Posted on 03/13/2024 7:00:46 AM PDT by DallasBiff
The 15-megawatt Depot Solar facility in Campbell County. Photo courtesy of Appalachian Power.
When we turned to coal as our main energy source, in the 1800s, nobody asked the people of Appalachia whether they wanted their land mined to power the country. That’s where the coal was, and, one way or another, mining companies bought the mineral rights to it and dug away.
Today, as coal gives way to renewable energy, the people of the localities where those solar and wind projects want to go are being asked whether they want them — and many of them are saying “no.”
In the past year, at least five localities have adopted caps on how much land can be devoted to solar development: Buckingham, Henry, Isle of Wight, Mecklenburg, Pittsylvania and Surry. At least 10 counties — Caroline, Charlotte, Clarke, Culpeper, Halifax, Lunenburg, Nottoway, Page, Shenandoah and Southampton — have taken other actions to discourage or otherwise restrict solar farms. And a longer list of other localities have rejected specific solar projects on a piecemeal basis. It’s possible that these lists are even longer, but the shrinkage of local journalism means many rural counties are in “news deserts” so the actions of their boards of supervisors go unreported. Whatever the precise numbers, the point is that a lot of counties in Virginia are trying to erect barriers to solar development.
(Excerpt) Read more at cardinalnews.org ...
Food would be better but today that’s insane ,LOL
And this only produces in daylight and when clouds don’t block sunlight.
There is a ginormous solar farm south of Dallas on an old TXI mine. Crazy stuff.
Climate policy isn’t about saving the planet any more than CoupFlu policy was about protecting public health.
Devious — put solar on top of ex-mines so they can’t ever go deeper or be harvested for coal again.
Devious — put solar on top of ex-mines so they can’t ever go deeper or be harvested for coal again.
Actually, i find it a clever option plan. When the solar panels die in 15-25 years, perhaps the nation will come to some energy sense and mines can be re-opened. If not, then it will have kicked the can of reclamation down the road.
Food would be better but
Loss of agricultural land and production will be, somewhat already is, a serious problem.
What a waste of land.
Coal plants stand up better to hailstorm and tornados.
Wind and solar are great unless you have access to the grid. By themselves they are unreliable so you wouldn’t use it for anyone’s life support system unless you really don’t like them. Over 90% of solar panels will never produce as much electricity as it took to produce the panel. There is a huge problem with disposal of dead panels, batteries and wind turbines. Nuclear and hydroelectric are really the best alternatives but natural gas and coal are the best back-ups.
A huge problem with solar “farms,” is the problem of runoff.
The grass under the panels die, leaving nothing to hold the soil. When the big rains come, the soil will be washed away as the grass roots that once held the soil is gone. If they do not engineer proper erosion control for this land then neighboring land will be flooded with mud and debris.
I really doubt they put gravel under all those panels, that would be cost prohibitive for the project. The photo indicates terrain change, and those hills will erode away without grass.....sad to be neighbors of these idiotic pipe dreams..
I designed my little solar array on the barn for 10KW and it will not power the house for normal demand rates even though I can return some power to the grid. My point is that there is a huge difference in average power consumption and peak power consumption. It is a wonder the national power grid works at all with massive generation capacity, let alone with a bunch of candy ass solar panels and batteries.
Solar will not power a modern society such as ours. If solar is the only alternative we will have to seriously pare our life style or spend unrealistic sums of money to do it.
I always marvel that these acres of solar panels and bird chopping wind turbines never seem to get the same environmental scrutiny that any other project of this size seem to be given. Imagine you proposed a project were bald eagles would routinely be killed in its operation. There would be protests, lawsuits and decades of red tape all likely killing the project. Covering acres of ground with solar panels certainly must disrupt the habitat of insects, birds and small critters some of which are likely a threatened species so where are the protests, lawsuits and endless red tape?
Could not agree more. This is a scam that would make P.T. Barnum blush with envy.
Schuylkill County PA - and rural areas all over the country - are seeing an explosion of solar farm proposals. In many, maybe not all, the groundwork is being laid for massive energy-consuming crypto-mining facilities. This is being done under the guise of “clean renewable energy” - but it’s really about making lots of money for a very small group of (already wealthy) people.
Residential and business customers will not benefit from this surge of solar farms. Prices will go up, and the overall supply for residents and businesses will go down.
When do-goodism is shouted from the rooftops - you can bet that there is another, very selfish reason for it. And it’s always…always about the money.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.