By Frank Andorka, Senior Correspondent
Over the past decade or so, bumble bee populations in the United States have diminished considerably thanks to a phenomenon called “colony collapse” (the author was the editorial director of Pest Management Professional during the height of the controversy).
Most environmental activists have blamed neonicotinoid pesticides (neonicotinoids act like nerve gas on insects and yes, as the name implies they are based on tobacco-like substances), though scientists could never definitively back that up.
Well, the Department of Energy (DOE) is on it.
According to the DOE e-news service, “DOE Argonne National Laboratory researchers hope that [the United States] can rehabilitate bee and butterfly populations by allowing them to live at solar energy facilities.” To wit:
A team of Argonne researchers has been examining the potential benefits of establishing pollinator habitat at utility-scale solar energy (USSE) facilities to conserve pollinators and restore the ecosystem they provide. Looking at over 2,800 existing and planned USSE facilities in the contiguous United States, researchers in Argonne’s Environmental Science (EVS) division have found that the area around solar panels could provide an ideal location for the plants that attract pollinators.
The researchers point out that the land around utility-scale solar developments often goes unused and could provide the perfect scenario to grow bee-friendly native foliage and plants that would allow bees to thrive without affecting solar plant efficiency.
(There’s a really cool interactive map in the article itself that shows how much utility-scale solar is planned in each state as it relates to how much pollinator-dependent agriculture there is.)
And this statistic made my jaw drop:
[Two researchers] looked at three example crop types to measure the agricultural benefits of increased pollinator habitat. These crops – soybeans, almonds and cranberries – depend on insect pollinators for their annual crop yields. If all existing and planned solar facilities near these crop types included pollinator habitat and increased yield by just one percent, crop values could rise $1.75 million, $4 million and $233,000 for soybeans, almonds and cranberries, respectively.
With that kind of environmental impact, it should give pause to those who argue solar is eating up agricultural land that could otherwise be cultivated. Instead, it could be argued that having a solar array near farms could actually improve crop yields and the overall value of the farm itself.
It should be noted that companies like Connexus Energy and Cypress Creek Renewables are already putting in these types of pollinator-friendly solar arrays – here’s hoping other utility-scale developers will follow their lead.
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