Caroline Dillard Outside Reading 5: 4/16/23 (Dual-use solar panel fields)

 I have read a lot of academic articles about dual-use solar panel fields. Using solar panel fields as single use areas is inefficient because of the large amount of land used for solar panel installation. As solar energy becomes more widespread, dual uses for the land used by solar panels have developed. Dual uses not only provide benefits to the land, wildlife, and the mechanics of the solar panels, but are more sustainable and can be economically profitable. Agro-voltaics is the simultaneous use of areas of land for both solar photovoltaic power generation and agriculture. Three main dual-uses provide additional benefits to the clean energy source including using solar panel fields for sheep grazing, planting native plants to attract native pollinators and growing crops. Reading about the many benefits of dual-use solar panel fields had made me interested in getting involved in efforts to push this issue. DCR and DEQ have a program that promotes the planting of vegetation at solar panel developments to attract pollinators. This program has the goal of increasing ecologically-sustainable and climate-resilient landscapes using Virginia native species. I love finding native plants when I go for walks. I often take my identification guide and I have started my own herbarium of pressed plants. The thought that planting native plants in solar fields is a good way to attract native pollinators is exciting. Clean energy and doing good for the environment is a win-win.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Nature Walk

 I took a walk around the Noland trail last week to just be able to say I have done it before my time ends at CNU. This was always a bucket list thing to do and after the 6-mile walk, I wish I had done it a lot earlier. I felt at peace during the walk like I didn't have finals coming up or papers to write. The only thing that was going through my head was "Wow it's been an hour already". The walk calmed my nerves and prepared me for my finals week and everything to get crazy. I wish I did this freshman year so I could have made it a habit before my final semester.
Read more

Haley Conroy - 2/14/23 - John Muir - (Outside of Class Reading)

  In the beginning section of John Muir’s essay titled Wild Parks and Reservations , he goes into depressing detail about noticeable changes in landscapes, particularly plant life, in many different regions of the United States. As I read this section I found myself thinking that it seems somewhat similar to something you would see in an essay on the environmental changes induced by climate change today. One connection between the text and modern-day was between ecotourism and the quote "Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity, and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers but as fountains of life." (721). Muir has taken the ideas of simplicity in life suggested by philosophers such as Thoreau and embodied them, although I think that Muir is a well-educated man that understood the complexities that exis...
Read more

Makenna Sowards—Free Response 3, Vegetarianism

 Dr. Kip speaking in class about renouncing vegetarianism because he considered it to boost him onto a moral high ground made me consider my own stance on vegetarianism. I haven't eaten meat in a year and a half, and my reasons for starting on this journey have remained as my reasons to continue. After learning about the detrimental impact of the meat-packing industry, I very quickly realized that was not something that I wanted to perpetuate by spending money on meat products. Though, it can very easily be argued that my small, personal movement against the food conglomerates responsible for releasing grotesque amounts of methane into the atmosphere as well as carbon emissions from large numbers of fossil-fueled machines does not make a very big impact, I think it serves another purpose: awareness. When people ask why I refuse to eat meat, it gives me the opportunity to speak on the carbon footprint of the meat-packing industry and how it is one of the largest contributors to dest...
Read more