Regarding the land use concerns, the integration of habitat-friendly or pollinator ground cover into solar farms has been done quite successfully in a number of cases. Analyses completed by the National Renewable Energy Lab, Argonne National Lab, and a number of research universities shows that solar farms can be a means to restore degraded watersheds and provide ecological services including habitat restoration. Direct agricultural co-location is currently limited to niche markets, although solar grazing with sheep has clear value-added applications. Agricultural integration via a business model that emphasizes agricultural income diversification has been done successfully in a number of instances and has widespread opportunities.
Replacing row crops with solar farms that use native and naturalized deep-rooted grasses and forbs dramatically reduces nitrate risk to groundwater and sedimentation to surface waters, creating (if done correctly) water quality benefits....
But it's all in the site design and siting criteria, to turn a project from a potential liability into an ecological asset.
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Brian Ross
Great Plains Institute
Minneapolis MN
bross@gpisd.net------------------------------
Original Message:
Sent: Feb 24, 2021 01:41 PM
From: Matthew Dean
Subject: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks
A 2016 study by Environment America and The Frontier Group claims that the roofs of malls and big box stores in the US have the potential for 60 GW of PV. Then there's parking lots, capped landfills, and a host of other possibilities. We just have to stop utilities and solar developers from doing whatever is cheap and easy.
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Matthew Dean
Consultant
self-employed
mattdean@gmx.com
Original Message:
Sent: Feb 24, 2021 11:47 AM
From: Achyut Shrestha
Subject: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks
All large scale energy facilities have a big landuse problem, and solar is no exception. Most of the large, utility scale solar currently installed in the US are installed on open agricultural lands, and in many cases, the trees are cut to make room for solar installation. A typical 1 MW of solar installation uses about 6 acers of land, which comes off to be a significant chuck of land.
There are talks about how we can design such solar farm land with multiuse- pollinator habitat, or sheep farming, but both of them have not proven to be commercially economically. This usually due to the design- to cut on the costs of solar installation, the height of the solar frames are made short, which does not allow grasses to be grown. They are also spread of large amount of herbicide kill any plants that may shade the solar panels.
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Achyut Shrestha
achyut.achyut@gmail.com
Original Message:
Sent: Feb 23, 2021 08:17 PM
From: Mackenzie Blair
Subject: Solar Projects and Environmental Risks
Having a renewable energy source like solar is an excellent way to cut down on greenhouse emissions as opposed to large outputs such as gas and coal. However, it's important to also think about what types of environmental damages can come with solar panel installation. What is the biggest risk that should be taken into consideration, and which factors should be most important to think about before putting solar panels into a new area?
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Mackenzie Blair
mblair@ases.org
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