Do you have some references on this?
I would probably agree if you are referring to USA. But I would be skeptical that the same is true in the UK.
I would probably agree if you are referring to USA. But I would be skeptical that the same is true in the UK.
It is true, that the amount of solar needed to power the entire US is about 0.5% of the land.
That doesn't mean there's no benefit in increasing the efficiency of panels and get dual use of the land. It also has the benefit of allowing for solar in more places where it's needed for more decentralized power.
Pretending there is some sort of shortage of land to site solar in is not a valid reason to court efficiency. There are other, legitimate reasons.
> Solar energy is one example where the context and type of material matter a lot. Solar panels made from cadmium use less energy and materials than silicon panels, and therefore use less land per unit. It also matters a lot whether you mount these panels on rooftops or on the ground. Rooftop solar obviously needs much less additional land; we’re just using space that is already occupied, on top of existing buildings. However, they do need some land over their life-cycle because they still require mining of the materials to make them, as well as the energy (mostly electricity) used in refining the silicon. Finally, the density and spacing of the panels also makes a difference.
> Wind is the most obvious electricity source that we should consider differently when it comes to land use. You find it separated from the other sources, at the bottom of the chart.3 There are several reasons for this. First, offshore wind takes up space, but it’s marine, not land area. Second, onshore wind is different from other electricity sources because you can use the land between turbines for other activities, such as farming. This is not the case for a coal, gas or nuclear plant. This means the land use of wind farms is highly variable. I have calculated the land use of 22 of the world’s largest wind farms [you find my calculations here].
> Take the Roscoe Wind Farm in Texas, which uses 184 m2 per MWh. This is a large project, where farmers can generate additional income through electricity production while they continue their farming operations between the wind turbines. The wind farm is almost a secondary land use. This contrasts with much more dense wind farms, such as Fântânele-Cogealac in Romania, or the Tehachapi Pass in California, where energy production is the primary land use. These can have a small land footprint of just 8 m2 per MWh.
Seems pretty stupid to me. Though if someone get sucked in by the headline, reads the article and moves from thinking "we don't have enough room for renewables" to "there are lots of ways to dual use land with renewables" then maybe it's all for the best.
The UK has a large amount of crop and pasture land, and quite a lot of reservoirs and canals besides. Most places do.
There's no need to be glib, and the GP was obviously talking about the availability of land on a much smaller and more densely populated nation than the comparatively massive and wide open country that is the United States.
It has, in fact, easily many, many times more of both than could ever be needed to share with solar and wind.
It seems like trying to make land do these two sunlight dependent things at once is not as efficient as having dedicated agricultural fields and dedicated solar farms.