this post was submitted on 11 Aug 2023
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Sounds good to me. My only real complaint about solar panels is the space they occupy. That complaint goes away if that space can also be used for crops. It's a win/win
Solar panels are about 70x as efficient in getting energy when compared to corn ethanol. If all corn ethanol land (which is heavily irrigated, fertilized, and subsidized) were converted to solar, it would generate 3x the yearly electricity needs of the US.
30.2 million acres * 400 MWh/acre/year = 12,080 TWh/year. US energy use is about 4,000 TWh/year.
We are already taking cropland away for energy production, might as well make it way more efficient.
Do we use corn ethanol for any mass power production?
I think a lot goes into gasoline. Like a large percentage of our corn crops
Well people also complain on expansion of agriculture land so I don't think consideration on land usage will disappear.
Real problem is that many people want the energy source which is clean, cheap, invisible, safe, doesn't consume any land or resources and of course has a easy to understand functioning. What could possibly go wrong ?
Driving through rural corn country, you see yard signs at every second residence saying to keep solar out of farming land, so there is land usage consideration, but by the farmers themselves
I’ll bet that tune would change if we stopped subsidizing corn. I find it hilarious when “farmers” (read just land owners) talk about land usage being wasted like that without even thinking for a second about the amount of subsidies corn gets or the random AG pay to not grow. Which is the most wasteful of land usage.
There is that idea to ring the equator in floating solar panels. Not actually sure how viable that is but sounds awesome. Like something you do in that game Dyson Sphere Project. That would certainly alleviate any worries about land usage.
The problem with plans like that is efficiently getting the electricity produced to the places where it is needed.
They do?
Where I live most people complain that agricultural land is being lost to urban sprawl.
Reducing the amount of land available to produce food is not a good thing.
Best use of space was argued for by...ME. Back in 2002 I argued at length with colleagues that California should build solar panel covers for their aqueducts. This would provide electricity as well as significantly decrease algae growth and evaporation from the aqueducts.
Then car parks at airports.
There's a ton of places they can go.