[HN Gopher] In Colorado, a marriage of solar energy and farming
___________________________________________________________________
In Colorado, a marriage of solar energy and farming
Author : dr_dshiv
Score : 175 points
Date : 2025-01-04 00:13 UTC (22 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.ksjd.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.ksjd.org)
| ashoeafoot wrote:
| expected solar driven nitrogen reactor fixation mention cause
| thats the trinity.
| nelsonic wrote:
| Please elaborate for the uninitiated.
| aaronblohowiak wrote:
| Make fertilizer from solar energy
| cjbgkagh wrote:
| A solar process would have to compete with nitrogen fixing
| plants as well.
| evilduck wrote:
| The comment is referring to finding something to replace the
| Haber-Bosch Process, which is mostly fossil fuel driven,
| which makes most of our food itself dependent on fossil
| fuels.
| roughly wrote:
| Unrelated to the above, except in the mix of sustainability
| and agriculture - there are a bunch of companies working on
| bacteria to fix nitrogen for crops without requiring
| separate fertilizer similar to how legumes do it. I think
| Pivot Bio is the furthest along in the space - they've got
| a commercially available product - but it's an active area
| of development in the industry right now.
| cyberax wrote:
| > Unrelated to the above, except in the mix of
| sustainability and agriculture - there are a bunch of
| companies working on bacteria to fix nitrogen for crops
| without requiring separate fertilizer similar to how
| legumes do it.
|
| Nitrogen fixation is energy-intensive, so something has
| to provide energy. Additionally, nitrogen fixation has to
| happen in anaerobic conditions, oxygen kills the enzymes
| responsible for nitrogen fixation. In legumes, the oxygen
| is carried away by hemoglobin (the same one used in
| "artificial meat"), but engineering these conditions for
| free-living bacteria is likely going to be problematic.
|
| I'm personally hoping for a catalyst that can work in
| mild conditions.
| roughly wrote:
| There's been some success here already - as mentioned,
| there's some commercial products on the market already
| that do some amount of nitrogen fixation for at least
| corn and I believe wheat as well, so it's not unsolvable.
| corysama wrote:
| How about solar powered liquid fuel for tractors?
|
| https://youtu.be/NngCHTImH1g?si=XVLJAfkJi3MqZN1d
|
| https://youtu.be/ekEdq6PhC0Q?si=Wpr_DKcAvtX-Tsi-
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Hey. I live literally 30 seconds from this place, and know Bryce.
| Cool dude!
|
| I do wonder why solar panels in fields aren't more common, as
| opposed to rooftop solar. It seems like such a burden doing all
| those one-off jobs aren't worth it compared to the ease of just
| putting more up in an easy to access location on the ground.
| Especially since most people aren't set up so they can go off
| grid with their panels in case the grid goes down.
| elihu wrote:
| The big utility-scale solar plants tend to be on the ground in
| big fields. I think the preference for rooftop solar for
| individual houses comes mostly because it's convenient for
| suburban installations, as they don't usually want to give yard
| space and the panels would be in the shade anyways. Roofs
| aren't being used for anything useful, so that's where the
| panels go. In a rural setting there's less incentive to install
| on a roof, but you still might put them there anyways if that's
| where you get the best sun.
|
| I suppose people might also be afraid of theft or vandalism if
| the panels are accessible to random passers-by without a
| ladder.
| Veserv wrote:
| To add-on, utility scale solar generation is the majority of
| generation and has consistently outpaced small scale
| generation in growth.
|
| Starting at 11,233 small scale out of 26,482 in 2014, ~42.5%,
| versus 73,406 out of 236,090 in 2023, ~31% [1].
|
| So, despite a ~6.5x increase in small scale generation over
| 10 years, ~19% compounded annual growth, utility scale
| generation increased by ~10.66x, ~24% compounded annual
| growth.
|
| [1] https://www.eia.gov/electricity/annual/table.php?t=epa_03
| _01...
| zdragnar wrote:
| Land is expensive in many places. Go somewhere it is very
| cheap, and you'll find fields of windmills and the occasional
| field full of solar panels.
|
| In fact, Texas had a 350 megawatt install taken out by a hail
| storm earlier this year. It made the rounds in the news and
| even here on HN if memory serves. That's still not even close
| to the big projects though. Vista Sands in Wisconsin has a 1.3
| gigawatt install planned that will cover nearly ten thousand
| acres.
|
| The only reason residential rooftop solar became the industry
| it did was the massive subsidies handed out to consumers to
| make it financially viable. Without that, larger field installs
| and off-grid setups would be the bulk of what you hear about in
| most of the country.
| badestrand wrote:
| > The only reason residential rooftop solar became the
| industry it did was the massive subsidies handed out to
| consumers to make it financially viable.
|
| Savings per Watt can be a lot larger for residential though,
| as you save the all-in price of electricity (electricity
| price + transport fees + other fees + taxes) while solar
| farms only earn the wholesale price.
| bruce511 wrote:
| Yes, the return on rooftop solar is way better than
| commercial solar.
|
| Firstly, is saving a cost (which you would pay with after-
| tax money.) So as a saving, not income, the return is tax
| free.
|
| Secondly homes buy electricity at retail rates (thus
| rooftop is effectively earning at retail rates) whereas
| commercial sells at wholesale rates, which is likely a
| small multiple. (And of course, being commercial, that
| income is taxed.)
|
| Yes, in high-cost places (like the US) subsidies were
| necessary to foster the industry and get enough demand to
| get prices down. In other places the math makes sense
| without subsidies.
|
| Incidentally it's a LOT easier to do 1000 rooftop installs
| than 1 solar farm. There's no planning, utility agreements,
| large scale financing etc. You just install and move on. A
| small team (4 people) can easily do 2 houses a week. With
| only one qualified electrician needed.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| rooftop solar in the summer is more efficient since it
| shaddows the roof, reducing cooling demand. in meant areas
| that is enough to pay for the extra install cost.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The cost of land is a minor part of the cost of a PV field.
| As for wind, it uses only a small fraction of the land in
| which a wind field is placed, because the turbines have to be
| spaced so they don't interfere with each other.
| bmicraft wrote:
| > ten thousand acres
|
| That's 40km2 btw
| nakedneuron wrote:
| Scaffolding also comes with a price tag. A substantial amount
| of material (usual metal) goes into that.
| simonjgreen wrote:
| In UK it's extremely common. I think economic demand is a large
| factor though. Energy generation prices in US are significantly
| lower than over here. For example I am paid a variable export
| rate for solar energy from my home that varies between PS0.0468
| and PS0.2621 per kWh. That's significantly more than the
| gentleman in this article is receiving, like an order of
| magnitude more most of the time. Solar installers over here
| can't keep up with the demand.
| robertclaus wrote:
| I would assume spacing becomes quite sensitive for this to work
| well, but cool idea!
| energy123 wrote:
| > "A lot of the cost of the solar array is the people --
| installing the solar panels and all the wiring that goes into it.
| Inverters and the transformers and the switchgear. None of that
| changes"
|
| Reminded me of Charge Robotics' mission:
| https://www.ycombinator.com/companies/charge-robotics
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Yeah this came as a big shock to me as I was hearing
| acquaintances say their solar and battery install would payback
| in 3-4 years compared to 15-20 years timeline I read on
| hackernews etc. Turns out the cost of equipment is so cheap now
| that in countries with cheaper labour and other costs they can
| get a similar system with install at 1/3 the price.
| bruce511 wrote:
| I'm currently getting 16% return on capital invested, just
| with domestic savings. Thats an annualized return over all
| capital spent, including panels, equipment and labor.
|
| Thats more or less what I expected.
|
| So yes, your locality matters. As does your current
| consumption, cost of electricity, and so on.
|
| Prices are also falling quite a bit as time passes.
| energy123 wrote:
| The two things that get worse over time are labor costs and
| net metering arrangements.
|
| Labor costs either track or exceed inflation, and net
| metering arrangements get less lucrative as the grid
| becomes more solar heavy, like what happened in California
| last year.
|
| But relying on net metering for ROI is a pre-2024 thing.
| Batteries are getting so cheap.
| pfdietz wrote:
| Net metering changed when it become economically
| unsupportable as PV adoption scaled.
|
| The same thing will happen with grid-connected
| residential solar + batteries. Rates will be changed to
| be based on capacity rather than consumption. There
| might, for example, be a charge based on your maximum
| usage during a period rather than total usage.
| bruce511 wrote:
| Yes, the formula for grid connectivity will need to
| change. In some places it already has.
|
| Grid electricity incurs two basic costs. Generation and
| Distribution. Traditionally electricity was charged
| purely on consumption (ie Generation). This made sense
| when everyone bought all their electricity.
|
| It makes less sense when I benefit from being connected
| all the time, but only actually purchase electricity when
| my batteries run flat.
|
| It's like being able to make endless backups for free,
| but only paying to restore.
|
| As with many other things I makes sense to align billing
| to cost to value. Thus the cost of "connectedness to the
| grid" needs to separate from the cost of "electricity
| consumed".
| marssaxman wrote:
| How long ago did you hear that it would take 15-20 years to
| break even? When I had solar installed on my house in Seattle
| back in 2013, they estimated it would take seven years, but
| it was actually closer to six. Equipment is only cheaper and
| better now.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| Solar + battery not just solar
| zonkerdonker wrote:
| I'm looking at getting a few panels installed as well, as
| my roof needs re-shingled and the bundled price seems like
| a good deal. What company did you go with? Are they still
| operating? Ive heard thats an issue with some of the
| smaller/local installers
| marssaxman wrote:
| I used A&R Solar (https://www.a-rsolar.com/), and had
| such a good experience I recommended them to all of my
| friends. The company seemed to have some growth issues -
| friends who hired them two years later were less
| impressed - but that was a good while ago now and they're
| certainly still in business.
| blitzar wrote:
| Equipment is cheaper and better now + the price of
| electricity / gas is higher.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Heavily depends on labor market, costs, and subsidies. I
| dont think I can make the numbers work out in the Bay Area.
| Panels are cheap but maybe 10% of the total price.
| SoftTalker wrote:
| Yep panel costs are falling, maybe close to bottom by
| now, but everything else (labor and supplies) is going
| up. Panels are no longer the driver of a solar project
| cost.
| slavik81 wrote:
| The payback period is something like 20 years to break even
| for the 10 kW worth of panels I am installing on my home
| this spring in Alberta.
| opo wrote:
| When utilities are required to do net metering (i.e. buy
| power whenever it is produced at essentially the retail
| rate rather than buy what they need at the wholesale rate)
| it is a huge unsustainable subsidy to wealthier homeowners
| paid for by the less wealthy. It's free riding on the
| reliability provided by the grid, putting large costs on
| the less well off. As these costs grew, that has also
| provided an incentive for consumer solar installations to
| increase.
|
| As the statista.com report says >...Rooftop solar
| photovoltaic installations on residential buildings and
| nuclear power have the highest unsubsidized levelized costs
| of energy generation in the United States. If not for
| federal and state subsidies, rooftop solar PV would come
| with a price tag between 117 and 282 U.S. dollars per
| megawatt hour.
|
| https://www.statista.com/statistics/493797/estimated-
| leveliz...
|
| Looks like that report is a year old, but I doubt the
| installation costs have really gone down much since then.
| (Panel prices come down, but labor costs, etc don't.)
|
| Providing the infrastructure and reliability of the grid is
| very expensive, so there is a huge difference between the
| wholesale costs and retail rates for delivered electricity.
| Money is limited and is fungible - a dollar spent
| subsidizing utility solar will go much, much further than a
| dollar spent subsidizing rooftop residential solar.
| defrost wrote:
| Here in Australia in a semi rural non big city town there are
| a _lot_ of professional grade DIY installs.
|
| The area has many FiFo (Fly In Fly Out) mine site workers and
| farmers all of whom are capable of fixing panels to roofs and
| racking batteries .. the wiring and looms are either "done by
| a mate" or done from a sketch on the back of envelope, or
| reading the sheet of instructions that come with an order.
|
| The important part, safety, comes at the end when one of the
| few working town electricians ( _or_ an "off duty" mine
| electrician) checks the wiring for safety and compliance and
| signs off on the work for a fee.
|
| Like many things the total cost is sweat equity + mail order
| prices + professional inspection and sign off (for insurance
| and peace of mind).
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Stupid thing I didn't do when I was in my 20's was take the
| contractors license exam. Back then you took a few classes,
| took the exam and you had a license. Now you need to work
| several thousand hours under someone with a license and
| then you're only allowed to do that type of work.
|
| And then California wonders why construction is sooooo
| expensive.
| defrost wrote:
| Smart thing I did in my teens and early 20's was to work
| part time at mine sites every vacation break.
|
| I got a good lump sum saved up by the end of university
| and I was ticketed with experience on bobcats, haulpaks,
| loaders, mini-cranes, heavy rigid trucks, etc. along with
| trades assistant experience working for electricians, gas
| fitters, fitter and turners, riggers, plumbers, radio
| technicians, belt splicers, etc.
|
| That meant that while I _wasn 't_ a qualified electrician
| I did know how and what they did and had done most of the
| work myself under supervision.
|
| I veered into Engineering (Trad.) then Mathematics, then
| Geophysics .. but I was well set up to go into trades had
| I wanted to .. more importantly I could do a full gas
| fitting layout for a glass blowing studio (isolation
| valves, pressure valves, furnace, annealing oven, glory
| hole, leakproof joins, etc) just not _legally_ connect it
| .. for insurance and peace of mind I get an actual
| working tradie with insurance to inspect and signoff on
| the connection to a large rented LPG tank.
|
| It's a very _Weddings, Parties, Anything_ * kind of state
| (ie. many people here are comfortable taking on many
| types of work; typical for large area low population
| places). * Any song you want
| Playing requests now on the bandstand El Clash
| combo Paid fifteen dollars a day
| Weddings, parties, anything And Bongo Jazz a
| speciality
| HPsquared wrote:
| So many of our high prices are due to this "legalized
| racket" mechanism.
| edm0nd wrote:
| >Today, Kominek estimates that he earns $20,000 annually by
| selling energy to subscribers.
|
| so how much did he have to get a loan for to pay for 3.2k solar
| panels + install + make the land suitable for em?
|
| Seems like that will take a long time to recoup (if ever).
| sci_prog wrote:
| This is a cool concept and I love the idea but the math on the
| money earned from the 3276 solar panel doesn't add up. The
| article says the farm owner makes about $20,000 a year from the
| solar farm.
|
| I'm assuming that each solar panel is 2 by 1 meter, which would
| mean that it produces about 400 watts (20% efficiency at 1000
| watts per sq meter coming from the sun). You can use this
| calculator to estimate how power you can produce at the given
| location for a given system size in kilowatts:
| https://pvwatts.nrel.gov/pvwatts.php
|
| The system above is 1310400 watts or ~1,310 kW, which according
| to the calculator produces about 2 million kWh/year.
|
| If he makes $20,000 that would mean that he gets paid only $0.01
| per kW of power. And even if my assumption above about the size
| of each individual panel is off by a factor of 2 and they are
| only 1 sq meter in size (which I think they are not because the
| article states that the solar farm can power about 300 average
| households, which require the annual power output to be more than
| what I estimated above) that would make $0.02 per kW of power.
| How is it possible that the amount earned per kW is so low when
| the utility companies in Colorado charge about $0.14 per kW
| (effective rate)? And who is actually the customer here and where
| is the money coming from? I'm just curious to learn more.
| boredatoms wrote:
| I guess the transmission lines themselves is where the costs
| are
| gpm wrote:
| I took $20k to be profit after costs (except maybe personal
| labor and land), not revenue.
| thephyber wrote:
| Is there anything about farming that makes financial sense?
|
| Most farmers (even in developed countries) are cash poor and
| most farmers are deep in debt.
|
| The ones that aren't can quickly become so given a little bad
| luck. Farms have to hedge against bad yields to protect against
| undesirable weather.
|
| Family farms only make financial sense if there is a lot of
| free labor (slavery, indentured servants, or unpaid labor of
| children).
| shermantanktop wrote:
| Or if they can act as a quasi-shell corporation for an
| agribusiness concern to cash in on tax breaks. And at that
| point, if the family makes any money at all, the parent corp
| will surely find a way to harvest that too.
| Hilift wrote:
| That isn't an issue with farming. It's the competitive
| pressures of the electricity market in the US. Most of the US
| is currently powered by natural gas, which is about five
| times less expensive in the US than in Europe. Colorado is a
| bit different, they still have 33% from coal (US wide coal is
| 16%). The quick and easy solution would be for electricity to
| be more like the rest of the world and more expensive. Europe
| will actually be much worse soon due to a price cap is
| expiring at the end of this month.
| kenhwang wrote:
| ~400W/panel @ 20% efficiency is pretty much spot on for my home
| rooftop solar panel specs, so your math checks out there.
|
| $0.02/kW does seem a bit low. Looking at my bill, it looks like
| I got paid ~$0.03/kW last month in California where my retail
| price is $0.17/kW off-peak. Looking at the current price charts
| for electricity, they're also currently ~$0.03/kW, so the
| numbers do check out since we're supposed to be paid the
| current wholesale price.
|
| Electricity just doesn't cost all that much to generate, most
| of the cost comes from transmission and storage.
| sci_prog wrote:
| Thanks for sharing this! That was the exact info I was
| looking for, didn't know the wholesale price was so low. But
| it does make sense that transmission and storage is what is
| inflating the retail price.
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| Here in Tasmania we can get between 0.08935 to 0.10
| antipodean dineros per kWh for residential rooftop solar,
| with peak usage at around 0.35 and off-peak around the 0.17
| antipodean diners per kWh. Max 10kW feed-in for
| residential, but you can have more installed to cover your
| own usage.
|
| As far as I'm aware, commercial / industrial installations,
| and solar farms, get paid less per kWh.
|
| Quick edit to fix a brain-fart, I doubt anyone read this
| prior anyways.
| grecy wrote:
| Here in BC Canada we don't get paid anything for feed-in,
| but we do get credit on our bill - so 1 kWh in during the
| day means I can use 1kWh at night without paying
| anything. We have 6.8kW on the roof, and it looks like
| over 12 months it will cover our needs.
|
| It means I'll never have a bill, and if I get too much
| credit (negative bill), I'll just get a used electric
| car. I'm not unhappy with that situation.
| danans wrote:
| > Electricity just doesn't cost all that much to generate
|
| ... from renewable resources.
|
| Fossil energy can cost quite a bit to generate, but of course
| it comes with storage built in.
| ledgerdev wrote:
| I have heard from a couple farmers that some venture energy
| corporation will pay a yearly fee to put panels on the
| farmland, which is probably the 20k/year he gets paid from a
| corporation like that. I doubt he's selling the power directly,
| nor was able to invest money for all those panels. He just
| get's a check every month. He also doesn't know the risks he's
| taking allowing that.
|
| edit: I might be wrong on this, reading this on their site they
| have some significant donors. "With additional funding from the
| Walton Family Foundation, the Cielo Foundation, and donations
| from a myriad of individual donors and businesses in 2023"
| aniviacat wrote:
| > He also doesn't know the risks he's taking allowing that.
|
| I don't know either; what are the risks?
| adrianN wrote:
| When it's very sunny and your solar panels produce a lot there
| are many other solar panels also producing a lot, so
| electricity is generally cheap.
| danans wrote:
| > If he makes $20,000 that would mean that he gets paid only
| $0.01 per kW of power. And even if my assumption above about
| the size of each
|
| As others have mentioned the off peak daytime wholesale rate
| for electricity is often just a few cents per kWh. Let's say
| 3-4c/kWh.
|
| The other few cents above your calculated rate of 1c/kWh likely
| go to pay off the principle and interest on the financing for
| the system, plus any profit for the company maintaining and
| servicing the system. If the farm owner paid for the capital
| costs and maintenance directly themselves, their share of the
| returns would probably be higher.
|
| But they would probably prefer to focus on farming crops.
| bruce511 wrote:
| I think the 20k number is something of a throw-away, and not
| really explained.
|
| For example, is that 20k gross revenue (check from utility) or
| net revenue (after deducting financing costs?) Is he getting
| free grid power at night as well? Is he using power on the farm
| itself?
|
| It's a pity the article didn't go down this road a bit, but
| since it didn't, I guess the 20k number (described as an
| "estimate") is really just a measure of scale.
|
| Indeed, one gets the impression that the finances part is
| possibly not the main focus of the farmer (much less the
| article.) The farming land is being used by non-profits and
| research groups, he's not actually farming the land himself.
|
| But it sounds like this is just a small part of his farm (4
| acres), so perhaps more of a pilot project and finding out how
| to best use the land, before rolling out on a bigger scale.
| xbmcuser wrote:
| It's a business they would be depreciating the cost of panels.
| He is probably making $20k profit
| TheSpiceIsLife wrote:
| (There's a typo in your profile)
| kraftman wrote:
| There was a link here a few weeks ago about UK energy that said
| that only about 30% of the cost of energy is the cost to
| produce, the rest is the infrastructure and the costs to pay
| some suppliers to stay online in case they are needed.
| ledgerdev wrote:
| I used to think this was a wonderful idea, with the greatest of
| intentions, what could possibly go wrong? Turns out it's
| inevitable that a hail storm hits or mother nature somehow will
| break/cracks those panels, allowing heavy metals to leach into
| the soil and make it unusable for farming in perpetuity. This
| actually happened to a guy I spoke with during lunch one day.
|
| So seeing the actual reality over a longer timeframe of solar
| farms, and wind turbines (those huge blades made of not friendly
| chemicals last only 10 years, do you know how they are disposed
| of?), have greatly reduced any excitement I had for solar/wind as
| environmentally friendly longer term sustainable solutions. I
| guess it's sort of good to diversify but they most definitely
| aren't "earth friendly" as advertised. Fusion seem our only real
| hope.
| bcraven wrote:
| I'm not sure wind turbines are quite as bad as you assert:
|
| https://www.nationalgrid.com/stories/energy-explained/can-wi...
| ledgerdev wrote:
| That seems like a pretty biased source, how about these
| actual cases at the top of google search? We are just getting
| started perhaps 10 years into this, now imagine this after
| another 100 years? And of course maybe they can technically
| be "recycled" now but it's not actually happening in a
| significant way yet.
|
| https://www.texasmonthly.com/news-politics/sweetwater-
| wind-t...
| https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-02-05/wind-
| turb...
|
| For now we have to be realistic, but hopeful that some better
| use than landfills can be found and be viable.
| adgjlsfhk1 wrote:
| not sure where you're getting 10 years for windd turbines from,
| but it's closer to 20. they also aren't nasty chemicals. it's
| fiberglass and epoxy and are disposed the same way pretty much
| everything is disposed of, putting them in a pit in the middle
| of nowhere.
| ledgerdev wrote:
| I would actually consider epoxy pretty nasty. 10 years for
| actual use is pretty accurate, 20 years is extremely
| optimistic. They are just buried or piled up somewhere, not
| burned as far as I know.
| adrianN wrote:
| Solar panels don't contain heavy metals as far as I know.
| ledgerdev wrote:
| Some do, perhaps they were older panels this farmer had on
| his land.
| nicoburns wrote:
| CdTe solar panels [0] do, but it's a bit of red herring
| because almost nobody is using those panels for large scale
| installations (they're mainly used where being "thin and
| light" is important. The common crystalline silicon panels
| [1] don't have any major toxic components.
|
| [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cadmium_telluride_photovol
| taic... [1]:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crystalline_silicon
| numpad0 wrote:
| Solar panels are giant photodiodes. Heavy metal doped
| silicon. a-Si something or SiGe or GaAs or InP or whatever
| pairs and trios of toxic metals. Generally more toxic more
| electronically open to trade therefore broader spectral
| response and better performance. You can't do, say, Al
| substrate PtFeCu semiconductor, that's not going to make
| sense.
|
| They're not merely similar to a photodiode, but using giant
| photodiodes as batteries is literally the idea.
|
| There are some versions based on toxic organic chemicals in
| place of toxic inorganic elements, few and far between, and I
| guess the technology will eventually move onto engineered
| nanoparticles later in this century after they've cracked
| fusion, but that hasn't happened yet.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Schottky_junction_solar_cel
| l
| kragen wrote:
| They typically contain copper, silver, lead, and tin, but
| those don't leach out of them at a significant rate, and of
| those four heavy metals, only lead is a real toxicity risk
| even if you digest the panels in acid instead of leaving them
| out in the rain. Another comment suggests that the dopants in
| the silicon are the relevant heavy metals, but those are
| present at parts-per-million levels, locked inside the
| silicon's diamond-structures crystalline lattice, and
| passivated with silicon dioxide, so that's not plausible
| either.
|
| The most likely explanation is that this is a lie.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| You can always insure them.
| asdefghyk wrote:
| I'm very skeptical about claimed benefits. Ive lived and worked
| on a farm and my parents were long term farmers for decades.
|
| To be convinced I would need to hear the benefits from many more
| (commercial ) farmers. The quoted farm is a hobby farm, small
| scale farm.
|
| What are the risks in such installations ?
| sandworm101 wrote:
| The risks are the investment in foundations and trenchwork
| necessary to install the panel support infrastructure. There
| are companies doing interesting things with low-mounted high-
| density installations that would be more efficient and require
| less infrastructure.
| adrianN wrote:
| Where I live, the chief risk (aside from the usual risks of
| investments) are spending years and years fighting bureaucrats
| and NIMBYs to get the necessary permissions to put solar panels
| on land zoned for agriculture.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| The biggest risk is that you need to plant differently to take
| advantage of the solar panels.
|
| Planting for forage is much harder than growing a field for
| hay/soy/beet/other feed crop.
|
| obviously you can't use normal combines to harvest between the
| rows, so you need different, custom, equipment to harvest at
| scale.
| akamaka wrote:
| For those interested in the economics of this project, the
| details are available in this publication:
|
| https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy24osti/88816.pdf
|
| Summary: This particular research project won't quite break even
| purely on market-rate electricity sales, due to having 2x the
| installation cost of utility scale solar. If high value crops are
| successfully grown, there are scenarios where it could break even
| after including profits from crop sales.
| zbyforgotp wrote:
| Yeah - that's what I thought. The original article sounds like
| motivated reasoning - solar farms don't look like "green
| technology" so there is that great need to make them more
| palatable and project like this cater to that need instead of
| economic calculation.
| ggm wrote:
| If he did any energy consuming processes to aide farming such as
| drying wheat to harden it and increase market price, or had
| greenhouses which needed heating, or a dairy adjunct which needed
| cooling, then his rate of return as cost avoidance and improved
| profit for the Ag. side could be a lot bigger than the 1c/kW to
| sell power back.
|
| Basically, heat energy is time shifting be it coolth or warmth.
| And heat and cool cost money.
|
| Farmers in Oz are using droids to spray and weed, so battery
| charging could be another cost avoidance.
|
| Or cold store for produce to sell at advantageous prices in
| winter. Basic arbitrage gains to permit the farm yield to
| maximise against predictable price variance.
|
| Colorado has rich people. Grow microherbs out of season.
|
| Farms often have a lot of less viable land for primary
| production. They could deploy flow batteries which have size
| costs, but massive mwh return and scale very nicely and last a
| very long time. Even just water pumping shifts energy into
| storage. Farms are giant machines for converting sunlight and
| water into produce anyway, this is a good fit: it's the same
| energy source, shifted.
| maeil wrote:
| > Even just water pumping shifts energy into storage
|
| Could potentially reuse elevated water tanks? Guess the cost of
| the pumps might make the savings on the structure very small,
| and no idea if the amount of energy would be significant to a
| farm.
| ggm wrote:
| As i understand it mostly the best use of pumped water is
| gravity fed watering for stock, or crops. Pumped hydro is
| great at dam size scale but the losses exceed battery. What
| it's got is the sheer gwh scale - snowy 2.0 will run for days
| and days riding out a dunkelflaut with a lot of gw fed out.
| 2.2 gw and 150 gwh usable. (They claim more but it's
| disputed)
|
| I don't think a farm needs that. Better to pump the water to
| a headstock keeping cow troughs full, or for crop circles.
|
| Not a farmer or an engineer. Happy to be corrected.
| impossiblefork wrote:
| It also fits well with some ideas from Denmark to find new
| catalysts to allow intermittent processes to make ammonia from
| solar power, with the idea that the ammonia when mixed with
| water can be used as fertiliser.
|
| Solar power + intermittent synthesis methods fits really well
| together for a less centralised economy.
| pfdietz wrote:
| The simplest way to make nitrogen fertilizer from excess
| electrical power is by electric discharge to make NOx.
|
| I remember a science museum exhibit of a simple spark device.
| It was in an enclosed box to prevent gases from escaping, and
| the air inside was noticeably brown from all the accumulated
| NO2.
|
| Something like that: https://sciencedemonstrations.fas.harvar
| d.edu/presentations/...
|
| Commercially, a similar process was used for a while a
| century ago, the Birkeland-Eyde process. It passed air
| through an arc. It was phased out because it wasn't
| competitive with the HB process using hydrogen from fossil
| fuels.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birkeland%E2%80%93Eyde_process
| cubefox wrote:
| In this headline, no verb
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| > "Having shade on the ground is a climate adaptation. I hate to
| say it, but I've kind of given up on the thought that we're going
| to fix climate change whatsoever," said Komenik. "Climate change
| is going to happen. It's going to be rapid. It's going to be
| terrible. So we need to figure out how to adapt to that changing
| climate."
|
| Only because geoengineering is off the table. If you take climate
| change seriously and want to avoid it, solar radiation management
| is pretty much the last remaining option for prevention. Here's a
| nice article for an overview:
| https://climate.benjames.io/someone-is-going-to-dim-the-sun/
| epolanski wrote:
| The simplest geo engineering is planting trees, but I see very
| little rush from government, privates and agencies into doing
| the simplest thing.
| peterpost2 wrote:
| You can't capture even a percentage of what we've been
| emitting in Carbon over the last 100 years or so with trees.
|
| Planting trees is good thing to do but not even getting close
| to a solution.
| badgersnake wrote:
| Trees release chemicals to see clouds and make it rain.
| They also prevent soil erosion. It's not just about carbon
| capture.
| epolanski wrote:
| I didn't say it's a solution, but it makes a huge
| difference for many things (erosion, carbon capturing,
| providing shade and cooling cities/suburbs).
|
| Yet, I don't see much of it being done, at least in my
| countries (Poland and Italy).
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Planting trees is good thing to do but not even getting
| close to a solution.
|
| for carbon, no.
|
| For stopping heat being absorbed by the earth, yes. Some of
| the anti-desertification work being done in africa has
| yielded something like an average 8 degree c drop in
| temperature.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Iron fertilization is arguably simpler-- don't need to own
| the land and it can be scaled.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iron_fertilization
|
| The use of mass timber for construction is a great way to
| make sustainable forestry sequester carbon for the long term.
|
| https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/66069
|
| Cloud seeding via containerships is another low cost, high
| impact method:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_cloud_brightening
|
| But if we really want the ability to pause climate change, we
| need to do some more research on Stratospheric Aerosol
| Injection: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stratospheric_aeroso
| l_injectio...
|
| Stratospheric Injection of Calcium carbonate is a very
| promising approach that would have the benefit of reducing
| ocean acidification.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Iron fertilization is arguably simpler
|
| its simpler, but also, if its like algal blooms, easy to
| fuckup and cause complete decimation of plantlife in the
| area.
| belorn wrote:
| We have already been planting tress for a long time. In
| Sweden it is the law that after a forest is cut down it must
| either be replanted or have enough viable trees remaining for
| natural regrowth. For managed forests it is often a revenue
| increase to replant trees since it increase the efficiency of
| the land. The amount of tree planting that goes into
| environmental purposes are tiny compared to the amount of
| trees planted as part of the natural cycle of tree harvesting
| and regrowth.
|
| However, cutting down tress and then replanting it do not
| capture a lot of carbon. Much of it either get burned or
| decompose into methane. Planting trees without protecting it
| from being cut down is not going to do much to compensate
| excess greenhouse gases that get created from burning fossil
| fuels.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| That's why using timber in construction -- especially when
| it displaces steel and concrete -- is great for
| sequestering carbon.
| capitol_ wrote:
| The amount of coal that can be captured by planting trees
| doesn't compare in volume to the amount of coal we dig/pump
| up.
|
| At best it will make the planet prettier and at worst it will
| simply be feelgood.
| onlypassingthru wrote:
| Trees also reduce or eliminate urban heat island effects,
| improve soil absorption during downpours thus mitigating
| runoff, provide food and habitat for wildlife, increase
| humidity through evaporation, and on and on... They're so
| good at improving the localized climate, it's why they're
| trying to use millions of them to stop the Sahara Desert
| from expanding southwards.
| bouvin wrote:
| A far simpler geoengineering approach would be to stop emitting
| so much CO2.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| If that was simple, it would have happened. It's not simple
| to stop--if governments stopped it over night, they'd be
| thrown out of power the next day by mass protests.
|
| Technology is stopping it, though! The continued exponential
| growth of solar (~30% CAGR) suggests that we _could_ get to
| 1% of the earth's surface in solar in about 20-30 years. That
| would be more than all current sources of energy.
| seanalltogether wrote:
| For farmers in regions with intense sun like colorado, I would
| imagine that some kind of solar netting would ultimately be the
| best solution for mixed agriculture. If you could hang a net like
| 10 feet off the ground that has tiny solar panels linked together
| to block out 50% of the sun, that would probably create an ideal
| environment for growing certain berries and vegetables.
| HPsquared wrote:
| Or even a kind of greenhouse structure?
| kibwen wrote:
| _> Although elevated panels may provide sufficient room for
| people and sheep, they complicate mechanized agriculture._
|
| I'd like to hear more about this. Do you need specialized
| tractors, harvesters, etc to fit under the panels?
| bufordtwain wrote:
| I've been interested to see some small (1 acre-ish) solar panel
| installations popping up on local farmland near me in Northwest
| Indiana. I'm a bit surprised because although we get quite a few
| sunny days it's nowhere near Colorado levels of sun. So I guess
| the economics must be getting to the point where it's either
| profitable now or is expected to be profitable soon.
| hsuduebc2 wrote:
| I like it. I believe that this path of compromise is elegant way
| to implement these technologies which can take a lot of space to
| use.
|
| But more importantly, it can demonstrate to those who argue that
| solar farms are taking up fertile soil that there are alternative
| ways to implement solar energy without using valuable farmland.
| trenchgun wrote:
| It's more expensive than industrial solar farms.
|
| Aesthetics over economics.
| greekanalyst wrote:
| This is already happening in countries around the Mediterranean,
| such as Greece.
| thelastgallon wrote:
| While a great idea, we don't necessarily need this. 40 million
| acres are used to grow corn for ethanol subsidies (out of 93m
| total).
|
| From ChatGPT:
|
| <chatGPT>
|
| Annual Energy Production (in watt-hours): 52,272 terawatt-hours
| (TWh)
|
| Real-World Context (I didn't ask ChatGPT this question, it
| provided without asking!): (1) The total electricity consumption
| of the U.S. is about 4,000 TWh/year. (2) The energy generated
| from 40 million acres of solar panels could theoretically meet
| U.S. electricity demand more than 13 times over.
|
| </chatGPT>
|
| But, we'll need a lot less energy when we use solar/wind. We only
| need a third of the energy we use today, > 65% of the energy is
| wasted. So, solar panels on the same land used for ethanol
| production (and subsidized -- which is a lose-lose-lose idea) can
| produce 39x times US electricity demand (assuming ChatGPT
| calculation is correct).
| thelastgallon wrote:
| This is not just in US, ethanol/biodiesel subsidies waste
| hundreds of millions of acres all over the world.
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