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Yeah, 'cause shade is precisely what's needed for a solar farm
Around, not over. Trees are a well studied thing where can you pick different species for different characteristics, like height, and growth speed.
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Climate change is an existential threat, it's switch to green power asap or burn the world our kids will live in
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Edit: one of those crossfire situations where the downvotes could be coming from either direction. I'm going to assume they mean "don't be scared".
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It is 100% an existential threat, but the existential bit happens in 100 years so of course you're not going to see it materialize over night
No, it’s not, and no, we don’t know that. Humans will survive climate change. Rich countries will survive, too.
We will all suffer. Economically, healthwise and aesthetically. But that’s not existential. Framing it as such is disingenuous and counterproductive.
Europe as a whole has engaged in greenwashing where instead of really solving their emissions and energy problems has simply offshored those problems to poorer countries. If a neighbour uses fossil fuels for electricity generation and you buy their excess electrricity, you're not greener. You've just cooked the books.
People who might say "when I go outside at this very specific place solar panels look ugly" should carry no weight when those solar panels (in Denmark's case) covers 0.2% of rural land. Go somewhere else.
Unsurprisingly, China is leading here by making solar panel installations have multiple uses like reversing desertification and use vegetation growth from the shade and the water used to clean the panels as a place for grazing livestock. Obviously Europe in general and Denmark in particular doesn't have deserts, of course.
I'm generally a fan of putting solar panels on non-arable land. In the US, that's much of the southwest, which incidentally also has very good solar yields because of the high amount of sunshine. There are whole areas of grass plains that can't be used for traditional farming as we discovered in the 1930s. It was called the Dust Bowl. There was a famous book written about it (ie the Grapes of Wrath).
What I don't understand is why we don't build more solar around or over highways. This is already public land and it's land not doing anything else. The solar wouldn't interfere with the core purpose either. I guess people want solar panels tucked away where few can see them.
The absurdity of the climate debate is that “we” talk almost constantly about two energy sources (wind and solar) that in no way have the potential to provide the stable baseload power required to electrify society. And unless nature has blessed your country with abundant geothermal or hydroelectric power, that leaves you with the following options: oil, coal, or nuclear power.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electricity_sector_in_Norway
I took a stroll recently through the countryside around Swindon, UK, where there’s a massive new solar farm on formerly arable land. One thing I only just realised was how the view from the ground is so badly affected when you’re down amidst the endless rows of panels - they reach well above head height. It’s basically like walking through a industrial estate, just with more grass in between. Really very bleak. Give…
That just sounds like endless corn fields, only solar panels.
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Climate change is an existential threat, it's switch to green power asap or burn the world our kids will live in
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Climate migration is already an issue. Extreme climate events are already increasingly problematic. Will civilization collapse in the next 50 years. Almost certainly not, but will we be better off then than we are now? Unless we rapidly increase the rate at which we address this issue, I don't see how that happens either.
The positive I take from the article is that Denmark is successfully diversifying its renewable energy sources, something that's needed while battery infrastructure is built to scale, and I sincerely hope it doesn't become a serious political issue like it's been here in Australia for decades (and continues to be today).
The absurdity of the climate debate is that “we” talk almost constantly about two energy sources (wind and solar) that in no way have the potential to provide the stable baseload power required to electrify society. And unless nature has blessed your country with abundant geothermal or hydroelectric power, that leaves you with the following options: oil, coal, or nuclear power.
Wind and solar can provide enough energy. You may be referring to their well-publicized variability. Energy storage can solve that.
Regardless of your political beliefs I would hope you could agree that using arable land for solar power is dumb. Denmark is almost entirely arable land and relatively small to boot so they should be using more compact power sources.