Business & Politics

Damien Hirst, enfant terrible of the YBA (young british artists) trendy art scene and multi-millionaire, is going solar in a big way. He has just ordered the country's second largest solar panel system. To make the studios at his palatial country home in Gloucestershire solar, he will be spending up to £1.5M on a 310kw solar power system. These panels will generate enough electricity to power up to 150 houses and will be spread over 1,800 sq.m. which will include the warehouses where he stores his work and other pieces in his vast art collection. This system is so large that it will account for almost 2% of the country's solar power. It's not clear whether it will feed back into the national grid.

David Beckham has bought his picture of preserved butterflies. Famous for his preserved shark (pictured) and the diamond-studded skull, sold for £100M to an Arab sheik, Hirst is a new addition to the celebrity stable of green supporters. As Friends of the Earth representative said: "This is great news. Good on Damien Hirst... However, we can't rely on the environmentally aware wealthy to nurture the low carbon industries. We need a feed-in tariff scheme which would reward all businesses and individuals who invest in small-scale renewable technologies." :: Guardian