Big farmland is effectively dead. It must be tiled and heavily fertilized to produce anything. It does NOT have healthy soils.
And remember the context: were talking of replacing corn grown for energy, monoculture with no insect or plant life, with the same land covered with solar panels, time for soil to recover, native plants to germinate and grow.
Putting solar panels instead of the industrial corn production is partially rewilding it - there are projects in the hotter countries where increased humidity and decreased sunlight actually allows for the more plants to thrive. There are projects using goats to trim the greens under the panels. Etc, etc.
Almost anything is better for the soil, biodiversity and life than industrial corn production.
Worth noting you don't have to spray solar panels with pesticides and herbicides either. Nor do they require fertilizer. All of these have real negative effects.
Pesticides are causing a decline in insect populations and the animals that eat them. Herbicides what can say more than that. Fertilizer causes algae blooms and hypoxic conditions in lakes and streams. All three cause ground water pollution.
I'm a broken record, solar is 30 times more productive per acre than ethanol corn.
And remember the context: were talking of replacing corn grown for energy, monoculture with no insect or plant life, with the same land covered with solar panels, time for soil to recover, native plants to germinate and grow.
Putting solar panels instead of the industrial corn production is partially rewilding it - there are projects in the hotter countries where increased humidity and decreased sunlight actually allows for the more plants to thrive. There are projects using goats to trim the greens under the panels. Etc, etc.
Almost anything is better for the soil, biodiversity and life than industrial corn production.