AoR 132: Are Agrivoltaics a Viable New Frontier in Green Energy? with Anna Clare Monlezun

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>> Welcome to the Art of Range, a podcast focused on rangelands and the people who manage them. I'm your host, Tip Hudson, Range and Lifestock Specialist with Washington State University Extension. The goal of this podcast is education and conservation through conversation. Find us online at artofrange.com.

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Welcome back to the Art of Range. My guest today is Anna Clare Monlezun and the topic is Agrivoltaics. The energy generation associated with rangelands is controversial, I think because it feels like these are permanent land uses and any permanent land use has been identified as a primary threat to range lands, you know, things like [inaudible] development, low water use crop farming, like line grapes which tend to occur on the ages of, you know, what used to be, you know, the main [inaudible] lands, solar farms. You know, these -- these conversions -- we call them conversions because the land is not the same after you do it as it was before. Those conversions top the list of threats because they don't go back. Even abandoned farmlands doesn't go back to the rangelands that were there before, at least not for quite some time because the soils are different. Even though we, you know, we have some made good efforts at soil and plant rehabilitation, but it's still different. And, of course, everyone has seen solar farms where the only thing that's being harvested is sun and solar panels and you've got bare ground and weeds underneath, and that often occurs -- it has been occurring on otherwise irrigated, fertile, productive farmland in some cases, which makes it more controversial, because now we're taking something that could be growing food and in which generating power. And, I think the controversy will still be there when we have, you know, scenic wide open spaces that maybe has some solar panels on them, however, you've been doing some research on solar energy generation systems or arrangements that involve panel spacings and panel sizes that are range so that you have a full or nearly full plant production underneath the solar panels instead of a solar farm on bare ground. And, that does seem like it changes the conversation a bit. We can still have being able to still debate on whether or not that's a good thing to do in, you know, what we sometimes call wild open spaces. However, it does mean that it's not displacing all of the other productive uses of the land, and I think that that does make a difference. So, how did you come to be doing research on solar power on Egglands?

>> That was an incredible intro and lots of food for a conversation there, for thought and conversation. So, I came into this little niche of working in agrivoltaics straight out of my -- my graduate program at CSU. I have -- I spent my -- my master's and PhD work studying in grazing systems, specifically collaborative settings. So, my research was all on public lands and the cooperations between public lands agencies and private ranchers, and that work brought me in touch with -- with someone who was working in -- in a pretty large scale development of sheep grazing on utility scale solar and developing a program for our very large solar company called Silicon Ranch. Silicon Ranch is VPI on a U.S. Department of Energy funded grant through --

>> Principal investigator, not private investigator.

>> Right. Principal investigator.

>> Yeah.

>> And so -- which is unique because usually Federal grants don't go to.

>> Right.

>> For -- for profit, you know, companies, but this was unique because they had pulled together the right partners. They had pulled together scientists at CSU, at Colorado State, as well as a partner, which is White Oak Pastures and [inaudible] Georgia, a very large regenerative ranch. It's also a safe rehab down in Georgia. So, Silicon Ranch [inaudible] the team -- one of the other big team members, I should mention, is an Eddy Covariance flux company called Quanterra out of the UK. And, they were awarded a very large grant from the USDOE and were needing someone with -- who could be a research lead, because a big company like that isn't a research institution, so they -- so as the PI, they -- they kind of needed someone to partner with them to run the project basically, and I got the position. And, I wasn't -- I was right [inaudible] the machine, finishing up my PhD and I was working -- my -- my work in rangeland science and management and ranching is as independent researcher, an independent consultant, a facilitator, I kind of wear different hats, and work as an independent contractor in different projects. And so, this was one of the first contracts that I got right out of school and it introduced me to an entire new world that I never thought I would be part of, but that I'm very now, very much so invested in because I see the need for someone, more than one, but people to be translators of ecology and, you know, working with nature and then working with energy. And, there aren't many people who are bridging those worlds and energy is in our world now, in our, I mean, rangelands people, and we have to face it --

>> Right.

>> -- and we have to work together.

>> Right. You can ignore it, but it's still there.

>> Right.

>> Yeah. For people that have not seen that before, describe what it looks like to have solar panels on pastures. I mean, you could envision that, but there's a wide variety of setups that are out there and I'm just curious --

>> Right.

>> -- what the ones that you're working on look like.

>> Sure. So, traditional -- so solar is -- is constantly evolving, the technology, the design, the models is always evolving, so it is current -- the current kind of standard model, the panels are somewhere around, you know, maybe from 3 to 5 feet off the ground, because they are now -- the most efficient system is a tracking system. So, tracking meaning the panels are fixed, like some older rays are. The tracking systems actually are computerized to track the sun and then to behave in a certain way if it's cloudy to optimize -- all that optimization capturing protons. Okay. So, tracking systems in this kind of standard high and standard design, just as they are, are actually pretty conducive to sheep grazing. And, sheep are short, short enough, to fit under there. They're not so, you know, curious like maybe goats might be a little more --

>> Climb on them.

>> -- curious about the cabling and --

>> Right.

>> -- you know, aspects of the structures, but sheep tend to be less mischievous. And so, there has been this compatibility now for a handful of years of sheep grazing on solar, and what that looks like is that the solar plants, the energy plant, is managed like a pasture. If sheep weren't grazing it, what -- what would they be doing? They would be hiring a landscape company to come and mow the grass, because -- and they call this vegetation management, because vegetation on a solar plant is a nuisance. It's something that's in the way. It causes shade if it's not cut. If it, you know --

>> Fire risk [multiple speaker].

>> It's a fire risk. So, it's something that the solar industry certainly thinks of as a nuisance.

>> Right.

>> It's an expense. They have never really considered it a part of a living ecosystem, right. And, now with the conservative agrivoltaics, which doesn't really come about until about 2011, and there are no published studies on agrivoltaics until 2011, so it's a very new body of research. It's a very new body of science and of exploration, which is kind of exciting for -- for us working in it, because we're chartering new territory. We don't have a precedent for what we're studying.

>> Right. So proud that everything was nearly continuous solar raised, you know, like a rooftop --

>> Yes.

>> -- where we just cover everything in solar panels.

>> You would cover everything except -- naturally, you don't want in the beginning or end of the day when the sun is low, you don't want one row of panels shading the one next to it.

>> Right.

>> So, naturally, they're built [multiple speaker].

>> They're [inaudible], basically.

>> So, there is some space. It's not really like a carport. But the whole system was not really thought as something that could be kind of a holistic, you know, kind of animal, you know, plant, --

>> Oh, yeah.

>> -- soil system. That just wasn't a concept. And so, you know, vegetations in these sense, were going to mow it down, it's very expensive to do that, and that's a cost that's built in, and there are -- are return on investment calculations, as well as they're, you know, they're designing. You've got to fit mowers through also. And, little by little, this -- this concept has started to shift and -- and all of a sudden where we could have seen what one of my colleagues calls the scrape and spray model, which is basically we're going to grade the soil, install solar, put down gravel --

>> Right.

>> -- or something and just spray herbicide.

>> Scrape the plants off and --

>> Yes.

>> -- kill everything.

>> Kill everything.

>> Yeah.

>> And, then -- but we're producing energy and we're selling energy and we're making --

>> Yeah.

>> -- money still so, you know, that's an option. It's not a good option whatsoever. So -- so now, things are shifting and we're realizing that that doesn't have to be the way this goes. That doesn't have to be the story of clean energy. And, one of the experiences that I had that was really inspiring for me when I first started working on this project, I was less than a year in working on this research and I was traveling with my family through Utah to see the national parks in Utah. And, I passed -- we were driving past -- I was in the passenger seat, and we started passing a very large utility scale solar plant and it was in this, you know, classic Utah kind of rangeland. And, the whole thing was just bare, degraded, plantless, lifeless soils and I started crying. What -- it was like mile after mile. It just kept going.

>> Really?

>> And, I just -- my husband was like what is wrong and I -- I just couldn't because I had this existential moment where I thought what am I doing working in this industry, this is totally against my values, this is totally against what kind of impact I want to make, I don't want to be a part of that, but then I also at the same time realized the opportunity that they need land people, they need ecologists, they need agrarians, they need people who understand nature's processes and ecological function, because that, what I saw in Utah, cannot continue to happen, like we -- we can't allow that --

>> Right.

>> -- to continue to be --

>> And, people nearly universally have that reaction, so now you've got local jurisdictions that are making ordinances that are based on that --

>> Yes.

>> -- style of soil.

>> Yes. So -- so the idea is it started to come about with sheep, and now this has also expanded into potential for cropping systems, you know, growing vegetables, growing herbs, growing flowers, pollinator habitat. The National -- National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, is one of the biggest hubs for information and research about the national kind of state of the industry on agrivoltaics and they have some great information on [inaudible], on what it's looking like kind of nationwide.

>> Yeah, I think I have -- I have had mixed feelings about it, probably like everybody does who's in our, you know, line of work. You know, on the one hand, it seems like free energy to harvest sunlight, which is why -- that's one of the things that we like about plants, is that they do a good job of capturing sunlight and then we can harvest it using an animal, it does the work instead of a machine. You know, it's a little bit like harvesting wind where it seems like there's nothing really lost, you're not consuming something. I saw a distinction not long ago between a contrivance and a machine. A contrivance is a device that still leaves us dependent on nature, like it's harvesting the power of nature in the same way -- a good example -- I think the example given, and I can't remember where I saw it now, it was a sailing ship which is still, you know, a complex human built thing that harvest the power of the wind --

>> Oh.

>> -- to do something is still dependent on nature, whereas a steamship is big enough, it's got fuel, it's just nearly independent from nature, it's big enough that it's almost not subject to whatever the ocean's doing, unless it just goes really crazy, and then it runs on coal or whatever. It has nothing to do with the ocean. And --

>> Interesting.

>> Yeah. It was a distinction between machines that sort of remove nature and humans from the equation and -- and contrivances that -- that still have a connection to nature. I don't know if I have anymore thoughts on that, but of course, you know, there are other costs, just like with electric cars. The electricity isn't free and electric cars take a lot of metals that generally get sublimed somewhere besides my backyard, and as long as it's not in my backyard, you know, then I can be happy with my electric car, you know.

>> Right.

>> It begs the question, is that an improvement over fossil fuels. I think that's still an open question that we're likely going to wrestle with for some time, both economically and ecologically. But, you know, solar panels take materials --

>> Right.

>> -- and they have to be replaced on some kind of a schedule, but it does all of us some independence from the electrical grid and maintaining the electrical grid is not without cost. That's an astronomical cost, you know, to keep towers and wires and everything functioning to move power all around the country. You know, that list of pros and cons could -- could go on and on and on. So, I'm curious how people feel about it and most people that are feeling about it probably aren't thinking about, you know, some of those, you know, wider considerations, so I'm just curious, what's been the reaction to this research, because people tend to have strong feelings about energy generation.

>> Yes. Yes. I'll -- I'll start with summarizing the research just a little bit that we're doing with this DOE funded project. So, we have two main objectives to our particular research study. One objective is to study the ecosystem services, specifically related to water and carbon cycling on a solar plant, and comparing different land use or land management treatments. So, mode, which is kind of the business as usual [inaudible], better than scrap and spray, but it's still -- it's not really doing anything.

>> Right. You're leaving material there, you're just --

>> Right.

>> -- compressing the fuel a bit, so to speak.

>> Right. And -- and then we have a grazed treatment and then we have a control, which is just an open pasture without any solar on it, all relative in the same regions, same soils, things like that.

>> [Multiple speaker] this is in Georgia?

>> In Georgia.

>> Yeah.

>> At wire pastures and at Silicon Ranch Solar Plant. That's down there -- that [inaudible] pasture that grazes their sheep on. So -- and we can get into that maybe a little later, what are those kind of synergistic benefits between agriculture and energy that -- that we're seeing out -- we can get into that a little bit later. But we have that kind of ecosystem services characterization and we're doing those field sampling, very rigorous field soil sampling, vegetation sampling, kind of species composition, as well as we have Eddy Covariance [inaudible] towers installed to look at the CO2 exchange under these different scenarios. That is all eventually going into a deliverable, which is a carbon methodology, basically looking at potential insetting and offsetting opportunities for the solar industry to incentivize good land management, right, good ecological, healthy ecological processes on solar plans. And so, that is one objective of the project with that deliverable attached. And, then the other objective is to explore, study, come up with a cow compatible -- cow compatible. Now this is -- this is the new frontier, because it changes everything.

>> Right.

>> They're tall, they're heavy.

>> A panel that's 3 feet off the ground --

>> Yeah.

>> -- isn't going to work probably.

>> It's a scratching post.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. So -- so cow compatible solar system, and that includes everything from the module design to the grazing management, water, you know, infrastructure needs that the cow might have, as well as comprehensive suite of animal behavior health and welfare indicators. So, comparing cattle on the system compared to a control, again, cattle in an open pasture, for example. Those are the two big buckets and it's a lot. And so, now I'm forgetting the question that you asked me to speak about, but I needed to --

>> So --

>> -- to describe the objectives --

>> Oh, yeah. No --

>> -- or what the people's opinions --

>> What -- what are people's perceptions about it?

>> Yes, people's perceptions. So, it's interesting. We haven't surveyed yet stakeholder perceptions, but that is another piece of our research, and actually, we just finished getting a survey approved by the DOE and our advisors to -- so we will have that upcoming, but there has been some social research and we just get hammered on LinkedIn and social media with questions and people asking and wanting to talk and wanting -- hey, can we chat, can we set up a, you know, it is a very hot topic. And -- so I kind have both perspectives, right, [inaudible] social science research that's come out of the industry and then just being in it and people asking questions and voicing concerns, right. So, from the research side of things, there's a lot of -- a lot of disagreement about just solar in general. It doesn't even really have to do with the grazing or the animals being there. It's just the view shed. It's the materials, like you said. And, there -- there is -- there are solutions to developing for that. There is a huge push to -- there are current -- there's currently more than one now solar cycling -- solar cycling companies out there so you can recycle up to 95 percent of the materials from solar panels. Just FYI, that's an aside.

>> Yeah.

>> But that is out there and it's being utilized more and more. But that is a big concern. What about expired materials and it's a big, you know, waste. What about the batteries, right, that you're using, battery storage. And, people though in the research have shown -- so, for example, more respondents of surveys are open to solar being in their community if agrivoltaics are an agriculture --

>> Right. [Multiple speaker] as integrated.

>> Yes, as integrated. That's pretty common. From the industry side, there is a lot of pushback from the financial modeling of it all, because there are tradeoffs. There are tradeoffs in the spacing, the amount of materials to make the panels higher off the ground. There are concerns, safety concerns for the animal, there's liability issues. And then, just getting permits through for siding, and then that's a whole other thing is the siding. So, how do you -- we don't want to take prime farmland, or I would also say rangeland, native rangeland, out of its stat current, you know, use or status and then put solar on those places. So, how do you justify and can rectify the -- the paradoxes in [inaudible] and understanding which lands are best suited for solar. There is some really positive anecdotes. There are some other anecdotes coming out of using brown field, kind of like lands that needs, that doesn't really have any other use.

>> Yeah.

>> And, there is also some -- some anecdotes coming out of the idea that solar, especially in maybe water limited systems like the west, because of the kind of canopy of the -- of the panels. We've learned there's reduced of [inaudible] inspiration in retained soil moisture, as well, kind of goes hand in hand. And so, is it possible that we can use solar as a restoration approach as well. And -- so there's so, I mean, there's --

>> Some seeing pivot corners --

>> -- all over the American west.

>> Yeah.

>> And, it's nothing but junk vegetation often times.

>> Yes. Yes. So, marginal -- yeah, marginal lands [multiple speaker].

>> And, there's a lot of acres of it.

>> Yes, exactly. And -- and, in all of that, everyone has an opinion, right. There --

>> Right.

>> -- and -- and it's a completely mixed -- mixed bag, but I think that as soon as you start speaking about agrivoltaics in terms of the fact that you are able to capture the energy twice, in other words, you're capturing the sun's energy by the [inaudible] and capturing it a second time through the forage, plus producing a food product or a crop off of that same piece of land, that's -- that's a pretty kind of optimized way of using land.

>> Yeah. A little bit like --

>> Again --

>> -- Silvopasture.

>> Yes.

>> As long as the trees are spaced out, you're not losing really any [multiple speaker] pasture production, right, [multiple speaker], but you're getting some tree production.

>> Exactly, and that's where some of other research is showing, some of the studies that are a little further along than ours. Yes.

>> I'm wondering about shade for cattle too, like in the south. I think I asked Jim Garrish [assumed spelling] about this in the conversation, because it came up in Washington state and I want to say I heard him or read something he written about it, saying that if you have only a little bit of shade, like the lone oak tree in the middle of a giant pasture, you know, where I grew up in Arkansas and Missouri, that was really common, you know, when they took the trees out to make the pasture, they left a few of them.

>> Right.

>> Well then, all of the cows are [inaudible] underneath the one tree --

>> Right.

>> -- and the temperature is higher than if they had spread out in full sunlight --

>> Right.

>> -- because they're all laying [multiple speaker] on top of each other trying to get in the shade.

>> Yes.

>> So, his point was either provide the water shade or don't provide any shade at all, because a little bit of shade is more harmful in terms of, you know, raising the ambient temperature around the animals because they all bunch up.

>> Yes, I would agree. There's reduced airflow in that case --

>> Yeah.

>> -- and things like that. So, one thing that we have learned from other research studies, so the University of Minnesota has done the most research with cattle, but it's on dairy systems. They -- and it's not utility scale solar, but very small scale. But they have tracked some animal indicators and all science indicators and what we have learned from their research is that the animals, the dairy cattle, show improved milk production when they have access to solar panels, which has nothing to do with the solar panels. It's the shade.

>> Shade, yeah.

>> So --

>> Right.

>> -- improved milk production, improved [inaudible] regulation, reduced heat stress, less time spent looking for water, less consumption of water. We've seen from other studies using sheep improved average daily gain. And, there -- these are -- this is just a summary of what I can draw off the top of my head that --

>> Yeah.

>> -- this is what we've learned from a couple of peer review sheep studies and a couple of peer review cattle, dairy cattle studies. It's -- it's a good start, you know, just to understand and it really has to do with the access to shade. It's not -- it's not that they don't have access to other things. We're also seeing other studies in pasture systems or kind of grasslandish [phonetic] systems that there are niches that form, plant community niches. So, if -- you can imagine --

>> Where the microenvironment is -- is slightly different.

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> Right.

>> So, if you think of the row and rows of solar panels, it's on a grid, it's a very predictable pattern, and this is one thing that we're studying in depth in our research, is that there is the creation of these rows and rows of panels of four distinct microclimate zones. So, if you can think -- if you think about these tracking systems, there is the zone under -- directly under the panel or under the torque too that the panels are fixed to, then there is the between zone, which is the zone that gets the most direct sunlight between the rows, and then there are the two drip edges. So, when the panels track east and west, they -- there is the eastern drip edge -- and we say drip edge, because it affects the hydrological pattern of the land --

>> Right.

>> -- so the eastern drip edge whenever the panels are facing east, and in the western drip edge, all the panels are facing west. And so, depending on where you are geographically, that might mean certain aspects of the land or certain patches of land, but in this grid pattern, not -- not --

>> Randomly distributed.

>> -- random, right.

>> Yeah.

>> Certain patches are getting water if you tend to get afternoon showers or if you tend to get, you know cool mornings, you're getting, you know, dew and kind of drip off, runoff from the panels, so it just depends on where you are, but there's this -- there is definitely a distinct, poor distinct microclimate zones we are seeing in our -- in our preliminary data. It's already been studied in some other -- some other projects. And, that creates some very interesting diversity and what we would call biodiversity, and we're looking at the plant species composition actually under these various zones and we're looking at how the animals use the zones, use the area.

>> Differently.

>> Differently.

>> Huh, that's fascinating.

>> So, it life is very predictable grid pattern that is creating heterogeneity that we've never quite had before in grassland ecosystems. You know, we talk about, you know the biograders to be in the heterogeneity across grasslands and greenlands that we can somewhat predict things based on slope and soil and --

>> Right.

>> -- geopattern in such that this is a very predict -- it's a very calculated --

>> Yeah.

>> -- you know, pattern, but yet we don't know what it does really.

>> Right.

>> We've never had this. It's -- Keith Paustian from Colorado State University is on our team. He's our Senior Soil Scientist, and he, you know, calls it a novel ecosystem. We're getting the chance to study a novel ecosystem. And, when I have the opportunity to talk to the solar industry folks about agrivoltaics and about grazing agrivoltaics specifically, that is absolutely the mantra, is that this an ecosystem and it can no -- we can no longer accept the older model of it just being to optimize solar energy productions of the land. You are now a land steward. You have to think of your work that way. You have to think of your designs that way. There are -- there's a whole microbiome, there's an -- it's all [inaudible] levels. In the solar array in Georgia, it's a thousand, almost a thousand acres down there, and when I've been down there doing research, we saw pheasants in the array. You know, there -- there is -- there's been -- have been deer, you know, get into the array to feed. There are carnivorous, you know, birds that are flying around and kind of looking around for rabbits or whatever is -- well when they -- they try to run poultry under the array and that was very unsuccessful because of the pronation, but --

>> Everything goes through there.

>> Everything -- right.

>> Yeah.

>> Exactly. But --

>> I'm trying to paint a word picture or -- so, I'm wondering what -- in that kind of solar array, what percent -- say they're sitting flat, what percent of the -- the Earth surface would be covered by a panel? 50 percent? Less than that?

>> So, the solar industry has a very sophisticated way of calculating this at the click of a button, and there's a term for it, and again, the energy side of this whole picture is new for me. It's --

>> Right.

>> -- it's my -- pushing my envelope of knowledge, but there is an acronym that they use to depict what is the amount of land that does not capture photons, basically, --

>> Oh, yeah.

>> -- because that's important for them.

>> Right.

>> It's an important calculation versus what percent of the land does capture photons.

>> Right.

>> And, that depends on the design. And so --

>> Yeah.

>> -- they're always trying to optimize that and it -- it varies. There's no one kind of recipe, because it depends on the slope of the land, if it angelates or if it's flat, how tall the panels are, but you can bet that in the absence of kind of agricultural concerns, they are going to optimize the cover --

>> Right.

>> -- of that land. But like I said, even still they -- they have to factor in one row of panel shading the next and they can't have that.

>> Yeah.

>> Or they want to minimize that. So, there is -- yeah, undoubtedly space. And then, again, for the landscape management in more of a traditional system and not agriculture system. They had to put mowers between. There's a word. Sorry. I can't remember the --

>> Yeah.

>> -- the term for it.

>> No, I'm just thinking --

>> But it's a -- yeah. They --

>> How far apart do they have to be before you're not losing grass production, for lack of a better way of --

>> So --

>> It's like if you were walking between rows of panels --

>> Yeah.

>> -- you know, can you touch panels if you spread your arms out?

>> No.

>> Or are they further apart than that?

>> They're further apart than that.

>> Okay.

>> Yeah, exactly.

>> Got it.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah, every -- every design is different and, you know, but in general, yes, you can walk down the panels, stretch your arms out, and you're not touching, even if they're at horizontal. It's further apart than that.

>> I'm wondering -- one of the things that I would suspect is that there's different perceptions or opinions about it in the east and the south than the west.

>> Oh.

>> Because we tend to have more, you know, wider, more open spaces, more is visible like -- like up in Arkansas, you've got oak and hickory woodland everywhere. You know, you could have an opening in the middle of your property that's full of solar panels and nobody would ever know, you know.

>> Right.

>> But out in much of the west, everybody's going to know.

>> Yeah.

>> You just don't hide things like that. And so --

>> Yeah, it's really [multiple speaker] --

>> -- if feels like there would be different -- a different feeling about it, I guess.

>> So, my experience with that is [inaudible] this past January, our research team presents it there, and we -- it was the first time to my knowledge that agrivoltaics has ever been really presented at SRM or discussed. And, we got some really great feedback from folks, a lot of interest, and we had folks in the audience who had farmed their sheep under a new [inaudible] solar array so. We also had folks working for the BLM or National Forest Service -- the Forest Service, seeing their future. Actually, the BLM now approved solar as -- as something that they can as a land use. And so, they see it coming down the pipeline and are very curious about what do we do now, you know, how do we do this. And, so there is that concern. There's also the concern that yes, it's in your face and it's not really pretty. I'm sorry, but unless you're a solar engineer like one of my colleagues on this project who thinks it's the most incredible things that's widespread --

>> Right.

>> -- and I love his passion, you know. That's his purpose on Earth, right.

>> Yeah.

>> But it -- to me, it's just not pretty. It's not pretty.

>> Yeah.

>> But it's so -- it's not like, you know, fossil fuels, it's something that is -- it's not in your face. It's usually somewhere else. It's tucked away, you can't see it from the highway all the time, you -- it really a lot of [inaudible] think that kind of [inaudible] of any sort. And so -- but solar takes up lots of acreage and -- and that's a problem. That's a problem. And, actually, earlier this year, the -- the magazine Acres USA had an opinion piece by -- written by Joel Salatin who was a very --

>> Well known [multiple speaker] --

>> -- well known [inaudible].

>> Yeah.

>> You know.

>> Mostly loved.

>> He is and he's done just incredible work in the movement of, you know, multispecies and sustainable agriculture, the home -- kind of the homesteading --

>> Yeah.

>> -- subculture, and he's just incredible and has made a huge impact on the way we see farming, but [multiple speaker] --

>> And, he came out for or against?

>> Very against.

>> Yeah.

>> And so, I happen to have met someone through Acres USA at a workshop and explained what I was working on and I got connected with the editor and the editor said -- after meeting with the editor, would you be willing to write a response piece to Joel Salatin. And, I thought, oh my -- I told him, I said, I'm not going to throw myself under the bus like that because --

>> Right.

>> -- that's going -- that's going to be hard thing for me to do. I really respect him. But then, he said, well let me just send it, send you this piece, just read it, if you feel like writing, let me know. And, I read it and I couldn't sleep all night. I sat up and wrote the article on it. I just --

>> Yeah.

>> -- haven't -- I -- I couldn't let --

>> Couldn't [inaudible].

>> -- I couldn't ignore it --

>> Right.

>> -- and I couldn't let that be the loudest voice.

>> Right.

>> Not that he's wrong or invalid. It's one voice.

>> Right.

>> And, it's not comprehensive of what really the evolution of the industry that I'm familiar with. So, I did. I wrote -- I wrote a response piece and I can send it to you when we're done --

>> Yeah, I'd like to see that.

>> -- so you can see. And then, after the two pieces, the editor was inspired by the two pieces of ours and wrote a third piece, so he kind of synthesizes it and --

>> Well, it's good for the magazine if this interests people and you get this back and forth.

>> Yes.

>> Diversity of opinions.

>> Yes. And so, for example, you were kind of talking about differences between east and west, U.S. perspective, I mean, I -- he -- his voice was just as loud as, you know, from the east U.S. as anyone and, you know, conservation and sending one out in the -- in the west rangelands.

>> Right.

>> Yeah. I still coming from a rangeland background and passion for rangelands, I usually start any slide with a background on rangelands -- rangeland science, just the how and the issue of conversion and how our rangelands are so threatened by conversion and why we need to avoid conversion, and that's the way I start. That's how I came into this. And, I definitely still believe -- I will always believe that we need to do anything possible to avoid installing solar on native rangelands. We just can't give it up. We can't give that up so easily. We have to do it somewhere else and there are lots of other -- other options, but I think native ground for sure we cannot be doing it.

>> That's really interesting, because I think it's usually financial pressures that result in rangeland getting converted, and so --

>> Right.

>> -- ironically, allowing some type of use that provides the revenue stream rangeland otherwise wouldn't have anything because, you know, if you've got rangeland that makes 500 grazable pounds to the acre, that's not a lot of revenue.

>> Right.

>> If that's the only revenue stream.

>> Yes.

>> And --

>> And, so here we are.

>> -- having a way to make some money might prevent the conversion.

>> Yes.

>> Huh.

>> And, that is, you know, now we can get into what are these synergistic --

>> Right.

>> -- profits, right, when and how does this work sometimes, not all times. It has to be the right fit, just like any partnership. So --

>> You could find the rehabilitation.

>> Right. So, that's [multiple speaker] --

>> [Inaudible] that are degrading.

>> Exactly. So, that's why --

>> And degraded places might be the place to put them.

>> Exact -- yes, right. So, that -- that is the research it's lacking.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. So, that's research. So, if anyone's listening to this and they're looking for, you know, a project in this space, that is very needed research, especially in the west. So, there is much more -- much more research in agrivoltaics from the Great Plains east. It's very concentrated. There's -- there's much less out west and then the kinds of climate that we have that we're dealing with, but based on other research in other parts of the world or the United States, it looks like theoretically that in [inaudible] systems, the presence of that -- that canopy, that solar canopy on very, you know, dry soils that are very vulnerable to evapotranspiration, that it could provide [multiple speaker].

>> You could have a disproportionately higher or greater affect than --

>> Yes.

>> -- a place with [inaudible] to bridge that.

>> Yes. Yes.

>> Yeah.

>> That's to be --

>> Huh.

>> -- to be kind of studied or practiced and see what happens --

>> Yeah.

>> -- piloted. Definitely.

>> The new frontier.

>> And -- yes, [inaudible].

>> In the west, again.

>> Yes, exactly. But what we are seeing in other partnerships between agriculture and energy is that like you're -- you're mentioning, it is providing opportunity for landowners, farmers, and ranchers to kind of set aside a percentage of their land, lease it to a solar company, produce energy, get a very stable and very regular paycheck from that when, as we all know, agriculture is not a staple and regular paycheck. And, it -- it has -- there are examples of the partnership between solar energy and agricultures, especially for private landowners, to save the farm, in other words, provide that -- that boost or that bolster. And, that is definitely one. Another one that is emerging, another dual benefit in a way, is that it's allowing lands agrarians or grazers who do not own land or who are wanting to expand their operation, and this includes many first generation and younger -- younger ranchers to enter -- to have access to land, basically, similar to how it works on, you now, public lands leases, except, this is the catch, is that in the solar industry, the solar industry is paying you to graze and -- and paying you a pretty penny, because what they were paying the -- the mowers, the landscape companies --

>> Right.

>> -- was quite a bit.

>> Right.

>> And --

>> And, it's less effective.

>> And [inaudible]. So -- so there are, you know, that is another model that's coming up that we're seeing --

>> Wow.

>> -- new grazers, first generation, people entering agriculture without land ownership, having access to lease other land for grazing and expand operation that way. There are many examples of that. So, that's -- that's something else. There was -- so, there's an organization called The American Solar Grazing Association. It is a non-profit and they are quickly becoming -- they have an incredible Board of Directors and quickly becoming the hub in the United States for education, resources, from -- from webinars to, you know, reports and best practices. They recently conducted a census of the landscape of agrivoltaics, especially grazing agrivoltaics, what is going on in the country and trying to gather information about that --

>> Yeah.

>> -- and that -- that census will be released -- it's -- by the end of the year publicly. Very interesting. So, the --

>> Yeah.

>> -- The American Solar Grazing Association is an excellent resource for anyone looking to inquire and learn about how it all works.

>> Yeah. We'll put that link in the show notes when this comes out. Huh. Yeah, I like -- it seems, like everything else in the world of ecology, it's not rocket science. It's quite a bit more complicated than that.

>> Yes.

>> And, it always involves economics and ecology and sociology.

>> Definitely.

>> But I'm much more encouraged about this than I was when I woke up this morning. It's just a great way to end the day.

>> Great.

>> So, thank you again for being willing to talk about [music] and for doing work on it and for, again, being a -- a voice on it, where there's always risk if you stick your neck out and say anything about anything. So, again, thank you. This was great.

>> Thank you, Tip.

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>> Thank you for listening to the Art of Range podcast. You can subscribe to and review the show through iTunes or your favorite podcasting app so you never miss an episode. Just search for Art of Range. If you have questions or comments for us to address in a future episode, send an email to show@artofrange.com. For articles and links to resources mentioned in the podcast, please see the show notes at artofrange.com. Listener feedback is important to the success of our mission, empowering rangeland managers. Please take a moment to fill out a brief survey at artofrange.com. This podcast is produced by Conners Communications in the College of Agricultural, Human and Natural Resource Sciences at Washington State University. The project is supported by the University of Arizona and funded by the Western Center for Risk Management Education through the USDA National Institute of Food and Agriculture.

>> The views, thoughts and opinions expressed by guests of this podcast are their own and does not imply Washington State University's endorsement.

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