Posted on 02/03/2013 9:06:54 AM PST by ProtectOurFreedom
With California mandating that 33 percent of electricity be generated from renewables by the end of the decade, there are 227 proposed solar projects in the pipeline statewide.. Coupled with wind and other renewables they would generate enough electricity to meet 100 percent of California's power needs on an average summer day...
Developers are flocking to flat farmland near power transmission lines, but agriculture interests, environmental groups and even the state are concerned that there is no official accounting of how much of this important agricultural region's farmland is being taken out of production.
Planning department records in four of the valley's biggest farming counties show about 100 solar generation plants already proposed on 40,000 acres... Planners in Fresno County say their applications for solar outnumber the ones they received for housing developments during the boom days.
Solar developers have focused on the southern San Joaquin Valley for the same reason as farmers: flat expanses of land and an abundance of sunshine. Land that has been tilled most often has fewer issues with endangered species than places such as the Mojave Desert, where an endangered tortoise slowed solar development on federal land.
Much of the solar development is proposed for Kern, Tulare, Fresno and Kings counties, which are home to more than 400 crops that pump $30 billion into the economy...
...the farmland trust released a report projecting that by 2050 more than 570,000 acres across the region could be lost to development as the Central California population explodes. Farmland losses due to housing, solar development, a warming climate, cyclical drought and ongoing farm water rationing to protect endangered fish, plus the state's signature transportation project—the High Speed Rail—are all issues the trust is trying to monitor.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Now government diktats require your power to come from high-cost renewables and we are taking prime agricultural land out of farm service to make solar power.
Get ready for more higher priced electricity AND higher priced food.
All for what? Nothing. All driven by our master "central planners" who know best for us rather than the invisible hand of the market.
I started up a lot of coal fired power plants and the ones in the West are all located in the middle of nowhere for a good reason.
Due t the closing of farms, the illegal immigrant unemployment rate will go up....gotta have more people of the gov’t dole....
The enviro whackos protest solar pane farms in the desert yet want to take farmland to place them on...world truly has gone mad.
They go after the farmland and protect the desert, because the true goal is destruction of American productivity.
The population control crowd is sympathetic with the anti-colonialist crowd.
They despise our success and consumption, and certainly don’t want our productivity and efficiency to fuel third world growth.
German industry warns could lose edge through high energy costs
http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/11/08/energy-industrials-competition-idUSL5E8M8DVE20121108
German energy costs, by contrast, are rising as its government has decided to exit nuclear power generation, invest billions of euros into expanding the renewable generation sector while largely relying on imports to meet its natural gas demand.
“The strong expansion of shale gas since the start of the century has brought in a period of lower gas prices in the United States and more stable power prices so that industry is now profiting from historically low gas prices and, in international comparison, low electricity prices,” the BDI said in a report published on Thursday.
If you’re interested being able to choose to eat real food in the future consdider joing ther Farm-to-Cosumer Legal Defense Fund http://www.farmtoconsumer.org/. There’s a war on small farmers and real food producers today. If we don’t support them, soon the only thing we will be allowed to eat is what the industrial food industry vomits out for us. If you don’t have food soverienty then the right to free speeh, self defense, and worship is meaningless http://www.healthiertalk.com/fda-says-no-right-eat-what-you-want-1930.
Woodland Heists: Rising Energy Costs Drive Up Forest Thievery
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/tree-theft-on-the-rise-in-germany-as-heating-costs-increase-a-878013.html
The problem has been compounded this winter by rising energy costs. The Germany’s Renters Association estimates the heating costs will go up 22 percent this winter alone.
Germans pay second highest electricity prices in EU
http://www.thelocal.de/money/20100528-27497.html#.UQ6bwqVEErY
While the average cost of a kilowatt hour of electricity in Europe for the second half of 2008 and the first half of 2009 tallied €0.165, Germans paid €0.229, the European Union statistics office Eurostat reported from its headquarters in Luxembourg.
When adjusted for purchasing power, Germans paid the third-highest prices to power their country, the study added.
The Danes paid the most at €0.255 per kilowatt hour, while Bulgarians paid less than half the price at €0.08 per kilowatt hour, Eurostat reported.
Against the overall European trend, which saw electricity prices go down by 1.5 percent during that time period, German consumers bore a 4.5 percent increase.
The biggest reduction in electricity prices were in Cypress (20 percent) and Italy (10 percent), while the steepest increases were in Poland (18 percent) and Luxembourg (17 percent).
Meanwhile German electricity taxes of 41 percent were also found to be the second highest in the EU, Eurostat reported. Denmark’s electricity tax of 56 percent was the highest, while the European average was much lower at just 26 percent.
Germans did get a break on gas prices, though, which dropped by 22.8 percent, a bit more than the Europe-wide average decrease of 16 percent.
Rotten Wind in the State of Denmark
http://www.american.com/archive/2011/june/rotten-wind-in-the-state-of-denmark
Denmark is yet another country that has made wind power a hallmark of its energy policy. But are the lofty claims about Danish wind true? No.
Denmark is yet another country that has made wind power a hallmark of its energy policy. President Obama has praised the Danes for their aggressive wind power program, telling an Earth Day audience in Iowa: “Today, America produces less than 3 percent of our electricity through renewable sources like wind and solar—less than 3 percent. Now, in comparison, Denmark produces almost 20 percent of their electricity through wind power.” The U.S. Energy Information Administration tells America’s children that “Denmark ranks ninth in the world in wind power capacity, but generates about 20 percent of its electricity from wind.” That sounds impressive, but is it true?
One step closer to starving the peasants.
You talk about ugly! Solar panels look like SH*T.
Denmark is no model for the United States
http://www.instituteforenergyresearch.org/2012/02/24/denmark-is-no-model-for-the-united-states/
Today, President Obama is meeting with the Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt to discuss, among other things, “green growth, and economic development.” This is a good reminder that President Obama would like the U.S. to emulate Denmark’s incredibly expensive energy policies.
On multiple occasions, President Obama has cited Denmark’s energy policy as a model for the United States. This is in line with President Obama’s statement that “under my plan . . . electricity prices would necessarily skyrocket.” After all, residential electricity prices in Denmark are the highest in Europe—41.2 cents (€ 0.3078) per kWh compared to 11.82 cents per kWh in the U.S.
One of the main drivers of Denmark’s high residential electricity prices is their promotion of wind power. To evaluate claims by President Obama that Denmark is a good model for a “green” economy, IER commission a study to example the true impacts of Denmark’s promotion of wind power. Here’s what the researchers found:
Subsidies. Government subsidy of wind producers over the past decade amounts to roughly $376 million per year. As the decade has advanced, the rate of new building in Denmark has declined sharply — and to maintain their sales, just as in Spain, manufacturers have been forced to concentrate on exporting their technology to foreign markets (USA) where the subsidy potential is higher.
Employment. The public subsidy in Denmark per wind-related job created is 600,000-900,000 DKK per year ($90,000-$140,000 USD). This subsidy constitutes 175-250 percent of the average pay per worker in the Danish manufacturing industry.
Electricity rates. Thanks to a combination of expensive base power, taxes and additional charges, Danes pay more for their electricity than anyone in the European Union.
Emissions. The wind power exported from Denmark saves neither fossil fuel consumption nor CO2 emissions in Denmark, where it is all paid for. By necessity, wind power exported to Norway and Sweden supplants largely carbon neutral electricity in the Nordic countries. No coal is used, nor will you find power-related CO2 emissions in Sweden and Norway.
Exports. Over the last eight years West Denmark has exported (couldn’t use), on average, 57 percent of the wind power it generated and East Denmark an average of 45 percent. Denmark sells this power to its neighbors at almost no cost, asking only that its neighbors sell some of their baseload power back to Denmark on the frequent occasions in which the wind does not blow there.
Electricity prices are already skyrocketing in the United States without more Danish-style policies, but President Obama is continuing his push to increase the cost of electricity through a new “clean energy standard.” There is no need to follow Denmark’s lead on driving up electricity prices. Enough is enough.
WTF!!! TILING THE EARTH.. BRILLIANT. This is a frickin’ EYE SORE!!!! This will INCREASE “global warming” or the surface temperature of these areas.. EYE SORE, EYE SORE!!! How is covering God’s Earth with TILES environmental progress???? WTF!!!!
Isn't that the truth. Our town spent HUGE dollars remodeling the High School. It was gorgeous from the street...nice view of the football field and buildings. A couple years later, what did they do? Covered the parking lot with solar panels, blocking out all the public views of the remodel! Now our town as an extremely ugly industrial-scale power plant visually blighting the neighborhood. The same kooks on the city planning committee who want very strict building codes and restrictions for houses and commercial buildings permitted this monstrosity. Our neighbor a couple doors down did a complete tear-down of his house and built a gorgeous new home -- this same city planners denied his original design because it had a four foot high stone veneer on part of the front of the house. He removed the stone veneer and they said "OK." These are the pinheads who said "Yes" to the solar powerplant in the neighborhood. This stuff REALLY pi$$es me off.
They were first going to cover the desert with these things, causing it to be colder. That discomfited a few tortoises and other crawly things. So they are now covering our crops so we can starve.
Government Is Insanity. Do only insane people go into government? Or does government cause insanity?
Welcome to the next mini ice age.
All that low and high desert in California where the sun never stops shining, and they want solar panels in the agricultural corridor instead.
Unbelievable
Wherever they’re placed, that becomes the new ‘surface’ of the Earth.. They would shadow ground below, yes, but they’ll increase ‘surface’ temp and CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING!!!!
And all for the developers' convenience because the ag land has already been permitted whereas the high desert land hasn't and is covered with protected bugs and reptiles. So the convenience of pre-existing GOVERNMENT-issued permits makes it easier for them to rob us of our best farmland.
"Unbelievable" scarcely describes it.
Whatever purported benefits the so-called green movement hopes to gain from solar energy over carbon fuels it’s increasingly clear the costs are outweighing the benefits: it’s expensive, killing birds and eating up farmland. Plus, Sen. John Kerry — the hypocrite who suffers from NIMBY syndrome — says the windmills would be a blight on his ocean views if it spoils his ocean views if installed in his neck of the woods.
Some anti-solar folks are using the protected species approach to stop the solar land take-over.
They are not necessarily pro species, but realize the stupidity of solar, and are fighting on those terms.
Fighting using logic, such as not economical, not reliable, must be subsidized, more expensive, crony politics and kick-backs, etc. of course doesn’t work with this enemy.
Going after ag land has dual payoff and is easier for this enemy.
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