A significant portion of farmland in the US is used to grow corn solely for ethanol production.
If this land – and this land only – was instead used for solar farms, it would produce several times more electricity than the entire country uses, easily allowing the US to be 100% solar powered. (Not with some hypothetical future solar tech – with the tech we have right now.) Corn production for food and even for livestock food would not be reduced at all, only ditching the cornfields used for ethanol production.
Or just, you know, put some solar farms in the vast desert areas the US has, where there’s even better sun exposure and hardly ever any cloud coverage. Then they’ll be even more efficient, and most of that land isn’t used for anything anyway, except maybe some light cattle grazing. (And light cattle grazing can work perfectly fine alongside solar panels. The cows might even appreciate the shade on hot days.)
A significant portion of farmland in the US is used to grow corn solely for ethanol production.
If this land – and this land only – was instead used for solar farms, it would produce several times more electricity than the entire country uses, easily allowing the US to be 100% solar powered. (Not with some hypothetical future solar tech – with the tech we have right now.) Corn production for food and even for livestock food would not be reduced at all, only ditching the cornfields used for ethanol production.
Or just, you know, put some solar farms in the vast desert areas the US has, where there’s even better sun exposure and hardly ever any cloud coverage. Then they’ll be even more efficient, and most of that land isn’t used for anything anyway, except maybe some light cattle grazing. (And light cattle grazing can work perfectly fine alongside solar panels. The cows might even appreciate the shade on hot days.)