alt Hacker NewsYou are both ignoring the "soils" part of my comment; Even deserts have things growing in their soils.
Putting solar panels into these places disturbs the natural soils. Transporting that energy requires infrastructure that also messes with habitats. Using it on-site requires different infrastructure and activity that is also disruptive.
Just because the land is "virgin" or "barren" doesn't mean nothing is there biologically. Part of biodiversity is biodiversity in the soil itself. Much of that diversity hasn't been officially studied/documented. ie: We don't even know what we are killing off.
Solar panels do have an ecological cost. Expanding to cover the entire planet is the wrong approach (IMO.) We have plenty of urban space and existing infrastructure that we can cover with solar without disturbing farm land or what's left of natural habitats.
Beyond all of this, TFA was comparing corn vs solar. That implies we are talking about farmable land.
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Farm land has less healthy soil than if you stop tilling, fertilizing and pesticides and put solar panels on it. I also think you’re overestimating the area needed to cover our energy needs.
> without disturbing farm land
Farm land is heavily disturbed. All the fertilizer and other chemicals used, soil destroyed by all the things we do to it, and downstream disruption due to fertilizer runoff, animals that are fed and then we have to manage the manure, water that is depleted etc. Placing solar panels on farm land is actually very close to returning it to the nature (of course depending on how exactly you do it, how tightly placed they are, how high etc., but it's also possible to still grow trees under them like some pilot projects in southern Italy or to place them over animal pastures).
Big farmland is effectively dead. It must be tiled and heavily fertilized to produce anything. It does NOT have healthy soils.
And remember the context: were talking of replacing corn grown for energy, monoculture with no insect or plant life, with the same land covered with solar panels, time for soil to recover, native plants to germinate and grow.
Putting solar panels instead of the industrial corn production is partially rewilding it - there are projects in the hotter countries where increased humidity and decreased sunlight actually allows for the more plants to thrive. There are projects using goats to trim the greens under the panels. Etc, etc.
Almost anything is better for the soil, biodiversity and life than industrial corn production.