The US Department of Agriculture Bans Support for Renewables

What the USDA Policy Change Actually Does

• USDA will no longer use its programs to fund solar projects on “prime American farmland” or projects using panels from “foreign adversaries.”
• Support is shifted toward biofuels, biomass, natural-gas-derived hydrogen, and “American energy” on national forest land.
• Several commenters stress this is not a legal ban on renewables, but a ban on support / subsidies via USDA, which may still be critical because farmers mainly interact with USDA, not DOE.

Perceived Climate and Energy Consequences

• Many see the move as deeply shortsighted given drought, crop stress, and the need to decarbonize electricity.
• Commenters argue renewables (especially solar + batteries and offshore wind) are already the cheapest new generation and will “win anyway,” but policy can significantly delay deployment.
• Others note that energy used in production and industry is large and must also be decarbonized; full electrification is argued to reduce total energy demand.

Renewables vs Nuclear and Grid Reliability

• A long sub-thread debates whether high-renewables grids are viable without massive storage.
• One side: renewables are now the cheapest energy in history; batteries are improving; rare “Dunkelflaute” events can be handled by overbuild, flexible demand, or limited fossil/bio/synfuel backup. Nuclear is portrayed as too expensive and slow.
• The other side: examples like Germany and Spain are cited as warning signs—needing huge multi-day storage (estimates run to tens of TWh) and new gas plants; proponents argue that if past subsidies had gone to nuclear, countries could already have fully decarbonized grids at lower prices.

Motivations and Politics

• Many commenters see the policy as driven by fossil-fuel and corn/ethanol interests, culture-war hostility to “woke” solar/wind, and a broader “burn it all down” nihilism.
• Others frame it as “America first” and food-security policy: prioritizing cropland for food, curbing farmland price inflation from subsidized solar, and blocking Chinese panels.
• There is sharp disagreement over whether this genuinely protects national interests or merely entrenches legacy industries and raises emissions.

Impacts on Farmers, Land Use, and Biofuels

• Several point out that farmers often want solar and wind for extra income and reduced costs; hybrid agrivoltaic setups (shade + crops/grazing) may be especially harmed.
• Land-use arguments against solar are widely criticized: wind has tiny ground footprint; solar can coexist with ag; by contrast, 30–40% of U.S. corn/soy is tied to biofuels according to one summary, though another commenter notes USDA data show biofuels use much less than a majority of total cropland.
• Overall sentiment: the policy favors biofuels and fossil-adjacent systems over much more land-efficient PV and wind, with unclear long-term benefits for food security or farmers.