Jeremiah

Happy Halloween! Today’s a day traditionally reserved for scary stories, imaginary monsters, and people dressing up as things they’re not. Donald Trump has apparently decided that solar panels are the most terrifying thing he can conjure up. And I’d like to have a little chitchat about this latest “horror story.” During a rally in Texas earlier this week, Trump warned Americans about the dangers of solar panels, explaining that they kill animals because, and I quote, “the animals jump on them and they fry.” The panels are supposedly hotter than your stove (his words, not mine).  And to that I say…well, shit. Here I thought we were running a legitimate agricultural operation, but apparently, we’ve actually been operating a chain of outdoor barbecue establishments. Throw some lamb on the grill (I mean the solar panel), we’ve got ourselves in a two-in-one operation. But seriously. Let’s talk about the science.  Yes, solar panels get hot. They’re dark-colored objects sitting in direct sunlight. Just like the hood of your black pickup truck in July, they absorb solar radiation and heat up. Research has documented photovoltaic panel surface temperatures of around 140 to 150 degrees F under the hottest, sunniest conditions. That’s hot. Hot enough to cause burns with sufficient contact. But we’re talking about conditions like those in the deserts of India, where one study recorded a panel surface temperature of 150 when the surrounding air temperature was approximately 108.  That’s not your average summer afternoon in upstate New York.  A black asphalt driveway gets dangerously hot in the summer, too. Why isn’t anybody writing op-eds about how roadways are an existential threat to livestock?  Also, the sheep aren’t spending their afternoons tap dancing on solar panels. They’re underneath them. Enjoying the shade, the shade provided by the same solar panels that everyone is so quick to vilify. The shade that’s allowing them to gain weight, in our case, at rates of more than 20% higher on pasture, on average. The shade that, again, would not be possible without the solar panels.  A peer-reviewed study in Applied Animal Behaviour Science found that the shade beneath photovoltaic panels reduced radiant heat load by 30%, reduced wool surface temperatures by as much as 18 degrees Fahrenheit, and reduced skin temperatures by 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit. When the sheep experience greater heat exposure, they’re more likely to seek out the shade beneath the panels. Imagine that. Animals with enough of a survival instinct to know that the smart choice is to hang out underneath the panels, not use them as a sun lounger. We’ve been grazing sheep underneath solar panels for five years. Not once have we arrived to discover an entire flock of medium-rare lamb chops. Not even a slightly toasted ewe. Now, what about wildlife? There’s a related claim that solar panels “fry birds,” and this one has a real event behind it worth explaining: at the Ivanpah solar facility in California’s Mojave Desert, birds were indeed injured and killed by exposure to concentrated solar radiation.  But Ivanpah is not a conventional photovoltaic solar farm, and it’s also been shut down. It’s a concentrated solar thermal facility that uses thousands of mirrors to focus sunlight onto receivers mounted on towers. The concentrated sunlight creates extremely high temperatures, and birds flying through those concentrated beams can suffer burns to their feathers. Again. Not remotely the same process as the photovoltaic panels installed on the sites where we graze sheep. Again. Why it’s been decommissioned. Saying the two are the same and pose the same risks to birds is like comparing vehicle mortality rates for someone driving a car, versus a bicycle.  Today’s photovoltaic panels are not giant outdoor frying pans. There is no credible scientific evidence that animals routinely jump on them and cook to death.  There is, however, actual scientific evidence that sheep benefit from their shade.  I feel like I have now wasted enough time on this beautiful Halloween day explaining that solar farms are not self-service livestock crematoriums.  So I’m going to go outside, check on the uncooked sheep, and then make myself feel better by raiding Lew’s Halloween candy (the Reese’s peanut butter cups, obviously).