Alternative energy down on the farm: A still-untapped resource
Filed under: Energy, Technology, Green
As the federal government hands out billions of dollars to subsidize, push, prod and canoodle companies into jump-starting a green revolution in the U.S., one segment of the economy has been more or less left out. That would be farmers. The U.S. Department of Agriculture has gotten only a few tens of millions of dollars to underwrite grants and programs to promote rural alternative energy projects.Still, acccording to the AP, the ranks of farmers who are producing their own power is increasing. But what's even more striking is how few now do so, considering the nature of their business and their access to precious energy commodities such as large acreage needed for solar panels and steady winds needed for wind-power generation. According to U.S. government figures collected in 2007, just over 1 percent of the 2 million U.S. farms are producing their own electricity, reported Cleantech.
More discouraging still, renewable energy production on farms increased by only 5% between 2007 and 2008. This meager rise came despite the vulnerability of low-margin farming operations to dramatically higher power prices and, more broadly, to indirect oil costs in fertilizer and tractor fuel, among other areas.
In all likelihood, the slow growth of greentech on farms is related to the paucity of subsidies to offset initial installation costs. In 2008, the Department of Agriculture handed out a paltry $35 million in grants and guaranteed loans to farmers. That will rise to $80 million in 2009 and $85 million in 2010. Those increases are clearly welcome but hardly sufficient, compared to the billions and billions pouring into the U.S. auto industry and electric vehicle makers that remain highly speculative plays.
Self-Sufficiency Is Good
The lack of funding for greentech in rural America at a time when money is raining out of the sky for so many other industries is difficult to understand for several reasons. Farmers are natural alternative energy advocates. They generally favor self-sufficiency to the greatest degree possible. They hate relying on utilities, oil, gas or anything that pulls money out of their pockets. If they didn't, they wouldn't have chosen to be farmers.
Farmers also have large swaths of acreage under tillage or pasture. These acres could be very handy for alternative energy projects, which are usually take up a lot of space. How much space? A solar installation of 140 acres in the Nevada desert (where solar power harvest has ideal conditions) will generate only one-fourth the power of a small coal-fired power plant. Plus, some solar power installations can now actually provide field shade to keep crops protected from the sun and even keep workers cooler. SolFocus, a California concentrated photovoltaic company backed by venture capital giant New Enterprise Associates, claims that its flat-panel arrays can shield veggies while harvesting solar rays.
Farmers also tend to have access to large amounts of water, another necessary factor in solar farm development. While many farms are far from transmission wires, most are relatively close to the grid infrastructure. Also, they often provide a much better alternative in terms of zoning and access compared to a greenfield project located in an undeveloped location far away from people and permitting processes. Their remoteness, copious land and wind resources have made farms a favorite location for wind towers in Midwest states and in Texas.
A Mere $17 Per Farm Last Year
While some farmers may be leveraging the wind to earn a bit of cash, they don't seem to be using it to produce their own power to any great degree. That's partly because so many have little extra cash and are lucky to break even. So the idea of coughing up money for an alternative energy installation is hard to accept.
And that's why maybe the government should rethink its grants and loans policies for farmers, which averaged a miserly $17 per farm last year and could reach a little more than twice that in 2009. That's OK if you want to buy a solar-powered battery charger for your cell phone, but it's hardly helpful if you want to take Bessie's milking machine off the grid. And it sure won't help farms become part of the solution for increasing alternative energy production.
Alex Salkever is Senior Writer at AOL Daily Finance covering technology and greentech. Follow him on twitter @alexsalkever, read his articles, or email him at alex@dailyfinance.com.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
11-08-2009 @ 10:55PM
cqdeed said...
If you greenies really cared about the greening of America instead of being PC you would fund some green tech on the farms. You could start with the smaller farms cause the larger ones have folks to lobby for money from Congress. That way you could at least say you are putting your money where your mouth is. Most small farms lack the funds to support the investment green tech requires. -- Edgar
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11-09-2009 @ 3:59AM
Ken said...
I'll explain it to you all - I've installed 7.2 Kw of Solar and 2.4 KW of wind and I've converted to wood heating (a renewable source). The solar works fine but produces less than 1/2 of what I need daily and only when the sun shines and that's no so often in the winter. The wind is a bust. We applied for a USDA grant to pay 25% of the cost of the solar and wind but it was turned down. Why you might ask? It was because we actually live on the farm!! Go figure - they won't grant money unless you don't live on your farm. So how many farms, small or large don't have people who live on them?? The payback with all the above is ~15 years and I still need at least one additional panel to get to net zero. The payback will then go up to ~20+ years!
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11-09-2009 @ 7:06AM
NOENERGYFUTURES said...
THATS BECAUSE THE COAL AND OIL LOBBY IS SO STRONG IN D.C. PASSING OUT THAT MONEY UNDER THE TABLE AND THE HOOKERS ARE A PLENTY....DUH
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11-09-2009 @ 7:47AM
Jennifer said...
Because there ARE NO MORE FARMS IN AMERICA!!!!!
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11-09-2009 @ 7:50AM
Bill said...
Government does not care about farms and farmers. They really care about big chemical, big farm corporation and bio fed chickens, beef etc. They have no desire to do anything with frams and farmers unless they are big buck deals...otherwise they cannot fill their pockets with kick backs.....democrats especially.....Green anything is a joke..you really need a combination of things to go green, wind, sun, water.....if you don't have these 3 things you will never be complete in generating your own power.
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11-09-2009 @ 8:03AM
tafarm said...
I have applied for many grants and get turned down everytime. The $ follows the wealthy corporate farms.
In other words the rich get richer. Even with farm preservation they dragged us out for 8 months took thousands of $ from us and turned us down to preserve a wealthy estate rather then a family farm. We dont have a crew of people to write for grants or have lobbyest to get our message across. We need help for the family farms not the corporate giants sucking off the goverment.
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11-09-2009 @ 9:35AM
Allyn said...
Why isn't the Evironmetal lobbyists pushing for more farm green subsidies? Every dairy farm should be producing methane gas from manure. Every tobacco Farmer should be converting it's tobaco crop over to Soybeans or corn But no the government hands $750,000.oo to Ted Turner for NOT growing anything on hundred of acres he owns in the Dakotas. Land he has never set foot on. Thousands to people on Long Island in farm subsidies when there is no farm production. We are dealing with the best Congress money can buy and THAT my friends in the bottom line.
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11-09-2009 @ 9:40AM
Aubrey said...
As a farmer, I would like to install alternative energy systems, but there is one big problem: dependability. They're not always on! I have to run a heater to keep my greenhouses from freezing, or a cooler to keep my produce fresh. Other guys need electric to make sure the chicken house fans work, or that the water pumps are on. Solar and wind barely (if at all) pay off in the long run, and they're not reliable enough to be used for an operation where you need power 100% of the time. You could be connected to the grid, but the farm is never going to run electric back to the grid, so the power you'd have to buy from the grid and the grid-tie inverter pretty much eat up any payback on a system.
How about you give farmers grants to buy new, safer equipment? Or grants to buy new, efficient appliances? That's the stuff that we need money for, and it makes sense!
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11-09-2009 @ 11:26AM
david g sutliff said...
here in idaho there are massive dairy farms but only a few digest manure into methane in a relative simple process for which the technology is well developed. hard to understand, but the lack of leadership in the state government, and the ostrich head in the sand on most issues, might be the reason, not the lack of funding. if it is new, don't try it, is the motto here. idaho could be almost energy independent if the farmers would convert the manure into power.
david
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11-09-2009 @ 10:28AM
Doc said...
I didn't have to read far into this article to realize the author knows little to nothing about the realities of farming, especially for small, non-corporate farms. With the average American citizen about five generations removed from farming, they will tend to believe much of the rubbish printed about farms today. "Green" is real warm and fuzzy to the PC crowd, but try to make a decent living farming today and you'll find yourself worrying more about paying bills than putting windmills on the hills. Want to do something to improve the environment? Restore common sense and honest to the Congress, vote for foks who are in touch with their constituents, get rid of the tax (and more tax) and spend crowd, then stand back and watch America grow as in "Green".
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11-09-2009 @ 12:32PM
xxx said...
Sounds like they want the land for wind and solar insted of food. What are we supposed to eat
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11-09-2009 @ 11:40AM
george said...
GAWD WHAT A FUGGIN FARCE ,, GREEN GREEN GREEN,, GREENmy ass , i go green every morning ,,, i always take a liberal DUMP... green that
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11-09-2009 @ 12:11PM
grumpy said...
Basic math. Green costs too much without subsidies and the payback is too far in the future, if at all. Solar, wind, etc. etc. are great talking points for the Govt and industry who will make all the money. For the user, not so good at all. But then we are the little people, we don't know what is good for us.
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