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Started By
Message
re: $170 million solar farm planned for St. Landry Parish
Posted on 2/18/23 at 10:31 am to Jim Rockford
Posted on 2/18/23 at 10:31 am to Jim Rockford
quote:
Looks like you could grow some kind of row crop along with it
No, you can produce specialty crops along with it but not row crops.
And these solar companies will absolutely not allow cultivation on their leased land. Too much of a risk that an ag worker damages equipment.
1
Posted on 2/18/23 at 10:51 am to Bison
quote:
If 2 million acres are not profit as farmland then and intelligent person maybe consider other sources of revenue such as solar entergy.
All farmland is not equal. There are acres that are not profitable even if the crop is not wasted. Many rice farms, for instance, could not continue to operate if it weren't for crawfish. The majority of Calcasieu, Cameron, and Jeff Davis Parish is pasture because it's not profitable to farm commodity crops on those acres.
So if you take some of that marginal land and convert it to other, non-ag uses, it's not a major loss. In fact, it's probably better than wasting money farming it. That's (partly) the reason CRP and WRP were created.
But they aren't necessarily looking for those lands, because they may not be in an appropriate location. I would bet the land they used in PC was pretty damn good cropland.
To be frank, I don't have an issue with solar energy. It's the lack of thought that goes into regional planning that irritates me. I've done NEPA work before, and you can make up any bullshite reason you want to say another site would be less suitable for a given project, and most regulatory agencies are going to go along with it because the analysts don't have the time or desire to argue over every single project they have to review.
It's no different than all the subdivisions going up all over Lafayette Parish that "considered drainage". Yet, there's more and more flooding issues because what they didn't and couldn't account for was conversion of pasture, rice, and soybean farms to sugarcane.
Hell, we have federal programs now that pay for easements to keep agland as agland. How much more useful would a program like that be if there was an effort to identify lands in a region that were valuable, prime farmland versus marginal farmland? Then, only those are protected for farming use, and the rest is fair game for other uses.
Posted on 2/18/23 at 11:20 am to stewie
quote:
And these solar companies will absolutely not allow cultivation on their leased land. Too much of a risk that an ag worker damages equipment.
I've heard of a few where they do. There's one that has the modules raised so they can still run cattle on the property. I trust ag workers more than cows to not frick anything up. There's also some pretty good legal structure that allow everything to work from the wind leases where they don't restrict any access and just deal with it if something gets fricked up.
Posted on 2/18/23 at 11:51 am to billjamin
quote:
There's also some pretty good legal structure that allow everything to work from the wind leases where they don't restrict any access and just deal with it if something gets fricked up.
Wind and solar are completely different animals.
And no, there isn’t a single solar farm in Louisiana allowing farming on their leased property.
There are small solar farms in the north west US owned by a farmer that double as solar farm and vegetable farm. I’ve spoken with one about three years ago. It is not suitable for large scale production.
Posted on 2/18/23 at 12:06 pm to stewie
quote:
Wind and solar are completely different animals.
Agreed, but there are servicer and pass through arrangements that solar, wind, O&G, and crytpo mining all use to allow to multi use property.
quote:
And no, there isn’t a single solar farm in Louisiana allowing farming on their leased property.
There are ranchers that graze cattle in utility solar in Texas. There's no reason you couldn't farm it.
Posted on 2/18/23 at 12:47 pm to billjamin
quote:
I've heard of a few where they do. There's one that has the modules raised so they can still run cattle on the property.
With the new Waters of the US rule set to go into effect next month, you can bet more companies will be finding ways to modify projects in ways just like this. Unlike the Trump-era rule, developers won't have the benefit of the prior-converted cropland designation anymore if the land is not "available to agricultural use". But if they can manage to design the project in a way that makes it available to agricultural, they will.
Posted on 2/18/23 at 2:09 pm to GumboPot
quote:
I wonder if they considered the construction costs for 155 mph wind engineering design?
I wonder if they are considering that they will still need sources of power for after dark hours unless they are somehow planning on some kind of massive storage facility.
Still not a bad project though.
Posted on 2/18/23 at 2:41 pm to Cowboyfan89
quote:
2 day shipping on Billy's Boudin coming soon to a Prime household near you.
You promise?
Posted on 2/18/23 at 2:49 pm to GetmorewithLes
quote:
I wonder if they are considering that they will still need sources of power for after dark hours unless they are somehow planning on some kind of massive storage facility.
Do you think that maybe when someone is spending $170MM they might look into that. Maybe even get really crazy and model the production. Or that you need a bunch of that info for your interconnection application?
Posted on 2/19/23 at 12:50 am to billjamin
quote:
f you don't pay the property taxes and take care of that land then STFU.
I do pay property tax, which I bet most that frequent this site on a daily basis also pay or will pay in the future because they are productive members of society. If it was up to me, if you don’t own property you don’t get to vote in property tax elections. Regardless, those solar farms are an eye sore and it’s all about making money for someone that doesn’t give a shite about the community where they pop up.
Posted on 2/19/23 at 6:37 am to billjamin
quote:
If you don't pay the property taxes and take care of that land then STFU.
In all likelihood these aren't even the same people in this situation being that it's farmed.
The person paying the property taxes probably doesn't give a frick what his "neighbors" think, because it's probably some elderly person that's just trying to get the most money out of that land. They aren't concerned about what anyone else thinks, nor is the parish.
Posted on 2/19/23 at 8:20 am to stewie
quote:
This is 100% incorrect. 1 out of 3 children in the Louisiana suffer from hunger at some point in their childhood.
No disrespect, but that a substantial amount of children suffer from food hunger does not mean that there is a food shortage in the United States, at least not in the context you are implying.
Posted on 2/19/23 at 8:52 am to goofball
Solar farms would be great, they said. I get charged a monthly surcharge by AEP to pay for the solarfarm that is covered in snow and shutdown 2 months a year, and it's cloudy as frick 70% of the rest of the year.
Posted on 2/19/23 at 8:53 am to cyarrr
LINK
Something to consider is that Solar waste and Solar recycling is not keeping up with solar production, Solar sales and Solar implementation. For commercial or residential applications.
The research on the waste generated by the first wave of upgrades on the original wave of installations has been done. Even using conservative estimates, we have a waste problem on its way.
Contrary to the Pearl clutchers here, there are trace amounts of harmful products in solar panels. So that isn’t a concern for either operations or waste. But lots of glass-which is low in value-and little high value materials are in Solar waste.
So there’s a big issue coming with landfill waste…and extremely low to non existent recycling capacity in the industry. Beyond that…the US has no real remediation or waste and recycling policy codified as of yet. The EU does and places this onus on manufacturers based on market share.
I would imagine this happens here when we get out Congressional act together.
But if you read the article, China is the dominant panel manufacturer worldwide and see this coming. They’re ending subsidies for their producers to help slow/exit the market as the government itself would be responsible as most entities are state owned there.
Meaning the problem becomes orphan waste at that point.
Having said that, this all represents a huge opportunity for recycling capacity and new innovations within the waste/recycling space. There’s too much material and too much need to dispose of it for capacity and innovation not to occur in this market.
Will it or legislation keep pace with market adoption on a mass scale? Of course not. Capitalism seeks efficiency never moves that quickly.
But…there are some opportunities coming…for waste more than anything.
Something to consider is that Solar waste and Solar recycling is not keeping up with solar production, Solar sales and Solar implementation. For commercial or residential applications.
The research on the waste generated by the first wave of upgrades on the original wave of installations has been done. Even using conservative estimates, we have a waste problem on its way.
Contrary to the Pearl clutchers here, there are trace amounts of harmful products in solar panels. So that isn’t a concern for either operations or waste. But lots of glass-which is low in value-and little high value materials are in Solar waste.
So there’s a big issue coming with landfill waste…and extremely low to non existent recycling capacity in the industry. Beyond that…the US has no real remediation or waste and recycling policy codified as of yet. The EU does and places this onus on manufacturers based on market share.
I would imagine this happens here when we get out Congressional act together.
But if you read the article, China is the dominant panel manufacturer worldwide and see this coming. They’re ending subsidies for their producers to help slow/exit the market as the government itself would be responsible as most entities are state owned there.
Meaning the problem becomes orphan waste at that point.
Having said that, this all represents a huge opportunity for recycling capacity and new innovations within the waste/recycling space. There’s too much material and too much need to dispose of it for capacity and innovation not to occur in this market.
Will it or legislation keep pace with market adoption on a mass scale? Of course not. Capitalism seeks efficiency never moves that quickly.
But…there are some opportunities coming…for waste more than anything.
Posted on 2/19/23 at 5:01 pm to billjamin
quote:
Do you think that maybe when someone is spending $170MM they might look into that. Maybe even get really crazy and model the production. Or that you need a bunch of that info for your interconnection application?
If it is a third party type build, no. If it is the utility themselves, yes. I was more aiming my comment to the uneducated public that think these type projects make the fossil plants go away. The Utilities are mandated by law to maintain certain amounts of backup power at all times in the regulated markets. The deregulated markets are a free for all.
I expect as more projects like this pop up they will have to pay for distribution system maintenance if they dont already.
Posted on 2/19/23 at 5:07 pm to GetmorewithLes
quote:
If it is a third party type build, no. If it is the utility themselves, yes.
Every one is getting the same IE treatment. They couldn't get the tax equity without it nor could they apply for interconnection.
Posted on 2/19/23 at 5:09 pm to GFunk
quote:
Having said that, this all represents a huge opportunity for recycling capacity and new innovations within the waste/recycling space.
I just don't see this being that big of a deal. We're going to see people just leave degraded modules alone for a very long time. Best base scenario, we're 20 years from needing recycling at any scale in the US. I think 30-40 years is more realistic.
Posted on 2/19/23 at 6:19 pm to billjamin
Tell me you didn’t read the link without saying you didn’t read the link…
Posted on 2/19/23 at 6:22 pm to GFunk
quote:
Tell me you didn’t read the link without saying you didn’t read the link…
I did. It's written by someone who has no clue what they're talking about. The 1% LID factor alone is enough for me to know that.
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