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.

[u/ArgentineBeauty]

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/

[u/MyCoffeeIsCold]

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.

[u/Hamstafish → u/MyCoffeeIsCold]

Forests are not universally something great though. Lots of forests around the world are essentially just monocrops with as much biodiversity as a cornfield. I wouldn't be supprised if a wildflower medow under a solar farm is a more biodeverse and valuble habitat than most forests. Even "natural" forests, can be essentially dead places, with the boreal forests of the north being far less productive and lacking in biodiversity compared to the grasslands they replaced. Today must forests are just biomass farms for heating and lumber, and solar panels are orders of magnitude more efficent at turning sunlight into energy than forests are. If you cut 70 acres of forest for solarfarms you need 700 acres less forests for biomass powerplants.

[u/NorthHollywoodHank → u/Hamstafish]

If my napkin math is right, and putting aside the battery issue for a moment, you could power the entire state of New York off of solar by clearing 1/30th of NYC's forest land.

A mix of energy sources makes more sense, but from an environmental perspective making NYC 100% clean energy at the cost of cutting 1/30th of NYC forestland would be an easy win.

For context doing that would bring NY state's total forest coverage down to the level it was in... ~2013.