Every once in a while, a small invention comes along that no one ever heard about but which can change everything. We just might be looking at that kind of change from a company called Silicon Ranch, which is located in Tennessee.
An article in the Nashville Tennessean (also available on Apple News) profiled an experimental project which is the first in the world to bring together solar arrays with cattle grazing at commercial scale. For many years, people have been creating dual use solar installations in which sheep graze among the panels or where gardening and growing is done between the arrays. Cattle, however, present a bigger challenge to coexistence—they are large, lumbering animals that often bump into things. Commercial solar installation usually involves tracking technology to turn the panels toward the sun to get maximum production. The problem is that the more the panels turn, the more susceptible they are to breakage from a bumping cow. Silicon Ranch’s innovation senses if animals are near and if they are, it prevents the tracker from turning the panel, thereby protecting it. They are now testing it on this installation of forty acres in Tennessee.
There’s a lot of interesting technology behind this, I am sure, but what interests me is how a successful pilot project could change so much around solar energy. What we are talking about here is dual use of the land. No longer do farmers and ranchers need to choose between solar or ranching—they can easily do both. Just this change alone creates an opportunity to get much more value out of the land for the rancher who owns his land.
From a climate response perspective, this new reality opens huge swaths of grazing lands to potential solar development with minimal impact on beef production. (While many climate activists blame beef for the lion’s share of greenhouse gas emissions, I have debunked that story here.) This means that we no longer need to consider it a major tradeoff between food and energy—we can have both. Of course, the interconnection to the grid still remains a challenge, but this co-existence removes the competition with food production.
Politically speaking, it brings a smile to my face. Why? Because it is almost the perfect foil for a Trump administration fixated on fossil fuels and the destruction of renewable energy. Trump and other anti-renewable people have brought up the red herrings that this technology gets around—”we don’t have enough land,” “we can’t cut into food production,” and so on. They are red herrings to begin with, but now there is an even better answer be dual use eliminates the conflict.
Even more, we are moving into an era where solar energy solves the farmer’s business problem. When land can create two streams of income rather than one, and especially when the new one is larger than the old one, farmers will engage the solar path or become uncompetitive. Hence farmers and ranchers, many of whom are Trump supporters, have to turn away from his policies against renewables and for tariffs, in order to make their operations successful. I don’t have confidence that they will turn on Trump—after all, his voters tend to identify with him rather than support him—but I have to admit that I get a small kick out of the cognitive dissonance required to do this.
Regardless of Trump and my amusement, we’ve turned a corner to where the market is changing and there is very little the government can do to stop it. Solar electricity is 90% less expensive than coal to produce, and about 60% less than natural gas. Battery development has come a long way to provide storage every bit as reliable as turning the gas up or down, which makes battery installations a great asset in the management of peak demand. The green energy future may or may not come fast enough, but it is coming.
There will be more innovations like this as people see opportunities and figure out how to remove obstacles. Silicon Ranch is one among many that are solving these challenges. I find it heartening to see a story like this, and to know that people are working on solutions whether government supports them or not.
Anthony Signorelli
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