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On Copernicus’ Climate Atlas, tourist fees, and the culture wars
Current conditions: A tropical storm has formed in the South Atlantic for the first time in three years • Ongoing wildfires in Chile forced residents to evacuate • It’s 51 degrees Fahrenheit and cloudy in London where a pod of dolphins was spotted in the River Thames.
Hawaii may introduce a $25 tourist fee this spring to help protect the state from wildfires. Hawaii’s Democratic governor, Josh Green, told The Wall Street Journal the fee would bring in close to $70 million annually, and that the money would pay for things like fire breaks, disaster prevention and insurance, and establishing a state fire marshal. “It’s a very small price to pay to preserve paradise,” Green said. Hawaii is still recovering from the deadly Lahaina wildfires that struck Maui last year. The tourist fee would follow a larger trend of visitors being asked to help contribute to climate resilience efforts in high-risk destinations across the world.
Here’s one for the climate data nerds: The European Union’s Copernicus Climate Change Service (C3S) – a key resource for global climate data – today unveiled a cool new interactive tool. The Interactive Climate Atlas lets users explore very detailed changes in climate on a regional level, and peer into the future with climate projections based on different warming scenarios. The tool is a “gamechanger” for policymakers, the group said. It’s also just really fascinating (and/or terrifying) to play around with. It takes a little bit of getting used to, though, so good idea to read the user guide before you dive in.
Spatial precipitation changesC3S Interactive Climate Atlas
A bunch of European industrial business leaders are worried their firms are losing their competitive edge in the energy transition, and they want the EU to do something about it. About 70 CEOs from major European companies are petitioning the EU to introduce a “European Industrial Deal” that would reduce energy costs, boost funding for clean tech, cut red tape, and limit companies’ reporting obligations. “The group says Europe risks losing out to China and the U.S. in the race to supply the technologies needed to roll out renewables and slash industrial emissions,” reportedBloomberg. Ursula von der Leyen will join the group in Antwerp today in a bid to garner support as she launches her bid for a second term as European Commission president.
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A French company that manufactures parts for about half the world’s cars is cutting 10,000 jobs as the global shift to electric vehicles changes the automotive landscape, reportedThe Wall Street Journal. Forvia provides exhaust systems as well as interiors for carmakers including Ford, Tesla, Stellantis, and Volkswagen. The cuts, which will happen over the next five years, come as the company strives to stay competitive as new policies in the EU favor electric vehicles, and Chinese carmakers like BYD look to expand. Automotive suppliers “have made hefty investments in the shift to electric, and now they are seeing their markets being hit due to slower uptake than expected,” wrote Jennifer Mossalgue at Electrek.
Florida is one of a handful of states trying to ban lab-grown meat, seen by some as a potential way to help cut the greenhouse gas emissions of the meat and dairy industries. A new bill in the state legislature would make it a misdemeanor to sell or manufacture lab-grown meat (which is made from animal cells), and anyone caught doing so would be fined $1,000. “The development of lab-grown meat has been drawn into America’s culture wars, like other ventures aimed at disrupting traditional food production,” explained The New York Times. The irony is that “it likely will be years before lab-grown meat is a staple on dinner plates in America, if it happens at all.”
“Luxury is better when it’s quiet and doesn’t smell like diesel exhaust.” –Electrek’s Jo Borrás on why some ski resorts are rolling out electric equipment
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Almost half of developers believe it is “somewhat or significantly harder to do” projects on farmland, despite the clear advantages that kind of property has for harnessing solar power.
The solar energy industry has a big farm problem cropping up. And if it isn’t careful, it’ll be dealing with it for years to come.
Researchers at SI2, an independent research arm of the Solar Energy Industries Association, released a study of farm workers and solar developers this morning that said almost half of all developers believe it is “somewhat or significantly harder to do” projects on farmland, despite the clear advantages that kind of property has for harnessing solar power.
Unveiled in conjunction with RE+, the largest renewable energy conference in the U.S., the federally-funded research includes a warning sign that permitting is far and away the single largest impediment for solar developers trying to build projects on farmland. If this trend continues or metastasizes into a national movement, it could indefinitely lock developers out from some of the nation’s best land for generating carbon-free electricity.
“If a significant minority opposes and perhaps leads to additional moratoria, [developers] will lose a foot in the door for any future projects,” Shawn Rumery, SI2’s senior program director and the survey lead, told me. “They may not have access to that community any more because that moratoria is in place.”
SI2’s research comes on the heels of similar findings from Heatmap Pro. A poll conducted for the platform last month found 70% of respondents who had more than 50 acres of property — i.e. the kinds of large landowners sought after by energy developers — are concerned that renewable energy “takes up farmland,” by far the greatest objection among that cohort.
Good farmland is theoretically perfect for building solar farms. What could be better for powering homes than the same strong sunlight that helps grow fields of yummy corn, beans and vegetables? And there’s a clear financial incentive for farmers to get in on the solar industry, not just because of the potential cash in letting developers use their acres but also the longer-term risks climate change and extreme weather can pose to agriculture writ large.
But not all farmers are warming up to solar power, leading towns and counties across the country to enact moratoria restricting or banning solar and wind development on and near “prime farmland.” Meanwhile at the federal level, Republicans and Democrats alike are voicing concern about taking farmland for crop production to generate renewable energy.
Seeking to best understand this phenomena, SI2 put out a call out for ag industry representatives and solar developers to tell them how they feel about these two industries co-mingling. They received 355 responses of varying detail over roughly three months earlier this year, including 163 responses from agriculture workers, 170 from solar developers as well as almost two dozen individuals in the utility sector.
A key hurdle to development, per the survey, is local opposition in farm communities. SI2’s publicity announcement for the research focuses on a hopeful statistic: up to 70% of farmers surveyed said they were “open to large-scale solar.” But for many, that was only under certain conditions that allow for dual usage of the land or agrivoltaics. In other words, they’d want to be able to keep raising livestock, a practice known as solar grazing, or planting crops unimpeded by the solar panels.
The remaining percentage of farmers surveyed “consistently opposed large-scale solar under any condition,” the survey found.
“Some of the messages we got were over my dead body,” Rumery said.
Meanwhile a “non-trivial” number of solar developers reported being unwilling or disinterested in adopting the solar-ag overlap that farmers want due to the increased cost, Rumery said. While some companies expect large portions of their business to be on farmland in the future, and many who responded to the survey expect to use agrivoltaic designs, Rumery voiced concern at the percentage of companies unwilling to integrate simultaneous agrarian activities into their planning.
In fact, Rumery said some developers’ reticence is part of what drove him and his colleagues to release the survey while at RE+.
As we discussed last week, failing to address the concerns of local communities can lead to unintended consequences with industry-wide ramifications. Rumery said developers trying to build on farmland should consider adopting dual-use strategies and focus on community engagement and education to avoid triggering future moratoria.
“One of the open-ended responses that best encapsulated the problem was a developer who said until the cost of permitting is so high that it forces us to do this, we’re going to continue to develop projects as they are,” he said. “That’s a cold way to look at it.”
Meanwhile, who is driving opposition to solar and other projects on farmland? Are many small farm owners in rural communities really against renewables? Is the fossil fuel lobby colluding with Big Ag? Could building these projects on fertile soil really impede future prospects at crop yields?
These are big questions we’ll be tackling in far more depth in next week’s edition of The Fight. Trust me, the answers will surprise you.
Here are the most notable renewable energy conflicts over the past week.
1. Worcester County, Maryland –Ocean City is preparing to go to court “if necessary” to undo the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s approval last week of U.S. Wind’s Maryland Offshore Wind Project, town mayor Rick Meehan told me in a statement this week.
2. Magic Valley, Idaho – The Lava Ridge Wind Project would be Idaho’s biggest wind farm. But it’s facing public outcry over the impacts it could have on a historic site for remembering the impact of World War II on Japanese residents in the United States.
3. Kossuth County, Iowa – Iowa’s largest county – Kossuth – is in the process of approving a nine-month moratorium on large-scale solar development.
Here’s a few more hotspots I’m watching…
The most important renewable energy policies and decisions from the last few days.
Greenlink’s good day – The Interior Department has approved NV Energy’s Greenlink West power line in Nevada, a massive step forward for the Biden administration’s pursuit of more transmission.
States’ offshore muddle – We saw a lot of state-level offshore wind movement this past week… and it wasn’t entirely positive. All of this bodes poorly for odds of a kumbaya political moment to the industry’s benefit any time soon.
Chumash loophole – Offshore wind did notch one win in northern California by securing an industry exception in a large marine sanctuary, providing for farms to be built in a corridor of the coastline.
Here’s what else I’m watching …