Wow.
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RE: https://horche.demkontinuum.de/display/2196d4ee-7669-dbc1-1f9e-200464952498
Wow.
In addition to this, apparently farm yields INCREASE if you mix ground-dwelling crops with overhead PV panels, which provide shade/humidity traps for the plants and livestock.
@cstross Just on a practical basis, you can improve the field drainage and water storage with the equipment used to install the panels. Double win.
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RE: https://horche.demkontinuum.de/display/2196d4ee-7669-dbc1-1f9e-200464952498
Wow.
In addition to this, apparently farm yields INCREASE if you mix ground-dwelling crops with overhead PV panels, which provide shade/humidity traps for the plants and livestock.
Depends on whether the crops were already getting too much sun, vs. barely enough. The places where solar panels improve yield are places where it's dry and hot. *
Places that are plenty shady and humid already, can lose production due to panels. But if the extra shade doesn't cause your crops to develop fungal diseases, the lost harvest can be balanced out by the electricity as an alternate source of income.
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RE: https://horche.demkontinuum.de/display/2196d4ee-7669-dbc1-1f9e-200464952498
Wow.
In addition to this, apparently farm yields INCREASE if you mix ground-dwelling crops with overhead PV panels, which provide shade/humidity traps for the plants and livestock.
@cstross in matcha farms, shade is strategically added in the weeks leading up to harvest to juice chlorophyll production.
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Depends on whether the crops were already getting too much sun, vs. barely enough. The places where solar panels improve yield are places where it's dry and hot. *
Places that are plenty shady and humid already, can lose production due to panels. But if the extra shade doesn't cause your crops to develop fungal diseases, the lost harvest can be balanced out by the electricity as an alternate source of income.
@Kathmandu @cstross
* eg Gobi DesertI also wonder how this may vary if the ground goes Nitrogen-deficient, fixed N often being a constraint to growth in last summer's conditions.
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RE: https://horche.demkontinuum.de/display/2196d4ee-7669-dbc1-1f9e-200464952498
Wow.
In addition to this, apparently farm yields INCREASE if you mix ground-dwelling crops with overhead PV panels, which provide shade/humidity traps for the plants and livestock.
@cstross If only the polysilicon in many of them was not made by slaves.
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RE: https://horche.demkontinuum.de/display/2196d4ee-7669-dbc1-1f9e-200464952498
Wow.
In addition to this, apparently farm yields INCREASE if you mix ground-dwelling crops with overhead PV panels, which provide shade/humidity traps for the plants and livestock.
@cstross the article you linked to is click bait. If you read the original science article also linked in there it’s a hypothetical from a couple of years ago.
Solar farms might be reaching a size where they can validate the . The effects of shade below solar panels, however, are well documented. That parts legit. -
@cstross If only the polysilicon in many of them was not made by slaves.
@ravenonthill @cstross Any time we want to start factories with good union jobs making solar panels, it's not any more difficult than finding the money.
(And there's a shortage of productive investment opportunities.)
Solar PV as a technology is not defined by Chinese Communist Party policy.
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@ravenonthill @cstross Any time we want to start factories with good union jobs making solar panels, it's not any more difficult than finding the money.
(And there's a shortage of productive investment opportunities.)
Solar PV as a technology is not defined by Chinese Communist Party policy.
@graydon @cstross Biden was working in that direction. Many of his economic programs were very good. He got no credit for them and the public complained that his good economy was bad.
Meantime, I intend to keep nagging people about slavery in China because it looks very much like we are heading for a global renewables market with slavery at its base. I regret to say that slavery seems to be making a comeback in many forms and many places.
https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2026/01/xinjiang-slavery-and-solar-panels.html
https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2026/02/slavery-and-solar-panels-bibliography.html
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RE: https://horche.demkontinuum.de/display/2196d4ee-7669-dbc1-1f9e-200464952498
Wow.
In addition to this, apparently farm yields INCREASE if you mix ground-dwelling crops with overhead PV panels, which provide shade/humidity traps for the plants and livestock.
@cstross Here's the link to the 2024 article cited in that piece. It's all theoretical, based on solar panels that absorb nearly 100% of the sun's heat (many are reflective), require moisture to be present in the atmosphere, and in some instances can adversely impact other regions' ecosystems. https://www.science.org/content/article/massive-solar-farms-could-provoke-rainclouds-desert
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@graydon @cstross Biden was working in that direction. Many of his economic programs were very good. He got no credit for them and the public complained that his good economy was bad.
Meantime, I intend to keep nagging people about slavery in China because it looks very much like we are heading for a global renewables market with slavery at its base. I regret to say that slavery seems to be making a comeback in many forms and many places.
https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2026/01/xinjiang-slavery-and-solar-panels.html
https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2026/02/slavery-and-solar-panels-bibliography.html
@ravenonthill @cstross At the Main Street level, and below, it was a bad economy. (Elite consensus to refuse to pay for labour is a real thing, and probably not fixable short of running the guillotines round the clock for a year.)
Saying "Argh, slave labour! unclean!" is correct, but wildly unhelpful. (Narrative of helplessness, supports fossil carbon "solar bad, actually" narratives, etc.)
"We should make these ourselves in ethical ways", perhaps helpful.
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@graydon @cstross Biden was working in that direction. Many of his economic programs were very good. He got no credit for them and the public complained that his good economy was bad.
Meantime, I intend to keep nagging people about slavery in China because it looks very much like we are heading for a global renewables market with slavery at its base. I regret to say that slavery seems to be making a comeback in many forms and many places.
https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2026/01/xinjiang-slavery-and-solar-panels.html
https://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2026/02/slavery-and-solar-panels-bibliography.html
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@ravenonthill @cstross At the Main Street level, and below, it was a bad economy. (Elite consensus to refuse to pay for labour is a real thing, and probably not fixable short of running the guillotines round the clock for a year.)
Saying "Argh, slave labour! unclean!" is correct, but wildly unhelpful. (Narrative of helplessness, supports fossil carbon "solar bad, actually" narratives, etc.)
"We should make these ourselves in ethical ways", perhaps helpful.
@graydon @cstross That's the vulgar Marxist explanation but employment was up, wages were up and had risen most for the people at the lowest wages levels, there was better funded healthcare. Except for shelter costs, it was the best economy in a generation for lower and middle income people. And maybe shelter costs swung public sentiment or maybe people just were reacting to the previous economy; it's still being studied. But it was a very good economy.
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@cstross Just on a practical basis, you can improve the field drainage and water storage with the equipment used to install the panels. Double win.
@BashStKid @cstross
Some farms locally could do with roofs and gutters over parts of their fields, flooding reduced yield, sometimes to zero, and damaged soil. And roads.
Later, drought occurred. Now, leading half the rain off the field doesn't inevitably assuage a later drought, but one might hope to put some in an aquifer.
And half might not be enough - it was _very_ wet.But.
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RE: https://horche.demkontinuum.de/display/2196d4ee-7669-dbc1-1f9e-200464952498
Wow.
In addition to this, apparently farm yields INCREASE if you mix ground-dwelling crops with overhead PV panels, which provide shade/humidity traps for the plants and livestock.
@cstross not just in the desert, also in temperate regions like France:
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@graydon @cstross That's the vulgar Marxist explanation but employment was up, wages were up and had risen most for the people at the lowest wages levels, there was better funded healthcare. Except for shelter costs, it was the best economy in a generation for lower and middle income people. And maybe shelter costs swung public sentiment or maybe people just were reacting to the previous economy; it's still being studied. But it was a very good economy.
@graydon @cstross I think we need to keep talking about slave labor. And, yes, we should absolutely propose alternatives but we need to keep talking about it. The slave system in the United States was not abolished because of economic inefficiency; it was abolished because the slave holders were trying to spread it and because northerners were horrified by the reality of slavery.
https://www.reddit.com/r/HistoryMemes/comments/1fp8m9r/comment/lovmkjc/
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