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Solar power is definitely a partial solution to current and future electrical power needs. One consideration is changing the use of agricultural land from growing crops to solar “farms”, a term that is a misnomer as they don’t “grow” anything, but rather generate electrical power. Solar “electrical generating operation” is a more honest name. One consideration is the loss of CO2 capture farm crops provide, as well as the loss of oxygen generated by growing crops. Have the technocrats calculated these losses? Another consideration is soil conservation. Solar “electrical generating operations” would definitely serve to conserve topsoil, wherever they are located, especially if that is (former) cultivated farm land. It would be more costly to install solar panels on rooftops and abandoned parking lots, but that would prevent farmland from being taken out of production. Farming contributes to carbon in the atmosphere by the fossil fuels that are used to farm. Producing solar panels also contributes carbon to the atmosphere by the industrial production methods used to produce the panels, as well as the fuel emissions from transporting the panels. If farm ground is used to produce solar power, and that causes farmers to cut more trees down to gain new “makeup” farm ground, what is the environmental impact of fewer trees? There is a great deal of complexity to determine what benefits the environment when all considerations are factored into the equation.
Mark, all good, sensible questions to ask. Surely someone has mapped out these ancillary issues, but why refer to them with the derogatory term “technocrats”. Aren’t they precisely the people who will produce the data you seek to form a well-informed opinion?
Obviously not an independent source, but some Googling turns up some promising news: “How Much CO2 Does Solar Panel Manufacturing Release? Accounting for the amount of CO2 produced during solar panel manufacturing, solar panels generate, in effect, around 50g of CO2 per kilowatt hour during their initial years of operation. This is about 20 times less than the carbon output of coal-powered electricity sources. Your panels will require about three years of operation to pay off their carbon debt and become carbon neutral.
As we mentioned, however, your system’s effective carbon debt is 20 times less than that of coal-powered electricity sources. This means you’ll immediately reduce your carbon footprint just by installing. After their first three years of use, the panels will reduce that footprint even further, with the system remaining carbon neutral throughout the remainder of its lifespan. Since solar panels generally last more than two decades, that’s a lot of carbon kept out of the atmosphere.”
https://gvecsolarservice.com/how-clean-is-the-solar-panel-manufacturing-process-how-much-carbon-dioxide-is-produced/#:~:text=Accounting%20for%20the%20amount%20of,of%20coal%2Dpowered%20electricity%20sources.
OTOH, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), presumably a more independent organization, indicates there are certainly some serious drawbacks, but it all depends on whether the manufacturers are responsible. With 50% of solar panel manufacturing in China, that’s a bad bet given their history. But as technology advances, we can do a better job of making the panels without as much downside.
https://spectrum.ieee.org/green-tech/solar/solar-energy-isnt-always-as-green-as-you-think
I leave it to you to do further research to se there’s a trade-off in the farming of crops, and your suspicion that tilling consumes fossil fuels, and as well all other aspects of working the field with tractors, harvesters, etc. I don’t know if it’s a 1:1 offset, but it does seem that the crops are not a huge benefit on balance.
Transporting the panels is a once every 20-year thing that I would guess is a small factor.
This kinda misses the biggest point of by producing electricity with Solar Energy we aren’t doing so by burning Coal. Just sayin’. Beyond that, the type of farming conducted in most of Indiana is industrialized which is way harder on the environment than many assume. Assuming the Solar Farm operators plant a cover crop under their panels they can dispense with the use of fertilizers and pesticides and gain the same ecological benefit (CO2 capture and O2 production) of corn or beans. I cannot see any way that this use is not a huge plus for the environment on all levels and a tremendous plus for the economy of the area in tax revenue. It all seems like very easy math.
“I just love looking at this farm land!”
Well you could buy it.
Some threat. Bunch of ZIonsville NIMBYs.
The biggest NIMBYs are the property owners who are leasing their ground to utility scale solar companies. In my area of Shelby Co, there is not a single property owner who has signed up the property surrounding their own homes; and yet, they haven’t hesitated to surround their neighbors with solar panels. The landowners are literally keeping panels out of their back yards while putting it in someone else’s. So who is the biggest NIMBY?