In America, if we only replaced the fields growing corn for Ethanol production to add to gasoline, leaving every other field alone, we’d have enough energy to power the whole country with a huge surplus to spare. We’re already using the fields for energy production, we’re just being inefficient about it.
Agrisolar exists. If the US converted just a few % of the acreage legally mandated for growing corn for ethanol to solar, the energy crisis essentially solves itself.
They should at least replace the fields producing corn ethanol. Saves the recurring cost of producing the energy, and reduces the emissions of both harvesting and burning.
Huge swathes of land are used just to burn the output.
Farming is much worse for land than PV. PV is almost as good as leaving it untouched, while farming ruins biodiversity through monoculture, nitrate and phosphate pollution, and possibly pesticides.
Large-scale ground-mounted PV is fine and people need to get over it. If you are in the mood to publicly advocate for more environmentally friendly land use, go and protest the grotesque waste of land for crops like corn and sorghum used to produce bioethanol fuels.
And like I said, vast amounts of farmland are for fuels, not for food. So effectively harvesting energy like PV, just much slower, much less efficient and much worse for the ground and fauna.
The most pro-nature approach I can think of is to use farmland for fuel production (a hectare of corn produces 20 MWh/ha/y in bioethanol), convert 3% of it to PV (700 MWh/ha/y) and restore 97% of it to its natural state while still harvesting the same amount of energy. In the US that could be 40 million acres restored to nature. You can improve farming methods for actual food production, but none of that will beat millions of acres of land not being used for farming at all. Another, much more effective measure would be to reduce meat consumption to, again, render millions of acres of farmland ready for renaturalization.
Nah, I’d rather leave the fields open for nature or farming.
In America, if we only replaced the fields growing corn for Ethanol production to add to gasoline, leaving every other field alone, we’d have enough energy to power the whole country with a huge surplus to spare. We’re already using the fields for energy production, we’re just being inefficient about it.
Agrisolar exists. If the US converted just a few % of the acreage legally mandated for growing corn for ethanol to solar, the energy crisis essentially solves itself.
also what i feel people forget is that you can join windmills and solar panels on the same area. although i don’t know whether that’s usually done.
They should at least replace the fields producing corn ethanol. Saves the recurring cost of producing the energy, and reduces the emissions of both harvesting and burning.
Huge swathes of land are used just to burn the output.
Farming is much worse for land than PV. PV is almost as good as leaving it untouched, while farming ruins biodiversity through monoculture, nitrate and phosphate pollution, and possibly pesticides.
Large-scale ground-mounted PV is fine and people need to get over it. If you are in the mood to publicly advocate for more environmentally friendly land use, go and protest the grotesque waste of land for crops like corn and sorghum used to produce bioethanol fuels.
On the other hand, I do enjoy eating food
And like I said, vast amounts of farmland are for fuels, not for food. So effectively harvesting energy like PV, just much slower, much less efficient and much worse for the ground and fauna.
Only bc we choose to farm in the most aggressive and anti nature way possible. Other techniques do exist and are being reintroduced in some areas
The most pro-nature approach I can think of is to use farmland for fuel production (a hectare of corn produces 20 MWh/ha/y in bioethanol), convert 3% of it to PV (700 MWh/ha/y) and restore 97% of it to its natural state while still harvesting the same amount of energy. In the US that could be 40 million acres restored to nature. You can improve farming methods for actual food production, but none of that will beat millions of acres of land not being used for farming at all. Another, much more effective measure would be to reduce meat consumption to, again, render millions of acres of farmland ready for renaturalization.
Bro we’re gonna starve.