimby in my comment… I’d happily pay less on my bill if it meant gas no longer set the price of electricity in the UK, even if it did mean covering loads of arable land in panels. It still doesn’t mean they aren’t bleak to look at. I get why people don’t like them. I get why people don’t want a wind turbine on every peak in the Cambrian hills. Personally I’d rather have the latter - sparse but huge industrial objects - than the widespread low level monotony of a solar farm. Unfortunately we need both.
- asdff 6mo agoSo much spare land in flat roofs in industrial and warehouse space but solar installations there, if they are there, seem to be limited to covering utility bills for the building over generating surplus for the grid. Much of the roof will remain uncovered, along with all the periphery lot, parking, truck yard, and access roads. No one would be complaining about any view there...
- deaux 6mo ago> Give me an onshore wind farm over this. Guess why those aren't common? Largely because the same people vehemently opposing these solar parks, have already been blocking onshore (and even near-coast offshore) wind for more than a decade.
- hattmall 6mo agoOk, but why are you down among the panels? We have solar farms near my house and I don't hang out in them. You only see it when you drive by the place. I would much less prefer a giant windmill obstructing an otherwise scenic view.
- teamonkey 6mo agoI can no longer edit my comment to add this, but this article really hammers the point home. In the UK, by 2050, less than 1% of land will be needed for solar and wind production. Similar to what is currently used by golf courses. The infographic showing land use on that page is eye-opening. Considering that the UK would naturally be covered in rainforest and not fields. https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-englands-new-land-use-framework-means-for-climate-nature-and-food/ https://www.carbonbrief.org/qa-what-englands-new-land-use-fr...