Posted on 01/19/2025 10:27:54 AM PST by where's_the_Outrage?
BUCKHOLTS, Texas (AP) — On rural Texas farmland, beneath hundreds of rows of solar panels, a troop of stocky sheep rummage through pasture, casually bumping into one another as they remain committed to a single task: chewing grass.
The booming solar industry has found an unlikely mascot in sheep as large-scale solar farms crop up across the U.S. and in the plain fields of Texas. In Milam County, outside Austin, SB Energy operates the fifth-largest solar project in the country, capable of generating 900 megawatts of power across 4,000 acres (1,618 hectares).
How do they manage all that grass? With the help of about 3,000 sheep, which are better suited than lawnmowers to fit between small crevices and chew away rain or shine.
The proliferation of sheep on solar farms is part of a broader trend — solar grazing — that has exploded alongside the solar industry......
“Solar grazing is probably the biggest opportunity that the sheep industry had in the United States in several generations,” Redden said.
The response to solar grazing has been overwhelmingly positive in rural communities near South Texas solar farms where Redden raises sheep for sites to use, he said.
“I think it softens the blow of the big shock and awe of a big solar farm coming in,” Redden said.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Yeah, the green energy systems are a mess in the making.
Oh, as far as feeding cattle, bigger is more efficient in many cases. And, in the Texas panhandle, center pivot crop irrigation is how some of the feed is provided.
Modern tech is why there’s about half as many farmers in the cornbelt as there were 50 years ago. Larger equipment, and selective herbicides are the main reasons for that. The low-till/no/till capabilities have turned rolling or rough pasture acres into more corn and soybeans. Fences are the scarce exception instead of the rule. (A fence wire factory in Sterling, IL, that employed over 4k workers at its peak around 1970, went belly up about 1999.)
In just the two townships I lived in for 62 years (in south central Mercer County, IL), the beef cow herd numbers are a fraction of what they were. Without herbicides, crop rotation was a must, and livestock was a big part of the system.
Since many farmers had beef cow herds, a good share would also feed their calf crop all the way to market weight.
There was such dominance of farmers feeding out cattle in NW Iowa in the 20th century, that the school’s team name in the little town of Everly was called the ‘Cattlefeeders’ (I found that out by hauling a piece of farm equipment from there about 4 years ago).
The reliance on herbicides could be disastrous some day, should the products become scarce or unavailable. Going back to the rotation system would take years.
We don't have net metering in Alabama. So the math on whether or not to get solar, whether or not get battery storage, how much of each, etc., is on the premise that we don't sell enough power to the grid to offset the increased fees the utility charges for the privilege of selling power. Thus, a zero electric bill is practically impossible unless I installed enough solar to expensively fight the law of diminishing returns.
Where I'm at now, providing 80% of the power I need, is in that financial sweet spot between taking advantage of the economies of scale (investing more means increasing ROI), and not fighting the law of diminishing returns (investing more lowers ROI). In the past year I've been selling power to the grid and getting credit in my bills that is slightly higher than the extra fees (a total of about $100 per year LOL). But I chose to do enable my inverters' grid-sell feature only after studying the telemetry recorded from my inverters, importing that data in a SQL Server database, and writing a C# program to recreate what my statements would have been if I had chosen each of the billing plans offered by my utility (including the various purchase plans/rates/fees).
Until a little over a year ago, I wasn't exporting power to the grid. As far as the power utility and my relationship was, I was just a normal residential customer like everybody else except I didn't pull much power from the grid.
End result: my past 12 power bills totaled $1,010 ($84/month). That's for an all-electric house, and charging an EV to drive 16K miles (just the home charged miles, not counting if we charge it away from home like if we take it on a trip). No natural gas bill. Almost no gasoline cost (what little we drive the gas pickup). I also pay a loan I took out to do the solar and other improvements to the house (i.e. adding insulation, replacing my A/C and gas furnace with a variable speed heat pump and heat strips, replacing my gas water heater with a hybrid water heater that has a built in heat pump. The loan payment + small power bill is what I was paying for energy in 2019 (last Trump year before covid skewed energy prices). And it's a lot less than I'd be paying with today's energy prices.
You need to get up to speed. There is no mercury at all in photovoltaic cells. You’re thinking of mirror arrays, which are no longer in production. There is cadmium, but this is in semiconductors, not used in any part that would be affected by hail.
I hope you made that comment sheepishly.
For Democrats, counting sheep is dreaming of accumulating notches on their belts.
What about all the carbon emissions by the sheep?
I’ve been noticing lamb prices getting competitive with steak. Done on the BBQ lamb can be real tasty.
No mercury true but many other toxins note American Experiment Org. recycling is a problem and causes risks to land and animals.
Early panels had it until forced from using it.
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