Solar farms aren't always popular with the people that have to live next to them. The Guardian provided a long article about objections around my home town of Gainsborough - in some ways an ideal location for grid-scale renewables because they can connect to the grid at the site of the old Cottam power station. One of the planned new solar farms will cover 1,400 hectares (3,460 acres).
The article quotes Sean Matthews, leader of Lincolnshire County Council, who says my view is that our influence on the climate of the planet is minute. Cllr Matthews is a former royal protection officer in the Met; the article does not explain when he acquired his insights into climate science. The truth of course is that nature doesn't care what he thinks, or what you and I think. It only cares about the amount of greenhouse gas that we put in the atmosphere.
'It was our little idyll – until the solar farm landed' | Tom Wall in the Guardian, 21 March 2026
In Denmark, which gets 90% of its electricity from renewables, a backlash against solar farms has swayed municipal elections and prompted some councils to pull projects.
How the world’s greenest country soured on solar | Ajit Niranjan in the Guardian, 20 March 2026
In other Gainsborough news (old news now) the mayor of Lincolnshire, Dame Andrea Jenkyns, has held meetings with fossil fuel companies with a view to fracking for gas in the geological feature known as the Gainsborough Trough. The Trough lies to the south and east of Gainsborough and extends westwards into Nottinghamshire and North Lincolnshire.
Jenkyns is highly critical of net zero and has described it as a 'con'. As with Cllr Matthews, her qualifications in climate science are not known.
Reform mayor courted US oil and gas executive about fracking in UK | Hajar Meddah in the Guardian, 24 February 2026
When I was a boy growing up in Gainsborough it was the centre of a small oilfield and the gas from new wells was flared off. Even in those days it seemed a waste.
John B
Originally posted by John Baxter in Second Nature 057 (Mar 2026). Category GB clean power, tags fracking, solar.
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