Solar energy expansion is often viewed as a threat to US food security. And yet roughly 12 million hectares of US farmland—an area the size of New York State—is currently devoted to corn crops that are farmed not for food, but for fuel.
In a new PNAS study, researchers ask a provocative question: why not transition some of this corn-for-ethanol farmland to significantly more efficient solar energy production instead? They find that populating just a tiny percentage of that land with solar panels would dramatically increase the US’s solar energy output, while also relieving significant ecological pressures on the land.
“People want to see farms grow food, and I think most people would agree with that opinion. The motivation here was to understand whether ecovoltaic solar could be a more effective land use strategy than using 12 million hectares to grow corn for fuel,” says Matthew Sturchio, a researcher at the Cornell University College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, and lead author on the new paper.
In fact, it would require about 31 hectares of corn ethanol to produce the same amount of energy generated by one hectare of land covered in solar panels.