What is the balance between preserving agriculture and forging ahead with green energy and data centers?
by Allen Best
In Sterling, the meeting chamber for the Logan County commissioners last Tuesday morning consisted of 50 chairs plus a table for staff and the three commissioners on the dais. Those chairs were filled and a few people stood.
Amidst this crowded meeting room was an elephant, a humongous data center. It has not been formally proposed but was the reason why the Logan County commissioners adopted a six-month moratorium last October on data centers, utility-scale solar, and battery installations while they create regulations governing them.
Representatives of NextEra Energy, a proponent of the still-unofficial project, testified. So did local ranchers and assorted others. After hearing a dozen speakers, the commissioners tabled further regulations until Feb. 17 as they try to get their financial house in order before formally entertaining proposals.
The commissioners have a chicken-and-egg problem. In adding a giant new tax base, they expect to provide improved roads and address other needs. A constitutional amendment approved by Colorado voters in 1992 called TABOR (Taxpayer Bill of Rights) caps the annual growth in revenue of state and local governments at 5.5%. The commissioners wonder whether they can work around that cap by assessing fees.
Beyond that financial problem, Logan County clearly has qualms about adding seas of solar panels amid its oceans of winter wheat and sprawling pastures of grazing lands, much of it in native sod.
Logan County currently has very little solar. The developer may be looking at acquiring 4,000 acres, with much of the land to be used for solar. That figure comes from reporting by the Sterling Journal-Advocate last October, soon after NextEra broached the idea of the data center with the commissioners. Since then, NextEra has formally become reticent about talking about their project in precise terms. If still amorphous, the idea has huge ambitions.
Sterling and Logan County, unlike Fort Collins and other communities 100 miles to the west along the Front Range, have changed relatively little in the last 50 to 75 years. A data center and the accompanying energy components would add a major tax base and at least some jobs. But at least some local residents question the tradeoff.
Gary Sheffler, who lives northwest of Sterling, between the site of the possible data center and Pawnee Buttes, urged the county commissioners to be wary of breaking up native prairie sod.
“All new wealth comes from the land,” he said. “Logan County has some of the richest grasslands in the world. Our blue-grama grass and buffalo grass was developed over millions of years.”
Gary Sheffler warned against approving projects that will resut in turning of prairie sod. “All wealth comes from the land,” he said, and talked about the decades needed to regenerate grass ecosystems.
Sheffler, 85, recalled another farmer/rancher from the area who returned from World War I and plowed the soil. The farming lasted for several years but never worked out, so he planted it back into grass before World War II. It took more than 50 years before the blue grama grass came back on that ground.
Buying his own property in 1977, said Sheffler, he put a portion into a federal program called CREPS that allowed it to be taken out of plowed production. It took until 2025, he said, for the grasses to return the way he thought they should.
“My point is, when you take this natural resource out of production, you can never replace it.”
Jim Brownell, chair of the county commissioners, responded that he and he believed his fellow commissioners felt the same way. “I think we understand that that grass is very important. However, the land where this possible project would go has been broken out, and it’s currently farm ground. So (the data center and solar panels) wouldn’t be placed on native pasture that I’m aware of in this particular case.”
Regulations governing batteries do not seem to be a major issue.
Greg Brophy, a former state legislator who now has a non-profit called The Western Way, urged the commissioners to adopt the regulations.
“The technology is evolving so rapidly with these batteries that they’re really becoming critically important, and it’s important that we have them located as close as possible to the renewable generation facilities that we have springing up and creating economic opportunism for farmers and ranchers and communities all over eastern Colorado,” said Brophy, who has a farm between Holyoke and Wray.
“I don’t think we can do a 100% renewable energy grid, even with a lot of batteries, but we can certainly do more,” said Brophy.
Brophy added that the batteries have become “very, very safe.” That was a nod to concerns that batteries have, in the past, been responsible for wildfires.
NextEra Energy had a few concerns about the proposed battery regulations. Sound is one issue. NextEra wants to see the sound levels permitted for agricultural land applied to batteries as opposed to sound levels for residential areas.
Residential, for example would be 50 decibels during the night and 55 during the day, commercial a little louder, and industrial a little louder yet, 75 decibels at night and 80 during the day.
The Colorado Department of Transportation says a conversational speech at five feet registers at 55 to 65 decibels, freeway traffic at 50 feet 70 to 80 decibels, and a heavy truck or motorcycle at 25 feet, 85 to 95 decibels.
Hearing what NextEra had to say about this and other elements of the proposed battery regulations, Brownell allowed that some rules and regulations may need to consider the context. “This is the first part of the process, getting the rules in place. The next part of the process, once an application comes in, is much more involved. Conditions can be imposed during the special-use permit process that would be specific to individual projects.”
Regulations governing data centers brought in the question of where the electricity will come from. Rural Logan County is served by Highline Electric Association. Highline, in turn, gets nearly all of its electricity from Tri-State Generation and Transmission Association.
Tri-State is keen to meet demand of data centers and has applied to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for a large-load tariff. Tri-State also reports to the Colorado Public Utilities Commission for its electric resource planning. It all gets very complicated. And then there is the added wrinkle of whether the data center developer would bring its own resource to the table. Solar would obviously fall under that heading.
So would a gas plant, if that were to occur. Brownell said that “in visiting with the folks that are interested, it is definitely, at least at this point, part of their plan.”
Jonathan Nelson, who ranches on land north of and adjacent to the elephant-sized property in question, brought up the question of natural gas and whether regulations would be necessary?
Brownell said that natural gas generation would be subject to regulation by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment.
Jonathan Nelson, a neighboring landowner, urged the commissioners not to be in a hurry to approve regulations. “I ask that you not be rushed into this decision,” he said.
Nelson — a distant relative of this writer, as we both descend from a family that homesteaded in the immediate vicinity in 1887 — said he had not known of the project until just a couple weeks before. “It is literally next to mine and my family’s personal property.” He said two weeks was “not nearly enough time to think through the benefits as well as the difficulties” of the data center and associated energy generation and storage would bring. He called it a “massive change that this mega-industrial development brings.”
The developer, he suggested, should have been a bit more neighborly in sharing its ambitions with adjoining property owners.
Don’t rush to decisions, he urged the commissioners. “If more time is needed to research and develop proper regulations, please take your time,” he said. “I ask that you not be rushed into this decision.”
INelson called NextEra “secretive.” NextEra Energy’s Leo Gorgens responded that he was developing 15 different projects, three in Colorado, two in Wyoming, and theyinvolve hundreds of landowners. “Until the project becomes real and you can submit a (proposal), we don’t want to waste anyone’s time.”
NextEra had approached the county commissioners on Sept. 26 about potential benefits. The commissioners subsequently adopted a moratorium.
“So we haven’t been able to move forward with any of the adjacent landowners or (talk) about how this might benefit the community at large,” said Gorgens.
Solar zoning may be the thorniest issue. The proposed regulations would allow solar on only one-eighth of a parcel of land. Gorgens said that 2,000 acres of solar —- apparently what his company expects to need — would require 16,000 acres of land.
Gorgens said if the goal is to address the visual impact of what he called “solar parks,” other approaches might work better. “Most counties will do setbacks,” he said citing the approaches taken by nearby Kit Carson, Morgan and Yuma counties. In the latter, the solar collectors must be 30 feet from public roads and 25 feet from property lines.
Another approach would be to add setback requirements from residents, “which is probably the biggest concern as far as the visual impact goes.” He also noted that location of the solar could be dictated by transmission needs. The regulations as proposed might actually allow proximity of solar “parks” to residences.
Not all land is equal in terms of solar productivity. South-facing slopes, perhaps obviously, have higher value for solar production, as does land near transmission and distribution lines.
Commissioner Jim Yahn, who lives relatively proximate to the not-yet-proposed data center, said that he, too, was concerned about the loss of agriculturally productive land. “Do we want large solar facilities everywhere in our county, or could we live with some maybe smaller footprints,” he asked in talking about the trade-offs.
NextEra said that it takes about seven acres of solar panels for one megawatt of generation capacity. As such, company representatives suggested solar capacity of up to five megawatts of capacity would be deserving of exemptions.
The third commissioner, Jim Santomaso, told NextEra that “you have adamant opposition to major solar panels on one parcel of land.”
“Our main job here is not to guarantee that you’re going to have a successful project or money-making project. We want you to, but our main goal is these people sitting here (who) depend on us to protect their heritage. The aesthetic values of whatever 3,000 continuous acres of solar panels next to your place would not be, I am assuming, acceptable to you either.”
Still another twist is the possible role of State Land Board property. Much of the State Land Board property is leased for agriculture production, although that is not necessarily the primary mission of the agency. The state agency is driven primarily to produce revenue, which goes mostly to schools.
Saying he was about to get “political,” Brownell indicated dissatisfaction with the state’s current policy, which he suggested favors green energy development over agriculture on State Land Board property. “I’m vehemently opposed to that,” he said. He noted the dependence of land ranchers on State Land Board property.
Unclear is exactly how this mention of State Land Board parcels fits into the story of Logan County and potential solar and other development.
However, in a footnote, I contacted Sheffler, whose ranch lands overlap Logan and Weld counties as well as Nebraska. He spoke passionately about the need to protect native grasses and pointed out that scientists have determined that grasslands actually have greater value to the global atmosphere than rain forests.
Sheffler also told me that he believes that State Land Board properties that have more sand and lesser soils might be the best sites for giant solar farms and accompanying data centers. One such area would be Wiggins Hill, between Denver and Fort Morgan, he said.
After the meeting, as we left the courthouse, I had a conversation with two people who live in areas proximate to the data center. They talked about loss of land to agriculture, but one also said, as she held up her phone: “Of course, we need data centers.”
And Logan County would like more tax base, but not with substantial impacts to agriculture.
The hearing over, the chairs were vacated and the county commissioners returned to the more hum-drum affairs of county governance.
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“The proposed regulations would allow solar on only one-eighth of a parcel of land. Gorgens said that 2,000 acres of solar —- apparently what his company expects to need — would require 16,000 acres of land.”
Two years ago, I visited the Gemini project which is 700 MW on 5000 acres under fenced solar out of 7000 total site inc. the undeveloped intermittent wash corridors. On the drive up from Vegas there are another 10 solar farms of generally 100MW/500 acres or so. IMHO the concentration of solar on one big site was less visually disruptive, mostly because the smaller ones all had separate gen-tie transmission lines splayed all over the horizon. (Solar farms were started in that corridor in 2012, largely because transmission to one of NV’s biggest gas generators was already there.)
While one of your interviewees says to the developers “Our main job here is not to guarantee that you’re going to have a successful project or money-making project,” the bottom line is that adding significant stacks of expenses to solar and wind and battery projects will either raise electric rates or result in burning fossil fuels while we wait for nuke plants subsidized by the the Feds to the tune of $10 Billion or so. These deee-velopers are not raking it in on these projects selling power at $0.05-7/kWh or whatever. In addition to the land lease and property taxes, they have a huge mortgage to pay on all those panels and racks and wiring and inverters and transformers and batteries and a substation and any power lines and all the labor that goes into it.
And BTW, each “baseload SMR” at 300 MW requires 3300 acre-ft/yr or a “buy and dry” of 1500-2500 acres or so out east I think, depending on the crop and irrigation efficiency.
It seems a lot of “concerns” and “issues” stem from problems that have been solved or are being improved drastically.
Land was often heavily graded at early solar farms. Now the racking for solar panels has become more flexible so the posts are just driven into the ground on slopes up to 15% or so, and even higher with more expensive equipment. Most native vegetation can be left. The crews just work on top of it, and where soils and vegetation need rehabilitation from compaction or trenching, there are many successful examples. Extremely detailed measurements by CSU ag school nerds have shown equivalent annual growth and carbon sequestration of non-irrigated grasses under panels in Longmont, though this was in brome, not native shortgrass prairie. Reduced growth from shade is offset by reduced heat stress in the afternoons due to that same shade. Pollinators and small wildlife galore.
Other studies and detailed measurements of large solar farms have shown reductions in water use/needs from reduced wind speeds and associated drying. More and larger animals are being grazed if that’s desired.
Even when a hundred thousand acres are put under solar (15,000ish MW) on the eastern plains, traditional agriculture would still occupy 20ish million acres. So agriculture will be “preserved” under any scenario. I think many objectors are actually jealous that their neighbors are going to make more per acre just by renting out their land which had the good fortune to be located near transmission lines.
And Michael Grunwald is generally in favor of solar on farmland, particularly in comparison to corn for ethanol.
I sure wish CSU would devote more funding to their “eco-voltaics” efforts (it’s what, well under $1M/yr). Recently a “family office” in AZ picked up the next few years of funding for that state’s agrivoltaic research when the feds yanked their $2M/yr or so. I think WA is spending $5-10M/yr.
Thanks for letting me use your site as a soapbox!
When you factor in the amount of water used for fracking, the addition of water needs for these data centers is a recipe for disaster. We are already experiencing drought. Keep these data centers out.
Do not mess with the water. No more golf courses. Keep the land as is.
I would like to know exactly where this is going to be located
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I’ve been a Colorado resident since I was born I love the natural land in Colorado. I was disappointed when they build all the housing in Green valley ranch. I miss the old Colorado. To destroy more native land for people’s greed is absurd. I say no to this idea. I’ve read about the importance of having that type of blue Gramma grass I’ll rather have that and drive to see the beautiful grass in the Eastern plains then to watch a solar plant destroy our environment.
I read this article with many of the same thoughts Frederick Porter expresses (better than I could) above. Seems like agrivoltaic studies need to expand to native shortgrass prairies.
This land is Owned. Solar is not efficient Energy. The Sky Rises in Denver are Solar with far more power to provide than any panels in a field sufficient for all of the Western States. These are not good solutions to very important land. Solar projects like this disturb the weather and tend to create Tornadic Air. You cannot Violate the Ownership of the Property.
Stop acting like giant dtata centers to pu.p vvisia stock are green you charlatans
Out here in Morgan county and Washington county, it looks terrible with all of the big transmission lines that were put it. Heavy equipment, lots of truck traffic and so many other things have affected the way our farmland and grassland was. It looks like a giant power pole jungle out here now. They have to have lay yards to store all of the poles and supplies which in turn brings in a lot of truck traffic. It will never be the same. My grandfather homesteaded out here and would roll over in his grave if he could see this. The big cities will benefit from the power generated from this, not our local communities.