4 ms·
Ethanol corn might be stupid stupid, but midwest farming is far more valuable than a stupid government subsidy program (ethanol i mean). The midwest has water.
by thsksbd 2y ago
Ethanol corn might be stupid stupid, but midwest farming is far more valuable than a stupid government subsidy program (ethanol i mean).
The midwest has water.
Or at least far more of it than Arizona or California. If we're going to cover the Midwest in silica, it should be to build greenhouses for water extensive crops and not for panels.
In fact there shouldn't be an acre of farmland with a solar panel on it until every every inch of roof and parking lot of LA and Phoenix has a solar panel first.
EDIT: typo. s/Id/If/
- mtillman 2y agoAgree. There are also a lot of factories and warehouses in the Midwest that should be covered in solar first.
- thsksbd 2y agoThe midwest has terrible weather (hence the water). A solar panel outside of Southwest is a solar panel that produces a fraction of its potential.
- ZeroGravitas 2y agoFrom the best to worst places for solar PV in the continental US is only a factor of 2 difference. People have really bad intuitions about this, possibly not accounting for the impact of heat.
- ProjectArcturis 2y agoYou're ignoring the little problem of transmission.
- thsksbd 2y agoHardly. CO2 doesn't care where it came from. 1. You preferentially close TPPs in CA, while still offsetting the whole country's emission. 2. Transmission lines are a thing, including HVDC lines 3. There are how many massive metro cities within a 200 mi. radius of LA? Some of them growing. There's plenty of demand.