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> ... but utility scale solar probably means repurposing farmland... Great. Let's start by repurposing the land that grows the corn we turn into ethanol at so
by Syonyk 3y ago
> ... but utility scale solar probably means repurposing farmland...
Great. Let's start by repurposing the land that grows the corn we turn into ethanol at somewhere around or below unity EROEI, as a political handout to the midwestern states. "Burning a megajoule of diesel, to grow enough corn to make something slightly less than a megajoule of gasoline," is not a winning solution to any problem but "How to best hand money to states that happen to have early Presidential primaries." It's not a bad gig for Iowa (I lived there for a decade), but neither is it a particularly good use of energy, fossil fuels, or money. Let's put solar up there, and work out.
Once we've gotten rid of the ethanol debacle, we can see where things are and discuss from that point, but there is a lot of farmland right now that doesn't grow human or animal food, it grows corn that we process rather inefficiently into ethanol.
- notatoad 3y agoi completely agree, but as long as this is all driven by economics the existence of those corn subsidies is going to mean the farmland that gets repurposed won't be the farmland that gets the most government subsidies, it'll be the farmland that grows the cheap food that people need to eat. i know ethanol farming is a waste, but it's a lot easier to convert a corn field back into a useful farm field before you've built a solar farm on top of it, rather than afterwards
- shkkmo 3y ago> it's a lot easier to convert a corn field back into a useful farm field before you've built a solar farm on top of it, rather than afterwards Or you can do agrovoltaics and have both. There's some evidence that low density agrovoltaic setups increase corn yields.