Using the same land for the production of both agriculture and solar energy is a win-win for the climate and farmers.

Access to solar power is increasing in rural parts of the U.S., partly with the support of farmers who lease out their land for utility-scale solar arrays. This farm-to-solar trend known as “agrivoltaics”—defined by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as “the co-location of agricultural production and solar energy generation on the same land”—is intertwined with regenerative farming, a trend that has centuries-old roots within Indigenous cultures. This mindful cooperation between farming and energy poses a threat to the status quo fueling climate change and is facing a surge of opposition, but the emerging field of agrivoltaics could help neutralize the critics and break down barriers to solar development.

This article was produced by Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

The Importance of Rural Solar

Leasing out land for a utility-scale solar array can provide farmers with an important source of steady revenue. The income can be a lifeline for individual farmers, and for entire industries. Solar leasing, for example, is credited with helping to sustain the cranberry industry in Massachusetts.

“[R]ural communities have a significant opportunity to strengthen and diversify their local economies by embracing and actively engaging in the ongoing renewable energy transition,” wrote Katie Siegner, Kevin Brehm, and Mark Dyson, authors of a 2021 report published by Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit organization working to accelerate the clean energy transition.

“By 2030, renewable energy capacity in the United States will at least double, and potentially grow by a factor of seven or higher if new policies are enacted to capitalize on continuing cost declines in wind and solar,” they wrote. “As a result, rural communities—which host 99 percent of onshore wind and a growing share of utility-scale solar projects—stand to receive a sizable boost to their local economies. In fact, annual revenues from wind and solar projects could exceed $60 billion… by 2030—on par with expected revenues from the top three U.S. agricultural commodities: corn, soy, and beef production.”

Bringing more solar energy to rural communities is a priority for the Biden administration with a focus on improving solar access for underserved low- and middle-income communities. Among other provisions, Biden’s 2024 budget proposal specifies $30 million in grants and $1 billion in loan guarantees for solar, other clean energy systems, and energy efficiency improvements for farmers and small businesses in rural communities, along with $15 million toward the creation of a new Rural Clean Energy Initiative tasked with helping electricity providers meet clean energy goals.

Helping rural businesses reduce their dependence on fossil fuels is another priority for many federal policymakers. In the U.S., the funding sources include the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Rural Energy for America Program (REAP), which was created through the 2008 Farm Bill to support energy efficiency upgrades as well as solar and other renewables on farms, including utility-scale projects.

Opposition to Rural Solar

Despite this investment from the U.S. government and interest from farmers, rural energy projects are not always welcomed by all parties—and have faced civic opposition hurdles that are not new. Local residents have long joined with environmental organizations to rally against mountaintop coal mining, natural gas fracking, and oil pipelines. Local residents and organizations can also oppose rural solar projects on environmental grounds. Razing a forest to install a solar array would be one such example.

However, in the absence of any significant environmental impacts, solar projects can still face opposition based on disinformation about climate change. In April 2022, Reuters drew attention to a recent sharp increase in the number of Facebook groups dedicated to blocking rural solar.

“Reuters identified 45 groups or pages on Facebook dedicated to opposing large solar projects, with names such as ‘No Solar in Our Backyards!’ and ‘Stop Solar Farms.’ Only nine existed prior to 2020, and nearly half were created in 2021. The groups together boast nearly 20,000 members,” wrote Reuters reporter Nichola Groom.

Groom observed that these Facebook groups have become powerful engines of opposition that reflect local concerns about aesthetics and tree removal, among other topics. However, she also noted that these groups are larded with false claims about climate change, including claims that climate change is a hoax, and that solar panels can leach cadmium, a carcinogen, into the environment.

Groom’s findings suggest the influence—whether coincidental or directed—of organizations connected to the promotion of disinformation on solar energy and climate change. The Heartland Institute, for example, has raised questions about cadmium safety, and the Texas Public Policy Foundation has maintained that “[n]o sound scientific evidence” supports the potential for catastrophic climate change.

In addition, a reporting team composed of Michael Copley of National Public Radio and Miranda Green from Floodlight has been following the activities of Susan Ralston, described as a “longtime conservative operative” who is “stoking opposition to solar projects by spreading misinformation.”

According to a March 2023 interview with Copley on NPR’s All Things Considered about his and Green’s February 2023 report, Ralston worked her connections in conservative circles to set up and run the group Citizens for Responsible Solar in 2019. The group’s treasurer, for example, has worked for Marco Rubio and J.D. Vance, and its official paperwork is handled by a firm that has represented “at least two dozen conservative groups.” That includes some groups connected to Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society (though Copley and Green emphasized they have not found a direct link between Ralston’s group and the others).

Copley and Green also noted that a consulting firm owned by Ralston received $300,000 from the foundation of Republican donor and coal shareholder Paul Singer that coincided with the launch of Citizens for Responsible Solar (though they did not find a direct link between that money and startup funding for Citizens for Responsible Solar).

The Appeal of Farm-Located Solar

Despite the opposition, farmland attracts solar developers because it is sunny, relatively flat, and free of trees and other obstructions that raise the cost of site preparation. Access to existing roads and transmission lines is another advantage.

To the extent that farmland is already commercialized, industrialized, and lacking in biodiversity, farm-located solar arrays are also shielded from the environmental issues that arise when a solar project replaces a forest or other natural habitat.

Nevertheless, opponents of farm-located solar have argued that utility-scale solar arrays are not an appropriate use of farmland. This argument has also been advanced by Citizens for Responsible Solar, which has declared that “[i]ndustrial-scale solar is not agriculture; it is a power plant.” Other groups of opponents have adopted the “industrial solar” messaging directly, as with the Facebook group Stop Industrial Solar Plants in Shelby County Indiana (a splinter group of Citizens Against Industrialized Solar Plants in Southwestern Shelby County). Others don’t use “industrial” in their front-facing messages, but they link to other groups that do. The Facebook group Stop Solar Farms, for example, has reposted content from Citizens for Responsible Solar against “industrial-scale solar.”

In response, solar stakeholders raise the point that solar development can help preserve and improve farmland in the long run. A new solar array enables a farmer to realize income from a solar lease while enabling the soil below the solar panels to “rest” for the lifespan of the project, typically about 25 years.

Soil rest can help break the breeding cycle of pests. A resting period can also enable soils heavily treated with agricultural chemicals to revert to a natural state, enabling the potential for a transition to regenerative farming. Additionally, soil rest is consistent with the goals of the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program, which pays farmers for taking sensitive land out of production and planting species that restore environmental health.

An Indiana farmer cited by the Indiana Business Journal in 2020 observed that farms are places of work and that farmers should be the ones making decisions about their land “based on science and best practices,” regardless of the desire for bucolic surroundings expressed by solar opponents.

Agrivoltaics 101

Solar arrays can also be interplanted with clover and other species that support pollinator populations on farmland. The emerging field of agrivoltaics builds on that dual-use capability to create a new paradigm that could help accelerate solar development on farms.

The term “agrivoltaics” refers to solar panels that are raised higher off the ground, and far enough apart, to permit agricultural activity within the array. That provides for uses beyond establishing pollinator habitats. “Solar grazing,” for example, is emerging as a preferred practice for livestock farms.

Agrivoltaic arrays can resemble conventional solar arrays. Researchers have also been investigating vertical panels and other alternative designs.

The case for agrivoltaics has been bolstered by a growing body of evidence that demonstrates symbiosis within the array. Plants that grow under and around the panels contribute to a cooler environment for the solar panels, helping to improve their solar conversion efficiency. In turn, shade from the panels helps to conserve water and prevent soil loss, while improving crop yields.

Solar arrays may also help some crops continue to thrive as global temperatures rise. A pilot project in Spain, for example, is aimed at demonstrating the microclimate benefits of solar panels in vineyards.

Agrivoltaics, Regenerative Agriculture, and Big Ag

The water and soil elements of agrivoltaics overlap with another trend: the regenerative agriculture movement.

Regenerative agriculture refers to farming practices that prioritize improving soil health, building up the soil, and conserving water, along with a holistic focus on human and animal welfare. While the term regenerative agriculture is attributed to Robert Rodale, son of the pioneering agriculturalist J.I. Rodale, it has been practiced for centuries by Indigenous peoples.

Regenerative farming has lingered on the fringes of the agriculture industry for decades. With the growing climate crisis, the carbon-sequestering benefits of soil conservation have come into sharper focus, along with the potential for bottom-line benefits related to carbon credit policies.

In November 2022, the industry-led organization Sustainable Markets Initiative (SMI) announced the launch of a new regenerative agriculture program through its Agribusiness Task Force. The initiative aims to accelerate regenerative practices globally, in concert with carbon markets and other government policies that draw bottom-line benefits from carbon sequestration.

Members of the task force include familiar names like Bayer, Mars, McDonald’s, Mondelez, PepsiCo, and Yara International along with the global french-fry supplier McCain Foods and the global cocoa, coffee, cotton, and rice producer Olam. The data platform HowGood is also a member, along with the microbe-focused soil conservation firm Indigo Agriculture, the employee-owned retailer Waitrose & Partners, and Sustainable Food Trust.

The global agricultural and food processing industries have amassed a terrible record on human, environmental, and labor rights. Nevertheless, money talks. As described by the Agribusiness Task Force, the potential for profit is at the heart of the initiative.

“The Task Force calls for common metrics and market-based financial incentives for environmental outcomes, targeted government policy and an overhaul of food sourcing—all to make regenerative agriculture a ‘no brainer’ business decision for farmers,” the organization stated in a November 2022 press release.

The Carbon Sequestration Angle

Whether or not the SMI plan results in a faster uptake of the fully holistic practices articulated by Robert Rodale and practiced by Indigenous farmers remains to be seen. However, in terms of carbon sequestration, the Task Force is in a position to exercise its influence on a global level, and that could have a ripple effect on opportunities for agrivoltaic development.

Lightsource BP, for example, has been promoting its solar business as a form of regenerative agriculture, loosely speaking. The company has drawn attention to similarities between the benefits of farm-located solar arrays and the soil conservation and biodiversity goals of the USDA’s Conservation Reserve Program, which rewards farmers for taking arable land out of production.

Lightsource BP is also a sponsor of the American Solar Grazing Association along with Engie, EDF, and other renewable energy stakeholders.

More Federal Support for Agrivoltaics

The USDA has been supporting agrivoltaics research and development through its InSPIRE program. In December 2022, the DOE announced $8 million in funding for six new research projects under its Foundational Agrivoltaic Research for Megawatt Scale (FARMS) program. Though the total is relatively small, it could have a widespread impact in terms of communicating best practices, developing a trained workforce, and overcoming barriers to rural solar.

Five of the projects aim to demonstrate agrivoltaic practices in different regions of the U.S.: a horticulture and beekeeping program at Iowa State University; a suite of crop and grazing trials that partners Rutgers University in New Jersey with Delaware State University; a grazing and hay production trial at an existing solar array by Ohio State University; a grazing trial at another solar array by the University of Arizona; and a project at the University of Alaska Fairbanks aimed at adapting agrivoltaics to underserved, high-latitude communities.

The sixth project enlists the Washington, D.C., organization Solar and Storage Industries Institute to partner with utilities as well as agriculture stakeholders to produce guides for overcoming barriers. The organization is a branch of the Solar Energy Industries Association.

The opposition to rural solar is sure to increase in the coming years. However, the trend toward regenerative agriculture and agrivoltaics could provide a counterbalance, by allying solar industry stakeholders with local farmers as well as leading businesses in the global agriculture industry.

Author Bio: Tina Casey has been writing about sustainability, the global energy transition, and related matters since 2009. She is a regular contributor to the Observatory, CleanTechnica, and TriplePundit, where she also focuses on corporate social responsibility and social issues.

Fossil fuel stakeholders have been seeking new revenue in the petrochemical industry in general, and plastics in particular.

As the private transportation sector shifts focus to batteries, biofuels, and green hydrogen, fossil fuel stakeholders have been seeking new avenues of revenue in the petrochemical industry in general, and in plastics in particular. That’s bad news for a world already swimming—literally—in plastic pollution. Product manufacturers and other upstream forces could reverse the petrochemical trend, but only if they—along with policymakers, voters, and consumers—continue to push for real change beyond the business-as-usual strategy of only advocating for post-consumer recycling.

This article first appeared on Truthout and was produced in partnership with Earth | Food | Life, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Plastic, Plastic Everywhere

Some signs of change are beginning to emerge. Public awareness is growing over the plastic pollution crisis, including the area of microplastics. A study commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund in 2020 found 86 percent of consumers in the United States were willing to support measures to cut down on plastic pollution, such as single-use plastic bag bans and increased recycling. Private sector efforts to reduce plastic packaging are also beginning to take effect.

However, these trends won’t necessarily lead to a global slowdown in plastic production or use, let alone a reversal. The United States, for example, is both a leading producer of plastic and the largest source of plastic waste in the world. The OECD estimates that, under a “business-as-usual” scenario, plastic waste will triple globally by 2060. Petrochemical producers are also eyeing growing markets in Asia and Africa.

Even if some nations kick the plastic habit, the global benefit of their efforts could easily be offset by rising demand for plastics elsewhere in the world. In a 2016 report titled, “The New Plastics Economy,” the World Economic Forum (WEF) noted that global plastic production totaled 311 million metric tons in 2014, up from just 15 million metric tons in 1964. The WEF also anticipated that the total plastic production would double to more than 600 million metric tons by 2036.

One key driver that is fueling plastic production is the increased availability of low-cost natural gas in the U.S., which was a result of the George W. Bush administration’s successful efforts to lift Clean Water Act protections on shale gas operations, resulting in “billions of gallons of toxic frack fluid from being regulated as industrial waste,” according to Greenpeace USA. By 2018, the shale gas boom of the early 2000s was credited with stimulating a decade-long petrochemical buildout in the U.S. totaling 333 chemical industry projects since 2010, with a cumulative value of $202.4 billion. Of interest from a global perspective, almost 70 percent of the financing was from direct or indirect foreign sources.

Another driving force on the supply side is the shift from crude oil (petrol) to oil for plastic production, a trend fostered in part by a glut of ethane produced by the fracking boom. The decarbonization of the transportation sector does not necessarily slow down crude oil production to refineries. “As traditional demands for oil—vehicle fuels—are declining as the transport sector is increasingly electrified, the oil industry is seeing plastics as a key output that can make up for losses in other markets,” noted a November 2021 article in the Conversation. Consequently, refiners are becoming more dependent on the petrochemical market.

Steppingstone to Change: Recycling

The impacts of plastic production and waste are already manifold, from the local destruction and greenhouse gas emissions caused by oil and gas drilling and refinery operations to the ever-increasing load of plastic waste in the environment including microparticles in the air, water, soil, food supply, and ultimately in the human body.

Plastic is also a major threat to wildlife, and in particular, marine species, as so much plastic waste ends up in the world’s oceans. Unless we take concrete steps and “change how we produce, use and dispose of plastic, the amount of plastic waste entering aquatic ecosystems could nearly triple from 9-14 million… [metric tons] per year in 2016 to a projected 23-37 million… [metric tons] per year by 2040,” according to the United Nations Environment Program.

Fossil energy stakeholders have long touted a downstream solution to reduce plastic pollution—namely, recycling. The generations-long failure of this strategy is all too obvious: As the United Nations Environment Program points out, “Of the seven billion tonnes of plastic waste generated globally so far [since the 1950s], less than 10 percent has been recycled.” Despite recent advances in recycling technology, the amount of recycled plastic in the production stream mostly remains pitifully low across the world. Nations with lax environmental regulations—mainly poor countries—have become destinations for mountains of mismanaged plastic waste, in addition to bearing the weight of pollution related to plastic processing.

Recycling is still important, but the resolution of the plastic crisis requires swift and practical action several steps upstream, at the seats of source and demand.

Seeds of Change

Absent the political will to turn off the plastic spigot at the source, the task is left to supply chain stakeholders and individual consumers.

That is a monumental task, but not an insurmountable one. The rapid evolution of the renewable energy industry illustrates how the global economy can pivot into new models when bottom-line benefits are at play, along with policy goals and support from voters, consumers, and industry stakeholders.

In terms of reducing upstream consumption of petrochemicals, consumer sentiment can influence supply chain decisions, as demonstrated by three emerging trends that can drive the market for more sustainable products and packaging.

One trend is the growing level of public awareness of the ocean plastic crisis. Images of plastic-entangled turtles and other sea creatures can spark an emotional charge that gets more attention from consumers than street litter and landfills. The tourism, hospitality, and fishing industries are also among other stakeholders that have a direct interest in driving public awareness of ocean plastic.

In a related development, the public awareness factor has rippled into the activist investor movement, which is beginning to focus attention on the financial chain behind the petrochemical industry. In 2020 the organization Portfolio.earth, for example, launched a campaign on the role of banks in financing petrochemical operations.

The second trend that is gaining momentum is related to new recycling technology that enables manufacturers to replace virgin plastics with waste harvested from the ocean. However, this circular economy model must be implemented from cradle to grave and back again in order to prevent waste from ending up in the ocean, regardless of its content.

In a similar problem-solving vein, new technology for recycling carbon gas can provide manufacturers with new opportunities to build customer loyalty through climate action. The company LanzaTech provides a good example of growth in the area of recycling carbon. The company’s proprietary microbes are engineered to digest industrial waste gases or biogas. The process yields chemical building blocks for plastics as well as fuels. Other firms in this area are also harvesting ambient carbon from the air to produce plastics and synthetic fabrics, among other materials.

A third trend is the emergence of new technology that enables manufacturers to incorporate more recycled plastic into their supply chains overall. In the past, bottles and other products made from recycled plastics failed to meet durability expectations. Now manufacturers are beginning to choose from a new generation of recycled plastics that perform as well as, or better than, their virgin counterparts.

The problem is that all of these trends are only just starting to emerge as significant forces for change. In the meantime, fossil energy stakeholders have no meaningful incentive to pivot toward supporting a transition out of petrochemicals, let alone a rapid one.

In fact, for some legacy stakeholders, the renewable energy field appears to be an exercise in greenwashing. Shell is one example of an energy company that touts its wind and solar interests while expanding its petrochemical activities. An even more egregious example is ExxonMobil, which continues to publicize its long-running pursuit of algae biofuel, an area that is still years away from commercial development.

Until policymakers, voters, and consumers exercise their muscle to reduce plastic pollution at the source, the petrochemical industry will continue feeding the global plastic dependence regardless of the consequences for public health and planetary well-being.

Author Bio: Tina Casey has been writing about sustainability, the global energy transition, and related matters since 2009. She is a regular contributor to CleanTechnica and TriplePundit, where she also focuses on corporate social responsibility and social issues.