Warm Cookies of the Revolution. Actually, Colorado Sun, the jury's out on solar panels helping crops grow. Denver's Green Roof Initiative.
Warm Cookies of the Revolution is really something you can get behind right?
I mean, who doesn't like warm cookies?
In what was almost certainly NOT a concerted publicity effort a group called Warm Cookies of the Revolution managed to get in articles in both the Sun and CPR within 5 days' time.
(Mostly) Missing from said articles in these "nonpartisan" outlets? A mention of the group's UBER leftist politics.
More in my op ed below along with a link (put below the op ed for convenience) to Independence Institute's own citizen involvement project in order to provide the balanced coverage and information those outlets didn't bother to.
https://pagetwo.completecolorado.com/2024/11/18/gaines-colorado-newsrooms-left-wing-civic-engagement/
https://i2i.org/local-gov/#LTS
Actually, Colorado Sun, by my research the jury's out on solar panels helping crops grow.
Quoting the subtitle on the Sun article linked below: "CSU researchers find crops protected by solar panels yield more food while plants help cool the panels, making them more efficient at generating electricity."
That's not quite what I found when I asked the CSU researchers myself. And it's something that the writer acknowledges further down.
Quoting again, "It turned out the plants under or next to the solar panels, benefitting from the installation’s shade, had greater total biomass, moisture content and overwintering survivability."
A little closer to the mark there Mr. Jaffe.
After I read the article I reached out to the CSU researcher mentioned and quoted in the article. I also read her most current papers on growing plants in the shade of solar panels.
Her most current research does seem to back up the second contention above regarding plant matter and moisture content (I either missed it or couldn't find something about overwintering). There is no current research on plant yield (though there is some early numbers she showed me. The idea that plants produce more food under panels on roofs is not yet a settled idea.
To use the current favorite phrase of the media, this is something that Mr. Jaffe and the Sun claim "without evidence".
Let me give you some quick context that will help you understand what's coming. Skipping tremendous amounts of detail, plants have pores in their "skin" that they open or close to allow CO2 in to make their food via photosynthesis.
The price of being open*, however, is that water vapor can diffuse out of the plant as you're trying to get CO2 to diffuse in. This is called transpiration and it depends on temperature, humidity, and wind. Obviously, hot dry windy days will increase the amount of water lost out of the plant just like they make you not even notice that you're sweating because it's wicked away so fast.
In order to not be stressed or harmed, the plants replace this lost water by pulling it up from their roots, from the moisture in the soil they're planted in.
It ought to make sense, then, that when you put plants in either full or partial shade** under solar panels, that the soil will be moister, it will be lower in temperature, that the plants will be cooler, and that they will retain more water (something that goes into their "biomass"--just like you if a plant keeps more water it will weigh more).
There's a rapidly growing interest in what is called Agrivoltaics, the combination of solar panels and agriculture. The idea being it just be super cool if we could combine solar panels with livestock and/or food growing. An efficient idea to be sure (with efforts like those in the Sun article an urban offshoot of same). If you want to see a more rural/conventional example, check out the second link below. It's to a farm (hobby farm?) up near Boulder growing food with panels.
The thing that is missed in a lot of these types of "gee whiz" articles--and there've been plenty about the Boulder farm--is a solid grounding in all the aspects involved. Little to no informed discussion with actual production Ag people about their operations. Little to no look at what my personal experience has shown me about growing in the shade. The fact that producing food is expensive in terms of energy and you don't get a lot of energy coming in when you are in shade.
I have personally found that growing in shade (in summary form) means that you can get plants, but not a good yield of the edible stuff. I can keep a honeyberries alive in shade, but it ain't gonna make berries. I can grow leeks in the shade, but they almost never get bigger than pencil sized. I can grow greens like lettuce, they're spindly with tiny leaves.
Additionally, my skepticism here is informed by the fact that the CSU researcher involved has been a green roof booster for a while now. See the post that follow this one. Can we depend on her scientific detachment?
The Sun and Jaffe should have been more careful. We should not be patting ourselves on the back about growing food in the shade of solar panels until we have solid data on yield and direct comparisons to what is grown under regular circumstances.
Why? In other words, what would the response be to the question of "What does it matter? Any food we grow, even if the yield is less or spindly and small, is better than the zero food we'd grow otherwise?"
The answer is that none of this, none of the specialized panels, the growing beds with their soil-less plant substrate, the extra engineering and care from having all that extra weight on a roof, the cost to modify and/or build to carry that extra weight, and the water we'd put into the gardens is without cost.
And maybe we ought to be more considered in our approach. Otherwise we might end up spending $100 to save $10.
The CSU researcher told me that they should have published, peer-reviewed data some time after the first of the year. I set a reminder to follow up. Keep your eyes open for an update.
*Stay tuned later in the week for a rundown on how cacti photosynthesize differently and have adapted a method that minimizes water loss. CAM photosynthesis to be specific.
**Interestingly as part of reading the CSU research I learned that there are partially transparent solar panels. As you'd expect, the amount of power they generate is less than fully opaque models AND they are not yet at the point where they can be connected to the grid.
https://coloradosun.com/2024/11/19/solar-panels-rooftop-gardens-csu-spur-campus/
https://www.jackssolargarden.com/
Related:
From the "Hidden Costs of Solar Dept".
I noticed some cracks in my shingles a few months back. Long story short, I'm owed a new roof under warranty from the shingle manufacturer.
Except ...
Except that I installed the solar panels on my roof AFTER the shingles (they were replaced after a 2019 hailstorm). The removal and reinstallation of the solar panels are therefore absent in the warranty claim.
So, I will get to pull them up, wait for a new roof and then reinstall. Nothing like doing the same work twice!
Something to remember if you're thinking solar and/or when you read about solar panels.
Denver's Green Roof Initiative
One detail that's easy to skip over in the previous post is that some of the drive for growing plants on roofs (along with "growing" solar panels) is a city initiative in Denver to require "green roofs" on new construction or when certain renovations are undertaken.
Green meaning that you have to have plants or solar or both.
I gave you variety of resources below to study up if you've a mind to. The first is an official City of Denver page. It talks in brief about the green roof stuff, but in the context of the broader Denver Green Buildings effort. Mostly dates and history such as how Denver created an advisory board to implement the will of the voters.
The second link is from a supporter of the green roof measure and was written not too long after its passage in 2018. I mentioned lots of wide-eyed, gee whiz enthusiasm in the last post. It's quite evident here.
The third is a 2021 article from the Sun that updates the progress Denver made toward their green utopia. I'll give you a hint: based on reality and the fact that regulations cost money, the advisory council downgraded the requirements and left the green dreams of backers (exemplified by the second link) in the dust. I.e. The pace of roof greening is just a terrible disappointment to those folks.
Another interesting tidbit shakes out of the Sun article linked third. The same CSU researcher from the earlier post, the one interviewed in the earlier post, is mentioned here too. She was, in fact, a big supporter and worked with the campaign to pass the green roof initiative.
I suppose it wasn't just discussion about missing plant yield data that the 2024 Sun article from the previous post left out. It was the fact that the woman whose research is extolling the benefits of green roofs is perhaps not approaching the topic with the appropriate scientific detachment.
Regardless, if Denver wonders why businesses are folding and moving away (or not choosing to come at all), residents can now add things like requirements for plants or solar on roofs to the list.
Right there next to permissive policies on homelessness, drug use, regulation on landlords, the list goes on.
https://denvergov.org/Government/Agencies-Departments-Offices/Agencies-Departments-Offices-Directory/Community-Planning-and-Development/Plan-Review-Permits-and-Inspections/Commercial-and-Multifamily-Projects/Green-Buildings-Ordinance/Origins-of-Denvers-Green-Buildings-Ordinance
https://greenroofsco.com/denver-green-roof-initiative/
https://coloradosun.com/2021/10/05/denver-green-building-climate-change/