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That's at the same time true and misleading. Land usage for energy crops will vary year on year (natural crop rotation). On top of that, only some crops are rea
by choeger 4y ago
That's at the same time true and misleading. Land usage for energy crops will vary year on year (natural crop rotation). On top of that, only some crops are really disturbing people living close by (e.g. rapeseed stinks when wet). Large-scale PV installations really look and feel bad when you live or walk right next to them. Wherea a field of wheat, corn, or rapeseed somewhat feels natural and even has its beauty, solar panels just look ugly up close.
So the question is: Will you find enough locations that don't annoy the locals and once you found them will your project survive the inevitable intrigues amongst land owners over who gets to rent out their land for the lucrative PV installations?
Even though it's more expensive, I think that using rooftops and other already occupied spaces first is a more sensible route.
- ncmncm 4y agoAnd, you can post as much BS you can make up. It is called trolling, and is unwelcome here.
- adrianN 4y agoPersonally I don't find PV panels ugly and I bet that the biodiversity under the panels is a larger that on endless monocultures.
- konschubert 4y agoI lived by a large PV installation and it neither looked nor felt bad. It’s quiet and doesn’t smell. It’s about as unobtrusive as you can imagine a thing to be.
- choeger 4y agoCould you look over them?
- konschubert 4y agoI didn’t live IN it.
- thedougd 4y agoDrove by a 108 megawatt, 765 acre installation last week (looked it up later). It really didn’t look much different than the surrounding farm land. In fact you could see further than you could with corn crops. The panels didn’t come all the way to the roadside and rows were perpendicular to the road, so you could see straight through. If solar panels were more efficient and mass produced in the 1990s, I have to imagine solar farms would have replaced most tobacco farms after the buyouts.
- ericd 4y agoThe thing that would bother me about crops nearby would be if they ever sprayed something not-so-great-to-breathe on them (which, they generally do). Solar farms seem like perfect neighbors, by comparison. I really don’t get the whole “solar panels are ugly” thing, it feels almost like concern trolling, trying to muddy the waters. Though maybe I’m biased by my feeling that solar panels are damn-near magic - you leave them outside, basically neglect them, and power just comes spilling out of them.
- choeger 4y agoI think it's, quite literally, a question of the point of view. I know about installations that were (during planning) allowed to be 4m tall. If that happens right next to your home or any other place you visit frequently, I, and many others, find it extremely ugly. If there's a distance, say 100m, it's not half as bad. If the installation doesn't even block the view (e.g., because of elevation), I don't care at all. But given the plans I have seen, I prefer a couple of wind energy plants about 1000m away.
- ncmncm 4y agoIt is extremely common to put solar panels on residential roofs 4m high, often higher. Complaints are rare. It is extremely uncommon to site dedicated solar farms within 100m of residential areas.
- jandrese 4y agoSolar panels are only like 3-4" above the roof on residential installs. Any extra view blocked that wasn't already blocked by the house is trivial. In fact solar panels are usually not installed all the way to the top of the roofline so there is no change in visibility at all.
- cma 4y agoFarmers often already need tall tree barriers for wind erosion control. Other farmers may usually without restriction cultivate a tall view-blocking forest on their land. So let them cultivate a perimeter of just enough forest to hide the panels if it really is a real issue and not a product of NIMBY OCPD.