Green, ethical, energy issues in the news

Martyn1981

Hi Qriz, and just to be really boring (sorry) the arable farmland used for bio-energy is ~2.2%, or ~0.7% for bio-fuels. Government plans currently estimate around 9% of farmland being re-wilded by 2050. I think this largely down to the reduction in meat/dairy consumption.

This report shows the significant amount of land used for beef/lamb pasture. Even the areas for dairy/beef feed dwarf the land used for golf courses, an area in turn that is far larger than land based PV will ever need to reach. Perhaps PV will reach 'Christmas tree' scale? 😗

Q&A: What England’s new ‘land-use framework’ means for climate, nature and food

NigeWick

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81958079#Comment_81958079

Also more land taken up with golf courses than solar farms.

GingerTim

Some really subtle spamming of the forum there...

michaels

And don't even start to think about net energy generation per hectare for PV compared to bio-fuels, it is too frightening - basically net of all input energy, PV gives you 90 times more vehicle miles per ha than you get from using the land for corn converted to biofuels. Biofuels are currently 2.3% of land use switch that land to PV and you get 90 times more useful energy.

paul991

Why not cover all the roofs first.

NigeWick

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81960481#Comment_81960481

Most can't afford it and Cameron & Co binned "the green crap" about 12 years ago.

thevilla

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81960481#Comment_81960481

The issues with factories etc are well documented. Roof load calculations won't allow additional weight of panels. Landlords unwilling to shell out to pay tenants electricity costs. Tenants unwilling to pay when they're on short lets (compared to payback period).

I've talked to friends trying to persuade them to add solar to their roofs. Some don't seem to understand what an investment is. One doesn't want to devalue his house which apparently has the most beautiful roof tiles in the world (it doesn't). Others simply put it off 'forever'.

Why not just scrap the bio-fuels and plant solar PV instead? The belief that acres of farmland is natural is false. Of course farming for food is essential but not for liquid fuel. Natural would be acres of woodland in most areas of the UK.

Martyn1981

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81960708#Comment_81960708

Why not just scrap the bio-fuels and plant solar PV instead?

Yep, and as mentioned, about 2.2% of arable farmland is used for bio-energy, and ~0.7% for bio-fuels.

Very rough calcs, so don't trust them too much, but to get the equivalent of about 25% of the UK's leccy from PV, it would require about 0.25% of farmland*. Not that all the PV will be farmland, figures are roughly 70% ground mount, 18% residential rooftop, and 12% commercial. Most of the land used for PV is grade 3b anyway. 3b is lower quality land, not suitable for some crops, and often used for grazing, which can ironically be continued in the case of lamb production.

The US gets a tonne of criticism for corn-ethanol production, which takes up about 30-40% of corn production. Utilising about 1/3rd of the corn-ethanol land for PV, would provide roughly the equivalent of the US's entire leccy demand ….. and that's in a high leccy future, with 100% BEV transport!

*Massive caveats on the numbers, too lazy to find exact figures. But way, way back I checked the maths on the claim that covering 2% of England with PV would be equivalent to the UK's whole leccy demand. Only theoretical, obviously not a great mix for the UK's energy demand being winter heavy, but the maths worked out.

Since then PV efficiency has roughly doubled, UK farmland is greater than all England land area, and wind, not PV, is expected to be the backbone for UK RE generation, so 25% of supply seems reasonable(?).

But even doubling the required land area to 0.5% of farmland is still less than the bio-fuels area used today.

Exiled_Tyke

Yet another example of something we pretty all knew (on these boards at least) already but the rest of the world needs telling. Great that the news is getting out though and creating more optimism for a FFfree future.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/mar/28/how-evs-could-be-part-of-answer-to-uk-fuel-reserve-worries

Yarrows

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/81958281#Comment_81958281

(Aside: I was really puzzled by that map until I realised the geographical locations of the categories are irrelevant! (And they managed to allocate my area to possibly the least appropriate category, one that has in fact caused a lot of damage, so I wasn't thinking clearly to start with!) It's also not directly relevant to an article about a framework for England.)