3 ms·

We absolutely should cover those, but there is a lot of farmland. There may not be enough "mall-land"

sandworm101 3y ago
Well, when i see solar panels atop every mall and commercial building, when every home has a solar roof, then i'll entertain chopping down wilderness or sacrificing farmland to the cause. I still see plent of bare rooftop to address first.
- verve_rat 3y ago
  Well good job it's not your decision to make then. If the economic benefits of adding solar to their farm outweighs the costs then farmers will start adding them to farms.
- angiosperm 3y ago
  Literally nobody proposes "sacrificing" farmland.
  - jubjubbird 3y ago
    I'm looking at a legal agreement on my desk to lease 120 acres of productive eastern Nebraska farmland to build a commercial scale solar project. The land would be taken out of production ("sacrificed") for the 50 year lease, with payments about twice what the land leases for for agriculture (soybeans).
  - sandworm101 3y ago
    It is very common. Farming is hard, margins slim at best. And farmers are given great leeway in how they may make money from land. Regulation is lax. Many fields have been turned from the production of food to the production of electricity, while countless factory rooftops sit covered only in tar and asphalt.
- adrianN 3y ago
  As soon as we stop using farmland to grow energy crops when the same area could give us 20x the energy using solar panels.
- _aavaa_ 3y ago
  The home roofs are going to be done off the more expensive solar installations ($/kW) that we can build because they’re so small. It’s also fascinating how quickly the Nirvana fallacy shows up when it’s time to talk about renewables. Supposedly chopping down forests for solar (which isn’t the main way of getting land) or the farmers choosing to put something on their land is top of mind. But chop those forests to make something else, or have the farmers grow super subsidized corn and there isn’t a peep.

Well, when i see solar panels atop every mall and commercial building, when every home has a solar roof, then i'll entertain chopping down wilderness or sacrificing farmland to the cause. I still see plent of bare rooftop to address first.

verve_rat 3y ago
Well good job it's not your decision to make then. If the economic benefits of adding solar to their farm outweighs the costs then farmers will start adding them to farms.
angiosperm 3y ago
Literally nobody proposes "sacrificing" farmland.
- jubjubbird 3y ago
  I'm looking at a legal agreement on my desk to lease 120 acres of productive eastern Nebraska farmland to build a commercial scale solar project. The land would be taken out of production ("sacrificed") for the 50 year lease, with payments about twice what the land leases for for agriculture (soybeans).
- sandworm101 3y ago
  It is very common. Farming is hard, margins slim at best. And farmers are given great leeway in how they may make money from land. Regulation is lax. Many fields have been turned from the production of food to the production of electricity, while countless factory rooftops sit covered only in tar and asphalt.
adrianN 3y ago
As soon as we stop using farmland to grow energy crops when the same area could give us 20x the energy using solar panels.
_aavaa_ 3y ago
The home roofs are going to be done off the more expensive solar installations ($/kW) that we can build because they’re so small. It’s also fascinating how quickly the Nirvana fallacy shows up when it’s time to talk about renewables. Supposedly chopping down forests for solar (which isn’t the main way of getting land) or the farmers choosing to put something on their land is top of mind. But chop those forests to make something else, or have the farmers grow super subsidized corn and there isn’t a peep.