16 hours ago, dave2013 said:

I think this discussion has pretty much run its course.  It is evident that you are an advocate for solar power in the UK and that's your prerogative.  I don't think it makes a whole lot of economic or environmental sense.

Dave

This discussion has run its course because….?

 I wasn’t aware I was an advocate of solar power. As far as I’m aware the only things I advocate for on a consistent basis are helping little old ladies across the road, being kind to children and animals and takeaway curry for dinner.

For what it’s worth, I’m really not looking forward to having an electric vehicle foisted upon me in the future and I always look forward to collecting my curry from the takeaway on my very noisy, very leaky 1973 Triumph Bonneville.🤩

All I’ve done is set out for you the current situation in the UK when it comes to electricity generation.

Pointing out that you pay less for electricity in Kentucky isn’t really relevant. You also pay a lot less for gas. On the other hand you pay a lot more for health care. 
It is what it is.

As I said earlier, we’re now paying the price for decades of mismanagement of our power generation needs and we now need to expand our supply quickly.

The intent to build Hinkley C power station was announced in August 1982. If it starts to generate power on its current forecast date of 2031 it will have taken five decades to complete. 
It would seem obvious that for all it’s benefits nuclear power is not exactly a ‘quick’ solution for immediate generation needs. I won’t bother considering the financial side of things as figures given for nuclear power are largely pie in the sky as far as the UK are concerned.

 I note that a great deal of French nuclear capacity seems to spend a surprising amount of time not actually producing electricity.

As to being a country short of farmland; we’ve been a net importer of food since the latter half of the eighteenth century. You might want to Google ‘repeal of the corn laws’ for a more detailed explanation of how food supply and farming in the UK has evolved.

Today some seventy percent of the UK land mass is under agriculture. This doesn’t mean it produces food either. You live in Kentucky? I dare say you’d be familiar with the landscape where I live: rolling, wooded green hills that is natural livestock country. Except these days there’s not much livestock to be seen out in the fields and lots of the woods have been ripped up to make bigger fields.
Modern farming techniques mean the most efficient way to produce diary is to keep the moo-moo’s in doors and feed them a precisely measured amount of food, nutrient supplements and antibiotics and milk ‘em by robot. Sad really.

Of course that means all that rolling pasture is now available to be cultivated by those big, five ton monster tractors that can drag a plough up a sixty degree slope. Last year we had rape seed to look out on that was exported to Germany. This year we have a dual crop, where the whole plant can be used: it makes for cattle feed and either bio fuel or fed into a digester for power generation. Not much actual food produced here.
Despite this the UK is self sufficient in just about everything we actually need when it comes to cereals and diary and meat  - if we wanted to be.

UK farming’s most immediate problem is climate change and shortage of labour, not shortage of land as such.

 

 

Edited September 12, 20241 yr by DD_Arthur
To have a quick dig at the French (traditional)

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

I wasn’t aware I was an advocate of solar power.

You've been defending it this whole discussion so I presumed you were an advocate.  OK, fine, you're not.

1 hour ago, DD_Arthur said:

Pointing out that you pay less for electricity in Kentucky isn’t really relevant. You also pay a lot less for gas. On the other hand you pay a lot more for health care. 

Martin made the claim that solar is the cheapest form of electricity.  He's also said this about wind power and other renewables.  I was pointing out that the price here, where most power comes from natural gas, coal, nuclear, and renewables, is about half the price in the UK with all that wind power.  I can also compare to Germany which uses even more renewable power and where electricity costs even more.  Health care costs have nothing to do with the discussion, but since you brought it up, we also pay a whole lot less in taxes, so in the end one ends up paying one way or the other. 

BTW, we have cut our coal power by 60% over the past 20 years and it will continue to drop until it is completely phased out - all in good time.  No need to rush and make poor, rash decisions like many countries are doing.

The fact is that renewable power is not necessarily cheaper than natural gas.  It is also not necessarily cheaper than nuclear, as one has to consider that a nuclear plant produces an immense amount of power for 60+ years with a relatively small footprint.  It is true that the exorbitant cost of building a nuclear plant lately may have changed that equation.  There is no doubt in my mind that they could be built for a lot less money, but how to make that happen is above my pay grade.  Anyway, I'm all in on building solar plants.  I just think they should be built where they operate in the most economical, environmentally friendly, and efficient way.  There's a lot of barren, desert areas around the world where they could be built and then the power transmitted to where it's needed.

I could be wrong and it turns out that solar is the best way for you guys to build out generating capacity in the fastest, most economical way.

One thing is for sure - with all the massive data processing facilities being built, plus the mandates for EVs, we're going to need a lot more electricity over the coming years.

Dave

 

Interesting article here.

https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/blog/is-renewable-energy-cheaper-than-fossil-fuels#:~:text=Overall%2C solar and onshore wind,electricity generation in most countries.

Solar and wind cheapest forms of energy in most countries. Including the UK.

 

9 hours ago, dave2013 said:

I just think they should be built where they operate in the most economical, environmentally friendly, and efficient way. 

 

They are. They are also built where they are economical enough, environmentally friendly enough and efficient enough, a  a viable location to generate power from solar. Scotland might not be so viable, but Camridge is as its further south and receives more sunlight.

It's not a case of solar PV must only be sighted where it's most efficient. It's located where it does what it's supposed to do. We don't abandon a solar PV project because there's somewhere else in the world where it works even better.

I'm not an advocate of solar, either. I'm an advocate of solar, wind, geothermal, tidal, wave and anything else that doesn't burn stuff.

 

Edited September 13, 20241 yr by martin-w

9 hours ago, dave2013 said:

could be wrong and it turns out that solar is the best way for you guys to build out generating capacity in the fastest, most economical way.

 

I don't think anyone is saying it's the best way. It's one of the ways. 

Solar and wind cheapest in the US, too, apparently.

https://www.motive-power.com/ranked-the-cheapest-sources-of-electricity-in-the-u-s/#:~:text=Ranking the Cheapest Sources of,cycle natural gas power plants.

 

Quote

According to Lazard’s 2023 analysis of unsubsidized LCOE in the U.S., both onshore wind and utility-scale solar photovoltaic (PV) technologies are more cost-effective than combined cycle natural gas power plants.

 

Edited September 13, 20241 yr by martin-w