r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 4h ago

Two Minnesota solar farms planted native grasses and wildflowers beneath their panels. Five years later, flowering plant species had increased sevenfold, native bee numbers more than 20 fold and total insect numbers had tripled, while more bees were also visiting nearby soybean fields.

https://www.ecoticias.com/en/two-minnesota-solar-farms-turned-the-ground-beneath-their-panels-into-habitat-and-native-bee-abundance-rose-more-than-20-fold/36680/
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696

u/MyCoffeeIsCold 3h ago

Solar is great and has a place in our energy portfolio in the right locations.

We have had proposals to clear cut 60-70 acres of FOREST for solar projects here in New York. One of the dumbest things I have ever heard.

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u/Krillin113 3h ago

Solar needs to be put on agricultural land

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u/Gladiateher 3h ago

I partially agree, but the good news is we have multiple fantastic options:

https://www.euronews.com/2023/11/13/float-ovoltaics-how-floating-solar-panels-in-reservoirs-could-revolutionise-global-power

We have rooftops, desert and grasslands, reservoirs and bodies of water, and so much more.

Historically red Texas and Florida are both leading the nation in solar, wind, and battery right now.

I truly believe we’re in the midst of a green revolution, and I personally think with one more small breakthrough in battery technology our entire society is going to start transforming in some pretty mind bending ways.

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u/MyCoffeeIsCold 2h ago

This is the right answer. The right renewable in the right location makes the most sense.

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u/P_mp_n 2h ago

Have u seen Lithim Air batteries? Seems ro me like the new battery is getting closer n closer to here

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u/Gladiateher 2h ago

I just looked it up and it looks awesome! I’m also super excited about reservoir based storage and the potential in sodium ion batteries as well.

I genuinely believe even one more small breakthrough would be enough to lead to permanent transformation of our society into something unbelievably cool.

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u/leberwrust 2h ago

If you want really cheap there is also iron air. They aren't really efficient like 50% or so, but you can build them really really cheap. Perfect for storing the miday energy cheaply.

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u/P_mp_n 1h ago

I'll check that out

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u/Jaikarr 31m ago

Vanadium, or quinone-based flow batteries are already here and way more practical for solar energy storage. Lithium batteries should be saved for platforms that need to be mobile.

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u/RoastedPickledGoose 2h ago

I’ve seen so many big car parks in hot places and thought “why not just put solar panels above the parking lots? Shade for the cars, energy for the stores.”

Then I remember how people drive.

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u/ThePainStalker 2h ago

This isn’t a real solution for grid scale power though. It’s a solution for local community power and for very light commercial electricity users. But the reality is that as industries electrify more and more (all that natural gas and fossil energy usage needs to be replaced with some zero carbon alternative and that is almost always electricity) and as more manufacturing gets onshored (especially in the US) and more heavy transport gets electrified (ports and logistics hubs), we will need proper grid scale solar, wind and in many cases (especially industrial usage), proper firm, 24/7, flexible and dispatchable power (like natural gas plants or hopefully the upcoming SMRs which would have demand flexibility capabilities). Rooftop solar, solar in parking lots, etc can be great for low electricity users (maybe 1-3MW microgrids or distribution grids) but they are no where near sufficient for even relatively light electrified users of 20MW+ of electricity (which is increasing rapidly as fossil fuels get phased out), let alone 100MW-2000MW+ users like semiconductor fabs, EV plants, data centers, logistics hubs, green steel, possibly hydrogen electrolysers in future, etc. Relying on low density brownfield solar solutions (like rooftop or parking lots) is no where near sufficient for power needs and also often runs into many infrastructure bottlenecks (like local distribution transformer capacity limits, which cascade a lot when applied to so many towns, etc). Grid scale solar relying on lots of greenfield land is also much more efficient from a power infrastructure perspective (one transmission line or transmission upgrade costs far less than a massive amount of distribution upgrades).

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u/Gladiateher 2h ago

I can’t build you a shed using my cordless drill, but I can build you a shed using all of my tools.

I agree with everything you said, but we can’t let perfect be the enemy of good, I’m pro nuclear as well, which when mixed into renewables solves every deficiency I’m aware of.

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u/ThePainStalker 1h ago edited 1h ago

I’m pro-SMRs (if they actually turn out as planned) but definitely not pro conventional nuclear. Conventional nuclear (even without the admittedly very hostile regulatory environment) is simply too expensive (as it cannot be modularised, they have to be major civil engineering which always comes with structurally higher costs) and most importantly, conventional nuclear has to act as a 24/7 firm baseload that cannot be scaled down in power easily to match demand. That means that they are a terrible complement to renewables. You need something that actually is flexible enough (and cheap enough capital costs wise) to scale up and down with power demand and generation output. At the moment, only natural gas turbines and power plants fit that bill (not coal and definitely not nuclear). Even if nuclear plants weren’t shut down, the operators of them would generally just be cannabilised by cheap renewables during a lot of operating hours so frankly, renewables make conventional nuclear even less feasible than before.

There is no carbon free solution to this problem yet. My hope is that SMRs (especially the molten salt designs which are very promising from an energy storage perspective) actually deliver on their promises (especially with Big Tech aggressively funding startups, there has literally never been more momentum for cheap power sources since the 1950s as energy demand has, right up to now in the mid 2020s, stagnated since the 1990s). Therefore we would actually have a real solution for not only energy dense industrial power (which is massively important and something renewables completely lack), can generate industrial heat (hence making energy inputs far more efficient than it would be for renewables in industry)) but for longer duration energy storage as hydrogen is simply way too expensive to produce no matter what and also requires a metric ton of really expensive pipeline infrastructure and batteries are simply not good enough for the job for medium to long term storage.

It would be even better if SMRs did not have to generate baseload power and could actually run as peaker plants too much like natural gas plants but that is very unlikely to be economically feasible. At least even if baseload, they would provide some much needed inertia into the grid system (another major problem with renewables albeit this can be somewhat managed in other ways but still, some generation capacity with inertia is definitely nice to have). I guess you can’t have it all, but it’s still a great solution.

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u/Churchbushonk 3h ago

Only cause Texas and Florida are in good locations for renewables.

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u/thefatheadedone 2h ago

The why doesn't really matter it's just the fact they are doing it that counts imo.

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u/Gladiateher 2h ago

No, that’s not the only reason lol, respectfully of course!

It’s because they have means, motive, and opportunity (lol).

They have a rich populace, very permissive zoning and building codes, the correct climate, the right political and capital structures and most importantly they have the will.

The technology is there, it’s economically viable and despite what you may have heard, people want the technology, they see it and they want it, even in oil producing Texas and crazy conservative Florida, that’s my point really - it’s pure optimism we CAN do this, we CAN implement this technology, and one good investment in energy tech can lead to another.

We can use mountain reservoir based batteries, grid scale electric batteries, home battery banks, solar, wind, and water.

People on the liberal coasts and people in the conservative south, and people in the frozen north all want this and we can have it, it’s available right now in this moment! We can get everyone on board and we absolutely CAN do this (in the US context at least)

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u/No_Internal9345 1h ago

Parking lots?

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u/Gladiateher 1h ago

Absolutely, why the frick not? Surround the bitch with native flowers while you’re at it.

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u/SerHodorTheThrall 2h ago

Historically red Texas and Florida are both leading the nation in solar, wind, and battery right now.

Why do people just outright lie? California is the outright leader in solar and has been for a long long time, in both raw output and the % of total state power generation. Florida is neither impressive in either its raw generation per capita or the % of its total power, despite being the ideal solar region. And in Texas, all the capacity is for corporate AI interests. None of that power is going to fucking housing. You need to be quite the imbecile to trust Republicans, who put is in this mess, to pull us out.

Anyways, here's the number that really matters. State power usable to power homes:

Texas: ~200,000 homes

Florida: ~2,000,000 homes

California: ~20,000,000 homes

lol, lmao even

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u/Gladiateher 1h ago

Unfortunately you have totally missed my point lol.

I’m not denigrating California nor glazing Texas, nor have I lied at all. I’m simply citing a different statistic than you for a completely different reason.

For your pedantic POV though, I’ll be more specific, Texas is leading the nation in new install and has recently passed CA in utility scale solar power generation.

To be clear to you my analytical friend, the reason this matters and the reason me and others are excited is because CA is already “on the team”

Until very recently, the idea that “drill baby drill” Texas and “Insane swamp conservative” Florida would be participants in a green revolution was an absolute pipe dream, but that’s not the case anymore. THATS why it’s worth talking about, it’s not glazing or lies, it’s a fact, a massively encouraging one.

Look past your knee jerk reaction at the big picture we have an opportunity here, a massive one, we have to address the climate crisis together with as many participants as we can, and even the reds are on board.

My talking points can be used to convince other conservatives in fact, if they object to green tech you can ask them about Texas and Florida and challenge their pre-conceived notions.

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u/SerHodorTheThrall 0m ago

Wow. I'm so excited for all our limited installation capacity to go to AI data centers and "utility" usage. Doesn't matter that we throttle access for local panel distribution as long as the money number go up for Elon Musk and Donald Trump! Yay dystopia!

You're clearly a fool to think the people destroying the EPA and nuking things like the Department of the Interior are going to work with you on climate. Absolutely incredible.

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u/sl33ksnypr 3h ago

And more specifically, land that is used to farm corn used for ethanol. I don't think we should mess with our food crops, but maybe we could just make less corn ethanol for cars?

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u/fearless-fossa 2h ago

There are plenty of plants that thrive under solar panels because they need some shadow to avoid overheating, putting solar above them increases yield.

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u/Gladiateher 2h ago

Plus fish hatcheries, reservoirs, desert and badlands areas, fallow grasslands, parking lots, Walmarts(lol) and soooo much more!

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u/LostWoodsInTheField 1h ago

There are plenty of plants that thrive under solar panels because they need some shadow to avoid overheating, putting solar above them increases yield.

Not a single solar panel farm in my area could support actual crop harvesting / planting without increasing costs way way above recooping levels. Are there solar farms that can be 15 feet off of the ground for half an acre + so far equipment could work 'around' them?

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u/cjsv7657 1h ago

But the increased cost of labor will decrease the profits so much it wont be worth it. It will work for things like cranberries where you just flood the bogs to pick them but not crops that are machine harvested. Like pretty much everything else that can be grown in shade.

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u/slowbones 3h ago

I manage a semi large solar PV array. It was put there by an ethanol plant to make money.

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u/NettingStick 2h ago

According to the USDA's numbers, about 0% of corn grown in America is used to feed Americans. I mean, obviously we have tortillas, corn syrup, etc. It's just that the amount of corn we eat directly is essentially a rounding error on the amount of corn we grow for other purposes.

Modern agriculture doesn't exist to feed people. It exists to feed markets. Our corn is mostly fed to animals; or exported (mostly to feed animals); or used to make ethanol (which produces byproducts that, again, are fed to animals). The thing about feeding corn to animals is that almost all of the calories in the corn are lost along the way. This is one of the reasons that reducing meat consumption has such an outsized effect on CO2 emissions.

TL;DR - we could replace almost all of our corn farms with solar without reducing how much food is available. We just choose not to.

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u/nomadicbohunk 2h ago

You're not incorrect. I think it helps to think of modern corn/bean farming as mining rather than farming. We're using up nonrenewable resources (soil and groundwater) to gain an industrial base product.

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u/voluptuousshmutz 55m ago

A fellow Technology Connections enjoyer.

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u/YourMomonaBun420 1h ago

Over parking lots and on roofs.

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u/Krillin113 11m ago

Also, but where I’m from almost every ‘outside’ parking area is getting them, as well as most new construction of flat roods

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u/miggidymiggidy 1h ago

Every single house.