Some Solar Power farm Info.

Of the 15th Biggest solar Farms in the world, China has by far the most. They currently have these of the top 15. 1,2,7,9,10,12. Followed by India with the 3,5,11,and 14. The US does not have a top 15. Even with all of those in the top 10, China total only produces 2,919 total GW’s of power from all of them. By the end of 2025 its expected that all solar farms total will possibly produce Apx. 2.3TW’s of power. The total world wide use is est. at 432TW. LA California itself uses apx 22,000GW of power a year. Some of the larger solar farms sit on 15,000-20,000 acres of land. That is land that can no longer be used to grow food. We are so far away from a time that solor power will even be able to make a dent in the current overall demand. Source of Most Info.
https://www.theecoexperts.co.uk/solar-panels/biggest-solar-farms

The problem is people are afraid of corporate American. If solar & wind were a viable commodity WITHOUT government assistance big business would have done it already. Anything the government mandates is the first step to financial failure. On a local basis take a look at the cost of building these trains vs returns.

There’s a weird mix/misuse of measurements here. Capacity and generation are not the same thing.

For example the LA thing… They use 22,000GWh per year I believe you mean.

A solar installation with 5GW capacity generates 5GWh each hour it is generating at full capacity. If it did that for 8 hours a day then it generates 14,600GWh per year. And I know 8 hours full capacity per day is not accurate, that’s not the point.

Reef W wrote:

There’s a weird mix/misuse of measurements here. Capacity and generation are not the same thing.

For example the LA thing… They use 22,000GWh per year I believe you mean.

A solar installation with 5GW capacity generates 5GWh each hour it is generating at full capacity. If it did that for 8 hours a day then it generates 14,600GWh per year. And I know 8 hours full capacity per day is not accurate, that’s not the point.

Anyway you look at it. The largest solar plant in the world would not generate enough power in a year to even power california.

fishthumper wrote:

Anyway you look at it. The largest solar plant in the world would not generate enough power in a year to even power california.

Why should it?

The largest power plant, of any type, in the world doesn’t generate enough power in a year to power California.

And as a side note… solar farms contribute to warming the globe… and affect weather patterns. That’s pretty neat !

This is the kind of solar farm I can get behind. But to remove farm land that is meant to feed us will create issues.

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That would make too much sense Munchy !

fishthumper wrote:

Some of the larger solar farms sit on 15,000-20,000 acres of land. That is land that can no longer be used to grow food.

Here we go again, another attempt to “prove” alternative energy can’t possibly work.

This idea that solar farms are taking away productive farmland is a myth. Productive farmland is too expensive to lease or buy because–wait for it–it’s productive farmland.

If you look at the list of the largest solar farms, take a minute to see where they are located. The largest, for example, the Xinjiang solar farm is in northwest China near the Mongolian border. This area is extremely arid high desert and also the soils are alkaline making productive agriculture impossible here. The only resource this area has is sun and wind. So much for solar taking away productive farmland.

Even in Minnesota, if you look at where solar farms are located, they are either on large, south-facing hillsides that have marginal crop productivity at best due to the exposure of the sloped ground, or they are on sandy ground that is unproductive without high-cost irrigation.

Besides, isn’t farmland private property and shouldn’t property owners be able to do what they want with their property?

No single form of renewable energy will replace fossil fuels. The idea is to use renewables strategically to minimize fossil fuel use and to conserve fossil fuels for use where there is no viable alternative.

sorry grouse. i’ll disagree with you on solar farms not on good ag land….up here there’s plenty.

i’ve also seen the windmills taking up some productive ground also.

i do agree if the owner is ok with it…….it should be his choice…….but if i remember right…….when tose solar panels are spent its the farmer who gets rid of it…….and thats hazardous waste.

I know of a 1500 acre farm in eastern Iowa, best farmland on earth, that is now a solar farm that can’t grow anything. I used to deer hunt it. Sad really, what a useless eye soar. They closed a nearby nuclear plant to put up a solar farm. I’m not a genius but nuclear had to generate more power and not waste so much land.

So many people are “experts” about solar fields, contracts, ag land it covers, generation, blah blah…yet most of those “experts” haven’t ever been through a solar land parcel lease agreement or any other side of the situation. They base their information on what Jimmy told them at coffee last week, or what they saw on a biased news site sandwiched between 18 unrelated advertisements (as a dead giveaway it’s BS).

The reality is that there is no “one way” solar is managed or land is acquired. We have been approached with two contracts from completely different companies about it. It isn’t “all” on productive ag land, nor is it “all” on unproductive land.

We were approached by Company A about an outright sale of 11 acres of land for a solar project. They were up front with their intentions, showed us other projects, detailed all the different core samples, sight lines, etc that would be associated with the project. This was on land that was 100% tillable and was definitely productive.

Company B approached us with a land lease agreement. We essentially would lease 8.4 acres to this company for 25 years for a set annual amount (that was negotiable and had an inflation adjustment every 3rd year). This was presented to us as a 25 year lease and at the end we’d be responsible for everything. They had programs where we would be incentivized to invest ~35% of the income generated and that would help pay for the removal/disposal 25 years from now. This land was also mostly productive ag land, but does deal with water issues in a wet year (maybe once or twice a decade on average).

Ultimately we turned down both offers. The outright sale was well beyond the going rate per acre of tillable land. The lease agreement was presented in a thoughtful way but we have had no interest in this type of project at any point. This isn’t to say all solar is bad or good, or anything else. It simply wasn’t something we were interested in.

I did ask both groups why we were chosen, and they simply said that they are looking for 2 things:

1. Project areas that offer the most probable return on investment for their company (mainly due to proximity of areas of need or current infrastructure) regardless of whether it’s ag land or not.

2. Land parcels that are large enough that they only involve a fractional sell off. They rarely seek out pieces that are all one person or group owns. Their likelihood of scoring a contract is much higher with segments of large parcels.

We will likely be putting banks of solar panels on our home’s roof in the near future…so we’re not “anti alternative energy”, but no solar panels will be going in our dirt.

Steven Krapfl wrote:

They closed a nearby nuclear plant to put up a solar farm.

This one? https://thebulletin.org/2021/03/fukushima-10-years-later-it-still-could-happen-here/

AZ where the land won’t grow hardly anything without millions of gallons of water is a prime location for solar fields.
Here in SW WI I think it should stay farmland. JMO
Land owners can do what is best for themselves.
I do have a question. Is the land covered in solar panels still Ag land or is it now commercial real estate? Big difference in property tax rates here in WI.
Don’t ask me how I know.

The way I look at it is if it’s my land and I want to lease out or sell for solar / wind farm – and it meets all regulatory requirements – then it’s none of anyone else’s business. We are all against big government telling us what to do right? Well – that goes for the general public too right? I do me – you do you on your own property. Can’t have it both ways!!

Solar power is dirty power. It’s effect on the grid is like a dirty signal on an oscilloscope. Every time a cloud goes by, output drops significantly. I don’t know how many solar farms are being set up without storage batteries to smooth their output. But, in my area a lot of them are connected to the grid without storage capacity which is accelerating wear and tare on commercial generator controls. I can post a screen snip of what this looks like tomorrow.

I’ll do an experiment. I can take snips of a solar farm output on a really clear sky day and on a heavy chemtrail day to see if there’s much difference. I’ve already got that data for clear days.

Also, neither wind or solar power carry any reactive loading (VARS). VARS are reactive inductance caused by coils in a system. As the AC current changes direction, those collapsing/expanding fields around the conductors in a motor or heating element induces a counter current in the adjacent conductors. This creates a difference between real power and apparent power. If VARS are not continuously compensated for, as people get up of a morning fixing breakfast and business start up, grid line voltage would droop.

If you tried to run a home off grid with a solar system that didn’t have batteries, you would have to buy a new refrigerator every year because the compressor would have to work too hard every time the voltage drooped.

Didn’t our forefathers use wind windmills)to pump water? Sure seemed efficient to me

Hydro for milling grain?

You DON’T need electricity even for basic needs. We just have come accustomed to it.

There are methods to generate less non-Renewable energy. Why wouldn’t you want this???

MX1825 wrote:

AZ where the land won’t grow hardly anything without millions of gallons of water is a prime location for solar fields.
Here in SW WI I think it should stay farmland. JMO
Land owners can do what is best for themselves.

I agree. Why not put some panels up in areas where the sun blazes down for months on end. It’s just hot desert anyways and growing stuff there is a waste of water.

As for them being hazardous waste, I do think they need to come up with a way to recycle them, or at least partially recycle them. Same with the windmills. Using them for 10 years and then dumping them in a landfill is not helpful.

Munchy’s idea is actually a really good one! All those black tar parking lots absorb sunlight. Might as well offer some shade to people parking there and get some energy while we’re at it. Win win

Here in SW Wi.every solar farm and wind farm is on prime ag ground.

Solar farms are also popping up in areas that would be prime hunting spots too.

Why not just have solar panels installed on roof tops ?

The US uses over 30 million acres of corn for ethanol

Reef W wrote:

The US uses over 30 million acres of corn for ethanol

which means its still being used as ag land!!!!!!!

glenn57 wrote:

which means its still being used as ag land!!!!!!!

The point in initial post was that the land cannot be used to grow food and it’s ag land used for energy production!!!!!! (was that enough?)

In Europe they have solar panels installed in the divided highways with a walkway beneath it for pedestrians and bikes. Pretty genius if you ask me.

Here’s a graph of what a typical rainy day sequence solar farm output looks like. The only rainy day was May 14th. Click on it to expand it.

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Here’s what the 4-8-24 eclipse looked like in the 90% zone.
Again, click on it to expand it.

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jwellsy wrote:

Here’s graph of what a typical rainy day sequence solar farm output looks like. The only rainy day was May 14th. Click on it to expand it.

And here in Southern MN the last 6 weeks have been rainy, and before that was winter. I’m sure the thousands of acres of farmland covered in solar panels have had around 10% total output this year. Great use of ag land!

jwellsy wrote:

Here’s what the 4-8-24 eclipse looked like in the 90% zone.
Again, click on it to expand it.

That’s actually quite cool to see.

jwellsy wrote:

Here’s graph of what a typical rainy day sequence solar farm output looks like. The only rainy day was May 14th. Click on it to expand it.

Yup and then it makes the power plants look bad chasing the grid. It’s very messed up and the general public doesn’t understand and the they say nuclear and refuse price per kilowatt is expensive compared to Solar but they don’t factor in the subsidies the “renewables” get. I guess until we start experiencing brown outs it’s just gonna keep heading that direction. Hopefully it’s not too late for the power plants though if that starts happening. Imo

Notice the dips in the graph above right before the eclipse.
There had been rumors that chemtrail spraying would be pretty heavy on 4-8-24.
So that morning I took a few pics of the sky toward the line of totality before the eclipse.
There were many chemtrails I did not capture.
The chemtrails seem to correlate with the dips in the graph.
After the eclipse the sky was clear as could be and the graph smoothed out.
Probably just an interesting coincidence.

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