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 ****** 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

 

[jyoutz]

Being assertive on climate change is one thing, but tens of thousands of acres of food-producing farming land going lost because of assumptions from predictive computer models? Under a solar field grows nothing, not even weeds. But of course, food can then be brought in by ship from Asia

Not one of all these climate models, when tested against historical climate data of the last century, gives a better result than 50%. Computer models can't even predict the stock exchange over one whole week.

Tens of thousands of acres needed for solar fields to meet Consumers Energy climate goals

Officials expect tens of thousands of acres of solar fields will be needed to meet the company’s climate promises, along with retiring coal-burning power generation.

www.mlive.com

There are large solar farms within 10 miles of where I live. They are about 100 acres each. The farms and ranch lands aggregate in the tens of thousands of acres. A little perspective. They are also producing cheaper electricity than the older coal plants (now closed) used to produce. So let’s disregard the climate model discussion. The power is cheaper and cleaner.

 

[jyoutz]

Back when Bill Clinton was president they apparently had money to burn. They implemented a farm program called CREP. It stood for conservation reserve enhance program. It was permanent set aside. You couldn’t farm, log it, mow it, just walk on it and hunt on it. As in NEVER. As a rule it was meant to keep silt out of the major rivers but it spread to smaller rivers when participation wasn’t big enough.

People often got paid through the CREP program a lot more than they paid for the ground. I wonder how long before the government pays these landowner to go back and start farming it.

Those lands had to be classified as marginally productive land and the program is still operating. Nobody put class 1 farmland in the CRP program.

 

[jyoutz]

I do. I own the land here around the farm and I lease ground elsewhere and I own more ground in northern lower Michigan and none of it will ever have solar on it as long as myself or our family owns it. My leased ground is another story, don't control that but keep in mind, as fertile ground is taken pit of production and what was grown on the land no longer is grown, that all adds to the shortage of food and other processed from whatever was grown there.

Shortage of food? There are far more acres of grain produced in the US than is used domestically. Many acres are planted for export or fuel alcohol. We are far from having a food shortage in the US.

 

[Grumpycat]

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 ****** 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

Why should a zoning authority have any say over how the owner uses the land?

 

[lman]

Why should a zoning authority have any say over how the owner uses the land?

No restrictions in your subdivision?

 

[5030]

The essence of zoning is to protect a homeowner/landholder from a person or persons erecting or using lands in a non conforming way. Without zoning, you could have a 300 grand home with a trailer next door and that destroys the value of the 300K place. zoning is all about protecting the value of property and housing.

 

[5030]

Shortage of food? There are far more acres of grain produced in the US than is used domestically. Many acres are planted for export or fuel alcohol. We are far from having a food shortage in the US.

Keep that thought this fall and winter.

 

[lman]

When bread gets to $10/loaf, I'll do without.

 

[jyoutz]

Keep that thought this fall and winter.

So are you suggesting that exports and fuel production from grains would continue if there was a food shortage in this country?

 

[WM75Guy]

Taxing entities are happy to have solar and wind farms. We pay property tax and separate mineral production tax on farmland that has oil/gas production. For growing cotton there is an ag exemption on the property tax, which reduces the tax revenue generated. There are no exemptions for mineral tax and the acreage is appraised at a higher value based on production, resulting in considerably more tax revenue. We were leased out for wind but so far, no wind turbines have been built on the properties. If we had wind or solar production that would raise the appraised value accordingly, therefore more tax revenue.