As solar capacity grows, some of America's most productive farmland is at risk
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/solar-capacity-grows-some-americas-most-productive-farmland-is-risk-2024-04-27/By P.j. Huffstutter and Christopher Walljasper
April 27, 2024 6:24 AM EDT Updated an hour ago
JASPER COUNTY, INDIANA, April 27 (Reuters) - Dave Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen.
[...]
No one knows how much cropland nationwide is currently under solar panels or leased for possible future development. Land deals are typically private transactions. Scientists at the United States Geological Survey and the U.S. Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have been compiling a database of existing solar facilities across the country. While that project is incomplete and ongoing, Reuters found that around 0.02% of all cropland in the continental U.S. intersected in some way with large-scale, ground-based solar panel sites they had identified as of 2021.
[...]
To better understand future land-use patterns, Reuters analyzed federal government data to identify cropland that USDA classified as prime, unique, or of local or statewide importance. Reuters also reviewed more than 2,000 pages of solar-related documents filed at local county recorders' offices in a small sample of four Midwestern counties – Pulaski, Starke and Jasper counties in Indiana, and Columbia County in Wisconsin.
The counties, representing an area of land slightly bigger than the state of Delaware, are where some of the nation's largest projects are being developed or built. The sample is not necessarily representative of the broader United States but gives an idea of the potential impact of solar projects in farm-heavy counties.
[...]
Jerry Hatfield, former director of USDA Agricultural Research Service's National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, said Reuters' findings in the four counties are "concerning."
[...]
(I tried to distill the article down to the 4 paragraph limit, but this one's tough)
= new reply since forum marked as read
A thin layer of sand was put down prior to installation. If the layer of sand is removed, the topsoil is still there.
Sounds a damn sight better than trying to reclaim farmland after a major leak from an oil pipeline.
Most utility-scale solar projects now being proposed in the Midwest corn belt region are permitting some form of continued farming operations under the panels. This can include perennial grasses and pollinator plants, sheep grazing, vegetable crops or, for systems with tracker or horizontal panels, row crops planted and harvested on designated days or after sunset.
This Reuters study, which is admittedly NOT representative of broader U.S., also ignores the fact that much of the land being proposed for solar projects is currently used in pesticide and fertilizer intensive monocropping: an endless rotation of corn, beans, Roundup, and NPK. Monocropping is what is putting our precious farmland "at risk".
Viewed outside the prism of "this year's profits", a 25-to-30-year solar project combined with a robust agrivoltaics component, will leave the underlying soil better in terms of soil moisture, microbial populations, soil biomass, and carbon sequestration, when contrasted with chemical-intensive monocrop farming.
Fun Fact: the title of the Reuters article ("Solar puts farmland at risk"
is essentially the tagline being used now by Fossil Fuel funded astroturf groups to oppose the siting of solar projects in Midwest farming areas.
Coincidence?
...industry produced, in 2022, 7 Exajoules of energy on a planet consuming 632 Exajoules.
The numbers are here: 2023 World Energy Outlook published by the International Energy Agency (IEA), Table A.1a on Page 264.
I may be naive, but I always kind of thought that corn depends on photosynthesis, and photosynthesis requires light, but look, solar is magic and will solve all our problems with no impact on crop growth. Anyway who needs food when you can have the wonders of solar energy that's saving the world? The idea that we hit the highest concentrations of fossil fuel waste ever recorded yesterday, as measured at Mauna Loa, that ecosystems all over the world are collapsing under the weight of fires, extreme heat, extreme weather, acidification, and land industrialization should not deter us from our unshakable faith that the solar industry will grow by 9029% and provide all the energy, food, and playthings we need, including all the energy to manufacture and to drive all over the continent to replace all those solar cells every 20 years.
We're saved!!!!!!
How dare anyone criticize solar energy for land use issues? How dare they!!!!?!!!!!
Criticizing solar cells is even worse than criticizing the Bible, the Koran, and all of that other stuff that doesn't depend on reality.
