Thousands of acres of worn-out farmland in California’s San Joaquin Valley are slated to be reborn as one of the world’s largest solar energy projects. When completed, the Westlands Solar Park will provide as much electricity as several nuclear power plants. Nobody is complaining about ruining the landscape, or messing up the environment, or depriving indigenous species of their natural habitat.

Since the land was farmed for so many years, wildlife fled long ago. Another plus for the project is its proximity to transmission lines, infrastructure, and markets.

Other sites are being evaluated in Arizona as home for wind farms or solar power plants, including abandoned mines, toxic waste sites, and landfills. In southern California, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power plans to build a 5,000-megawatt solar complex in a dry lake bed.

Farmers in the San Joaquin Valley are welcoming the green energy projects. Water has become scarce in the area, limiting crops, and they can lease their farmland for solar projects for enough money to move their farm operations across the valley to an area that has plenty of water for irrigation.

The first phase of the proposed solar park will cover 9,000 acres of land that has been leased from farmers, with solar panels. This should generate up to 1,000 megawatts of electricity. One megawatt alone can provide enough power for a large retail department store.

Last December, in anticipation of extensive solar power development, California’s Senator Dianne Feinstein introduced a bill to protect nearly a million acres of the Mojave Desert from the development of renewable energy. But the bill also included tax incentives for green energy developers who would construct their projects on abandoned farmlands. So the law does not prohibit the development of the San Joaquin Valley solar project.