We need to talk about solar
A couple of years ago, a friend from Northwestern Bulgaria shared her annoyance with solar installations taking over farmland. “Prime farmland,” she said, “and they’ve covered it with panels.”
We need to talk about solar, by IRINA SLAV
APR 29, 2024
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A couple of years ago, a friend from Northwestern Bulgaria shared her annoyance with solar installations taking over farmland. “Prime farmland,” she said, “and they’ve covered it with panels.”
“But shouldn’t that be forbidden?” I responded. “Farmland should be used for farming, not panels. Surely there must be some law saying this.”
Indeed, there is. Land in Bulgaria, as in other countries, I imagine, is divided into ten categories, from top to bottom quality. The first two categories are the best for growing crops. The bottom two — garbage.
The law states, or rather stated, that only land unfit for farming can be used to build solar installations. Changes made by the previous government last year changed this but they are being disputed by the President at the Constitutional Court so that’s on hold. Still, it is possible to re-categorise land previously used for farming in order to make the construction of solar on it legal. But apparently, you don’t even need that.
In October last year, the news broke that two high-ranking officials from the Bulgarian Agricultural Academy and the Institute for Soil Science had illegally re-categorised land to enable solar development on it. The news was brought to my attention by the inimitable Robert Bryce and my first reaction was one of surprise. Not that there were people doing this. I was surprised that they had got caught.
The two, I gather, got off on bail but that’s beside the point. The point is that there appears to be so much money to be made from solar that all other considerations take second place. Or tenth. And while in Bulgaria using prime farmland for solar is still illegal, so you need to bribe people to do it, elsewhere it is perfectly legal and actively encouraged by the government. Solar is taking over farmland — finite, food-producing farmland. Whatever could go wrong?
Reuters last week published an in-depth report about the state of solar development in the U.S. Midwest, detailing a trend of farmers selling or leasing their land to solar developers lured by the high prices they offer, even knowing that the installations would ruin the soil for a very long time.
The report, which I urge all to read, relates the story of one Indiana farmer who leased a third of his land to a NextEra subsidiary for the construction of the Dunns Bridge Solar installation — a 700-MW field of panels plus 75 MW of battery storage.
"I'll never be able to grow anything on that field again," the farmer told Reuters. What’s worse, he appears to have been aware that this could happen. But with land rents in the area ranging between $900 and $1,500 per acre, the temptation must have been impossible to resist. So he didn’t. And neither are many other landowners in the Midwest, some of whom are leasing and others are straight out selling their land to the solar industry.
Here’s the Powers Butte Energy Center — a project smaller than NextEra’s Dunnes Bridge eyesore at 250 MW plus 200 MW in battery storage. Located in Idaho, the project is property of Savion, a Missouri-based company with big ambitions, apparently. These, as is often the case, have made the company quite generous, so farmers are selling.
“The loss of farmland is an issue. So we understand that, but it’s our conclusion that this is a better use for it,” one of these farmers told Idaho media. “This project is going to be better for the general area, in a new use, than in its current farming use,” the gentleman went on to say.
“Because our assessment of what the plan involves, and the nature of solar, was that a solar panel operation is probably going to be a very good neighbor,” he continued and it’s hard not to marvel at this man’s ability to string together so many empty phrases without bursting a blood vessel. Another of the sellers, however, is not too embarrassed to say the important part out loud.
A farmer who listed his land for sale before Savion approached him with an offer for its solar project, told a local reporter that the sale “would make financial sense.” That’s what all this is for, in case you expected a valiant story of clean energy.
The buyers know it. Of course they know it. The sellers know it, too. And they are so embarrassed, they are rationalising their sales with, “the solar farm could be more environmentally friendly because they would no longer need to use fertilizers and chemicals that they use on current farms.” Of course they wouldn’t. Because they wouldn’t be growing food.
It seems the sellers are not the only ones aware the use of prime farmland for solar power generation may not be the smartest thing ever done in the history of the world. But money talks.
Per Reuters: “Farmland Partners Inc, a publicly traded farmland real estate investment trust (REIT) has leased about 9,000 acres nationwide to solar firms. Much of that ground is highly productive, said Executive Chairman Paul Pittman.
"Do I think it's the best use of that land? Probably not. But our investors would kill us if we didn't pursue this," he said.”
It is at times like this that I get a very sharp sense of understanding why there was so much violence in the ancient past. It’s because people confronted each other and their disastrous ideas face to face rather than pouring their frustrations out on their laptops.
The Reuters report incidentally notes that farmland availability in the States is shrinking, shedding 8% between 1997 and 2023 due to urban sprawl and repurposing. But solar is not a problem, according to the USDA because “urban sprawl and development are currently bigger contributors to farmland loss than solar.” So that makes solar all right, then.
Not all agree it makes solar all right, however. People in Idaho are speaking out against the Powers Butte Energy Center and may I take this chance to commend the project owners on their choice of name. And so are people in Anglesey, where Lighthouse bp wants to build a 350-MW solar installation. This is perhaps the starkest example of the departure of common sense when solar — or anything else transitionesque — is concerned.
So, the BP subsidiary wants to build 350 MW of solar. This would take up an area equal to 1,700 football pitches, according to the BBC because the BBC is now American and genetically incapable of using measures like metres and kilometers. A football pitch is 100x64 metres or 110x70 yards in case anyone cares.
Do you know where Angelsey is? It’s in Wales. And Wales is in the southwest of the main British island. Do you know what Wales is famous for? It’s not sunshine, I can tell you that. But this is irrelevant when solar power subsidies are being dangled in front of developers’ faces. And, of course, there’s the potential death threat from investors, as related by that REIT guy above. Oh, and by the way, that Anglesey installation by the beautiful name of Maen Hir, will be built on farmland. You didn’t expect this, right?
I happen to live in prime farmland country. Naturally, this also makes the region prime solar country, too, and solar is booming. I’m happy to report that most of it is rooftop installations, dilapidated private lots and panels mounted in the yards of various manufacturing enterprises. But the biggest solar installation in the region is neither on a rooftop nor in a yard. The biggest installation, dubbed Terra Sol, is smack in the middle of the fields, making 100 MW of solar energy when the sun shines and down here it shines a lot.
For such a huge installation there is very little in the way of publicly available information, which is a little peculiar. Sure, the company that built it has a website and everything, it also has big plans for the largest solar installation in Southeastern Bulgaria yet official info about that specific installation is difficult to find. But I’m sure it was built on low-grade land that was not fit for farming any more.
Below is a picture of that prime farmland (in the distance) that makes our region one of the biggest food supply hubs in the country. Besides being useful, I happen to find the place rather beautiful. A lot of people would disagree, I’m sure, because for them beauty is money rather than truth. Did I mention there are plans to builda solar panel factory here? It sounds utterly ridiculous but there it is. The developers can’t wait for the EUthorities to order the shutdown of the coal plants to free the space.
There’s money to be made from solar — a lot more than a farmer can make from his or her land by growing food on it. Odd, that. Food seems to be worth so much less than solar power. It’s not absurd and, in due time, catastrophic at all, I’m sure.
The building of any solar farms above the 45degN parallel, is absolute lunacy for power generation, but great for consumer subsidy rinsing - if solar power in Northern Europe was measured in developer/owner millionaires made, it would be an utter success story