Solar farming - an avenue to renew the Homestead Act?

A French farmer is taking a huge gamble, adding $26 million in solar-power generating infrastructure to his farm, which prior to this counted eggs and grains as the main income generators.

The farmer is building five giant sheds covered by 36,000 square meters of solar panels. These should generate up to 4.5 megawatts of electricity, or about enough to power 4,000 homes, according to this Reuters article. The farmer expects to generate about $2.5 million in electricity sales per year.

This is made possible by legislation creating 20-year contracts with favorable incentives to sell electricity to the grid. France aims to have a third of its electricity come from renewables by 2020.

On the farmer's part, he is taking a huge risk, as that's quite an investment.

As the United States moves toward more renewable energy, I'm reminded of the legacy of the Homestead Act, which gave able-bodied Americans 160 acres of government-owned land and a mule as long as they developed the property.

Now, the U.S. government long ago gave away all the decent farmland, and the Homestead Act was finally put to rest with the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976.

But I think of the huge swaths of land in the West that are basically desert, good for nothing - except solar. If the government were to organize one section of this land, and offer the land for free, along with federal loans to develop solar power, there might be a good reason to renew the Homestead Act.

These plots could be situated so they all conveniently fed into a single electrical grid.

If the project worked, this same model could be applied in other sunny areas, and in areas where wind power could be generated.

A new twist on the free press: France to offer every teen a complimentary newspaper subscription

U.S. newspapers are facing declining readership and advertising, and much of that is due to the emergence of new media and the fact that kids don't tend to read physical newspapers.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has offered to give every French teen a free sub to a newspaper of their choice, according to this story.

Sarkozy announced a number of initiatives to bolster the press, according to the article.

"The habit of reading the press takes hold at a very young age," Sarkozy said.

The president said the newspapers themselves would provide free copies for 18-year-olds, while the state would cover the cost of delivering them to many thousands of homes.

In addition to the free paper scheme, Sarkozy announced plans to double the government's budget for buying advertising in the press, a freeze on the cost of postal distribution and a reduction in payroll taxes for newsagents.

I'm not in favor of massive U.S. subsidies for teen newspaper readership. However, I do think it would be smart for U.S. metropolitan dailies to offer a free subscription to teens in order to boost their ranks of future readers. It's called a loss-leader, and it might not be a bad idea if newspapers want to keep from losing.