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only AC orange 
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Joined: 06 Dec 2014
Location: Eastern Indiana
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 Topic: solar farms?
Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 12:26am |
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Wondering what some of your thoughts are about solar farms! Should we, as stewards of the land, be allowing solar farms to be built on productive farm ground?
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PaulB
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Location: Rocky Ridge Md
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 6:35am |
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I can't understand why around here all of the industrial space on roofs goes unused for solar panels and what little farmland is left gets solar panels. Other area may not have the large areas of warehouses like here, even so rooftops are a much better place for them than fields.
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If it was fun to pull in LOW gear, I could have a John Deere.
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jaybmiller
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 6:50am |
aside from the politics and power issues, there's cost. It's far cheaper to buy viable farmland and install panels, than on roofs. Mounting them on buildings means, R+R the existing roof,study/permits to put solar on the roof,traffic jams during the install,'orientation' issues($$$), overhead wires, etc. 'They' will come up with every excuse in the book then say 'look, there's some nice flat,easy access land not being used(winter), let's do it there...' BTW 3 neighbour's have them..all have 1" of 'Shameless White' on them, so meters ain't spinning....
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klinemar
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 6:52am |
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Cheaper and easier to maintain Solar Panels in a field than on a roof.I agree it is a waste of land! And Solar Panels loose efficiency over years.
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DMiller
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 6:53am |
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Current strategies are for moving panels that recover more energy than the fixed and with that a lot of weight the roofs were not designed for.
As the caveat, the panel farms only achieve a 10-15% improvement on delivered energy to fixed panels
A 1.5 mw plant on 100 acres may only add to make 1.6-1.7 mw.
Is a story on Google as to a New plan for wind and solar in NW Iowa
2000mw of turbines(not delivered energy) and 50mw solar
Would have to be massive and as such intrusive as well abrasive to locals.
Wind turbine makers are now finding their size limiter, blading. Have been several over 7mw wind turbines lose sections of blades due to the extreme weight causing mid blade fracturing, materials currently in use do not accept just being upsized for function, similar to boat hulls where fiberglass can only be built so large.
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PaulB
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 7:23am |
Yea, I know it all about who gets to wear the top hat and play monopoly with our tax tax dollars  If the agriculture land that got turned into solar farms was taxed as industrial instead of remaining agricultural, this would not be an issue. Any business that relies on outside support to make a profit is a poor business model.
Edited by PaulB - 23 Jan 2022 at 7:24am
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If it was fun to pull in LOW gear, I could have a John Deere.
If you can't make it GO... make it SHINY
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plummerscarin
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 8:42am |
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So my question is why not?
Plenty of ground taken out production and put in CRP. Owner can't or won't make a profit raising crops for whatever reason. Sells or leases ground for solar farm. Ground is out of production and greenies happy with panels everywhere. Less available grain to market makes other growers happy as remaining is more valuable. The only thing I can't understand is why the greenies don't want the panels in THEIR back yard.
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IBWD MIke
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 8:56am |
Lots of farm-ground taken out of production for a multitude of reasons. The amount of acres this area has lost to 'townies' who wanted to live in the country around here is considerable to say the least.
Less acres in production=higher prices for us?
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plummerscarin
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 9:32am |
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The down side of course is higher end product prices for all
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jaybmiller
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 9:49am |
re: plenty of ground taken out production and put in CRP.
Is this CRP land real EASY to get to? EASY to put solar or wind on ?? LARGE tracts of land ??
I'm betting it's not.
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thendrix
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 10:39am |
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Solar panels on chicken house roofs has been discussed for many many years. The problem has always been the cost outweighs the benefits. I've been told recently that one company has the cost closer to the point that a large farm like ours might be able to make it work. I've heard these things before though
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"Farming is a business that makes a Las Vegas craps table look like a regular paycheck" Ronald Reagan
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Clay
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 10:58am |
Bring back natural gas and coal power plants. Emission technology is much improved. Fossil fuel power plants are easily rebuilt. Blades on wind turbines are not recyclable. Weather rarely interferes with power generation of fossil fuel power plants.
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plummerscarin
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 12:13pm |
 jaybmiller wrote:
re: plenty of ground taken out production and put in CRP.
Is this CRP land real EASY to get to? EASY to put solar or wind on ?? LARGE tracts of land ??
I'm betting it's not.
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I understand your point. But easy for crop production or access for solar. Or do you think that matters?
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jaybmiller
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 1:10pm |
I have no idea what 'CRP' rules are, but got the impression it's land that's not easily farmed(too hilly, swampy, 'special' trees, very narrow access,???). Maybe it's 'only' 10 acres and a 50' wide combine can't get in ??
I can see that IF it's viable to farm(actually make money), a farmer WOULD farm it but... if the guv says we'll pay you $100/ac to let it be...... hard to say no to that. ZERO input costs, more free time and getting PAID for 'worthless' land.
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Dusty MI
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 1:28pm |
Down the road perhaps all the available land will needed to feed everyone.
To me a farm is where food is grown. I don't like to see land taken for Solar Panels called Solar Farm.
I read once where Michigan is ranked 47th out of the 48 Continental States. So I question taken up land for solar panels. Why not put them where there is so much sun that vegetation doesn't grow well, and just add the power produced to the power grid?
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plummerscarin
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 3:03pm |
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I could agree to that but we end up with selling energy from production site and buying for a grid at a distant location similar to what seems complicated and problematic as what happened in Texas
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only AC orange
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 7:27pm |
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I have been approached to install solar farms at several locations and also have CRP filter strips and waterways. I see no way to compare the two? The filter strips and waterways are soil conservation practices - solar farms can in no way be considered a soil conservation practice! My opinion of solar farms is - they should NOT be installed on productive farm land - there are many places in U.S.A. that could be used for solar and not take ground that produces food and fiber for us and the world! I probably won't see it but the world will go hungry due to mankinds inability to take care of our natural resource/soil.
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Ray54
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 10:04pm |
jaybmiller wrote:
I have no idea what 'CRP' rules are, but got the impression it's land that's not easily farmed(too hilly, swampy, 'special' trees, very narrow access,???). Maybe it's 'only' 10 acres and a 50' wide combine can't get in ??
I can see that IF it's viable to farm(actually make money), a farmer WOULD farm it but... if the guv says we'll pay you $100/ac to let it be...... hard to say no to that. ZERO input costs, more free time and getting PAID for 'worthless' land.
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The big thing to qualify for CRP is the potential for erosion. Yes people tend to put harder to farm pieces in first but the government chooses which they want you just offer it and they choose. So no reason you or I might not choose different.
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tom51
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Posted: 23 Jan 2022 at 10:31pm |
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Local dairy farmer with a thousand crop acres and five hundred milk cows being milked three times a day constructed a one acre of solar panels that supply 85% of his daily electricity
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DMiller
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Posted: 24 Jan 2022 at 4:32am |
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It is the small scale that scares me most, these mechanisms are hazmat awaiting opportunity as have Cadmium, Arsenic as well other exotic metals that Are poisonous in them and as with wind turbine blades NOT recyclable. A severe storm or the failure of more than 1/10 the total panels with the ever changing designs and we now have a dumping concern IF you can even get them removed from your property.
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ldogfarm
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Posted: 24 Jan 2022 at 5:00am |
The only reason solar is being pushed now is Gov. mandates. In our county the solar "LLCs" have been trying to lease all the best land for a period of 30yrs. They have approached me and all the landowners in my area wanting to put in solar farms of 500 or more acres. Almost all crop fields are less than 30 acres. Now young people wanting to farm have difficulty finding land to farm. Solar farms will be the end of anyone getting into farming on a viable scale. The solar farm people are trying to bribe the county with all kinds of promises. If they get the land for 30yrs for solar panels leaking dangerous chemicals it will be unusable to grow food and the solar LLC will be nowhere to be found. I am 72yrs old but I will fight to my last breath to protect my land as they are not making any more.
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BrianC
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Posted: 24 Jan 2022 at 5:45am |
Work has started nearby on a new 252 acre solar PV array. 36MW rated. It got "fast tracked" permits thru a new NY state-level solar permitting organization. Bypasses most of the local governments.
So I watch as a former sweet corn and potato operation gets wiped out. Topsoil scraped away, fill dirt dumped and leveled (but honestly, it was clean fill), racks being installed. We have a lot of these now. So I expect our electric rates will go up more. New governor, promoted to replaced the disgraced Cuomo, is pushing to electrify NY. Electric cars and heat pumps for all. Expect a $500 electric bill per month.
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DMiller
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Posted: 24 Jan 2022 at 6:02am |
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252 acres for a LIMITED generation time period 36mw(Often from 8-9am until 3-5pm even on the tracking mechanism units. A large Baseload station sits on LESS THAN 30 acres, may have been established on 50-150 acres generating Hundreds to THOUSANDS of MW per hour all day and ALL Night but the users of 'New Math' continue to play the numbers game as to these type facilities being viable.
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tadams(OH)
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Posted: 24 Jan 2022 at 9:46am |
Our local Career Center some years back got a deal where it didn't cost them much if any money to have solar panels installed on their roof and it cut there electric bill way down. Why don't they do more of this. i suppose they don't make any profit off of this kind of arrangement
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shameless dude
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Posted: 24 Jan 2022 at 10:48pm |
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they keep building houses and strip malls on productive farm ground. i guess the solar panels would be easier/cheaper to tear out to re-coup any farm ground.
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BuckSkin
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Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 4:13am |
only AC orange wrote:
Wondering what some of your thoughts are about solar farms! Should we, as stewards of the land, be allowing solar farms to be built on productive farm ground? |
I just returned from a recent trip to a farm auction in Southern Ohio where a huge grain producing farm has leased their land, lots of land, to the government at $1,600/acre for exclusive solar panel use. As we got close to the site, we passed thousands of acres that were already completely covered with these panels. I have never in my life seen such an eyesore, even worse by far than wind farms; it looked like some nightmare out of a Mad Max movie. I think it is completely stupid to cover productive farm land with such an unviable means of energy production, or anything else for that matter. One thing I will say....., if you have crop land, resist the urge to accept the $1600/acre as this is going to drive the price of beans and corn through the roof and that $1600 is not going to look so lucrative then. I bet the real bottom-line instigators of this have foreseen this and invested heavily in crop land that they will use to take advantage of this situation that they have created. Within half-a-mile of my place, con-artists/speculators have promised $800/acre to several landowners and have gotten a lot of the more gullible interested in getting aboard. Nobody has seen a cent of money and I figure the speculators will leave them holding an empty sack when the government doesn't come across with the $1600. They claim that they are going to run sheep to graze under the panels; from what I saw in Ohio, a sheep could not get under a panel to graze and no grass is going to grow there anyway; I saw thousands of acres of panels and not a single sheep. Mark my words, you will see steep rugged wasteland covered in soybeans in a couple years; backyards, garden plots, ditchlines, and such will be planted in beans.
Edited by BuckSkin - 25 Jan 2022 at 4:31am
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Morpar55
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Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 6:21am |
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There has been a push around me to add the solar farms too. My neighbor looked into it and didn't like what he saw. The grasses which would be planted around the solar panels will get into and damage the field tiles. In addition the support posts for the solar panels are driven in with no regard to the field tiles, so at the end of the lease when the panels are finally taken out you have to clear the fields and replace the field tiles to start growing crops again. I thought he also told me there could be places where they use concrete around the support posts, which may or may not get removed when the panels come out in the future. All in all they felt better about keeping their fields for producing crops.
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jaybmiller
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Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 6:42am |
Please humour me guys.. consider that 250 acre parcel that's now a solar farm... how many bushel of wheat could it make ? rough math,even low numbers is good. how many loaves of bread could be made from the harvest ? haw many loaves of bread does a family buy a year ?
so..the guvs( yours and mine) are taking viable farm land OUT of production meanwhile the population increases( trudeau just allowed an entire city's worth of refugees in , 40,000 !!! That's a LOT of mouths to feed..today,tomorrow, forever....
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plummerscarin
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Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 7:35am |
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Our county supervisors just approved another solar field site north of me. 250 acres?
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Mikez
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Posted: 25 Jan 2022 at 7:57am |
I think there going to end up on that tv show mystery’s of the abandoned. Has there been any talk on how to dispose of these. Like said above, not fair these projects skip through all the bs. My neighbor wanted to build a garage. I’m pretty sure he had to get permission from god. One thing was roof run off, making muddy water. Your telling me that that doesn’t happen off them solar panels. what’s the definition of farm, can they be called a farm.
Edited by Mikez - 25 Jan 2022 at 7:59am
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