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Comment by thaumasiotes | Hacker News Reader

Conservation is basically defined as being unused by humans.

Uh...they're just going to pave it and throw something over it.

Edit- To be clear maybe not specifically in this case, but "oops we've ruined this ecosystem to the point we can't farm it" rarely ends with "better move down the road and let nature reclaim it". It's a lot more "cool now we can put strip malls/data centers/whatever here"

It’s unlikely strip malls and data centers will be built on the land, but utility solar PV is an acceptable use that requires no water, is beneficial to the local environment, and gives the land 20-30 years to recover from agricultural use.

It takes 600 to 3,000 years for 6 inches of topsoil to develop naturally, as it generally requires 100 to 500 years to form just a single inch. Underground water aquifers operate on similar timescales, if they can regenerate at all. The land needs time to recover from the demands of present timeline position humans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agrivoltaics

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S03014...

https://cleantechnica.com/2026/01/03/21-gigawatts-of-solar-f...

https://www.goldenstatecleanenergy.com/valley-clean-infrastr...

Planting more PV farms isn't better, it just convolutes the equation and hides the true sources of damage behind things with a less negative image, and would eventually just prove Jevon's law, one way or the other.

Not preceding "using better" with "consuming less" (on a system-wide basis) would get you the same result as going for recycling while forgoing the first R: empty, marketing points in green-coloured font.

It gives the land time to recover and requires nothing from it, nor human labor. All racking and conductors can be removed from the land in the future to return it to its original condition. All components can be recycled today, through metal and ewaste streams. It hides no externalities or harm. It quietly produces energy more efficiently than any crop, with no inputs besides the sun shining.

As my links demonstrate, California plans on developing 21GW of solar on farmland that no longer has water available for it.

> It takes 600 to 3,000 years for 6 inches of topsoil to develop naturally, as it generally requires 100 to 500 years to form just a single inch.

I very much doubt those statements can both be true. It would have to be the case that the amount of time required to deposit one inch of soil is independent of the amount of soil already in place, which seems extremely unlikely.

https://pubs.usgs.gov/pp/0454h/report.pdf (page 5, Start at “Introduction”)

https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/07/1123462 (“It also takes around a thousand years to create just a few centimetres of topsoil and to help land restoration.”)

I don't know why you got downvoted. In any case, this makes "sense", but doesn't make sense in that if we nuke the land in some way, distort it from a peaceful balance, I don't think it is "conserved"

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