Solar power v Nuclear yields against landtake
Solar power - my usual statement that I'm a great fan of renewables, but...
I've been doing some arithmetic on the back of a couple of contentious local solar farm proposals on 'best & most versatile' farmland. The solar farm proposals together claim generation of about 110 GW/year from 142 Ha of farmland, or approximately 0.77 GW/yr per Ha. And this for about 1,200 - 1,300 hours per year out of the 8,760 hours in a year.
My favourite nuclear power station - Torness B - occupies about 23Ha and generates 8,800GW annually. This is 420 times the power per hectare than solar, clean sine wave, 24 hours a day, usually with a better than 95% uptime.
In a world where the UK only grows about 55% of its' own food requirement (and some want us to grow more crop and less meat), is not covering top quality fields with silicon panels frankly insane?
