Crops are already not doing well with the drought. This will increase carbon in the atmosphere and create worse droughts. If we want power, we're going to need to get it from sources that don't rely on steam to turn a turbine. That rules out coal, Natural Gas, biomass and Nuclear.
Idiocracy. It’s all just a move to protect vested interests in fossil fuels.
Tesla has the right idea with solar roofs but we need better options than shingles or giant panels mounted. Wind gen is amazingly good if you have a consistent supply.
When I was sailing, the sun and wind would recharge my batteries during the day. At night, wind would keep the batteries charging so I could run lights, laptops, VHF, and NMea2000 equipment.
The future isn’t this. Banning renewable energy is like banning breathing.
EDIT
Coming back after a walk, I can't stop thinking about this. When I worked at an energy tech company, me and a couple data scientists actually worked out that if, theoretically you had solar panels capable of capturing sun energy with 99% efficiency - you could power all of humanity on 1 day's worth of sunlight. (granted you had the storage capacity, we did fun things like "You saved 254,143 trees by reducing your water use" kind of stuff).
The wind farms off the coasts in the EU countries are producing massive amounts of energy at fractions of the cost. Yes, the engineering is hard. Yes, the big tall windmills are ugly (paint them, put LED lights on them, who cares). You don't need the giant big ones, a field of smaller ones works too at the same altitude (key part... wind is faster at altitude). Make a wind mill kite and send it up. There's so much energy around us. We just need to find a way to trap those electrons.
At least President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho cared about things enough to make things better for his people, hired the smartest person he knew and genuinely tried to fix things.
To be fair there is a considerable amount of power used in creating products that isn't directly accounted for by someones home energy needs. And that number gets a good bit bigger if we want those production processes to be clean themselves. The energy we pay for directly through electricity and fuel is only a part of our energy consumption pie.
> Brooke Rollins said Monday that the agency will no longer allow “businesses to use your taxpayer dollars to fund solar projects on prime American farmland, and we will no longer allow solar panels manufactured by foreign adversaries to be used in our USDA-funded projects.”.
Could be reasonable, we need more renewable independence.
> ...while boosting support for biofuels...
And there it is, going backwards. So tired of this.
The land argument is terrible. 40% of US corn acreage is already used for a form of solar energy, ethanol. Its over 20x less efficient than PV, so it's a huge waste of land.
Wind power on farmland only results in a tiny drop in acreage. And a hot area of study is mixing solar PV with various ag uses. In some cases yield is improved.
Finally, farmland that is used for solar is almost always not the best yielding land. Maybe the farmer is facing a water shortage or is just not that competitive. Solar could be a lifeline in situations like that.
Serious question. Why do farmers need the USDA's help on this? Is it a financial issue, banks don't believe there is a positive ROI on farmland solar so the wont lend? Is it health related, the USDA needs to approve solar panel usage in close proximity to crops? Is it infrastructure related, someone has to approve and build transmission lines to the farm?
1 - Secretary Rollins Blocks Taxpayer Dollars for Solar Panels on Prime Farmland
2- Secretary Rollins Prioritizes American Energy on National Forest Land
Both have quotes about putting "America first" to confuse people to make them think this is better for all. We think the USDA is about getting healthy food to people, but really they're about maximizing the money for farmers and people who own the land. Terrible.
China is working on it: whether hydropower, solar, onshore wind, or offshore wind, it ranks first in the world — and the cost of generation has already fallen below coal. If the world’s fastest-growing industrial nation can rely on renewable electricity, I can’t see any reason why other countries wouldn’t.
This is the part I don’t understand. Trump goes on and on about the threat of China but doesn’t appear to be positioning the US to actually compete with them. An energy revolution is coming and China looks poised to take most of the spoils while the US buries its head in the sand and clings to the past.
Lets hope the children/grandchildren of these people, as they are struggling to avoiding heat stroke and watching their homes float/fly away, realize how stupid there ancestors where.
That is were we are headed, if you live below the Mason/Dixon line, a good chance your descendants will be one of those migrants many people seem to hate these days.
I have solar panels on my land. Do you realize how much heat those things absorb from the sun? My fields are way hotter(several celsius) because of the panels that what they were before without them.
Solar panels are manufactured using energy that comes mostly from coal.
I certainly do not believe that solar panels are the universal solution for climate change, like a lot of zealots with no contact with reality believe.
As much of a fan of human spaceflight as I am, the Apollo program which made up the most notable part of the reaction to Sputnik was immensely wasteful and unnecessary.
You don’t even need to have a theoretical, they are doing that today with the race for a moon base with China. The Artemis program was our plan to get to one, most likely going to be located in a crater on the pole if they could find one with ice in it.
They are currently cutting funding and trying to cut what’s left after that too
The bill prioritizes use of agricultural land for food over renewables (using just 0.05% of acres vs. biofuels' 30-40% of corn/soy), curbs land cost inflation, and favors U.S. energy.
It also bans Chinese solar panels, ends wind/solar tax credits post-2027, and extends biofuel credits to 2029.
This is common-sense stuff to me. America chooses America and food-supply security. The article is horribly biased.
This is so shortsighted. The US needs a huge increase in its electricity generation capabilities, and nowadays, rewnewables, especially solar, are the cheapest option.
Regardless of climate change issues, the anti-renewable policy doesn't seem to make any sense from an economic, growth, or national security standpoint. It even is contrary to the anti-regulation and pro-capitalism _stated_ stance of the administration.
The article's claim is misleading - biofuels don't consume the majority of US cropland. Corn for ethanol uses ~38% of US corn production, but only about 7% of total US cropland is devoted to all biofuel crops combined according to USDA data.
Next up: Ban all electric cars. Then ban all electricity. Standard Oil became the biggest company selling kerosene for lamps. We need to restore status quo!
If you made a graph of the amount of land area being used for wind and solar, you’d have a hard time finding a way to actually visualize how little land that is…
> Subsidized solar farms have made it more difficult for farmers to access farmland by making it more expensive and less available. Within the last 30 years, Tennessee alone has lost over 1.2 million acres of farmland and is expected to lose 2 million acres by 2027.
A quick Google says that solar generates ~20 W/sq ft., so the amount of farmland lost here, by implication, to solar generation, is enough to power the entire United State with solar power alone, twice over.
Obviously, not all 1.2 million acres of land here is lost to solar generation as the government is implying. They don't cite their source, but AFAICT, this is all land that is no longer farmland for any reason at all.
36 comments
[ 3.8 ms ] story [ 47.1 ms ] threadTesla has the right idea with solar roofs but we need better options than shingles or giant panels mounted. Wind gen is amazingly good if you have a consistent supply.
When I was sailing, the sun and wind would recharge my batteries during the day. At night, wind would keep the batteries charging so I could run lights, laptops, VHF, and NMea2000 equipment.
The future isn’t this. Banning renewable energy is like banning breathing.
EDIT
Coming back after a walk, I can't stop thinking about this. When I worked at an energy tech company, me and a couple data scientists actually worked out that if, theoretically you had solar panels capable of capturing sun energy with 99% efficiency - you could power all of humanity on 1 day's worth of sunlight. (granted you had the storage capacity, we did fun things like "You saved 254,143 trees by reducing your water use" kind of stuff).
The wind farms off the coasts in the EU countries are producing massive amounts of energy at fractions of the cost. Yes, the engineering is hard. Yes, the big tall windmills are ugly (paint them, put LED lights on them, who cares). You don't need the giant big ones, a field of smaller ones works too at the same altitude (key part... wind is faster at altitude). Make a wind mill kite and send it up. There's so much energy around us. We just need to find a way to trap those electrons.
At least President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho cared about things enough to make things better for his people, hired the smartest person he knew and genuinely tried to fix things.
Could be reasonable, we need more renewable independence.
> ...while boosting support for biofuels...
And there it is, going backwards. So tired of this.
In time, it seems to me that those will drive the US economy right into a solid brick wall.
Wind power on farmland only results in a tiny drop in acreage. And a hot area of study is mixing solar PV with various ag uses. In some cases yield is improved.
Finally, farmland that is used for solar is almost always not the best yielding land. Maybe the farmer is facing a water shortage or is just not that competitive. Solar could be a lifeline in situations like that.
1 - Secretary Rollins Blocks Taxpayer Dollars for Solar Panels on Prime Farmland
2- Secretary Rollins Prioritizes American Energy on National Forest Land
Both have quotes about putting "America first" to confuse people to make them think this is better for all. We think the USDA is about getting healthy food to people, but really they're about maximizing the money for farmers and people who own the land. Terrible.
[1] - https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/08/... [2] - https://www.usda.gov/about-usda/news/press-releases/2025/08/...
That is were we are headed, if you live below the Mason/Dixon line, a good chance your descendants will be one of those migrants many people seem to hate these days.
Solar panels are manufactured using energy that comes mostly from coal.
I certainly do not believe that solar panels are the universal solution for climate change, like a lot of zealots with no contact with reality believe.
They are currently cutting funding and trying to cut what’s left after that too
It also bans Chinese solar panels, ends wind/solar tax credits post-2027, and extends biofuel credits to 2029.
This is common-sense stuff to me. America chooses America and food-supply security. The article is horribly biased.
This video from a few days ago analyzes the issue: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tNp2vsxEzk
Regardless of climate change issues, the anti-renewable policy doesn't seem to make any sense from an economic, growth, or national security standpoint. It even is contrary to the anti-regulation and pro-capitalism _stated_ stance of the administration.
Wow. I knew it was a lot but did not know it was the majority.
A quick Google says that solar generates ~20 W/sq ft., so the amount of farmland lost here, by implication, to solar generation, is enough to power the entire United State with solar power alone, twice over.
Obviously, not all 1.2 million acres of land here is lost to solar generation as the government is implying. They don't cite their source, but AFAICT, this is all land that is no longer farmland for any reason at all.