Eastern WA. farmers may have found a new crop to pay the bills

Every year it gets a little harder for the family farmer to get ahead. Trying to make ends meet while competing with corporate farms is difficult in this day and age. But some ranches in Eastern Washington may have found a way to make ends meet. 

During the Texas oil boom some ranchers were lucky enough to have oil on their property and the worry of whether or not you were going to make it through another season went away. Now something similar is happening for some ranchers in Eastern Washington. 

According to SeattleTimes.com,
‘Now a new crop will take center stage at the Roberts’ ranch: the sunlight itself.
The Robert family and a neighboring private landowner have agreed to lease nearly 6,000 acres of land to Innergex, a renewable-energy company that plans to install a sea of glittering solar panels with 400 megawatts of capacity, enough to power 70,000 homes. It would be one of Washington’s largest solar farms.’ 

If you have enough land and it’s in the right location, you might be able to get in on this new cash crop. With every new technical discovery, a solar farm becomes more feasible, more productive, and cheaper to create. 

If the state wants to replace all the electricity that's generated by coal and methane, we will need 22 Gigawatts of renewable energy by 2035.  

Some of this energy may ultimately wind up coming from nuclear power but the bulk of it is going to have to be renewable. Every time I make a drive to Ellensburg, or the tri-cities, I always marvel at the wind farms. The combination of solar and wind with large scale utility grade battery systems will play a big part in our energy future in Washington state. 

What will our electrical grid look like in the next 10 years?  

I can't imagine right now, but I'd love to be able to see it.
WA ranchers turn to new crop: Solar power | The Seattle Times
Proposal for WA’s largest wind-solar project shows challenges ahead | The Seattle Times
Wind and solar projects gain traction in Garfield County as moratorium expires