this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024

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As solar capacity grows, some of America's most productive farmland is at risk (www.reuters.com)

submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Dave Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen. About 445 acres of his fields near Wheatfield, Indiana, are covered in solar panels and related machinery – land that in April 2019 Duttlinger leased to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC, for one of the largest solar developments in the Midwest.

On that blustery spring afternoon in 2022, Duttlinger said, his phone rang with questions from frustrated neighbors: Why is dust from your farm inside my truck? Inside my house? Who should I call to clean it up?

According to Duttlinger's solar lease, reviewed by Reuters, Dunns Bridge said it would use "commercially reasonable efforts to minimize 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. Still, sub-contractors graded Duttlinger's fields to assist the building of roads and installation of posts and panels, he said, despite his warnings that it could make the land more vulnerable to erosion.

"I'll never be able to grow anything on that field again," the farmer said. About one-third of his approximately 1,200-acre farm – where his family grows corn, soybeans and alfalfa for cattle – has been leased.

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I misunderstood you then.

What kind of structure would you have the farmer spend money to build then?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The same thing we've been talking about this whole time...solar panels.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Dave Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen.

The wind picked up the sand the solar power company laid on the property after leveling it.

Crews reshaped the landscape, spreading fine sand across large stretches of rich topsoil, Duttlinger said. When Reuters visited his farm last year and this spring, much of the land beneath the panels was covered in yellow-brown sand, where no plants grew.

So please explain to me how solar panels act as windbreaks.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

The wind picked up the sand the solar power company laid on the property after leveling it.

Which ends immediately after they finish leveling it.

So please explain to me how solar panels act as windbreaks.

Big wide solid panels in rows. Like really, is this that hard to understand?

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Big wide solid panels in rows. Like really, is this that hard to understand?

Solar panels are tilted facing south (angling uowards/downwards depending on seasonal sun locations).

If prevailing winds are coming from the WNW/NW/ or N they are funneled under the panels .... thereby picking up the sand. If the wind is swirling at all the sand will be taken upwards and spread.

So again, please explain to me how solar panels can be a windbreak.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You're complaining about a very easily solved problem. You can just put up another type of barrier at the ends of the rows. This is not the gamestopper that you think it is.

Seriously, just complaining helps no one. Stop looking for problems that don't exist...

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 months ago (1 children)

You're the one who said solar panels could act as windbreaks.

If only there was some sort of manmade structures that could act as a windbreak while also producing electricity, that would an amazing advancement...

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago (1 children)

Yes. I did say that. Which they do. I feel that you're not really paying attention here.

[–] [email protected] -1 points 6 months ago (1 children)

I feel like you don't actually understand what a wind break is. Here's a pic for reference.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 6 months ago

Look at all those big empty fields gathering lots of sunshine.

Hint...you can plant trees and shrubs at the edges of a solar panel field as long as you keep the south open.

Its like you're going out of your way to be obtuse.