Land Use – The Saltbush Club

Grand Land Grab: Wind & Solar ‘Transition’ Needs 70% of Australia’s Prime Farmland

Australia’s prime agricultural land is being carpeted with endless seas of solar panels and thousands of these things are being speared everywhere the panels can’t go.

Dilute and diffuse, wind and solar require a staggering amount of space, and way more than their occasional, weather (and/or sunshine) dependent power generation can ever hope to justify.

Taking up vast tracts of farmland with solar panels means that that land produces nothing else. While the solar panels are lucky to produce power for 5-6 hours every day (ie 20-25% of the time).

Spearing hundreds of 300 tonne, 280m high turbines into productive farmland brings its own range of special ‘challenges’ for primary producers.

Continue reading: https://stopthesethings.com/2024/03/16/grand-land-grab-wind-solar-transition-needs-70-of-australias-prime-farmland/

Possum on the Barbie?

by Viv Forbes, Australia.

Greens want to replace ancient grasslands and modern croplands with trees. They worship eucalypt weeds while chipping away at the growing space for priceless plants like Mitchell grass, saltbush, mulga, buffel grass, lucerne, wheat, barley, oats and macadamia.

To meet futile Kyoto and Paris climate targets, we are nibbling away grasslands, pastures, orchards and paddocks which feed cattle, sheep, people and kangaroos. In return we get green-sponsored carbon forests, scrub and woody weeds which harbour wild dogs, wild pigs, wild cats, possums, wait-a-while, rubber vine and lantana.

In this bilious-green world, when steak is a rationed treat, shall we chuck another possum on the barbie?

barbie cartoon

The Environmental Cost of “Renewable Energy”

Monumental, Unsustainable Environmental Impacts of Green Energy

Replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy would inflict major land, wildlife, resource damage

By Paul Driessen

Extract from: https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/05/monumental-unsustainable-environmental-impacts/

Solar panels on Nevada’s Nellis Air Force Base generate 15 megawatts of electricity perhaps 30% of the year from 140 acres. Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear power plant generates 900 times more electricity, from less land, some 95% of the year. Generating Palo Verde’s output via Nellis technology would require land area ten times larger than Washington, DC – and would still provide electricity unpredictably only 30% of the time. Now run those solar numbers for the 3.5 billion megawatt-hours generated nationwide in 2016.

Modern coal or gas-fired power plants use less than 300 acres to generate 600 megawatts 95% of the time. Indiana’s 600-MW Fowler Ridge wind farm covers 50,000 acres and generates electricity about 30% of the year. Calculate the turbine and acreage requirements for 3.5 billion MWH of wind electricity.

Delving more deeply, generating 20% of US electricity with wind power would require up to 185,000 1.5-MW turbines, 19,000 miles of new transmission lines, 18 million acres, and 245 million tons of concrete, steel, copper, fiberglass and rare earths – plus fossil-fuel back-up generators for the 75-80% of the year that winds nationwide are barely blowing and the turbines are not producing electricity.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/07/05/monumental-unsustainable-environmental-impacts/

Meat or Lettuce? – the Diet Dictators

Progressives Say No to Meat, But the World Thinks Otherwise

By Steve Goreham

Originally published in WorldNetDaily.

Once again, meat consumption is under attack by progressive leaders. Politicians and the United Nations call on all of us to eat more plant-based foods and less meat and dairy products in the name of saving the planet. But it’s clear that most people across the world disagree.

US Senator Cory Booker recently shared his “journey” to a vegetarian diet. Booker warns, “The tragic reality is this planet simply can’t sustain billions of people consuming industrially produced animal agriculture because of environmental impact.”
Continue reading “Meat or Lettuce? – the Diet Dictators”