Building more renewable energy sources means rethinking land use for agriculture and conservation |
The state of New York could meet its goal of building 46 gigawatts of large-scale solar by midcentury, but not without making difficult choices in how land is used across the state.
That’s the overall finding of an analysis several colleagues and I have made in that state. It’s an issue that other states, and the U.S. as a whole, are facing as they seek to shift electricity generation from fossil fuels to renewable sources, such as wind and solar.
The question of land use arises because power plants that burn coal and natural gas can produce large amounts of electricity from relatively small areas of land – but solar requires more space to generate the same amount of electricity.
That means deciding which land to build on, and why.
It’s often convenient to build solar projects in pastures and hay fields, for instance. But the dairy industry and agriculture more generally are key components in New York state’s economy, and building in agricultural areas would leave less land for those important industries. However, protecting farmland could lead solar developers to consider using existing forests. Yet forests........