Released ahead of the U.S. Senate’s consideration of the 2026 farm bill, data shows that land used for utility-scale solar does not exceed 0.5% of prime farmland in any state, and is dwarfed by land used for golf courses and suburban development.
Technology connections did a barn burner video on solar, and opted to do some testing on farmland use. In his comparison, he looked at 100 acres of ethanol corn farmland, i.e the farm land used to only add ethnol to gasoline.
He found that compared to the fuel produced by the single yearly harvest of corn, that the electrify generated by solar panels on it would allow EVs to cover 70x as much distance, and that was assuming the worst case in EV fuel efficiency. Thats how wildly inefficient we use “prime farmland” now to make gasoline additives, but nary a peep is heard about that for some reason.
Another calculation he did? He also found that if we just used ethanol corn farmland, just the land that makes gas for cars in a thinly veiled farmer subsidy program, and covered them with solar panels instead, we could produce 7x the total energy demand of the entire United States. Seven. Times.
This of course ignored interconnects, storage , georgraphy and what not, but the scale is so unimaginable, that they almost don’t matter. If we just eliminated gasoline handouts to farmers and slapped solar panels on that land, we could power all of america with solar and use not 1 square foots of other farmland.
The farmland/scale debate is agitprop. Its noise to make excuses to not use the cheap, magic energy machines that make power for free for decades and instead to keep paying oil companies trillions, forever.
Interesting. 👍😎
I live in Denmark in the area with the best farmland in the country. We are also the most southern part of Denmark, so also the best for solar panels.
Despite the fertile land and very high prices on farm land, we are among the areas in Denmark with the most solar panels.
I don’t know if your numbers are accurate, but I know the gist of it is.
We absolutely need to move everything to electric, because electric is more efficient, both for creating mechanical power like in engines, and for heating, and obviously for lighting.
It twice as efficient for mechanical power, meaning that even if you sue the gas an engine would have used, to make electricity instead, and then run the same task on an electric engine, the electric engine saves power compared to the gas engine.
I heating heat-pumps generate 4-5x the heat of the electricity they use. Even when losing 50% of the power turning fossil fuel heat into electricity, you come out with at least twice the utilization with a heat-pump.
Light is of course obvious, even with old incandescent bulbs electricity is about 5-10 times more efficient at creating light, with LED the factor is about a 100x.
Fossil fuels are obsolete, and bio fuels are too. Electricity is the future, and when created from renewable sources, I estimate the difference to be at least 20x advantage to electric over fuel.
he electrify generated by solar panels on it would allow EVs to cover 70x as much distance
Yes I absolutely believe that can be the case, and even if it is a best case scenario for bio-fuels, there can be no doubt about which is the right thing to do. I suppose bio fuels could be optimized to yield biodiesel from the oils, which AFAIK is the highest utilization, but also ethanol from the carbs. But even then it wont come close.
Unfortunately we have 3 months per year where we can’t make much solar power, where we can have days with zero output.
But even under these conditions, solar has helped us here in Denmark to cover 80% of our electricity from renewable sources. With the goal of achieving 100% by 2030. We in our household have almost zero electricity bill 9 months of the year, and the surplus from the good months almost pay for the remaining 3 months. With an electric car, we can charge when electricity is cheapest.
For 2 of my neighbors that drive far for work, the cost is almost exactly a tenth driving an EV over buying gas.
Technology connections did a barn burner video on solar, and opted to do some testing on farmland use. In his comparison, he looked at 100 acres of ethanol corn farmland, i.e the farm land used to only add ethnol to gasoline.
He found that compared to the fuel produced by the single yearly harvest of corn, that the electrify generated by solar panels on it would allow EVs to cover 70x as much distance, and that was assuming the worst case in EV fuel efficiency. Thats how wildly inefficient we use “prime farmland” now to make gasoline additives, but nary a peep is heard about that for some reason.
Another calculation he did? He also found that if we just used ethanol corn farmland, just the land that makes gas for cars in a thinly veiled farmer subsidy program, and covered them with solar panels instead, we could produce 7x the total energy demand of the entire United States. Seven. Times.
This of course ignored interconnects, storage , georgraphy and what not, but the scale is so unimaginable, that they almost don’t matter. If we just eliminated gasoline handouts to farmers and slapped solar panels on that land, we could power all of america with solar and use not 1 square foots of other farmland.
The farmland/scale debate is agitprop. Its noise to make excuses to not use the cheap, magic energy machines that make power for free for decades and instead to keep paying oil companies trillions, forever.
Interesting. 👍😎
I live in Denmark in the area with the best farmland in the country. We are also the most southern part of Denmark, so also the best for solar panels.
Despite the fertile land and very high prices on farm land, we are among the areas in Denmark with the most solar panels.
I don’t know if your numbers are accurate, but I know the gist of it is.
We absolutely need to move everything to electric, because electric is more efficient, both for creating mechanical power like in engines, and for heating, and obviously for lighting.
It twice as efficient for mechanical power, meaning that even if you sue the gas an engine would have used, to make electricity instead, and then run the same task on an electric engine, the electric engine saves power compared to the gas engine.
I heating heat-pumps generate 4-5x the heat of the electricity they use. Even when losing 50% of the power turning fossil fuel heat into electricity, you come out with at least twice the utilization with a heat-pump.
Light is of course obvious, even with old incandescent bulbs electricity is about 5-10 times more efficient at creating light, with LED the factor is about a 100x.
Fossil fuels are obsolete, and bio fuels are too. Electricity is the future, and when created from renewable sources, I estimate the difference to be at least 20x advantage to electric over fuel.
Yes I absolutely believe that can be the case, and even if it is a best case scenario for bio-fuels, there can be no doubt about which is the right thing to do. I suppose bio fuels could be optimized to yield biodiesel from the oils, which AFAIK is the highest utilization, but also ethanol from the carbs. But even then it wont come close.
Unfortunately we have 3 months per year where we can’t make much solar power, where we can have days with zero output.
But even under these conditions, solar has helped us here in Denmark to cover 80% of our electricity from renewable sources. With the goal of achieving 100% by 2030. We in our household have almost zero electricity bill 9 months of the year, and the surplus from the good months almost pay for the remaining 3 months. With an electric car, we can charge when electricity is cheapest.
For 2 of my neighbors that drive far for work, the cost is almost exactly a tenth driving an EV over buying gas.