Mark Bannister

Using BTO pipeline for cricket ID on my local patch - I can’t hear them anymore. Thinks my electric assist bike is a pipistrelle to 93% probability. Lesson: only record when stopped!

Where does Britain end up…drops off bottom of graph

⏳Final week to sign up to the Green Party.

🗳️ Vote for Bold Leadership on August 1st.

No, I’ve never thought that. There are plenty of capable scientific research units that would love to produce such a study if it were true. We have to follow the science even when it is not what we would wish.

Show me the studies that say we can replace 220GW of grid-connected renewables with local generation by 2035. I hazard a guess it does not exist. We risk being the generation that had the solutions but did not do so because solar/pylons/wind offended our views over the countryside.

…on with it, or else limiting climate change to even +2deg will be gone, and that will be the legacy of our generation. It will be on our heads. Let’s not do that.

Community energy is definitely a good idea, but even double the achievable target of 5.6GW by 2030 is an order of magnitude smaller than what is required (100GW solar + 80GW offshore wind + 53GW onshore wind) in order to decarbonise…we just need to get..
communityenergyengland.org/news/communi....

ps Got my numbers wrong, big solar farm takes at c4 years, so 2029 for operation, but we likely pass +1.5 deg in next 2 years, so they are solutions to stop +2deg.

…I like thinking outside the box, but we have run out of time for big system changes. We have the technology now if we just get in with deploying it. A solar farm in planning today will likely start generating by 2033. Too late to limit us to +1.5 deg. Perhaps just in time to help keep us to +2deg.

From what I can see, Germany’s Energiewende still foresees the need for a national grid to allow solar in south and wind in north to be distributed? Some places are just windier and others sunnier….
eg
www.cleanenergywire.org/news/preview...

.. Also, what do you propose we do with the 80GW of offshore wind power that Green Party policy calls for by 2035 (enough to replace 80 gas fired power stations) if it is not distributed around the U.K. by the national grid?

If this was the case, there would be no need for international inter-connectors (note far more costly than pylons per km) - it would just be cheaper to build more renewables in each country instead. Yet we are building inter-connectors, so has to be cheaper. We simply would not do it otherwise..

…we need c60GW of new solar on farmland and this was before the proliferation of AI datacentres (not advocating for them) where each new AI datacentre needs 1GW of energy!

Rooftops can provide over half our solar energy targets, report shows A new report from CPRE shows that over half the government's targets for solar energy can be met by putting panels on roofs and car parks.

…suitable roof should have solar, but it is still not enough. CPRE thinks we could realistically get 40GW of new solar on rooftops and car parks by 2035:
www.cpre.org.uk/news/rooftop...

But Green Party manifesto says we need 100GW of new solar by 2035:

greenparty.org.uk/app/uploads/...

..so…

Sharing electricity via the national grid between regions (and internationally) is surely sensible because it reduces costs. The alternative would be even more solar/wind/battery storage in every local region to cover the times when local renewable production could not meet demand. Of course every..

…the answer, I suggest, should be easy.

…perceived as far worse offence to (some) human eyes, but in this case, planning is more likely to be passed by gov (Secretary of State for Energy, Security and Net Zero). The question then is: does some offence to (some) human eyes outweigh the chance of a habitable planet for our young people?..

..cares not. No wonder applicants now go for far larger solar farms - if double the size of this one, then it is the gov that decides, not the council. So there is the irony - due to councils rejecting smaller applications like this, applicants are forced to go for far larger sites which are…

..adjacent habitat (26ha) which is managed for the lapwings, skylark, not farming. Any lapwing young can forage in wildflower mix under the solar. Far higher chance they will breed successfully. Same for skylark. What’s not to like? Solar may offend the human eye (for some people), but the wildlife…

I’m just reading the mitigation report:
online-applications.sunderland.gov.uk/online-appli...

It is arable. 7 skylark and 3 lapwing pairs were found. IMHO, highly likely the lapwing currently fail to breed suscessfully as happens across England, often due to farming operations. Proposal creates…

..rich only). Climate science says we can do it, but only if we act like it is a climate emergency. At the moment we choosing not to. It all still remains a choice.

Not sure what you are getting at. I’m all for continuing civilisation myself if we can and to do that we need far more than your list of 3. We can still keep climate change below +2 deg (just, with a lot of roll-out of renewables, electrify transport, heating etc and with behaviour change from the…

Other studies show are nearly at that AMOC- off tipping point. The climate crisis is the biggest problem we have by far. We have to be led by science. It is too important to get wrong.

There are studies that show if the AMOC turns off, arable in uk will be impacted well beyond any loss due to solar. Eg: news-archive.exeter.ac.uk/homepage/tit....
Arable area reduces from 32% to 7%. Amount of arable lost to solar is tiny in comparison.

show that we are nearly at that tipping point.

I agree the loss of arable land for food production would be a genuine loss. Can graze with sheep, but arable is far more efficient for food production. In this case, is has to be a matter of priorities. Studies show our arable farming will be all but destroyed if the AMOC turns off. Other studies

I agree. Discussion around the solar in general is a valid one though. I hear many Green’s still disliking solar in general. It is to those that my comments are aimed at.

Flattening some hedges and trees (hopefully minimised) on such areas for solar, although sad, is by far the least worst option and that comes from a life-long natuaralist.

I’m sure there are some areas that have high biodiversity that solar would have a large impact on such as heathland which should exclude them, but on most arable or pasture, I think the loss of biodiversity is low (there are studies to show it can increase if managed for it under solar).

change, but selfishly failed to do so. As much as I love the views over the wheat fields around my town, I wish we had some massive solar on it. It would mean we are at last taking the climate emergency seriously and would be in with a (slim) chance of keeping within +2deg if others did the same