Choice: food or solar fields

[5030]

Well, you could also say that gravel pits, strip mines, landfills, airports, roads, and parking lots, etc. all took up farm land. Probably exponentially more than solar installations ever will.

Are you clairvoyant? Neither you nor I can predict the future. However one thing for certain and that is, there is only so much fertile farm ground so why deplete it with a solar installation when there are plenty of good alternatives for panel placement that don't impact the food supply at all.

Not going to argue the point with you except to say, but a solar installation on your property and be happy.

 

[JasperFrank]

I've often wondered why we haven't created more twin reservoirs using alt energy to pump water back up to the higher res, after running hydro-eclectic to the lower res. Seems this would be the perfect battery, and answer the question of, "if the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow," issue.
Gravity is essentially free as a potential energy storage "medium."

In the West Coast, solar isn't an either or decision, as to taking crop lands out of crop production.
We have vast swaths of land that don't even work as grazing land and would not work as any sort of crop production.

Server Farms of the big four; Amazon, Apple, FB and MS have figured this out. So there are major server farms just east of the Cascades. They have created huge solar PV sites to off set the power requirements of their server farms. These do not impact any sort of agriculture.

How it works on the East Coast, I don't know.

Putting PVs over Walmart parking lots would be a Win-Win. Shade for my dog, and a very inexpensive place to recharge an electric vehicle.

 

[Jstpssng]

I doubt that. Most farmers who support these solar and wind farms on their lands are meat eaters.

There are a lot more than farmers who want solar...

 

[Oaktree]

However one thing for certain and that is, there is only so much fertile farm ground so why deplete it with a solar installation when there are plenty of good alternatives for panel placement that don't impact the food supply at all.

Agree that it doesn't make much sense to take good farmland and put solar farms on it, but not all land is fertile or otherwise good for growing (too rocky, too wet, too dry, just plain poor soil, etc.). Depending on how the panels are placed, it would seem that at least some solar farms would still support grazing.

 

[5030]

Cannot answer that. Had a big push here for solar (farms) that got resoundingly shut down. We have the most productive ground in the area here.

 

[5030]

There are a lot more than farmers who want solar...

I don't. Not on my ground.

 

[Gee Ray]

Build the panels over and along the highways.

Might save some money on road repair.

 

[5030]

Save on windshield wiper blades for sure.

 

[Grumpycat]

And your still saying the farmer is collecting ???????????????? How? If the land he rents is rendered unusable, how is he collecting?

Your assuming the farmer is owning the land. I made it clear in my statement that is not always true.

If the PV farmer pays more rent than the dirt farmer then the resource is being put to greater use.

 

[lman]

13,000 acres of good farm ground out of commission.

Israeli company building largest solar project in the US in northern Indiana

(The Center Square) – A company based in Israel has leased 13,000 acres of farmland in two northern Indiana counties with plans to build the largest solar farm in the

www.thecentersquare.com