Let’s follow the science (and the money).
I have a high-school friend that inherited his family farm.
It was quite successful as a grain farm and a founding member of grain co-op.
He owned approximately one quarter-section.
He diligently rotated his crops and made money.
Now, he’s retired in the family farmhouse and has sold all his aerable land to the local Energy Company who are installing solar panels on all the land.
Here is my quandry; if the solar panels help to reduce the CO2 being emitted into the atmosphere, I’d like to see the carbon-accounting. By replacing the \carbon sink\ of growing green plants with solar panels, is there AT LEAST a one-for-one exchange of atmospheric CO2 reduction?
One must necessarily go as far back as the solar-panel manufacturing process and the COP2 emissions needed to create and install the panels as well as taking into account the conversion of energy generation for petro-fuels to the solar capture of energy.
I don’t think it balances; the green field (carbon sink) reduces CO2 better.
When I asked my buddy if he sold it because it was the green thing to do, he said, “I’m old and I’m tired. They will pay me $2200/acre. Their money is green, so maybe I did do it for the greenies.”
He made a living farming 80 acres. That is amazing.