Reform voters, which policies do you support beyond immigration?

[Sheepydoggo]

If you voted for Reform, what policies do you like aside from immigration reform?

I think that is replying to me.

I did not say farm under solar panels. I said if the farmland is needed, then lift the panels up. Restore the land.

If the grid is near capacity, then the capacity needs to be increased. It needs to be upgraded and replaced as a normal thing. No matter where the electricity comes from. Even if a hundred new coal power stations were built, the grid still needs to be done.

If it was only that simple! Panels are in place for 40 years in most legal contracts. Adding high capacity voltage lines takes between 7-15 years!

So don't lease your land to a solar farm company.

And lets not forget, if you are a farmer who signs up to a solar farm, that's between 850-1.5k per year per acre rent. And wow, up to 40k per year per acre for battery storage. I would assume that is because battery storage means lots of concrete ?

Source -

Solar Farm Income Per Acre UK: 2026 Lease Rates & Guide | SolarGridCheck.co.uk

Or would you prefer a coal power station next door, and all the pollution that comes from that.

I am not leasing to a solar farm! No country is starting coal production on a farm 😆 Why would you think that? The farm ground in 40 years will be contaminated after a solar farm is dismantled and no farmer is going to change back to farming after receiving mega bucks for 40 years for doing nothing. As I mentioned these solar farms are now being banned in many countries unless they are built along railway lines, brownfields and on the sea where no one sees them. The UK is years behind and just starting the onslaught with no increase in grid capacity and no planning.

How does a solar farm contaminate land ?

And where will they build any new coal power plants.. and mine the coal ?

You said: if a 100 new coal farms were to be build? They won’t!!!! Just do some research. No solar farm has lasted 40 years obviously!!!!! The concerns are real. Contamination through leakage, also the lasting impact of food security being diminished. That’s why countries that properly plan now no longer give planning. It’s fascinating reading about all this if you spend some time researching :)

The media are reporting things in such a way to manipulate the public into blaming ‘easy targets’ of benefit claimants and immigrants. I would argue that an equally big problem, if not worse, is corporate greed and abuse of power/ corruption in politics.

Where is the outrage on this thread about Amazon’s lack of UK tax or of Nigel Farage’s £5m donation, or the Covid PPE scandal, or of oil companies’ profiteering?

I agree that our systems around welfare and immigration are flawed and need fixing but I don’t think doing this is going to solve all of our problems. Once that scapegoat can no longer be used it’ll be onto the next group.

UK has an estimated 2 years of available coal.

https://www.worldometers.info/coal/uk-coal/#:~:text=Coal%20Reserves%20in%20the%20United%20Kingdom&text=the%20United%20Kingdom%20has%20proven,levels%20and%20excluding%20unproven%20reserves).

So, building coal fired power plants does not make much sense.

What leaks from a solar panel.

They are inert. Mostly made from silicon. Grind it down and you get sand.

If you are worried about contaminating land I hope you are not driving diesel tractors around on it.

As I said I’m not a farmer. There are so many unknowns about building them in farmland which is an idiotic decision. The UK are as usual years behind any other countries. Even China who produce the panels, which is another environmental disaster, have banned them in farmland. They don’t want them which is so ironic. You aren’t winning your argument with me. Unless they are planned with thought and consideration I hope Reform gets in and they will definitely not scatter them everywhere.

China does not put solar farms on farmland because they do not actually have much farmland. They put them on roofs, and marginal land. And at sea now too.

What are the unknowns about solar panels? They have been around for yonks.

They are made from glass, aluminium and copper. PVC platic insulation on the wires. Is here unknown danger about putting farm produce in glass bottles and aluminium cans ?

What about the batteries needed to power them when there is no sun. Leaking poison on what was usable farm land. I’m sure the UK will crack on unlike many countries now not planning them on farmland and green spaces 😂

What about this, what about that.

Batteries are batteries. Lead acid or lithium. The same as car batteries or your phone battery. Do they leak ?

Are lead acid batteries banned from tractors ?

There is nothing in solar cells that you are not surrounded by at this very moment. The device you are posting from has all that is in a solar cell farm.

So now, if not solar, what alternative ?

Hahaha , a tractor, a phone, not on the scale of 120 football fields is it????

About 2.1 billion mobile phones are made per year.

That adds up to a fair number of footie fields.

So what alternate energy generation do you propose rather than solar ?

Nuclear

Nuke is fine. Takes a decade at least to build one plant, but it defo has a part to play.

I was interested in that @LienekeS thought. Seeing as they think solar has hidden dangers, and can leak stuff into the ground.

Solar along all railway tracks and on seabed. Rolls-Royce SMR is building Small Modular Reactors. The first major UK site is planned for Wylfa in North Wales. Ofcourse farmers won’t like this. And our food will be safer.

Thing with solar, especially in northern latitudes, is that it does need to be facing south. Between 35-40 deg facing south. So not every site is suitable. But yes, roofs, rail cuttings, suitable hillsides all fine. Seabed no. Because storms.

China is doing estuaries and mud flats because less storms. But not great for wildlife.

SMR in Wales, great stuff. 3 SMRs of 480 MW each. I done a quick calc the other day. We would need something like 144 SMRs.

Really, no matter what reform claim, the UK is stuck with renewables. The UK needs them.

There is no plan. It’s like the Wild West. In our area 5 applications are planned. Each of them huge and the developers are admitting they aren’t sure about the grid coping. Where is the sensible planning. There is none.

These things do have to be planned. They can't be put anywhere. There are transmission losses to be taken into account. grid loading, and phase imbalance.

The UK mains supply is 230V AC 3 phase. If the phase loading is not balanced it causes issues at thermal power plants. Because solar produces DC that has to be put through an invertor to convert it to AC, it's phase can be selected, so it is a good way to balance the phase loading.

On top of that, there is a different balance. The grid balance. Because basically, electricity is "sucked" by whatever is running on it. And it takes the path of least resistance. So if an electric arc steel furnace is loaded in Wales for example, it pulls the current in. And that can put a massive load on a local power plant, but might hardly draw anything from a nuke plant in Suffolk. So the grid has to be constantly managed.

Really we need a variety of electricity sources. And this all has to be planned and managed. So when someone says we want a wind farm here, or a solar farm there, it is planned and calculated. And the features of each source taken into account.

If someone wants to build a generating system somewhere. it is the Grid people who will have the final say if the power is wanted or not in that location. So when you say local developers don't know if the grid can handle their electricity, I suspect that means the grid people are saying they might need switch gear hundreds of miles away, or step up step down transformers to get the power from say the Pennines, to that steel works in South Wales. And that will cost money. So it becomes a case of is it cost effective?

It is not the wild west. It all has to be planned and evaluated.

Can I suggest both of you actually READ the OP and enlighten us what exactly about it consists of "goading", "crying", "hurling insults" or "whining"?

@LienekeS
I agree that we should not be putting solar panels on farmland. We should incentivise companies to put them on the roofs of industrial warehouses.
I think there is a change in that more new houses will be built with solar panels as standard. This is better than putting solar panels on farmland.
You are right to highlight that there are already plans to build small modular reactors in Wales and I think having a mix of different energy sources is good for our energy security.
I think we should continue drilling for North Sea Gas because it is worse for the environment to be importing it from other countries. In fact, the Liquefied Natural Gas we import from other countries is worse for the environment. Not drilling for it ourselves whilst still importing it does not mean we are moving to Net Zero-that is a pretence.
Not only is it an accounting trick, it is bad for our economy. Drilling for gas in the UK, keeps financial capital, tax revenues and employment here.
With any luck clean nuclear fusion will be possible in the future. I think there has been significant progress recently.

@overunderover

enlighten us what exactly about it consists of "goading", "crying", "hurling insults" or "whining"?

Try looking up the definition of each of those words and phrases.

These threads have a tendency to appear after Farage has done well in elections/polls. Seems that those who voted to remain think that if they can challenge or counter any of the replies leave supporters post, it proves Brexit was wrong and must be cancelled because they say so. They seem to fit the memonic:

R emainers
A re
C lever
I ntelligent
S uperior
T ypes

or

R emain
I s
O nly
T rue

My view is that all votes carry equal value and people are entitled to chose whoever they wish to vote for. Explanations and justifications are not required.

Agree. The electorate do not need to justify their vote. It is a secret ballot.

However, the politicians who make the promises they then don't deliver... seems to me they are fair game for quizzing.

Is that not how it works ?