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This is very neat. I've heard of similar benefits to combining solar panels and agriculture. I'm glad this is getting some attention. I live in the desert and
by jay-anderson 3y ago
This is very neat. I've heard of similar benefits to combining solar panels and agriculture.
I'm glad this is getting some attention. I live in the desert and often I hear from people who don't live here the sentiment that it's useless, dead land, but the opposite is true. The deserts in the southwest US are alive with all sorts of interesting and beautiful plants and animals.
- PaulHoule 3y agoAlmost any area builds soil structure if you leave it undisturbed. It’s important to remember that solar installations aren’t an industrial concrete slab but leave space for secondary agricultural use. I have a hayfield which produces better year over years because the roots of the grass are undisturbed.
- grogenaut 3y agoWould love to see a photo of this, is there a term I can google image search or photos?
- natmaka 3y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics
- doctoboggan 3y agoYou can google "no till agriculture" or more broadly "permaculture".
- grogenaut 3y agoWhat does that have to do with solar panels?
- justinclift 3y ago> It’s important to remember that solar installations aren’t an industrial concrete slab but leave space for secondary agricultural use. As a data point, there is ongoing development of the "flat slab on the ground" type of approach too. eg: https://electrek.co/2022/12/12/texas-solar-farm-flat-on-the-ground/ https://electrek.co/2022/12/12/texas-solar-farm-flat-on-the-...
- briantakita 3y agoJust make sure the solar panel components contain no heavy metals or other toxic substances. Same with the batteries. These materials do leach & contaminate the ecosystem & water table. Bonus points if no children were compelled to mine or manufacture the material.
- renewiltord 3y agoComment made me curious so I looked it up. They do contain heavy metals and toxic substances. As do the batteries. Looking it up, it appears that the contamination occurs during disposal so it's not a good idea to dispose of these in the kind of landfill where they can get into the water table, and it's preferable to recycle them. It appears that mining these materials in formalized industrial mines has no child labour according to Human Rights Watch. It's artisanal independent mines that are risky from this perspective. Overall, the technology seems safe.
- xbar 3y agoI would amend your conclusion to say "Overall, the technology seems to be safely manageable." Let to rot after funding is depleted is a recipe for disaster. Consider the original decommissioning plan for San Onofre nuclear power plant: https://sanonofresafety.org/nuclear-waste/ https://sanonofresafety.org/nuclear-waste/
- ClumsyPilot 3y agoThat kind of true for every human activity. Anything is dangerous if incompetent / malevolent actors are in charge. Even pig farms cause runoff of manure and fertiliser into rivers, where they cause Eutrophication - massive algae blooms that consume all oxygen in the water, killing all the local fish and fauna and producing massive swaths of hte ocean where the only living thing is Jellyfish.
- briantakita 3y agoSome tech is easier to manage & has been around longer to understand the implications than other technologies though.
- MichaelZuo 3y agoI've heard India has had some successes combining solar and rural farms/deserts. Though I'm not sure how exactly.
- detritus 3y agoThey're also covering water canals with solar panels, which a) makes use of otherwise wasted space, b) reduces evaporation of the water, c) reduces algal and weed growth which causes toxicity and flow problems and d) encourages cool shaded zones beneficial to local wildlife.
- tuatoru 3y agoAnd e) increases the output of the solar panels - they perform better when cooler, and water is better at doing that than soil.
- asicsp 3y agoSee https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_power_in_India There are incentives as well, for example: >Haryana solar power policy announced in 2016 offers 90% subsidy to farmers for the solar powered water pumps, which also offers subsidy for the solar street lighting, home lighting solutions, solar water heating schemes, solar cooker schemes. It is mandatory for new residential buildings larger than 500 square yards (420 m2) to install 3% to 5% solar capacity for no building plan sanctioning is required, and a loan of up to ₹1 million is made available to the residential property owners. Haryana provides 100% waiver of electricity taxes, cess, electricity duty, wheeling charges, cross subsidy charges, transmission and distribution charges, etc. for rooftop solar projects
- MichaelZuo 3y ago> Haryana provides 100% waiver of electricity taxes, cess, electricity duty, wheeling charges, cross subsidy charges, transmission and distribution charges, etc. for rooftop solar projects I wonder why it's 'rooftop solar projects' specifically and not also inclusive of on-the-ground solar projects.
- greggsy 3y agoThe recent videos from Crime Pays But Botany Doesn’t have focussed on some of the endangered desert habitats and cacti around Texas. His videos are always awesome, but these most recent videos have really opened my eyes about the diversity and fragility of these ecosystems, despite being so hardy in other ways.
- mif 3y agoDo you mind sharing those videos? Thx
- scythe 3y agoDesert is a funny term. Most of the areas that Americans call desert are really steppe (semiarid) by the Köppen classification, and Phoenix — in a true desert — still gets three times as much precipitation as Tamanrasset in the Sahara. There are very few areas in the Americas (Death Valley, the Atacama, etc) that are as dry as the deserts of the East. Most people hear "desert" and probably think of the Sahara and Arabian deserts, but the classification includes much less extreme areas as well.