Solar Farms and Energy

For all the political hot air about “levelling up” and “reindustrialisation,” there’s precious little discussion about how to sustain an industrial base in the modern world. That’s because the Tories and most of the political class still have the economic instincts of a Georgian aristocrat: farming is fine, the countryside should be picturesque, and manufacturing is some grubby business best left to foreigners. As long as the banks and property developers keep the donations rolling in, who cares if we can’t make a spanner?

Farming, of course, is essential. It keeps people fed and the countryside in some semblance of order, but let’s not kid ourselves – it’s not the major employer it once was. Mechanisation, automation, and a dwindling rural workforce mean that, while vital, it simply doesn't provide jobs at scale. Manufacturing, on the other hand, has the potential to sustain entire communities. Yet Britain has spent decades treating it as an embarrassing relic, something to be outsourced while we pretend the service economy can fill the void.

Sheep farming, in particular, is land-intensive, but here’s a thought which I've expresses before) – it’s perfectly suited to grazing on solar farms. Instead of pitting agriculture against renewable energy, we could combine the two, making better use of land and ensuring farming and clean energy work in tandem rather than in competition. But that would require a level of joined-up thinking that appears to be in short supply.

People love to moan about solar farms eating up good, arable land. You’d think we were about to starve, as if every square inch of the countryside were a bustling breadbasket rather than horse paddocks, golf courses (there is more land devoted to golf courses than solar farms, according to land usage stats) and fields left fallow for subsidies. And even if we are talking about active farmland, the hand-wringing conveniently ignores the fact that sheep grazing fits perfectly under solar panels. The sheep don’t care about the view, and neither would most people if it meant their energy bills didn’t look like a ransom note.

The real issue is the way renewable energy is priced. It’s still tethered to the inflated cost of fossil fuels, which makes no sense when the sun and wind don't charge by the kilowatt-hour. If renewables were priced on their actual cost, the resistance to solar farms would evaporate. People might grumble about panels spoiling the countryside, but offer them rock-bottom energy bills and they’d be campaigning for turbines in the village green and PV arrays in the churchyard.

The British public’s attachment to farming is largely sentimental anyway. We import nearly half our food because it's cheaper, while domestic production limps along, undercut by economies of scale abroad. When push comes to shove, cheap energy will win every time. Once the penny drops, there won’t be enough land to meet demand for solar. Farmers will rip out hedgerows and flatten hills to get their cut of the action. Planning objections will wither like a lettuce in a heatwave.

Then there’s steel – the backbone of any serious industrial economy. But steelmaking isn’t something you can conjure into existence with a few government grants and a patriotic PR campaign. It requires vast amounts of cheap electricity, which is where we run headlong into the great British energy mess. For all the waffle about renewables, we’re still shackled to a pricing system that ties their cost to gas. As long as that remains the case, cheap electricity is a fantasy, and with it, any notion of competitive heavy industry.

The whole point of renewables – wind, solar, hydro – is that once you’ve built the renewable energy infrastructure, the fuel is free. But instead of embracing that, we’re stuck with a market designed to prop up fossil fuel profits, ensuring that even our wind and solar power remains absurdly overpriced. It’s a system that makes as much sense as charging people for rainwater because once upon a time, we got all our water from bottled Perrier.

If Britain is serious about manufacturing – not just steel, but any energy-intensive industry (and that includes AI and all the tech gadgetry) – it has to get serious about energy policy. That means fully decoupling renewables from fossil prices, investing in storage, and ensuring that when the wind blows, industry actually benefits. Otherwise, we’ll keep subsidising the profits of foreign gas suppliers while wringing our hands about why we can’t make things anymore.

Adding to the problem is the tariff situation with the USA, where British steel faces additional costs that make it even less competitive. While American manufacturers are protected, our own industry is left to flounder under high energy prices and market restrictions. Making good quality, cheap steel isn’t just an economic necessity – it’s vital for national infrastructure, security, and the foundation of any future industrial strategy.

Manufacturing needs cheap, reliable energy. Farming needs food security and a workforce that isn't on the verge of bankruptcy. Both are essential, but only one has been completely abandoned by successive governments who think GDP can be conjured out of thin air by selling each other insurance policies. The truth is, without an industrial base, an economy becomes a house of cards – and Britain, for all its posturing, is looking increasingly breezy.

Meanwhile, the government continues to shovel billions into vanity projects while ignoring the basics. HS2 was supposed to be a shining example of investment, but it’s turned into a monument to British incompetence – over budget, behind schedule, and now hacked to bits. Imagine if even half that money had gone into regional transport, green energy, or industrial innovation. Instead, we're left with a railway to nowhere and a lot of glossy brochures about the "green industrial revolution" that never quite arrives.

The irony is that Britain has the resources to fix this. We’ve got wind, waves, and enough clever people to design world-beating technology. What we don’t have is the political will. Instead, we get ministers wittering on about “British jobs for British workers” while outsourcing everything that isn’t nailed down and selling off the nails to the highest bidder. The result? A nation that can’t build, can’t grow, and can’t even keep the lights on without begging the French.

It’s not rocket science. Cheap energy, smart investment, and a bit of long-term thinking could turn things around. But that would require a government that sees industry as more than a nostalgic backdrop for election photo ops. Until that changes, all the talk of "levelling up" is just that – talk. And Britain, once an industrial powerhouse, will keep sliding into irrelevance while its leaders argue over who gets to rearrange the deckchairs.