BUT WHAT POWERS THE C0WS AT NIGHT?
Did you really use a zero (0) for an ‘O’ in cows?
N0
First of all, if the solar panels don’t capture methane produced by cows this doesn’t solve anything (and they don’t).
Second of all, cattle ranching is the main driver of deforestation in Amazon and putting solar panels on top of if is not going to help.
Just eat less beef, people.
Rutgers has been exploring Agrivoltaics for a while. High mounted panels, crops that benefit from shade and pivoting panels with profiles for both following the sun and adjusting out of the way of equipment.
Cows are entirely possible, but the concern isn’t with them chewing wires, but rubbing on poles or panels. They simply need to be high.
Irrelevant as cow or sheep farming shouldn’t be something we are doing either way.
No, but I’d rather they be under solar panels than some horror shit.
I could even imagine a non-abused cow or sheep in a grassy solar field. Capitalism would have to end first, but, like, in theory.
How are you supposed to grow high quality, high protein pasture in the shade? This seems like it would greatly increase the amount of land you need for a given herd size.
That’s not how plants work.
Numbers vary btwn species and individuals, but plants can only use so much light at once. Many can even sunburn! Then the plant has to metabolize all that!
So grass growing at even 60% efficiency under a solar field running at even 60% efficiency isn’t a terrible use of land, and given the diminishing returns for tightly packed shit, you’re much more likely to get something like 100/80, which is an amazing use of land.
Not as good as growing berries or basil or something under solar panels, but still pretty good.
High quality pasture isn’t just grass. It’s a mixture of grasses and legumes such as clover and alfalfa. The pasture should be slow to bolt and mature at different times throughout the season, providing the cattle with a good forage regardless of the temperatures.
I’m aware of plants getting sunburn. I’ve seen it first hand as a gardener bringing seeds started indoors outside.
White cars dont heat up as much as black ones in the hot sun!
In many places, the amount that can grow is limited by available water, not sunlight. This means that adding solar panels above some, but not all, of the field lets you make significant use of that excess sunlight, increasing overall crop yield.
Not to mention that the added shade will help with moisture retention, which is another part of the reason why it is possible to increase crop yield when adding solar to a field.
Oh yeah that makes perfect sense. I’m thinking from my area’s perspective which is the opposite: barely any sunlight at all and tons of rain/snow.
Probably not a great spot for solar, and you’d do better with wind?
We have lots of wind turbines in the country near here. Sometimes it actually gets too windy for them (risking damage by pushing them above design speed limit)!
