The challenges involved with farming and renewables. - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 08:48:33 am
content: This recent video I came across sort of puts it into perspective how much living in fairy land the current renewable fanatics are when it comes to replacing pretty much everything outside the family home with current technology renewables all over the world.I read somewhere some time ago even rock crushing uses a huge amount of energy that dwarfs many other industries.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 08:54:18 am
content: I don't think anyone seriously is proposing that absolutelyeverythingbe electrified. It is clear some things will not be practical to electrify, for instance aircraft. However, we can make them cleaner. Aircraft can run on SAF for instance, which has negligible net carbon impact. That's why it is "net zero" and not "actually zero". Farmers could use biofuels for fuel-powered equipment (the bonus being, they may be able to produce some of this on site). Hydrogen may also play a part here; whilst it hasn't worked out for cars, it might well work out for heavy industry yet. And whilst batteries aren't practical today for a lot of equipment, remember that just a decade ago the longest-range you could get out of an EV (unless you spent $100k on a Tesla) was about 70 miles, now Peugeot are selling a 300 mile model for the same price. Technology doesn't stand still.Of course, it plays into the political agenda of the not zero fanatics to claim that because electrification doesn't solve absolutely every problem, that we will never achieve net zero. It's almost as if they have some kind of bias...

author: woody
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 09:18:47 am
content: I'm on a holiday in Norway. Walking through Trontheim a couple of days ago I noticed that a lot of the road working equipment I passed was fully electric. Big machines on batteries. Go figure. In a country that is made of fossil fuels and hard rock the tools they use are electric.

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 09:21:33 am
content: But your problem there is saying. Oh we will just make biofuel. But are you now going to displace what was used to grow food to make fuel. You still need to grow food, so you clear more land to grow more food.Plus you will need to use more land just to grow the "fuel" that is used to grow the fuel in the first place.I have found even "waste" products used to make biofuel often were themselves used for useful purposes. As an example. Molasses from sugar refining was used as livestock supplemental feed. Now it is refined to make biofuel, often by government mandate, that takes that option away from farmers, so hey have to find something else.I find it an extremely complicated subject that seems to be full of Dr Who "I will explain later" discussion.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 09:32:01 am
content: Biofuel is just a scam by fossil fuel companies and aviation companies. No one seriously suggests it for any significant use at net zero except the disingenious and the naive.Hydrogen, synthetic fuel and sequestration (the last two both with direct air/sea capture of CO2) are the only very expensive options.Civilizational collapse from climate change is also an option.PS. Nuclear can't fix this ... which is another reason it goes ignored, a lot of people want to pretend nuclear can fix everything.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 09:33:49 am
content: Most biofuels are made from unsaleable waste, like cow "leavings" and weeds and other wastage. There are some countries that do make biofuels from theoretically food crops, like sugar cane (Brazil comes to mind with its successful ethanol fuel policy). They still do not have difficulty feeding the population, since fuel is one of the least economically efficient uses of food crop. There are land use concerns, but these pail into comparison to the existential crisis that is climate change.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 09:46:08 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 30, 2025, 09:33:49 amYou must be joking. Brazil would do better to go back to fossil fuels and return the land used for biofuels back to nature. A better compromise would be to replace the biofuels with solar, which yields more energy per land area and doesn't require polluting pesticides or fertilisers.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 09:59:34 am
content: The car/hydrogen issue is a chicken/egg issue, if trucks switch to liquid hydrogen I could easily see it get used in pickup trucks too for range extension. Distribution needs to be universal first, let trucks and heavy machinery drive that.

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 10:31:23 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 30, 2025, 09:46:08 amMost people in the world would starve to death if it not for those "polluting pesticides or fertilisers." I was watching a farrmers youtube channel and they grew organic and minimum till methods on the same farm. The organic crop was essentially a failure, and it was only worth harvesting because people are silly enough to pay stupid amounts of money for "organic". The minimum till method which uses polluting pesticides and fertilizers was an acceptable crop considering the lack of rainfall.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 10:43:25 am
content: Just because we need it for human food, due to over a century of designing sewage systems wrong, doesn't mean it's feasible to suddenly try to use it for biofuel at mass scale (ie. aviation, shipping, machinery, etc). Regardless of pollution you'd need an extra planet earth to grow crops on.Organic crops grow fine, the prices aren't that much higher. Also as a fossil fertilizer lover you should know, organic is the only way to avoid the use of sewage sludge for food bought from a supermarket (not completely, but food grown on it would get filtered through an animals digestive system first before becoming fertilizer on the organic farm).Mixing brown gold with general sewage was a terrible idea, it would have been better if fossil fertilizer was discovered a couple decades later. Then maybe well designed sewage systems would have had a chance to proliferate.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 10:47:13 am
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 30, 2025, 09:46:08 amI'm not joking, no. Fast growing sugarcane is actually a better store of carbon than trees. If they were deforesting for wood alone, that wouldn't be great. Studies into Brazil's biofuel program have universally concluded that it is better than using fossil fuels. Is it perfect... no (but no such thing as a perfect solution!). It would be even better if the trees were kept and crop was not grown at all (but this would require electrifying all vehicles if fossil fuels were excluded) but for now, it's a good start.

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 10:52:28 am
content: replacing diesel fuel for heavy farm machines is a challange, but continue with fossile fuel is not a real option. With carbon capture to compensate the fuel would be rather expensive (e.g. $5 per lieter range) and electric drive would be a real option. It will get more expensive and thing may shift to less tilling and other energy intensive operations. We probably have to accept that food will get more expensive, just like energy.Biofuels can be sensible for a small portion, but likely more a thing for air trafic. It is a pretty inefficient form of land use. PV and E-fuels are more efficient, but need high investments.

author: SteveThackery
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 11:03:13 am
content: Quote from: Marco on May 30, 2025, 09:59:34 amIt isn't practicable to use liquid hydrogen in vehicles and trucks. It requires cryogenic storage below 253 degrees Celsius. Hydrogen has to be stored as a compressed gas. Hydrogen fuel cells are only about 60% efficient.

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 11:11:19 am
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on May 30, 2025, 10:52:28 amFunny thing is. Most air traffic is totally unnecessary. Do you really need to fly to x,y,z for pleasure? Even most business air travel is unnecessary.Did Taylor Swift really need to fly all over the world to give people music when they can download it?It is why I say very few people really are serious about "emissions". Pleasure and wealth/social status comes first.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 11:14:45 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 30, 2025, 10:47:13 amNonsense. The carbon from the sugarcane is just released when burned. Then there are other emissions from growing it, such as methane. You also neglected the impact of pesticides and fertiliser.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 12:10:51 pm
content: Quote from: SteveThackery on May 30, 2025, 11:03:13 amThe heatflux at same insulation as LNG, which is in commercial use, is only twice as much. Major German, Chinese, Korean and Japanese companies are investing in liquid hydrogen trucks. Hydrogen went tits up in the US of course, but I don't think that's indicative.The efficiency is still a lot better than when combining it with direct capture CO2 into a hydrocarbon for fuel.PS. even though hydrogen forklifts use compressed hydrogen, fueling stations with liquid storage are in commercial use. Forklift systems engineers >> rocket scientists

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 12:30:28 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on May 30, 2025, 12:10:51 pmThe problem with hydrogen is poor efficiency. It has to be generated, incurring substantial losses, then converting it to mechanical energy requires a heat engine (fuel cells are nowhere near ready) which is very inefficient.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 12:48:19 pm
content: Quote from: Xena E on May 30, 2025, 09:16:32 amFunny, except that the type of fanatic depicted (specifically the organization shown here) absolutely hates wind/PV, EVs and so on - all of the "greentech" - with passion. Many of them are literally funded by the "big oil", which is well known (or Kremlin, to support sales of Russian gas/oil/coal).

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 12:50:58 pm
content: Quote from: Zero999 on May 30, 2025, 11:14:45 amYou neglect the carbon being put into the soil through the growth process. This is actually a substantial store of carbon: some estimates are several tonnes per acre for fast growing crops. Trees do sequester more, but once fully grown their absorption slows down. On pesticides, you have a point, which is why biofuels are an imperfect solution.Ideally, we would have synthetic fuel or electric vehicles for everyone, but it is still a lower carbon solution than burning fossil fuels, and in the near term, excessive CO2 is bad for the climate and an urgent issue to resolve.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 12:53:51 pm
content: Quote from: woody on May 30, 2025, 09:18:47 amI predicted this 15 years ago - that construction machinery etc. are some to be electrified first - because their peak power vs. average power ratio is huge, and their ICEs run at maybe 0.1% efficiency, idling 99% of the time to then run 5 seconds at full power, burning huge amounts of fuel to do almost no work at all. They also do most of their works within central city environment where their pollution and noise is really dissatisfactory, and charging opportunities are plentiful. Relatively small battery does the job. Or a hybrid system with a tiny 1-liter ICE.Long-haul trucks are on the opposite end - they require a lot of energy to travel for long distances, and their diesel ICEs are optimized for as good efficiency as one can ever get from an ICE, made possible by narrow power range used 99% of the time. They also require huge charging power. Therefore, they will be electrified last on the roads, and that's really fine. I'm not sure if biofuels make a significant improvement over limited use of fossils. Of course, some can be had from food waste and mixed with regular fuel as we already do, but farming specifically for biofuels sounds iffy to me, too.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 12:59:19 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 30, 2025, 12:50:58 pmMore carbon is released when the land is cleared for agriculture, than is taken up by the crops and even then it's short term, since microorganisms eventually release it.I think pesticides and fertilisers are a far greater problem. They directly poison those who live within the vicinity. Focusing on one aspect of the environment is a big problem. We need to take a holistic approach.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 01:00:37 pm
content: Long-haul trucks might just be powered by cantilever overhead power, there's a prototype road in Germany doing this. You do not need to do the whole road, just lane 1 and for 50km on, 200km off kind of thing, so it can be positioned wherever power is convenient to get to it, and the trucks just draw power from it as needed to charge the internal battery pack. This means you might be able to equip trucks with, say, 300kWh battery instead of 700kWh battery, with a technology that is capable of 10C charging. It can be combined with charging at rest stops and depots to cover the "last mile" parts of a journey, off-highway.This may also be used for trains in rural areas where full electrification is too expensive but electrifying around stations is practical, whilst the train stops to board passengers, it can charge up.

author: Siwastaja
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 01:01:02 pm
content: Quote from: Kleinstein on May 30, 2025, 10:52:28 amI don't know. I am confident that within next 5-10 years we will be seeing electric heavy farming equipment. The thing is, modern farmers are large, well-run businesses, not running grandfather's tractor from 1952 in year 2010 anymore. They tend to nowadays keep their equipment new, lease it, subcontract some tasks for which it makes no sense to own equipment. This means that once economics are there for electric farming equipment, the shift happens quickly. And we are very close technology-wise, if you look at the price of batteries for the last few years (which already enabled passenger EVs, buses, home batteries etc.) I'm actually quite surprised it hasn't happened yet. You can quote me on this again in 2030 and I'll eat my hat if significant change has not occurred by then. Let's see which happened then, nctnico's hydrogen delivery in old natural gas pipes and storage in salt caverns and all cars, trucks and farm equipment running on hydrogen, or mine let's say "50%-point larger share of battery EVs".

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 01:19:58 pm
content: Are those farms all getting high voltage connections then?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 01:31:45 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on May 30, 2025, 01:19:58 pmWhy would they need anything more than the normal three phase service they already receive? 22kW AC would be enough to charge up a 200kWh tractor battery overnight, if required.

author: woody
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 05:09:34 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 30, 2025, 01:31:45 pmNot to mention the hundreds of solarpanels I see on nearly every farm shed around me; these have solid grid connections already. Electric farm equipment would be a great way to store the energy generated locally.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 05:24:30 pm
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 30, 2025, 01:31:45 pmDuring harvest they need more than an hour or so runtime a day.They will need to charge often and need to charge fast ... MW fast.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 05:27:48 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on May 30, 2025, 05:24:30 pmAnd I would expect a 200kWh battery is enough. It's just quite heavy and expensive right now, so it may not be always practical, but it is probably enough for a day's work. For instance, it's enough to take a pickup truck like Chevy Silverado EV 200 miles *whilst towing* 4 tonnes of additional load at highway speed. I find it hard to imagine a tractor would use more than that

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 05:31:19 pm
content: Way way more than that apparently.https://www.reddit.com/r/EVConversion/comments/1ckqlqj/diesel_fuel_economy_to_ev/

author: Kleinstein
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 07:55:36 pm
content: In many cases long haul trucks can be replaced with rail transport. In the US already a low of the long haul transport goes via rail in containers. Though largely still with diesel propulsion. For rail direct electric is well proven in Europe.Some farming for biofuels makes sense. It adds to the choice of plants and if needed the area and sometimes also directly the harvest can also be used for food or at least animal feed.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 30, 2025, 08:26:41 pm
content: If you google around a bit and look at what major tractor builders are actually working on, you'll see a mix of batteries, hydrogen and an interesing option: methane. Digesters to produce methane from manure and plants (the waste typically found on farms) are commercially available. I have not dug deep enough into the numbers whether a digester would produce enough methane to run a tractor from. As Marco noted, tractors need vast amounts of energy to pull heavy equipment through a field.

author: Andy Chee
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 03:53:57 am
content: Also remember that algae farms do not necessarily displace land for food crops. Algae farms can be built on rocky and otherwise zero nutrient soil.

author: Someone
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 04:58:31 am
content: Quote from: Andy Chee on May 31, 2025, 03:53:57 amSolar and wind are also compatible with continuing farming under/around them. Trivial impact from wind farms, even for cropping. Solar can have sheep grazing at a 50% stocking rate.Total area needed in Australia to switch to renewables? around 1% That should be easy to find and balance with farming (somewhere like the UK is difficult if they need 30% of all land area for energy production/storage/processing). But so far the free market (famers renting their "land") has found displacing some farming to be profitable.

author: Haenk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 06:52:34 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on May 30, 2025, 01:00:37 pmSmall correction on this: There *were*, actually there were two prototype roads, both have been switched off. Turned out to be way too expensive and impractical in daily use (experts stated this even before the tests started).

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 03:24:07 pm
content: Quote from: Xena E on May 30, 2025, 09:16:32 amExactly!

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 04:16:42 pm
content: Quote from: Andy Chee on May 31, 2025, 03:53:57 am- open ocean doesn't work, not enough nutrients and only inefficient species available- open ponds don't work, too much evaporation and only inefficient species can compete (can't refill with ocean water, because the salt doesn't evaporate, need fresh water)Efficient algae species can only be grown with low water use in bioreactors. They don't need to be completely hermetic (just compartmentalise and sterilise when necessary) but it's still bloody expensive. Ideally some microbe gets engineered which can just sit between two electrodes at <1.23V and eat electricity to create methane from water and dissolved CO2. Then you can make cheap huge bioreactors.Hydrogen has lots of problems, but it has tractable problems. Alternatives have less problems, but they have intractable problems.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 04:22:05 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on May 30, 2025, 08:26:41 pmIt doesn't scale. If you want scalable source of methane for significant use at net zero, you have to use electrolysis for the hydrogen and direct capture for the CO2 for the feedstocks ... and suddenly hydrogen alone starts looking less expensive.If SOFC engines can be made to run both on hydrogen and methane, I could see them existing side by side though. They are both cryogenic liquids, it might be possible to make a complete system capable of using both with minimal effort to switch over.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 08:20:41 pm
content: Quote from: woody on May 30, 2025, 09:18:47 amWhile Norway's wealth relies a lot on selling oil, they use almost no fossil stuff at all to produce electricity. Over 90% of their total electricity production is from hydropower plants. So, for a country such as Norway, with large electricity production from hydropower almost entirely, and a population of just a few millions, it makes complete sense to get electric for almost everything.It's well adapted to their context and it can't be extrapolated to other countries with completely different geography and needs.That's one of the key issues with all this political green washing: there's no one-size-fits-all solution.

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 09:36:06 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on May 31, 2025, 04:58:31 amThat is just a bit of a wanky sales pitch by solar companies to justify what they do. Wild dogs would tear the sheep to bits. Sheep will chew all the wires and rub on all the posts.As an aside this is the reality of solar farms.https://reneweconomy.com.au/state-safety-authority-shuts-five-solar-farms-due-to-fire-risk-tells-them-to-mow-grass/Just wait until the first one goes up in flames.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 09:42:38 pm
content: There's a solar farm near me that has sheep grazing under the panels. It's been there for a few years and the sheep are back every year. I'm sure they could put any cabling for the panels in metal conduit if they are worried about animal attack.As for fire risk, that seems to be an issue more specific to Australia and other very hot countries. It seems to be more of an issue with the inverters than the panels themselves. Panels will not normally burn unless connectors are not torqued or fitted correctly and this can be verified. And it's not that difficult to keep the area around an inverter barren to prevent any fire there from spreading.Given solar farms are being installed at a record rate I suggest these hazards are pretty rare in the real world.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 10:05:43 pm
content: QuoteHope they got sharp teethhttps://www.doncastercables.com/cables/20/89/PV-Ultra--/PV-Ultra-----Double-Insulated-Multicore-DC-Cable/

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 10:10:18 pm
content: Quote from: Someone on May 31, 2025, 04:58:31 amAutomated harvesters might make growing crops with bifacial vertical solar panels more efficient too. Keeping the rows narrower cuts down on cost for the posts. The human needed on a manned harvester is one of the biggest drivers of size.At Terawatt scale, everything needs to be automated. Just a robot putting down acres of panels and posts on its own, on uneven terrain and with various obstructions on and under the ground.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 10:39:27 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on May 31, 2025, 10:10:18 pmThese kind of robots already exist in simplistic forms. With a consistent setup of an installation, you can probably automate the entire solar farm where it comes to placing, replacing and cleaning the panels.

author: Analog Kid
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 31, 2025, 11:14:44 pm
content: Ah yes, the spice! the spice!

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 05:14:37 am
content: Re the challenges to farming, they are addressed in Article 2b of the Paris Accord:(b) Increasing the ability to adapt to the adverse impacts of climate change and foster climate resilience and low greenhouse gas emissions development,in a manner that does not threaten food productionImprovements in Ag machinery continue to reduce emissions and also the larger machinery used today is more efficient and increases profitability, a serious driver itself without any need to reduce emissions.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 12:54:32 pm
content: How come nobody mentioned making food production more efficient to reduce the land required? That is, rapidly phase out factory farming in order to replace it with sustainable farming.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 01:11:59 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on June 07, 2025, 12:54:32 pmThat is a contradiction. Factory farming is more efficient. 'Sustainable' farming is absolutely not. Amazon has a series called 'Clarkson's farm' which gives an interesting view into trying farming in a sustainable and financially viable way. Spoiler alert: farming is difficult & hard.Here in the Netherlands farms are extremely optimised to produce as much as possible per land area. We probably have the best farmers in the world here. But the downside is that there is excessive emissions of ammonia and use of pesticides. And not to mention all the imported animal food and fertilizer that needs to be used. You should run some numbers, but it wouldn't surprise me if it turns out the CO2 footprint of fertilizer far exceeds the CO2 footprint of agricultural equipment.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 01:55:32 pm
content: Factory farming, if all land use is accounted for, uses about 80% of all land currently used for farming while only supplying 18% of food. It's not at all sustainable.https://sentientmedia.org/factory-farming-environmental-impact/

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 02:19:21 pm
content: That has got little to do with the factory part and everything to do with the fact it's producing meat.Sure, very labour intensive farming methods can eek a bit more productivity out of land, but not that much. (Manual labour intensity is completely orthogonal to fossil fertiliser and pesticide use.)

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 02:37:41 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on June 07, 2025, 02:19:21 pmWhy not use robots to do that? Have them wander about zapping weeds with electricity and vacuuming up harmful bugs (while leaving the beneficial ones alone), that would vastly reduce the pesticides needed.

author: themadhippy
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 04:10:38 pm
content: Quotewheres the electrickery gonna come from to power the robots? o yea that bit of land the robot reclaimed can be used to generate more leccy,to power another robot to reclaim another bit of land

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 06:53:28 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on June 07, 2025, 01:55:32 pmThese numbers are massively skewed. For example: large amounts of land used for cattle grazing is really poor quality (think about the US and Australia) and are not really suitable for farming anything. You'd have to quantify the type of land versus productivity potential to make a meaningfull statement about whether land can be put to better use.

author: NiHaoMike
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 08:52:53 pm
content: Quote from: themadhippy on June 07, 2025, 04:10:38 pmSolar panels. I'm imagining they'll be fairly small and not needing to carry a whole lot, so it wouldn't take much. Just having the solar panels on top of the robots might be sufficient.

author: nctnico
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 09:30:57 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on June 07, 2025, 08:52:53 pmAgain, put some numbers on your assumptions...

author: u666sa
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 07, 2025, 10:46:53 pm
content: It's not about clean energy and environment per say. I witnessed this first hand when I visited Vienna, Austria in winter. Supposedly clean city which lots of wind turbines was inside of smogged out haze. WTF they were burning I still have no clue, but it didn't smell safe.Nothing clean about clean energy.You want to really know what it's all about?They don't want to depend on countries which produce energy. Gas and oil exporting countries. This becomes even more critical as things begin to run out. Those who control money, controls the world. Ture?Well, those who control energy controls those who control the money.So it's a first and foremost political move to be energy independent.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2025, 01:44:59 pm
content: Quote from: NiHaoMike on June 07, 2025, 02:37:41 pmThey are not that good yet.Humans have the best manipulators and ability to move through the crops in the business and best programmability. Nothing else comes remotely close.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2025, 01:47:40 pm
content: Quote from: nctnico on June 07, 2025, 06:53:28 pmThey won't be suitable for range grazing much longer either. Pretty much all ranges are "overgrazed". We flush the nutrients down the toilet, but the replenishment isn't speeding up to match.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2025, 08:34:17 pm
content: Quote from: Marco on June 10, 2025, 01:44:59 pmYet existing automation, GPS and autonomous vehicles all help to reduce wastage and emissions.Quote from: Marco on June 10, 2025, 01:47:40 pmLand is land is land and its capability is dictated by water/weather but generations of farming will improve it and have it produce more.It's not just all about artificial inputs as livestock dung and urine help improve the land along with the selection of stock types/breeds that best suit the climate.Natural substances like Lime help balance ph levels and assist plants to unlock bound up trace elements to further increase production/profitability where the landowner can invest in getting even higher production.

author: Marco
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 10, 2025, 10:43:24 pm
content: Quote from: tautech on June 10, 2025, 08:34:17 pmSmoke and mirrors help too ... "regenerative" agriculture, where chickens are fed corn from fossil fertilised farms, etc.Regardless, nothing extra is added in range grazing, only taken out.

author: .RC.
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2025, 12:21:42 am
content: Those pushing new age "regenerative" farming are to me akin to evangelists. They have a tiny bit of fact, then they go full on with the fantasy.As we have seen USSR, China, Zimbawbe, and even recently Sri Lanka all went down the path of destroying the small family owned farm or banning farm practices and ended up with mass deaths and starvation.Many first world nations also seem to be heading down the path of hating on farm practices, it always seems to gain most support in the inner city and leafy suburb from those people who are "educated" but have never set foot on a farm.I always say you can educate a monkey to do a single task quite well. Does not mean they are now an expert on everything.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: June 11, 2025, 01:12:36 am
content: Quote from: .RC. on June 11, 2025, 12:21:42 amYup, even here those making comment often have little to do with what is actually happening in the rural environment other than what they hear in the media or gets spouted by Greenpeace.As a 4th generation NZ farmer I have seen a lot of change and been party to some of it.Robots milking cows, fenceless farming with the Halter system, advances in grass cultivars, Electric fencing pioneered here in NZ and much mechanisation to reduce the very physical rural life.Climate and contour dictates what and how we might farm profitably to hope to get a ROI.