Renew Extra Weekly

  Solar farms are spreading across the UK- and elsewhere. One reason is that installing large solar arrays on land is cheaper/MW than installing a few cells on roof tops.  But it means there is less room for food growing. And that has become a politically contentious issue. However, it’s possible to limit the problem by adjusting solar array layouts e.g. putting the cells on supports to allow plants to grow or animals to graze underneath- the so called agrisolar approach.  It’s also possible to use waste land or warehouse roofs. But so far it seems that most large solar projects around the UK, supplying over 5% of UK power, are using prime agricultural land - with some farmers evidently finding it more profitable to rent fields out to solar developers than to grow food or fodder, or farm livestock. Some local people cynically say it’s a way to keep housing developers at bay. But some others object.  It’s not all bad news though. Solar farms can enhance wild life flor...

 The climate issue suggests that we need to expand renewable energy and energy saving as fast as possible, so as to cut carbon emissions. However, given how things are going internationally, the defence sector may be expanded instead- it is being presented increasingly as being urgent for national survival.  For some that is very worrying- especially given that more money (£15bn in the UK) is also being allocated for nuclear weapons development. What sort of survival might that lead to, if the worst come to the worst and deterrence doesn’t work?  While not necessarily wanting to dispense with defence or the military, not everyone is in agreement with the rush to build more weapons. Though there may be exceptions, given a choice, most people in industry would no doubt prefer to work on something that adds value to life rather than destroys it.  So it is interesting to see that the UK Trades Union Congress this year decided to back a ‘Wages not Weapons’ motion.  T...

 The annual World Nuclear Industry Status Report as usual looks in great detail at the state of play for nuclear, mostly still not doing too well, compared with renewables, mostly doing better, with the report looking extensively at that as well as the ups and downs of nuclear. The renewable challenge is after all very striking: for example, global solar electricity generation has increased by about 28%, with costs continuing to fall. And crucially, in April 2025, renewables exceeded nuclear power generation globally for the first time.  However, although construction costs and delays remain a big problem, the nuclear story is not entirely negative. Given reactor start-ups and closures in 2024, nuclear added 5.3 GW net, while operating capacity increased by 2% and electricity output by 2.9%. But given the overall growth of electricity use, the nuclear share of global power has fallen to 9%. Whereas renewables are expanding overall. And that is despite some recent financial pr...

 In a new report, the Britain Remade lobby group pushes nuclear strongly, as part of its ecomodernist growth-based future . It models different nuclear build costs and renewable price scenarios to assess long-term impacts on household energy bills.  But although it accepts that ‘renewables may have seen large price-falls over the last 15 years’ it says that ‘ at high penetrations costs linked to managing intermittency are high: Britain has added 40 GW since 2010 and 120 GW is forecast by 2030, yet balancing, curtailment, backup, and overbuild still add cost and leave gaps that require firm power’.  It is also not very happy about the local environmental impact of renewables, given their high land use compared with nuclear plants. Well yes, but the land on which renewable techs sit is not all lost to other uses and offshore wind farms use no land.  And the nuclear fuel cycle (from uranium mining through to eventual waste disposal) also involves land use.  The new...

The UK net zero carbon plan involves the installation of 70 million solar panels, 6,000 wind turbines, and 4,500 km of underwater electricity cables and will cost about £240 billion. So it’s quite ambitious, with, according to a new study, almost one in five of the public believing that the UK’s 2050 net-zero target is bad for the economy and almost three-quarters of believing that new climate policies will make their lives more expensive. It seems that they are starting to believe claims about the high cost of the transition that have been made by right-wing politicians and some web pundits .  However, in addition to political opposition to net zero from Reform & the Tories, BNEF says that it has also got less than 100% backing from some energy practitioners. Kate Mulvany, principal consultant at Cornwall Insight said ‘Whether or not it ultimately turns out to be good value is only something that can be determined in the long term,’ while Andy Brown, deputy board chair at Ors...

Solar is booming- accelerating ahead exponentially, with well over 1.8TW already now installed globally. According to Carbon Brief/ IEA   it’s set to overtake coal in power generation by 2030, taking over the lead from wind. That’s mainly since PV cells are getting cheaper, rapidly so, and are relatively easy to install in solar farms and also, to a lesser degree, on roof tops, although that’s usually a bit more expensive. Averaged levelised costs have been put by IRENA at around $0.043/kWh - see chart below .    There are land use and impact issues, but also agrisolar options for limiting them. In addition, floating units are also being developed for use on reservoirs, so avoiding land use and reducing fresh water evaporation. The cooling effect also improves the efficiency of PV cells in warm climates.  Meanwhile, wind also continues to boom, and is set to double up , adding its second TW capacity by 2030. That’s mainly driven by onshore wind, with (see chart) its ...