And it can be used upfield though so the groundwater carries the dirt into organic fields. Many of these "rules" are written like physics stops at some arbitrary line. To be honest "organic" is a bit of a joke in the farming community , as their fields tend to "hug" coventional fields to prevent a fungi overgrowth .
And we all know agrarian traders who get certified "organic" stuff from countries were any seal or certificate is just a bribe away.
Governments and states fall apart all the time . The chilling effect of the panopticon has been found to keep things more "pleasant" even in their absence. Google lynching statistics in africa and then hold the spread of smartphones besides that . Turns out vigilanteism is not so fun, if its recorded for all eternity .
I suspect there are not many outside your own acquaintances willing to have their children drafted to defend Taiwan.
Just being realistic. Americans were committed to these things because leadership committed us to these things and would make it illegal for us to get out of it. Given an actual choice, not many Americans would have willingly gone to, say, Vietnam. Maybe a few brainwashed anti-communists, but the average American thought, "Hey, not my circus, not my monkeys." I suspect even fewer would be willing to go fight for Taiwan.
The average American's attitude is, "Call me when they attack Hawaii." Until that point, most genuinely don't care. That's why Trump's current moves in Europe will be applauded by his base. Because people have severely overestimated the desire of the American every-man and -woman to defend foreign nations.
You can't give people a choice. If given a choice, they'll always say no.
You either fight far away or you fight at home. The choice to fight though is not yours to make. Its the choice of the defectors of law, of Despots and murderers. You can fight them today, while they rob you with a stick or tomorrow, when they have a gun. But fight you must.
That's just the sort of macho thinking that has caused so many military endeavors to fail throughout history. Maybe the politics is about soundbites like that one? I don't know? I'm not a politician. But the actual prosecution of a military conflict is about outcomes. Not soundbites.
Will there be a good outcome or not?
I mean, if it makes you feel any better, you can think of it this way. Our past has taught us that, without question, it is best to fight far away, but only after an enemy has been weakened by others.
I know how that sounds to many non-US citizens. But I'm just being honest about how the thinking in America has developed historically.
It looks like the war in Ukraine should be beneficial to the United States. We send some surplus equipment and ramp up ammo production (jobs!) while weakening a prominent geopolitical adversary all without spilling American blood.
Letting Ukraine fall will embolden Russia who will continue their march across Europe until it is necessary to spill American blood.
Similarly we may not have a choice in Taiwan. Japan and The Philippines at least aren’t keen to have an emboldened imperialist China in their backyards. If they intervene US aid at least will be in our best interest.
Isolationism is not a guaranteed ideal strategy in all situations. Looking only at boondoggles like Vietnam, Iraq 2, and Afghanistan doesn’t mean all US intervention is harmful to the national interest.
> Some folks are born made to wave the flag - Hoo, they're red, white and blue. And when the band plays "Hail to the chief", Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
After seeing people convinced to send their children to the Middle East for more nebulous reasons, I wouldn't be surprised if a significant portion of the country can be found willing.
My brothers farm had an offer by a similar startup with different dimensions but basically the same idea.
Had problems though. First was moving parts. You can not expect a system to last outside with any in them. Budget for the whole affair is tight, large repairs undo the whole endeavour .
Second is crops riping at different speeds below.
Finally practicality of the frame for farming machines . Meaning the dimensions need to adapt to pre-existing machines. And ideally remain upright even if one post gets hit.
Finally honesty regarding erosion ..corn is one of the more erosion prone crops and then having water dumped on specific areas concentrated creates channels fast. So the idea does not work with no crops or erosion crops in rainy areas. There is a reason there is grass below most solar fields.
One good aspect they didn't push is that this is ideal for electro farming. We have hyper effective electric moisture traps now and electro nitrogen fixing- combine that and this can remove one need for driving trucks through.
In all other aspects i see this limited to orchards.
> In all other aspects i see this limited to orchards.
This study is for a very specific region: East Africa (Kenia and Tanzania). Their main problems are too much evaporation, no energy sources, no other sources of food.
I don't see how a solution that might work for a good share of humanity (Africa is huge: Kenya and Tanzania alone have 150 million people) gets dismissed as "limited to orchards" because it can't be used for industrial scale corn crops in my country.
Well, unfortunately "Africa" is only mentioned in the article's title (which got cut to fit into HN's character limit) and not repeated in the article itself.
But I can understand the concern: most agriculture (not only corn) is highly mechanized pretty much everywhere in the world except the poorest countries, so this would be limited to the crops that can't be mechanized.
Or this can be adapted to mechanized crops where it makes sense. Greenhouses where small fragile minihouses of 4x3 meters, made of wood and glass 100 years ago, used only in countries with harsh winters. Nobody in their right mind would use a tractor to work on them. Today they can be seen from the space and are mechanized... where it makes sense to do it. They turned a desert into a huge production of fresh vegetables: https://www.amusingplanet.com/2013/08/the-greenhouses-of-alm... .
Agrivoltaics could be something or nothing. But don't dismiss it because it today isn't already perfect for everything. Ten years ago the cost of the panels alone would make this projects 100% infeasible.
Those plastic-foil greenhouses spreading like cancer across the landscape in Spain should be shown (especially up close, where you can better see the dirty tattered foil and the waste they produce) to people who think solar panels or wind turbines are eyesores. I would definitely support replacing those cheapo greenhouses with something more permanent involving solar panels!
I wouldn't sum up the challenges if i would be completely dismissive , i think the potential is there, especially when it comes to in situ fertilizer nitrogenfixing and electro moisture harvesting (the breakthroughs there are insane, from peltier 50ml to condensator 500 ml recently). This is not a attack on the idea, just a lets strengthen this to solve alot of problems .
> Finally practicality of the frame for farming machines . Meaning the dimensions need to adapt to pre-existing machines. And ideally remain upright even if one post gets hit.
I believe that the end-game for agrivoltaics must be a reversal of that relationship: not the panel scaffolding adapting to farming machinery, but farming machinery and panel scaffolding becoming one, the scaffolding doubling as rails for overhead machinery. The status quo in farming is that a lot of fertile ground is wasted on machinery tracks. Machinery is either narrow-wheeled and ruining the soil in the track through compression, or the wheels are very wide (for weight distribution) to cause less harm per square inch, but harming proportionally more.
When you have scaffolding, scaffolding that is strong enough to survive a storm or two, it will also be strong enough to carry machinery. Not the machinery you'd attach to a 600 HP tractor, but the entire incentive situation for machinery size is based on the amount of harvest lost to machinery tracks and that would be completely solved through scaffolding-based machinery. And the issue of machinery tracks (and ground compaction) only gets worse when you start considering decarbonization: batteries are heavy, and a grid connect right above your field would be just what you'd not even dare dreaming of.
> One good aspect they didn't push is that this is ideal for electro farming. We have hyper effective electric moisture traps now and electro nitrogen fixing- combine that and this can remove one need for driving trucks through.
Could you tell us more about this? I remember seeing a user comment a few years ago discussing the prospect of dumping excess electricity into nitrogen production but I had assumed it wasn't feasible. Does this technology really exist?
Vertical bifacial agrivoltaics system are a promising setup that addresses some of your concerns. Most importantly, tractors can easily pass through them.
Another good setup is to combine it while grazing sheep.
A problem with sheep is that they aren’t worth anything. Here is New Zealand we have replaced nearly all of them with cows. Much improved profits but destruction of the waterways. We call that a win.
Good point. I'm not really interested in farming animals, I really don't know enough about it. In the Netherlands we still slaughter little under a million of them per year, on a populations of circa 17 million that should still mean they are worth something.
But maybe grazing isn't worth anything at all and its only cost-effective if you put them in a big box and feed them grains or something. I don't know.
Here in the US, a field of hay might gross $500/acre/year. A PV field selling power at $0.02/kWh would gross 50x that. You'd optimize such a setup for PV, not for combined PV + hay.
Definitely doesn't seem appropriate for cash crops harvested by combine harvester.
Most orchards and vineyards in temperate climates are attempting to maximize solar exposure, so would compete for space with the panels -- and also have their own trellising systems and so I struggle to see a fit there, too.
But I can definitely see the use cases for two places.
Grazing land for some ruminants, especially in hot dry climates. Provide shelter for animals, and shade for grasses.
Vegetables, market garden or even large scale. (e.g. my neighbour grows something like 20 acres of cauliflower and it's all planted and picked by hand.) Many market gardens are using walk-behind / two-wheel tractors (BCS, etc.) which are far more agile and could easily handle moving around panels.
Spill-off / erosion can be dealt with through building swales.
that's ok. Not every solution must work for all situations.
the point here is that agrivoltaics tends to work well, especially in certain conditions. In central Africa, those conditions are reducing evaporation and providing shade to certain plants.
In north america, those conditions are often sheep grazing, as is common in New York and Ontario.
Aside: There seems to be an uptick in sheep rearing in my area (southern Ontario, near Hamilton) all the sudden. In the last year, I've seen 3 farms local to me put up fencing to start grazing them. Which is interesting because it's actually very difficult to find Ontario lamb in the butcher shop, and it's not a very popular meat overall, so I'm wondering where the source of the demand is. The majority of the lamb in the local grocery stores is either frozen prepacked from New Zealand, or from Sun Gold foods in Alberta. But I find local lamb from this area tastes much better (less gamey), must be something about the grass vs whatever forage they're giving them in Alberta.
My two border collies would love it if I raised sheep. But my quasi-vegetarian wife could never tolerate raising them for meat.. and dairy and wool make no $$ sense.
My guess - immigrants are the source of demand. South Asian and Middle Eastern immigrants eat lots of lamb. I live in the area and buy my lamb from a local farm. You’re correct, it is not the most popular commercial meat.
A friend of mine has coeliac disease, his life literally depends on food produced to strict regulations and standards, the industry is all to often not upholding. Life is very different when your guts are a contamination sensor for failing regulations.
Decomplexification running amok, be it polpot or dodge, puts people for life dependant on a working systems like him literally on deaths ground. And you dont get to cope out: "we had the best of intentions, the idea is pure, where it not for the wicked, the flawed implementation". You get to eat thewhole meal.
To be viciously attacked by an anti-body who depends on what you attack to survive, and then see your idea tainted forever like facism and communism, simply another overdecorated funnel to falling apart. Some defeats ideologies do not walk away from.
But then you dont cut with non insiders. You instead reward the reporting of bogus science and corruption bx handling a reward grant worth half the cut grand to the reporter. Make experts clean the house, instead of idiots tearing the house down , becsuse they can not tell apart a load bearing beam from drywall .
And we all know agrarian traders who get certified "organic" stuff from countries were any seal or certificate is just a bribe away.
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