7 ms·

I find the issue of land use for renewables (especially wind) to be similar as land use for rail and highways. Technically they don't use up a lot of land, but

by belorn 4y ago

I find the issue of land use for renewables (especially wind) to be similar as land use for rail and highways. Technically they don't use up a lot of land, but when it is time to actually build there tend to be a lot of problems finding land that people are willing to sell. Either because of noise, or because current utilization of that land would be hindered in some way. Eminent domain is a common tool to solve this, and it is also used for mining. It is however not very popular.

adrianN 4y ago
A wind turbine "uses" very little land. The area under the turbine can be used for many other things. That doesn't stop NIMBYs.
- QuarterReptile 4y ago
  Presumably you mean farming? And,more particularly, industrial farming since the turbines would probably scare animals and endanger birds near it. Or are there examples of more intensive uses under wind turbines?
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    "Industrial" farming? You mean using tractors instead of mules?
  - lostapathy 4y ago
    Crops grow just fine around a wind turbine, regardless of farm size. And they don't get scared of it either.
  - tstrimple 4y ago
    I'm having a difficult time understanding your arguments. https://talkbusiness.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Wind-Farm-WEB-1024x538.jpg https://talkbusiness.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Wind-Far... https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/07/19/world/windfarms-web/windfarms-web-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/07/19/world/windfarms-w... Just what about these turbines makes farming / ranching more difficult?
- collegeburner 4y ago
  the sight and sound impact of a wind turbine is real though newer models are a lot quieter. if i lived out in the country where it was quiet i'd be against someone putting them up super close as well. just calling everyone a "NIMBY" is not a valid response to criticism of externalities.
  - adrianN 4y ago
    Well if you want to use cheap carbon free electricity but don't want to see turbines that makes you a NIMBY in the most literal sense of the word.
    - iosono88 4y ago
    - krupan 4y ago
      "cheap" and "carbon free"
      - throwaway894345 4y ago
        Pretty sure wind is about as cheap and low-carbon as energy gets. Hydro might be better, but it’s not feasible in most locations.
        singhrac 4y ago
        On shore wind has the lowest LCOE (even excluding subsidies) of any utility scale type of energy; significantly lower than coal, and a bit lower than solar or nat gas.
        ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        This has been true since about 2015 (if you include pollution externalities) but solar is on track to move ahead about now. The more important thing is that both are below fossil fuel alternatives, and can complement each other. The exact blend depends on the location of course, but any sensible grid will likely include both of them (and mixes of distributed solar, onshore, offshore wind). Generally solar and wind should be about 80% of the generation mix, and the precise balance (after including the cost difference over the next few decades) globally leans towards solar being the dominant of the two in most plans and predictions. edit: this has now made me wonder if anyone calculates the LCOE of 'optimal' solar/wind mix for the region.
ncmncm 4y ago
They are in fact nothing alike. Land used for rail and roads is used up. Land used for solar may continue being used for whatever else it was doing already. Please do not make up BS problems.
- stevehawk 4y ago
  I can grow corn on a field covered in solar panels?
  - montalbano 4y ago
    There might be some studies on corn available, although it's not explicitly mentioned in the article. From the article: Researchers are experimenting with which plants do best under solar panels and even trying to grow tomatoes and potatoes between rows at existing utility-scale farms, Macknick says.
    - ncmncm 4y ago
      Some pepper varieties get 3x yield in partial shade.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    "Covered in"? No. Corn, and also wheat, yield less in partial shade. But most crops do not, and benefit both from reduced heat stress and reduced water loss. Livestock, likewise, benefit from shelter, and the grass grows not less, same reasons. When you have all of cultivated land available to site solar in, you can choose places to put it where it is most beneficial. Farm and pasture are not the only places that benefit from shade. Reservoirs and canals lose huge amounts of water to evaporation, and need constantly to fight biofouling. Roofs, too, last longer in shade.
    - Scoundreller 4y ago
      Corn and wheat would be a non-starter since you’d partially/entirely lose the scale of mechanically planting/tassle/harvesting. Maybe a specialized tractor could be built to go around the panels but really you’d want to grow laborious crops that are mostly hand-planted/harvested anyway.
detaro 4y ago
Where in the world do you see that problem? Doesn't match anything I've encountered about the topic, and I have family members deeply involved in the planning and permission process for such things. People generally like making money with their land, and especially for wind it often doesn't impact the economics of current land use very much. (And even solar isn't necessarily exclusive) The comparison with rail and highways also isn't very good since for those there are much stricter constraints to cover a useful and practical route in its entirety.
- DontGiveTwoFlux 4y ago
  https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-4-fall/feature/nimby-threat-renewable-energy https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-4-fall/feature/nimby-...
  - detaro 4y ago
    That doesn't appear to be about difficulties buying land.
  - jandrese 4y ago
    Ironically the Sierra Club is one of those organizations behind NIMBY type objections to solar and wind production. They are an outdoorsman club, not an environmental club. Their objective is maximizing the amount of untouched wilderness available, and that means not being able to see wind turbines from mountaintops.
- belorn 4y ago
  The average farm in the US is around 2 square kilometers. let say a railway road is about 10 meter across, and let say it goes through those 2 square kilometers. How much of that land is taken up by the railroad? 0.5%, leaving the farmer 99.5% to use for everything else. Railroad isn't generally that wide and thus don't use up a lot of land. The biggest problem in those situation isn't that the actually land that get used, it is how the farmer get impacted by the rail road being there. If they got a lot of money for those 0.5% with no negative effect then naturally people would have no objection to sell that for huge profits. I can't speak for your family members or the locations where they are involved, but I do know how much politics there is around where I live. There is a lot of resistance to place wind farms on farm fields, and farmers aren't exactly lining up to rent out their land (or at least not for the price people are willing to pay). Ocean farms are often cited as being easier to build because there is less resistance from land owners and local government. One land location that does seem a bit easier for wind production are forests in mountain areas which is sparsely populated. The draw side is that the consumers isn't generally located there, so you get the situation where the best and easiest locations to install wind is also the worst location to utilize the production.
dv_dt 4y ago
The land doesn't have to be purchased though, there are plenty of uses which cooperatively use the land. Parking lots, and solar-agriculture. The coop use may even improve the hybrid performance - a little less sun and a little better shade microclimate for humidity can even be a crop yield booster (esp with climate change induced droughts).
- dublin 4y ago
  Just putting arrays on commercial rooftops is the most cost-effective solution by far. And no you can't really grow crops or much of anything but low grass/weeds under the panels due to 1) the problems (of shading with tall weeds or crops), and 2) the potential for damaging the surprisingly fragile wiring. (And don't get me started on this, but most arrays are wired stupidly, ignoring what the telegraph and phone guys learned 125 years ago: you want to ground the positive leg, NOT the negative, so you can use cathodic protection via a sacrificial anode to prevent the wires corroding away. You would be shocked how many 10-15 year old arrays I've seen that have something rapidly approaching empty straws of insulation connecting the panels - the breakeven on a solar PV plant is around 20-22 years, so these will never break even!)

by belorn 4y ago

adrianN 4y ago

A wind turbine "uses" very little land. The area under the turbine can be used for many other things. That doesn't stop NIMBYs.

QuarterReptile 4y ago
Presumably you mean farming? And,more particularly, industrial farming since the turbines would probably scare animals and endanger birds near it. Or are there examples of more intensive uses under wind turbines?
- ncmncm 4y ago
  "Industrial" farming? You mean using tractors instead of mules?
- lostapathy 4y ago
  Crops grow just fine around a wind turbine, regardless of farm size. And they don't get scared of it either.
- tstrimple 4y ago
  I'm having a difficult time understanding your arguments. https://talkbusiness.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Wind-Farm-WEB-1024x538.jpg https://talkbusiness.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Wind-Far... https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/07/19/world/windfarms-web/windfarms-web-jumbo.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp https://static01.nyt.com/images/2016/07/19/world/windfarms-w... Just what about these turbines makes farming / ranching more difficult?
collegeburner 4y ago
the sight and sound impact of a wind turbine is real though newer models are a lot quieter. if i lived out in the country where it was quiet i'd be against someone putting them up super close as well. just calling everyone a "NIMBY" is not a valid response to criticism of externalities.
- adrianN 4y ago
  Well if you want to use cheap carbon free electricity but don't want to see turbines that makes you a NIMBY in the most literal sense of the word.
  - iosono88 4y ago
  - krupan 4y ago
    "cheap" and "carbon free"
    - throwaway894345 4y ago
      Pretty sure wind is about as cheap and low-carbon as energy gets. Hydro might be better, but it’s not feasible in most locations.
      - singhrac 4y ago
        On shore wind has the lowest LCOE (even excluding subsidies) of any utility scale type of energy; significantly lower than coal, and a bit lower than solar or nat gas.
        ZeroGravitas 4y ago
        This has been true since about 2015 (if you include pollution externalities) but solar is on track to move ahead about now. The more important thing is that both are below fossil fuel alternatives, and can complement each other. The exact blend depends on the location of course, but any sensible grid will likely include both of them (and mixes of distributed solar, onshore, offshore wind). Generally solar and wind should be about 80% of the generation mix, and the precise balance (after including the cost difference over the next few decades) globally leans towards solar being the dominant of the two in most plans and predictions. edit: this has now made me wonder if anyone calculates the LCOE of 'optimal' solar/wind mix for the region.

ncmncm 4y ago

They are in fact nothing alike. Land used for rail and roads is used up. Land used for solar may continue being used for whatever else it was doing already. Please do not make up BS problems.

stevehawk 4y ago
I can grow corn on a field covered in solar panels?
- montalbano 4y ago
  There might be some studies on corn available, although it's not explicitly mentioned in the article. From the article: Researchers are experimenting with which plants do best under solar panels and even trying to grow tomatoes and potatoes between rows at existing utility-scale farms, Macknick says.
  - ncmncm 4y ago
    Some pepper varieties get 3x yield in partial shade.
- ncmncm 4y ago
  "Covered in"? No. Corn, and also wheat, yield less in partial shade. But most crops do not, and benefit both from reduced heat stress and reduced water loss. Livestock, likewise, benefit from shelter, and the grass grows not less, same reasons. When you have all of cultivated land available to site solar in, you can choose places to put it where it is most beneficial. Farm and pasture are not the only places that benefit from shade. Reservoirs and canals lose huge amounts of water to evaporation, and need constantly to fight biofouling. Roofs, too, last longer in shade.
  - Scoundreller 4y ago
    Corn and wheat would be a non-starter since you’d partially/entirely lose the scale of mechanically planting/tassle/harvesting. Maybe a specialized tractor could be built to go around the panels but really you’d want to grow laborious crops that are mostly hand-planted/harvested anyway.

detaro 4y ago

Where in the world do you see that problem? Doesn't match anything I've encountered about the topic, and I have family members deeply involved in the planning and permission process for such things. People generally like making money with their land, and especially for wind it often doesn't impact the economics of current land use very much. (And even solar isn't necessarily exclusive) The comparison with rail and highways also isn't very good since for those there are much stricter constraints to cover a useful and practical route in its entirety.

DontGiveTwoFlux 4y ago
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-4-fall/feature/nimby-threat-renewable-energy https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/2021-4-fall/feature/nimby-...
- detaro 4y ago
  That doesn't appear to be about difficulties buying land.
- jandrese 4y ago
  Ironically the Sierra Club is one of those organizations behind NIMBY type objections to solar and wind production. They are an outdoorsman club, not an environmental club. Their objective is maximizing the amount of untouched wilderness available, and that means not being able to see wind turbines from mountaintops.
belorn 4y ago
The average farm in the US is around 2 square kilometers. let say a railway road is about 10 meter across, and let say it goes through those 2 square kilometers. How much of that land is taken up by the railroad? 0.5%, leaving the farmer 99.5% to use for everything else. Railroad isn't generally that wide and thus don't use up a lot of land. The biggest problem in those situation isn't that the actually land that get used, it is how the farmer get impacted by the rail road being there. If they got a lot of money for those 0.5% with no negative effect then naturally people would have no objection to sell that for huge profits. I can't speak for your family members or the locations where they are involved, but I do know how much politics there is around where I live. There is a lot of resistance to place wind farms on farm fields, and farmers aren't exactly lining up to rent out their land (or at least not for the price people are willing to pay). Ocean farms are often cited as being easier to build because there is less resistance from land owners and local government. One land location that does seem a bit easier for wind production are forests in mountain areas which is sparsely populated. The draw side is that the consumers isn't generally located there, so you get the situation where the best and easiest locations to install wind is also the worst location to utilize the production.

dv_dt 4y ago

The land doesn't have to be purchased though, there are plenty of uses which cooperatively use the land. Parking lots, and solar-agriculture. The coop use may even improve the hybrid performance - a little less sun and a little better shade microclimate for humidity can even be a crop yield booster (esp with climate change induced droughts).

dublin 4y ago
Just putting arrays on commercial rooftops is the most cost-effective solution by far. And no you can't really grow crops or much of anything but low grass/weeds under the panels due to 1) the problems (of shading with tall weeds or crops), and 2) the potential for damaging the surprisingly fragile wiring. (And don't get me started on this, but most arrays are wired stupidly, ignoring what the telegraph and phone guys learned 125 years ago: you want to ground the positive leg, NOT the negative, so you can use cathodic protection via a sacrificial anode to prevent the wires corroding away. You would be shocked how many 10-15 year old arrays I've seen that have something rapidly approaching empty straws of insulation connecting the panels - the breakeven on a solar PV plant is around 20-22 years, so these will never break even!)