Solar Farms = Habitat Destruction ?

What a stupid idea, judging by the history of man there has to be a suitable location we have already f#~k up beyond repair that could be repurposed. Why does it always have to be prairie land. Fill up the roofs of every Walmart, grocery store, and commercial buildings if it’s that important.
 
Dodge City has the highest sustained wind velocity, 16mph (24/7/365 average) That has brought lots of wind farms to this area. There is some push for solar in the area and it is meeting with some resistance. I just heard from a farmer friend of mine that he was offered good money to lease 160 acres for a solar farm but he turned it down. Others that he knows have leased for the quick money. I don't know where it will go. Whether you will like a solar farm on your land or not, the quick money will cause many to sign. Same thing happened around here with Sand Ridge and Chesapeake paying high prices for oil/gas leases. I saw Sand Ridge drilling huge salt water disposal wells on large purchased sites, building private 3 phase power lines all for the need of the huge projected oil production from new horizontal wells they would drill. It was reported that they said, "it isn't a question of a dry hole, just don't know the salt water/oil ratio." They were used to thick producing zones that don't occur in this area and now most of the salt water disposal wells and the sites have been removed and returned to previous use. How is it that their geologist didn't know all of that? All of this drove the land prices crazy and land owners benefitted from the lease money.
There is certainly a push for "clean, green" wind and solar. Most pushing that don't have a clue how a reliable power grid functions. My days in the power business are long ago, but I remember a few things. We planned for contingencies-what if the biggest generator went down, what is the plan. These things can happen instantaneously. We did that by having enough spinning excess capacity in our other generating stations to pick up the slack. Failure to do this leads to massive shut downs and black outs. Wind and solar are not available 24/7/365
Wind and solar can be supplemental power generation, but there still need to be turbines spinning from natural gas, coal, nuclear.
Just my 2 cents worth.
 
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M. R. Byrd said:
Dodge City has the highest sustained wind velocity, 16mph. That has brought lots of wind farms to this area. There is some push for solar in the area and it is meeting with some resistance. I just heard from a farmer friend of mine that he was offered good money to lease 160 acres for a solar farm but he turned it down. Others that he knows have leased for the quick money. I don't know where it will go.
There is certainly a push for "clean, green" wind and solar. Most pushing that don't have a clue how a reliable power grid functions. My days in the power business are long ago, but I remember a few things. We planned for contingencies-what if the biggest generator went down, what is the plan. These things can happen instantaneously. We did that by having enough spinning excess capacity in our other generating stations to pick up the slack. Failure to do this leads to massive shut downs and black outs. Wind and solar are not available 24/7/365
Wind and solar can be supplemental power generation, but there still need to be turbines spinning from natural gas, coal, nuclear.
Just my 2 cents worth.
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Don’t get me started… there is a government nuclear facility outside Amarillo called pantex, it sits on 16000 acres. Taking out the structures and building it’s easily 15500 acres of grass, prairie dog town and some contracted dry land farming that hasn’t had a crop harvested in a decade. As stated earlier this is land that has been altered by government and has no other use than a buffer for the facility.. Amarillo is one of the windiest places in the country and how many windmills are there, zero. High plains has probably 350 days of sunshine a year and how many solar panels are there, zero. It’s an absolute waste of space while wind towers go up by the thousands within sight of the facility. Want to make a difference, put up what ever you need to on THAT property to help the area. It could be a 15000 acre wind/solar combination property, and leave land with other uses alone!
 
Yup, Happening all over so don't be surprised if it comes to anyone's neighborhood. Same here. 7000 acres. Of course, it destroys all habitat because it will all be mowed and weeded or sped!!:mad:
 
M. R. Byrd said:
Wind and solar can be supplemental power generation, but there still need to be turbines spinning from natural gas, coal, nuclear.
Just my 2 cents worth.
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I agree. I'm not against using renewable energy but it can't be instantaneous and there has to be a back up plan.

People can do whatever they want with their own land provided they follow the land ordinances that are required. Farmers have been turning marginal land into row crops with drain tile for years now. I'd call that habitat destruction too. Nothing new here.
 
The county I live in just finished, this week, a 2 year fight with big solar and their investors and won with a commercial prohibition County wide. This saved 8-10k acres of farmland, much of which borders a state and federal wildlife area. Hopefully many counties will follow and fight back, it can be done.
 
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M. R. Byrd said:
Same thing happened around here with Sand Ridge and Chesapeake paying high prices for oil/gas leases. I saw Sand Ridge drilling huge salt water disposal wells on large purchased sites, building private 3 phase power lines all for the need of the huge projected oil production from new horizontal wells they would drill. It was reported that they said, "it isn't a question of a dry hole, just don't know the salt water/oil ratio." They were used to thick producing zones that don't occur in this area and now most of the salt water disposal wells and the sites have been removed and returned to previous use. How is it that their geologist didn't know all of that? All of this drove the land prices crazy and land owners benefitted from the lease money.
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My friends who are "local" oil and gas guys were not at all surprised by any of that. You're right, it was very big news and those companies were throwing big numbers out to lease ground. By the time they got to my family's ground, the hype was starting to subside but they still threw out a pretty attractive lease offer. My dad asked for more still and they moved on. In retrospect we should have taken it. They would have never drilled so there would have been no damage to ground. IE, 3 years later with the lease payment in pocket and it's all over.

Regardless, the local producers were telling me from the beginning:
  • The formation they are drilling is much narrower in most of Kansas than it is in Oklahoma. IE, less productive and harder to "hit" precisely
  • The lease payments and royalty rates they're offering won't be profitable for them and they are "screwing up the market" for us.
  • They (Sand Ridge and Chesapeake) know this but they don't care because they also profit from drilling. They raised a bunch of other people's money to drill, then hired themselves (essentially) to do the drilling. If the well hits, so much the better. If not, the drilling company still made a profit.
  • Since they raised money to drill, they have to do it. Once they ran out of other people's money to fund drilling, horizontal drilling in Kansas faded to the relatively small part of the state in which it made sense. Sand Ridge and Chesapeake are not a meaningful player in the Kansas oil & gas market anymore.
There's no free lunch. All energy projects have a downside.
 
I don't get out much but was out the other day and stumbled onto a bit mine under construction adjacent to a REC's substation. Don't know how many there are in SW Kansas. Saw a report on one near Elkhart. They are big power users, maybe here because of the electric energy production?
Reminds me of the irrigation/corn/feed yard/packing plant scenario. My father was on the soil conservation board that hired a new county extension agent in 1958. At that time the agent said the county was nearing 100% of its irrigation capacity. At that time it was flood irrigation which limited the practice to level land or that land that could be machine leveled. There were also some small use of sprinkler sets, usually a 30' three inch diameter aluminum pipe with a sprinkler riser on one end. Runs of maybe an 1/8 to 1/4 mile were typical and were moved across the field by hand as each run was watered.
The county agent hadn't imagined the invent of the center pivot irrigation system and with that the wide spread use on ground previously un-irrigatable. The center pivot brought corn production to the area, and the corn brought the feed yards, and the feed yards brought the packing plants.
Lots of changes in this old man's lifetime.
 
Call me crazy but I don't think these grain prices being driven in to the gutter is an accident either. What better way to force farms in to the solar trap. Break them financially and dangle that carrot in front of them to sign up .
 
All I've ever heard about windmills and solar panels on the prairie is that they're bad for all grouse. Sometimes I think the push for non-fossil fuel is only about the perception of trying to do something "good" for the environment, even though the details may be otherwise. Burning dirty coal in 1900 is a world apart from modern use of fossil fuel. Natural gas is cheap, clean, and abundant, yet some people are against it. Moving oil through a pipeline isn't perfect, but it's much safer, with less overall pollution than moving oil by rail or truck. But everytime there's a new pipeline proposed people protest.
 
I shot a rooster in solar pannels last season. Farmer said it was okay, just dont hit a pannel or it would be thousands in fines. I guess the solar company leases the ground for the pannels but only owns the pannels and access road in? It was nice crp style weeds/grass in there and lots of birds
 
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gimruis said:
I think they should put them in parking lots. Let cars park under them and provide some shade.

Parking lots are all black tar anyways soaking up sunlight, might as well use it there.
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Have you ever sat at a store and watched women park? Sounds like a huge problem having a bunch of support posts all over a parking lot..

I had to go to kohls the other day for a dress shirt.. it was absolutely hilarious, there was 8 or 9 pickups parked way in the back by themselves, and nothing but soccer mom suv up front with almost every one parked over lines or crooked. I chose the pickup lot.
 
I heard a on a piece of a pod cast the other day that something like a third of farmers are over the age of 60 and another third over 50.
In my wife’s family she still has one uncle who farms. His sisters live out of state and have an interest in the farm. He draws a salary and is over farming and ready to retire. One of the sisters who manages the paperwork has been looking into wind and solar. I think if there was any interest from the wind companies she would be all over it.
 
Munster927 said:
I've shot many a prairie chicken with windmills about 200 yards away.
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Good to know! I've always avoided spots with windmills in the vicinity. There's plenty of info out there saying that chickens avoid areas with trees, homes, and other manmade structures breaking up the horizon. Guess that's wrong or for some reason windmills are not a problem.

In my experience pheasants, doves, and quail don't seem to mind.
 
matto said:
Good to know! I've always avoided spots with windmills in the vicinity. There's plenty of info out there saying that chickens avoid areas with trees, homes, and other manmade structures breaking up the horizon. Guess that's wrong or for some reason windmills are not a problem.

In my experience pheasants, doves, and quail don't seem to mind.
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Yeah I've shot pheasants within a couple hundred yards of windmills too. But this particular area in NW MN, I've seen huns right on a fence row that's probably 50-100 yards from the closest windmill and shot chickens probably 100-200 yards away from them. I've never been able to get a good picture of it due to distance, but I've seen chickens loafing around within probably 50 yards, maybe closer even, of the windmills picking around in a bean field that has about 3 or 4 windmills in it.

I think just like anything, they get used to it and realize it's not a threat. Now if you go out into their favorite lek and pop a windmill or 2 up, they won't want to be near it because they don't know what it is. After a year or 2 they'll realize it's not a threat and won't care. Similar to how you can put out a scarecrow in your garden and if you just leave it there and never move it or change something about it, you'll have crows sitting right on top of it after some time.
 
I think windmills are OK in pheasant country. We have shot pheasants near one on several occasions. That said, I view them as a landscape eyesore.

Solar farms basically take the land out of grass, pasture, cleared woodlot, what ever. Habitat gone and obviously hunting gone too. There used to be a little open area surrounded by woods on three sides along I-94 in the general St Cloud area ... more than once I had seen a monster buck and often saw does out feeding if we passed by around dusk. Solar farm now.
 
BRITTMAN said:
I think windmills are OK in pheasant country. We have shot pheasants near one on several occasions. That said, I view them as a landscape eyesore.

Solar farms basically take the land out of grass, pasture, cleared woodlot, what ever. Habitat gone and obviously hunting gone too. There used to be a little open area surrounded by woods on three sides along I-94 in the general St Cloud area ... more than once I had seen a monster buck and often saw does out feeding if we passed by around dusk. Solar farm now.
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By the hw23 exit? In may, would have been the 12th, there was about 20 turkeys/poults walking around on the edge there
 
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