A renewable energy boom risks damaging some of richest soils in key farming states
Solar industry is pushing into the US Midwest, drawn by cheaper land rents, access to electric transmission, and a wealth of govt incentivesSun, 28 Apr 2024 10:29:54 PKT
According to Duttlinger's solar lease, reviewed by Reuters, Dunns Bridge said it would use "commercially reasonable efforts to minimise any damage to and disturbance of growing crops and crop land caused by its construction activities" outside the project site and "not remove topsoil" from the property itself.
NextEra declined to comment on the matter or on what future commitments it made to Duttlinger, and Reuters could not independently confirm them. Project developer Orion Renewable Energy Group LLC directed questions to NextEra. For landowners like Duttlinger, the promise of profits is appealing. Solar leases in Indiana and surrounding states can offer $900 to $1,500 an acre per year in land rents, with annual rate increases, according to a Reuters review of solar leases and interviews with four solar project developers. In comparison, farmland rent in top corn and soybean producers Indiana, Illinois and Iowa averaged about $251 per acre in 2023, USDA data shows.
Some agricultural economists and agronomists counter that taking even small amounts of the best cropland out of production for solar development and damaging valuable topsoil impacts future crop potential in the United States. The total power capacity of the solar operations tracked in the data set represents over 60 gigawatts of electric power capacity. In the following two years, solar capacity has nearly tripled, according to a Dec. 2023 report from the Solar Energy Industries Association and Wood Mackenzie.
Jerry Hatfield, former director of USDA Agricultural Research Service's National Laboratory for Agriculture and the Environment, said Reuters' findings in the four counties are "concerning." While the land needed for ground-based solar development to achieve this goal won't be even by state, it is not expected to exceed 5pc of any state's land area, except the smallest state of Rhode Island, where it could reach 6.5pc, by 2050, according to the Energy Department's Solar Futures Study, published in 2021.
US Farmland Solar Energy US Midwest Renewable Energy Crop Production Soil Erosion Solar Leases Urban Sprawl Urban Development Climate Change Biden Administration Cost Of Production Solar Leases Cropland Crop Potential Soybean Yields Corn Yields Solar Development Energy Development Solar Panels
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