American solar farms

chasd00 a minute ago | parent | next [-]

I’ve seen some of the ones out in far west Texas. They’re amazing, you see this blue shimmer on the horizon that looks about the size of a lake and then when you eventually get close enough it turns out to be a huge solar array. There’s some smaller ones just south of dfw that I drive by when going hiking at a state park my wife likes. Still impressive but nothing like the giant farms in west Texas.

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ZeroGravitas 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The title is a bit non descript, so the blog post is exploring

> a 15K-array, 2.9M-panel dataset of utility and commercial-grade solar farms across the lower 48 states plus the District of Columbia. This dataset was constructed by a team of researchers including alumni from NOAA, NASA and the USGS.

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jibal an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

This will change under the policies of the current U.S. administration.

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hwillis 42 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Pretty unlikely. Solar is built on cheap land with low demand, and if the land isn't sold then the power is free so why wouldn't you sell it? No matter how high the taxes are, free money is free money. Aside from making it totally illegal it is very hard to reduce the incentive to sell power.

On top of that the subsidies for solar installations are mostly frontloaded, since the costs are frontloaded. Annual tax breaks are transferrable, so they get sold at the beginning of the project to offset investment cost, lowering interest payments. Even removing tax breaks would not make existing installations less profitable.

	▲	BolexNOLA 3 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		This hasn’t stopped them from gutting all sorts of sensible programs both energy-related and otherwise regardless of the stage of investment/development. Have we forgotten about Musk and his mob already?

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rsynnott 7 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I mean, ultimately, ol' minihands won't be there forever.

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cactusplant7374 an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I am still receiving advertisements from solar companies that want to put panels on farm land. They pay around $3-$4k an acre

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binarymax an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Per month or year? And what region?

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tecleandor an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Like monthly? Yearly?

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ben_w 38 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

I'm not the person you're replying to, but if I read the following link correctly, the USA average price to purchase is only $5.5k/acre, and any part of the US cheaper than or including the average price in Nebraska (ranked 17th at $3,884/acre) could well be trading food farmland for solar farm land at that price:

https://acretrader.com/resources/farmland-values/farmland-pr...

	▲	Zigurd 2 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		In Nebraska, you're talking about food for cattle. The profit per acre is low and so the price is low.

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dgacmu 28 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

This is for a 20 or 30 year lease. One time payment. 4k is on the high side.

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UltraSane 42 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Federal funding for solar farms will stop but private funding will continue because solar electricity is the the cheapest source right now.

	▲	ben_w 28 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		Unless it gets outlawed, which I suspect is something Trump might do or attempt as part of his campaign in favour of fossil fuels and/or to own the libs/China. I'm also not clear how cheaply the US could make its own PV in the event of arbitrary trade war (let alone hot war) between the USA and China. (The good news there is that even in such a situation, everyone else in the world can continue to electrify with the panels, inverters, and batteries that the USA doesn't buy).

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IAmBroom 20 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

You dropped this: /s