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Last week the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) introduced an interactive map depicting land usage by solar power. It combats one of the largest critiques of solar power: how it takes away land and therefore harms farming. One statistic revealed solar power currently uses only 0.04% of total U.S. land area, and an even smaller 0.07% of U.S. farmland, while golf courses use nearly three times the amount of land. To put that into perspective, in a July 2018 Site Selection Energy Report article, “Power Game,” Adam Bruns quoted late comedian George Carlin, who jeered, “You could build two Rhode Islands and a Delaware for the homeless on the land currently being wasted” on golf courses. The article explains the benefits of repurposing former golf course land for solar. Among other benefits, “Repurposing the former Tallgrass Golf Course into a solar site eliminates the use of pesticides and fertilizers on the property, protecting Long Island’s fresh water aquifer,” said Invenergy EVP and Chief Development Officer Bryan Schuler.
Providing further evidence of how solar power and agriculture can grow together, SEIA president and CEO (and former Minnesota Governor) Tim Pawlenty reiterated how it also delivers affordable energy and local tax revenue to support farmers and landowners. Site Selection has previously covered the positive effects of solar power on agriculture and community in an Investment Profile for Silicon Ranch. Silicon Ranch Chairman Matt Kisber, “saw that solar projects would be important tax sources for a lot of communities, many of which had not seen large projects.” Kisber further highlighted “planting native vegetation and using animals to graze, which improves the soil quality so that over time the soil becomes a carbon sink. We can use the land not only for solar but for agriculture and improve the quality of that land over time.” — London Dinh
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