You need to read about agrivoltaics. This is being used to huge effect elsewhere in the world to improve farming & soil. Here's an example from China:
replyhttps://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...
The standard alternative to a solar farm is a monoculture corn farm producing ethanol. That monoculture corn farm regularly gets sprayed, plowed and harvested, each time decimating its animal population. Your solar farm is probably filled with a diverse selection of grass and weeds, supporting a far higher animal population than that corn farm.
replyTechnology Connections did the math on this and found that if you ONLY replaced fields used for ethanol production with solar panels, the amount of space would be enough solar panels to power the entire power grid in the US.
replyI cry more when I think about the amount of farmland being used for bioethanol, something which is barely energy positive. If the US would switch the subsidies and regulations propping that up to propping up solar, it would easily free up a huge amount of land.
replyon that easy fix - the land under solar panels can still be used for farming or ranching
replySure but compare that to the amount of land used for oil and gas extraction. The difference is that mines and drills can only go where there's stuff to extract and solar panels can go anywhere. Including near residential areas. That's also due to the fact that they are so environmentally neutral.
replyAnd you can do some agriculture near and under the panels. That's not the case with an oil well.
replyOr under the plume of heavy metals from coal. That land, near the transmission infrastructure of a coal plant, is only good for solar farms.
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