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The featured image in the article is looks like an ecological nightmare. https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/GettyImages-Solar-Farm_2185482692-1
by WillPostForFood 1y ago
The featured image in the article is looks like an ecological nightmare.
https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/GettyImages-Solar-Farm_2185482692-1-1536x863.jpg.optimal.jpg https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/GettyImag...
- zdragnar 1y agoOn the one hand, there are some benefits to the ground cover that aren't possible in wide open plains. On the other, a bad hailstorm means a lot of glass and scraps to pick up.
- sigwinch 1y agoPanels can endure hail as well as cars and roofs, so we’re talking catastrophic hail; where we’ve seen economic losses as bad as tornadoes. So, I’d worry about wind wrecking and broadly casting those slivers. Rather than pick them up, maybe consider further crushing them into the ground. While that’s not good for farmland, the area under the plume of a coal plant is already broadly contaminated.
- PeakKS 1y agoWow you're right, a massive coal plant would be much more ecologically friendly.
- sigwinch 1y agoNah, burning an entire field of panels produces less heavy metal contamination than a day of coal.
- BLKNSLVR 1y agoI've only heard a couple of things on the topic, but there is research into multi-use of land for large scale solar with existing agriculture. https://cleanenergycouncil.org.au/news-resources/new-guide-showcases-the-potential-of-agrisolar https://cleanenergycouncil.org.au/news-resources/new-guide-s...
- aaronbrethorst 1y agoThe most remarkable details about solar panels I've heard recently came from the environmentalist Bill McKibben[1] on a podcast[2]: I was standing in a cornfield in Illinois this time last summer, with a farmer who grew corn for ethanol and was converting much of his fields to solar arrays. He said, I can grow in this acre, and he pointed to an acre in a good farmerly way, he said, in this acre, I can grow enough ethanol to run my Ford F-150 pickup, most beloved vehicle in the American iconography. It’ll run 25,000 miles off the ethanol I can grow on an acre in a year. If I cover that same acre with solar panels, then I can produce enough electrons to run my Ford F-150 Lightning, the EV version of the same truck, I can run that not 25,000 miles, but 700,000 miles. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_McKibben https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_McKibben [2] https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/why-is-this-happening/discussing-comes-sun-bill-mckibben-podcast-transcript-rcna232365 https://www.msnbc.com/msnbc-podcast/why-is-this-happening/di...
- dreamcompiler 1y agoNot to mention that the cornfield has to be essentially torn down and rebuilt every year, while the panels will just sit there quietly working for at least 20 years with very little maintenance.
- kragen 1y agoWow, that's astounding. Thanks.
- hunterpayne 1y agoYea, but it says more about how bad corn biofuels are than how good solar is. Also, Iowa is too far north for solar to do much good in the fight against AGW. If you want solar, move to Mexico (or even New Mexico) where it actually makes environmental sense.
- kragen 1y agoGenerating solar power in Mexico won't keep Iowans from warming their homes with natural gas and powering their F-150s with petroleum, so solar panels in Iowa are needed for the fight against AGW.
- hshdhdhehd 1y agoAs does: * Picture of a city * Picture of ploughed fields (was wooded preciously) * Picture of any other type of power generation plant
- grues-dinner 1y ago> Picture of ploughed fields We've cleared nature for farms for so long that the fields feel like nature that should be preserved. Not content with cutting down the forests, now even the hedgerows are in the way. Compared to what was there before (often forest), a gigantic monocrop industrial field is about as ecologically friendly as a car park. And the car park won't dump fertiliser into the water courses either.
- hunterpayne 1y agoThe industrial park also takes a tiny fraction of the amount of land as does growing food. Even better, it allows enough food to be grown on a fraction of the land. So on balance, that powerplant allows far more land to be returned to a natural state. Ironic but true. Its why we shouldn't allow the scientifically illiterate to make decisions about this type of thing.
- hshdhdhehd 1y agoCan full scale solar make a dent in the land available in any country for food? And how does it compare to urban sprawl? (Although suburbs may have the benefit of solar on the roof powering the house below pretty well). Another option is of course put the solar where you cant for whatever reason grow food. Hopefully there is enough shitty land to so that.
- grues-dinner 1y agoIn any country? Yes. For example, Luxembourg (1200km² of farmland, 677,000 people). In most countries: not really. And not to the extent that meat farming does, which is land-use broadly considered to be acceptable. One cow needs from under 1 to to 8 acres depending on how good the land is, and grazed land is roughly double cropland in the US. One cow produces roughly 10 people's beef intake in the US. Not to mention much of the cropland is already used for biofuel: diverting 60 million acres of arable land for energy is already a thing the US does. That 60 million acres of solar could produce 5 times current US electrical consumption. One acre of solar makes roughly 30 US households (not people) of energy. Say 5-10 if you also need to cover current fossil fuel heating and transport. And obviously the energy mix won't be 100% solar. So, on the face of it, it doesn't seem that solar power is an especially inefficient or wasteful use of land in most cases compared to other uses generally considered reasonable. And it also doesn't (further) damage land like intensive farming does. Whereas clearing natural land for solar could be more damaging. Solar on roofs is not great in terms of coverage and is inefficient in terms of operational costs. Yes, the land was already used, so it's better then nothing and you can probably more or less recoup the house, so it's economical for the people who live there and the more the better. But you will still need to power denser housing and increasingly-electrified industry and transport. Urban sprawl in the US is big, but still the US is only 3% urban. Even the UK, which is much denser is 8%. Farmland is far and away the biggest land user in most places.
- dvrj101 1y agoespecially this one : https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:834/format:webp/1*A7cLjUH6zHrS4q8G6SJphA.jpeg https://miro.medium.com/v2/resize:fit:834/format:webp/1*A7cL... - https://medium.com/appalachian-studies-fall-2017-projects/mountaintop-removal-mining-in-west-virginia-a4093b857a58 https://medium.com/appalachian-studies-fall-2017-projects/mo... - https://e360.yale.edu/features/a-troubling-look-at-the-human-toll-of-mountaintop-removal-mining https://e360.yale.edu/features/a-troubling-look-at-the-human...
- Gigachad 1y agoFrom what I’ve seen, solar panels end up being quite good for plant life since they provide partial shade from the sun. Basically a shade cloth that’s productive on its own.