Have there been any trials of solar farms located over parking lots? Double benefit: shade for the cars and use of space that otherwise is driving up global warming.
On Thu, Jun 8, 2023 at 12:44 AM Colleen Richards <cl...@juno.com> wrote: > Thank you Dave for a clear, concise presentation that helps point out the > multiple problems facing us in choosing how we want to live. Ultimate value > choices may not be agreed upon by everyone, though. And that has been > apparent in these posts. > > Thanks for being honest about how birds can be affected by each form of > energy's procurement / usage. That perspective helps to "round out" the > information needed for each person's decision-making. > > In the end, each of us is required to make our own choices, and perhaps to > enter into the public, or political, arena to stand up for those choices. > It has been good to voice our thoughts and to encourage one another to keep > perspective. > > For now I am planning to continue to point out the beauties of nature to > those around me and to educate young people (and older ones, too) to > appreciate and understand our responsibility to care for and about this > world that we have been blessed with. > > Colleen Richards > > ---------- Original Message ---------- > From: Dave Nutter <nutter.d...@me.com> > To: CayugaBirds-L b <cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu> > Subject: Re: [cayugabirds-l] Conservation vs Ecology > Date: Wed, 7 Jun 2023 17:43:26 -0400 > > > > > > Carl makes a valid point about the destructiveness to flora and fauna of > large scale solar arrays. Solar panels which cover huge fields should be > called mines, not farms. The arrays’ extraction of energy is industrial, > not biological, and it is done while trying to overcome natural systems, so > the solar arrays disrupt biology. By contrast, a farm harnesses biology > using our soil and rain, and it diverts some of the biological products to > human purposes in a repeatable annual process. When agriculture is > practiced on the scale of a family farm, it can do so in concert with > plants and wildlife in hedgerows, along streams, and around ponds, and > agriculture’s incidental waste products can be more easily absorbed and > used by nature along all those edges. Factory farms differ from traditional > farms because with “efficiency†of scale, they eliminate nature and > nature’s ability to handle agriculture’s side effects. At large scale, > the waste is no longer incidental and absorbed, it is toxic. > > If farm land is abandoned, it can be reclaimed by plants and animals. When > the solar panels wear out in a couple decades, will the regulations make it > worth the effort and expense to recycle the old ones and install new ones? > Or will it be cheaper to abandon those arrays? On my daily walks I see > metal playground equipment in the woods because the City of Ithaca took it > from where the Children’s Garden was being built, and chucked it > alongside the old railroad grade, which became the Black Diamond Trail. I > imagine hundreds of acres of metal of a big solar array, but overgrown > among trees, vines and shrubs. > > For a solar array to work in our climate, vegetation must suppressed. This > can be done by pasturing sheep among them, which makes cute advertising > video, but how often is this practice used? How often is plant suppression > done instead by covering and/or poisoning the soil? This has effects of > heating the ground and speeding rain runoff. How often is plant suppression > among solar arrays done with fossil-fuel powered machinery which also > wastes the plant material? Maybe folks think that’s no big deal because > so much land area is already mown, wasting both plants and fossil fuel, but > I think mowing should be drastically scaled back. A reasonable sized > personal lawn is the area a person can keep mowed with a reel mower pushed > by hand without using fossil fuel. It’s not worth adding to the > destruction of the natural climate, flora, and fauna in order to have a > bigger lawn than one actually uses. > > So, yes, I agree, big solar arrays are poor for plants & animals. I also > see at least 3 other parts to the equation as we evaluate the harm and > benefit of solar arrays. What did the solar arrays replace on the > landscape? What were the solar arrays built instead of for energy? How much > energy do we need? > > In our moist temperate region, the land was mostly forested until being > cleared for agriculture, which was a big investment. Abandoned agricultural > land can, through succession, become meadows, shrub fields, and secondary > forest, all of which harbor a wide variety of birds, but that’s a value > we take for granted, not one with a price tag on it. People generally like > and are uplifted by wild birds, and some of us are passionate about them. > But abandoned farmland is considered “unproductive†by those who tax the > land, and therefore also by those who own the land, so this habitat is apt > to be shredded and converted to a large scale solar array. I’ve certainly > seen that happen. If we as a society can literally value land which > supports a diversity of birds, then less will be turned into long-term > non-bird-habitat. > > My impression is that most agricultural land around here is for corn, and > I’ve > also seen some cornfields replaced by solar arrays. What’s the impact > on birds? What do we lose when a cornfield is replaced by a solar array? > Cornfields are lousy habitat for breeding birds, but blackbirds feed there > in spring and autumn, and waterfowl may feed there in winter. If > old-fashioned manure is spread, then Horned Larks, Snow Buntings, and a few > Lapland Longspurs may visit to feed. And if they are quick about it, Horned > Larks might nest on the bare dirt before farmers get too active there. > Pesticides used on corn affects insects, birds, and aquatic animals beyond > the fields. What is the corn used for? Regulations require ethanol to be > added to gasoline. Ethanol is easy to make from corn, so lots of corn goes > there, which helps keep corn prices high and lots of land in corn, even > though corn takes so much energy to produce, what with pesticides & > fertilizers & machines, that adding ethanol from corn increases the carbon > footprint of the gasoline. Maybe the sway of corn-producing states, > especially Iowa with its early caucus, is some of the politics Carl > mentioned. Another big use of corn is for high-fructose corn syrup, a cheap > sweetener which is a big ingredient of many processed foods and beverages, > and which has been implicated in our epidemics of obesity and diabetes. > Again, politics may sway how health is studied and the public is informed. > Another big use of corn is feed for livestock. While I enjoy eating meat, > cheese, yogurt, butter, ice cream, and eggs, I also know that foods which > are higher on the food chain, especially cattle, take an awful lot of > energy and water to produce, and in many cases produce a lot of pollution. > I don’t need lots of meat, not every day. And what I eat doesn’t need > to be totally dependent on corn. I can eat local pork and eggs which are > produced with less negative impact on wildlife, the environment, and the > climate. And if you eat dairy, wouldn’t you prefer to support a farm > where the family appreciates birds, practices farming in a way that allows > them to accrue a yard list of over 200 species, and welcomes the birding > public to appreciate the rarities such as the Say’s Phoebe, > Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, and Yellow Rail that chose to visit? I’m > talking about the Troyers’ Birdsong Meadow Farm in Candor. They have > pastures and hayfields, where they reserve space for a thriving colony of > Bobolinks, but they don’t feed their cows corn at all. The Troyer > farm’s milk goes to Organic Valley, in case you want to support > conscientious bird-friendly farming. > > But if a corn field, which uses lots of energy, and depletes topsoil, and > often results in erosion, and produces plenty of pesticide pollution, and > has dubious societal benefit, gets taken out of corn production, should it > also be taken out of biology by installing a huge solar array? Seneca > Meadows shows that, with effort, corn fields can return to exceptional > wildlife habitat. Similarly, Montezuma Wetlands Complex is on land that was > once the vast Montezuma Marshes which were a big barrier to building the > Erie Canal, then were drained and used as farm land (potatoes, then corn in > my memory) with dikes & channels to deliberately flood & drain the fields. > Former corn fields still have potential for birds. > > What are the solar arrays erected instead of, in terms of energy sources? > If it’s burning coal or petroleum, or gas from the ground, those energy > sources add greenhouse gases to the atmosphere directly at large scale > through burning. There is tremendous land destruction and water pollution > and air pollution from mining and washing coal, and dealing with the > leftover ash and the mining wastes. It turns out that newly exposed rock is > not benign; it has elements exposed and chemicals produced which are toxic. > Likewise, be happy you don’t live where petroleum is produced, or > shipped, or refined, because those places are toxic. Much petroleum > nowadays, like much gas mining, is extracted by fracking, which involves > pumping chemicals into the ground at high pressure in order fracture the > rock. Those liquids come back up even more toxic, saline, and radioactive > but must be “disposed of†somewhere. Dumped? Spread on roads to melt > ice? Sent to a wastewater treatment plant that was designed only for > digesting human feces? Some of the fracking chemicals make the groundwater > unsafe to drink. And some of the gases being mined leak into the > groundwater or out of the ground or leak out of systems designed to collect > and contain them. In some cases those gases are not what is being sought, > so they are deliberately vented or burned. Problem is, those gases are > themselves greenhouse gases, particularly methane, which is over 80 times > stronger of a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. So, what advertisers > quaintly named “natural†gas is anathema to nature. We know that the > addition of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere has caused the rising > atmospheric temperature, among other deleterious effects too numerous to > list here (but Alicia made a good start!), and those effects are in the > process of moving and removing bird habitats at an unprecedented pace. So, > we’re trying to weigh big negative consequences of large-scale, popular > fossil fuel use, consequences which are easy to overlook, because they are > either in someone else’s backyard, or they are everywhere but gradual. > > Other energy sources include nuclear. I think the same PR people who > coined the lie “clean coal†also were hired by the nuclear industry. > Technically, a nuclear power plant isn’t spewing carbon dioxide as it’s > main product, but it uses plenty of energy, much of which does spew CO2, > and it has radioactive waste which, in the time scale of human > civilization, never goes away. The trail of radioactive waste starts when & > where uranium is mined. The Native Americans who were “given†the > apparent wasteland where that mining later occurred now have pollution on > their land, in their air, and in their desert water, and they have a high > cancer rate. > > Natural uranium is only 0.72% U-235, the rest being U-238, but it must be > 2% to 5% U-235 to be used in a typical nuclear power plant (and much higher > for weapons). This means that the great majority of the mined uranium, (the > U-238 which has been “depleted†of some of it’s accompanying U-235) > would be waste. As of 2020 about 2 million tons of it had accumulated. But > the military found a use for the incredibly dense metallic form. Ask the > folks in Iraq about living where depleted uranium shells and bullets were > used. When they impact, they damage what they hit, then the shattered > uranium spontaneously burns when the bits are exposed to air, and being a > heavy metal, its oxide is toxic. And the process for “enriching†the > uranium for use in power plants uses a quarter of the energy that the power > plant would make (much more for weapons), and uses fluorine, whose > compounds are highly toxic and very powerful greenhouse gases. Everything > used during every step becomes radioactive waste. What’s left over after > use in a power plant is a much more diverse mess that we haven’t figured > out what to do with, so it accumulates in pools of water on site at power > plants. > > Hydropower sounds cool unless you live in the valley that is being flooded > or care about the fish who breed there or streamside habitats. > > I happen to think wind turbines are beautiful, and one can farm among > them, but I don’t live next to one, and I’ve heard that many people > don’t want to. Certainly the idea of a blade flying off is scary. Do wind > turbines kill birds? Yes. How many? Hard to tell. I once tried to help Bill > Evans look for dead birds below a tall radio tower after a foggy night > during migration. If you think seeing a warbler in a leafy tree is hard, > try looking for it when you have no clues from sound, movement, habitat, > shape, color, or pattern. The dead birds had fallen randomly in the weeds > below the guy wires. They looked like bits of fluff because their contour > feathers were completely disheveled in odd positions that often obscured > the wings & head. We arrived early in the morning, hoping to find them > before the knowledgeable local scavengers, such as skunks, foxes, and > crows. Some wind turbines are erected in the ocean. I doubt that the > remains of long-lived, slow-reproducing birds such Puffins would be found > below a wind turbine at sea. > > My point is that, while fossil fuel use is rapidly wrecking the climate in > numerous ways for people and for birds and for lots more things which we > care about, at the same time all energy sources when scaled up have scaled > up downsides, and few of us would want to live where any one of those > energy sources was about to be added. Furthermore, just adding solar arrays > doesn’t actually help the fight against climate change. To fight climate > change we need to stop using fossil fuels. And we haven’t been doing > that. > > Look at the Keeling Curve. That’s the continuous record of atmospheric > CO2 since 1958. It records the biosphere breathing. The CO2 level falls a > few parts per million every year in spring and summer as the plants in > the northern hemisphere photosynthesize, then the CO2 level rises in autumn > and winter as decay takes over. But every single year the rise has been a > little more than the drop. The yearly averages form a smooth upward curve. > It was below 320ppm in 1958 and this year it’s poised to cross 420ppm. > The amount of atmospheric CO2 has risen by over 50% since the start of the > Industrial Revolution and mass coal use, but it’s risen by about a third > just in my lifetime. We’ve had at least 35 years of public awareness of > fossil fuels, greenhouse gases, climate change, and predictions of problems > becoming reality, alongside a steady disinformation campaign by the fossil > fuel industry, who still rake in record profits, despite renewable energy > now being less expensive than fossil fuels. What’s our current situation? > According to a report from NOAA last November, we have barely slowed the > *increase* in the emissions of CO2. > > > https://research.noaa.gov/2022/11/15/no-sign-of-significant-decrease-in-global-co2-emissions/#:~:text=The%20projection%20of%2040.6%20billion,highest%20annual%20total%20ever%20recorded. > > According to that report, “Land use changes, especially deforestation, > are a significant source of CO2 emissions - equivalent to about a tenth of > the amount of CO2 coming from fossil fuel emissions.†In this annual > carbon accounting, “Planting new forests counterbalances half the > deforestation.†So, while planting trees is good, we are a very long way > from addressing the CO2 emissions from fossil fuels by planting trees. We > would need to increase that effort twenty-fold. > > The ocean will only absorb a fraction of atmospheric CO2, and the report > says, “the ocean’s capacity to be a sink is finite†. Furthermore, it > says that warming of the water is reducing its ability to absorb CO2. > > Because all types of large scale energy production are destructive, I > think we should do all we can, both personally, by encouraging others, and > by promoting policies, to increase energy efficiency, and to reduce energy > use. And because fossil fuels are driving climate change, we need to stop > using them. > > So, yes, solar arrays are ugly, and I’d rather there be land that housed > a diversity of birds. But all the other non-fossil-fuel options seemed > worse, so I get my electricity from a local solar array. At least my energy > use is solar on a net basis. And I conserve, with a well-insulated house > that doesn’t even connect to gas. My car uses fossil fuel, but it is very > efficient, and I rarely use it. I bicycle and walk for local trips. My > birding by car is limited. I drove to Troyer’s to see the spectacular > Scissor-tailed Flycatcher, rationalizing that I may never go to its home in > Texas, despite how attractive Texas birds are to me. Otherwise most of my > limited car-birding is also car-pooling. It’s good to get to know the > local neighborhood birds well. And to appreciate that traveling longer > distances is a luxury with costs to the things we would travel for. Keep > checking and eventually a rare or novel bird will come to you, like that > Little Gull I found by the Red Lighthouse, or a new year-yard bird like the > Eastern Kingbird that distracted me while I was writing this. > > - - Dave Nutter > > -- > *Cayugabirds-L List Info:* > Welcome and Basics <http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME> > Rules and Information <http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES> > Subscribe, Configuration and Leave > <http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> > *Archives:* > The Mail Archive > <http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> > Surfbirds <http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds> > BirdingOnThe.Net <http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html> > *Please submit your observations to eBird > <http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>!* > -- > -- > *Cayugabirds-L List Info:* > Welcome and Basics <http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME> > Rules and Information <http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES> > Subscribe, Configuration and Leave > <http://www.northeastbirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm> > *Archives:* > The Mail Archive > <http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html> > Surfbirds <http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds> > BirdingOnThe.Net <http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html> > *Please submit your observations to eBird > <http://ebird.org/content/ebird/>!* > -- > -- Cayugabirds-L List Info: http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsWELCOME http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsRULES http://www.NortheastBirding.com/CayugabirdsSubscribeConfigurationLeave.htm ARCHIVES: 1) http://www.mail-archive.com/cayugabirds-l@cornell.edu/maillist.html 2) http://www.surfbirds.com/birdingmail/Group/Cayugabirds 3) http://birdingonthe.net/mailinglists/CAYU.html Please submit your observations to eBird: http://ebird.org/content/ebird/ --
