But then someone explains to you that these power plants, which will provide solar power to 120 000 people, would require an area equal to just three thousandth of the land we use to grow food.
So then maybe solar parks aren’t so bad after all?
It’s easy to imagine football pitches. Often they are a good metaphor for land use. Other times not so much.
Solar energy development is a rapidly growing industry in Norway. The Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Directorate is currently processing more than 60 licence applications. The Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation, NRK, has written a thorough article (in Norwegian) about the potential land impact these solar parks could have, illustrated with images from Norway’s first large solar power plant that recently opened in Østerdalen in Eastern Norway.
Improving energy efficiency should be a no-brainer, but it is time-consuming because old habits are hard to break.
The article states that the 60 plants, as measured by area, would be the equivalent of 5300 football pitches – which “at best” would increase Norwegian electricity production by just over two percent.
But we are trivializing the complicated problems posed by the climate and nature crisis if our vote on solar parks becomes just a question of land use and football pitches.
Football first: Is a football pitch big? As a yardstick for land use, football pitches are actually most relevant precisely for illustrating football pitches.
Norway has 4300 football pitches (in Norwegian). So we dedicate an area equal to 4300 football pitches for football pitches. Not all of these are full-size football pitches. On the other hand, they often include some stands, a clubhouse and a parking lot too. So perhaps we can round off and say that our football pitches occupy about the same area as the solar power applications.
These pitches serve 378 539 active football players (plus all the unorganized ones), and we can probably agree that this is an extremely good use of the area.
The forest area that solar power concessions have applied for is 38 km2. In Norway, the population density is 17 people per km2. If you use these figures to calculate how large the different areas actually are, the solar power area can in a way be seen as an area with 650 Norwegians.
By way of comparison, 35 000 and 200 000 of us have let “our” land go to road construction and food production, respectively. So therefore: Is it good land use if 650 of us share our land to create solar power for 120 000 inhabitants?
You and I and our neighbour are responsible for the roofs of our houses. We tend to be guided by economic driving forces. And, spoiler alert: after the electricity subsidy came and interest rates went up, much of that incentive disappeared, of course!
I don’t think that the number of football pitches or how many people “share” their land has the last word in the debate about solar cells and forests. The question of whether 5300 football pitches or the land for 650 Norwegians is a lot or a little depends on both the local situation and the big picture.
Land use is only one of four dimensions that must be included in our calculation if we are to solve the climate and nature crisis. This requires that we weigh the pros and cons and make compromises along four different axes:
- How many more degrees of planet warming can we accept?
- Humans also mess with the environment in other ways than only emitting CO2. The Convention on Biological Diversity, to which Norway is a party, requires protecting 30 percent of the land area and restoring 30 percent of degraded ecosystems.
- How long will it take us to solve the problems?
- How much do different solutions cost – today and when costs decrease because we are applying the solutions on a larger scale?
All energy sources have pros and cons. The concise summary is that onshore wind is the cheapest renewable, and its disadvantages have already been written about in depth.
We won’t be able to solve the climate crisis in time without land interventions and without thinning our wallets.
Solar is also cheap and can be developed very quickly, but it requires land.
Offshore wind is currently expensive and takes a long time to build, but it has great potential, especially for developing export industries.
Nuclear power is the new favourite among people who do not like land use. But this is also expensive and takes a long time to build and activate.
We can do hydropower better than anyone else in the world. But more hydropower – and more efficient hydropower – is neither cheap nor free from land interventions.
Improving energy efficiency should be a no-brainer, but it is time consuming because old habits are hard to break.
The alternative – to do none of this – means saying yes to catastrophic climate change, to power deficits and to energy imports from countries that take greater responsibility than us.
Only considering one part of the problem will result in a calculation that doesn’t add up. We will not be able to solve the climate crisis in time without land interventions and without thinning our wallets.
As the NRK article points out, it is possible to build solar systems on roofs and on land that is already “destroyed” from other causes.
You and I and our neighbour are responsible for the roofs of houses. We tend to be guided by economic driving forces. And, spoiler alert: after the electricity subsidy came and interest rates went up, much of that incentive disappeared, of course!
Covering disturbed land with black solar cells seems like a good solution. But these areas often consist of a lot of stone, and costs can quickly skyrocket. Just ask the people who built the solar park in Østerdalen.
Solar parks quickly become part of the go-to solution when we consider all four axes of the climate and nature problem.
The transition that we’re facing requires compromises between many good interests. It is urgent to discuss what these compromises will entail, preferably without having to calculate how big a football pitch actually is.
This Viewpoint article was first published in Norwegian in Energi og Klima (Energy and Climate) on 19 November 2024.
