Gordon,
You may be interested to know that the bee hives went in just after the
last panel was installed. The advantage of community ownership is that
people are prepared to spend the extra
to maintain and develop he environment and the profit stays in the
community.
Even if the climate change does not feel like an imperative there are
plenty of other problems that are serious but seem intractable. People
may argue that solar farms are a waste of good land.
However there seems to be acceptance that land must be used for
landfill. I lived in Germany for several years and they stopped sending
household waste to landfill about 15 years ago,
reduced incineration, recycled more and continued reusing bottles for
drinks etc. They had a cunning plan to do that which we could follow but
we are busy following their plan from the 80's
and will have to wait for another decade.
You may be following Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s current TV series War
on Waste. One theme is the outrageous waste of edible food rejected by
supermarkets which is the equivalent of a substantial
amount of land. One could argue that we could be putting solar on that
land instead and also protecting it from pesticides.
Whether you feel that climate change is a threat or not, developing the
technology required to combat it will inevitably lead to a much more
pleasant and healthy life.
Roger
On 12/11/15 17:21, Gordon Scott wrote:
Hi Roger,
I hadn't meant my comments to apply to any particular instance and I'm
pleased that the Lymington one appears sensible.
In my area, though, there are a number built on prime agricultural land.
Of course the land isn't actually destroyed, so could be returned to
agriculture if necessary, but PV looks to be a 20 to 30 year investment
in many cases, so it's likely not coming back any time soon.
It can disturb me even more, though, when they're placed on "waste"
land. I used to keep bees on an area of land that I would describe as
wildflower meadow. The owner died, his family took over and let a local
farmer plant maize so that that "unproductive wasteland can be turned
into something productive" with "there's no wildlife value there,
anyway". The farmer never got a maize crop off of it; I never got
another decent honey crop off of it, and after a few years it was
"developed" for local housing.
Oh, and there _was_ wildlife value on it before it was ploughed.
From my perspective, important and productive land was changed first to
desert, then to concrete. Hopefully there are now gardens that
rebalance that. I don't know; I've never been back.
Personally I'm not that convinced by the climate change [hmm, what word
best goes here]. But I still think renewables have a lot to commend
them.
There are lots of already ugly places that can take solar, many of them
are large enough to make sense, before we need to use the nicer bits.
IMHO.
Gordon
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