It would be cool if we spent more time understanding our soils and all of the things living in them more instead of finding ways to require more artificial energy to sustain our civilization.
Putting solar panels into these places disturbs the natural soils. Transporting that energy requires infrastructure that also messes with habitats. Using it on-site requires different infrastructure and activity that is also disruptive.
Just because the land is "virgin" or "barren" doesn't mean nothing is there biologically. Part of biodiversity is biodiversity in the soil itself. Much of that diversity hasn't been officially studied/documented. ie: We don't even know what we are killing off.
Solar panels do have an ecological cost. Expanding to cover the entire planet is the wrong approach (IMO.) We have plenty of urban space and existing infrastructure that we can cover with solar without disturbing farm land or what's left of natural habitats.
Beyond all of this, TFA was comparing corn vs solar. That implies we are talking about farmable land.
Farm land is heavily disturbed. All the fertilizer and other chemicals used, soil destroyed by all the things we do to it, and downstream disruption due to fertilizer runoff, animals that are fed and then we have to manage the manure, water that is depleted etc. Placing solar panels on farm land is actually very close to returning it to the nature (of course depending on how exactly you do it, how tightly placed they are, how high etc., but it's also possible to still grow trees under them like some pilot projects in southern Italy or to place them over animal pastures).
And remember the context: were talking of replacing corn grown for energy, monoculture with no insect or plant life, with the same land covered with solar panels, time for soil to recover, native plants to germinate and grow.
Putting solar panels instead of the industrial corn production is partially rewilding it - there are projects in the hotter countries where increased humidity and decreased sunlight actually allows for the more plants to thrive. There are projects using goats to trim the greens under the panels. Etc, etc.
Almost anything is better for the soil, biodiversity and life than industrial corn production.
Pesticides are causing a decline in insect populations and the animals that eat them. Herbicides what can say more than that. Fertilizer causes algae blooms and hypoxic conditions in lakes and streams. All three cause ground water pollution.
I'm a broken record, solar is 30 times more productive per acre than ethanol corn.
Obviously it won't work for everything but appears to be workable enough to do more of it.
That said, I absolutely agree that soil science and husbandry is dearly need to avoid depleting arable land. Farmers are catching on to this and with more support could hopefully make doing this a no brainer based on economics alone.
If current trends old, it will turn into data centers.