alt Hacker NewsYou're also taking away farmland that could be used to produce all kinds of things. Most of the prime solar areas are the same prime areas for agriculture. By creating massive solar farms, you're at the same time, reducing acreage that could be used for range animals and other agriculture:
Modeling by the American Farmland Trust (AFT) finds that 83% of projected solar development will be on agricultural land, of which 49% will be on land AFT deems “nationally significant” due to high levels of productivity, versatility, and resiliency. In May 2024, the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Economic Research Service (ERS) reported that between 2009 and 2020, 43% of solar installations were on land previously used for crop production and 21% on land used as pasture or rangeland.
In a few years we'll have to deal with an impending disposal issue on farmland:
Forecasts suggest that 8 million metric tons of solar panels will have reached the end of their lifecycles by 2030. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory reports that less than 10% of decommissioned panels are recycled. Many end up in landfills at the end of their lifecycle, which could be problematic, according to researchers with the Electric Power Research Institute because panels could break and leak toxic materials like lead and cadmium into the soil. If decommissioned panels are not disposed of properly, they could contaminate the surface and groundwater in the surrounding area, making disposal a major issue for farmers and rural communities who rely on groundwater for needs ranging from crop irrigation to drinking water.
Replies
Agricultural land in large parts of the US is going through a massive degradation cycle. We are heading for dustbowl 2.0 especially now that a bunch of the weird land universities have been shut down. In short its being used wrong and left empty too long, meaning the top soil is blowing away. Not to mention the land drains stopping proper soaking leading to flash flooding and runoff events.
Depending on how the panels are put in place, the land and soil quality will increase significantly because its reverting to fallow and long rooted stabilising plants will have 25 years to build up the biome again. Converting land back to farming is pretty quick.
I understand the point your making, and I do agree with the end of life cycle issues. THere is going to be a lot of lead leaching into water courses if not dealt with properly.
Fewer cows would be a huge environmental win. Beef farming is a major source of GHG. Also a very expensive/inefficient way to produce calories.
You can do both farming and solar on the same land and it improves crop yields. As of yesterday, studies found it creates rainfall in the desert
The land use argument is less than zero.
If you replaced ONLY existing fields used to grow corn for ethanol, and turned those into solar panels, you would already exceed the entire current US demand for electricity.
Solar energy is a phenomenal use of land, of which we have enormous amounts of in this country.