relocate industrial solar off of prime farm soil
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Michael Almon
Apr 5, 2024, 4:02:02 PMApr 5
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Hi fellow permaculturists:
You may know about the Evergy proposal to cover 1105 acres of Douglas County's best prime agricultural soils with an industrial solar power plant. Though we all probably want solar, this project is just in the worst location imaginable - the Kansas River valley north of Lawrence. In just over one week, the Douglas County Commission will meet to vote on this proposal.
The issue of where to locate solar electric power plants is challenging and complicated. People without dirt under their fingernails may simply say "everywhere". And if one looks at climate heating through the lens of electricity, that would be viable. However, according to organizations such as Yale Climate Connections, the UN Food & Agriculture Organization, the World Economic Forum, and the US EPA, the greatest threat to humanity from climate heating is constraints on growing food — due to drought and desertification.
Unfortunately, our County officials have written solar regulations that favor solar power plants on our flat, alluvial, river bottom, prime farm soils. As the climate drought worsens — globally, and in California, and in western Kansas — the river valleys will be our fall-back food-growing regions. We can't afford to sacrifice our best, naturally irrigated soils for electricity.
I hear you saying that agrivoltaics can grow food between the solar panels. That's aspirational at this stage, the largest such current operation being only 7 acres. Savion Energy plans to build an 1105 acre solar power plant north of the river, with a trial patch of only 50 food-growing acres. The full solar acreage is as large as Baldwin City, or the entire K.U. campus. And Savion has testified that there now exists no utility scale agrivoltaic sites anywhere. Even if they manage to grow food among the solar panels, that still would be only a fraction of the food that could grow there, absent solar panels.
Yes let's build solar generating projects, but located more wisely on marginal lands — uplands, hayfields, landfills, environmentally compromised brownfields. There are 98 square miles of county sites within 1 mile of transmission lines where solar facilities of various sizes can be located. On the other hand, only 8000 acres (2.6%)of Douglas County's 304,000 acres are high-quality, Class 1 soils. Solar should be anywhere but on this uniquely valuable soil.
Solar projects can also be community scale — big box rooftops, parking lots, residential subdivisions — but even that should be a secondary strategy. Better yet, the fastest, safest, cheapest way to reduce climate emissions is to use less energy — which doesn't mean deprivation.
There are many existing technologies that can shrink our carbon footprint, such as: heat pumps, digital electric motors, induction stoves, net-zero building construction, bus rapid transit, E-bicycles, passenger rail, and ultra-light E-minicars. And wiser land use practices can do similar: stop deforestation, prevent development on floodplains and wetlands, curtail CAFOs (contained animal feeding operations), remove dams to restore rivers, and phase out plastics, to name just a few.
For an additional perspective, you can read a Your Turn column in the Lawrence Journal World written by Nancy Thellman, at - https:/www2.ljworld.com/opinion/2024/mar/26/opinion-dont-put-solar-plant-on-uniquely-valuable-farmland.
Also, view Stan Herd's crop art at - SOS Kaw Valley | Facebook, and - https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2024/apr/05/stan-herd-earthwork-urges-relocation-of-1105-acre-solar-project-proposed-for-north-of-lawrence/. Forward the links far and wide please!
Please, please attend the County Commission meeting on Saturday, 13 April, 9:00am, at the County
You may know about the Evergy proposal to cover 1105 acres of Douglas County's best prime agricultural soils with an industrial solar power plant. Though we all probably want solar, this project is just in the worst location imaginable - the Kansas River valley north of Lawrence. In just over one week, the Douglas County Commission will meet to vote on this proposal.
The issue of where to locate solar electric power plants is challenging and complicated. People without dirt under their fingernails may simply say "everywhere". And if one looks at climate heating through the lens of electricity, that would be viable. However, according to organizations such as Yale Climate Connections, the UN Food & Agriculture Organization, the World Economic Forum, and the US EPA, the greatest threat to humanity from climate heating is constraints on growing food — due to drought and desertification.
Unfortunately, our County officials have written solar regulations that favor solar power plants on our flat, alluvial, river bottom, prime farm soils. As the climate drought worsens — globally, and in California, and in western Kansas — the river valleys will be our fall-back food-growing regions. We can't afford to sacrifice our best, naturally irrigated soils for electricity.
I hear you saying that agrivoltaics can grow food between the solar panels. That's aspirational at this stage, the largest such current operation being only 7 acres. Savion Energy plans to build an 1105 acre solar power plant north of the river, with a trial patch of only 50 food-growing acres. The full solar acreage is as large as Baldwin City, or the entire K.U. campus. And Savion has testified that there now exists no utility scale agrivoltaic sites anywhere. Even if they manage to grow food among the solar panels, that still would be only a fraction of the food that could grow there, absent solar panels.
Yes let's build solar generating projects, but located more wisely on marginal lands — uplands, hayfields, landfills, environmentally compromised brownfields. There are 98 square miles of county sites within 1 mile of transmission lines where solar facilities of various sizes can be located. On the other hand, only 8000 acres (2.6%)of Douglas County's 304,000 acres are high-quality, Class 1 soils. Solar should be anywhere but on this uniquely valuable soil.
Solar projects can also be community scale — big box rooftops, parking lots, residential subdivisions — but even that should be a secondary strategy. Better yet, the fastest, safest, cheapest way to reduce climate emissions is to use less energy — which doesn't mean deprivation.
There are many existing technologies that can shrink our carbon footprint, such as: heat pumps, digital electric motors, induction stoves, net-zero building construction, bus rapid transit, E-bicycles, passenger rail, and ultra-light E-minicars. And wiser land use practices can do similar: stop deforestation, prevent development on floodplains and wetlands, curtail CAFOs (contained animal feeding operations), remove dams to restore rivers, and phase out plastics, to name just a few.
For an additional perspective, you can read a Your Turn column in the Lawrence Journal World written by Nancy Thellman, at - https:/www2.ljworld.com/opinion/2024/mar/26/opinion-dont-put-solar-plant-on-uniquely-valuable-farmland.
Also, view Stan Herd's crop art at - SOS Kaw Valley | Facebook, and - https://www2.ljworld.com/news/2024/apr/05/stan-herd-earthwork-urges-relocation-of-1105-acre-solar-project-proposed-for-north-of-lawrence/. Forward the links far and wide please!
Please, please attend the County Commission meeting on Saturday, 13 April, 9:00am, at the County