North Carolina Town That Defeated Solar Plan Talks Back (newsobserver.com) 336
mdsolar writes with news that city officials in Woodland, North Carolina have taken issue with being ridiculed by the internet and want to set the record straight. According to the article: "Usually what happens in Woodland stays in Woodland, a town 115 miles east of Raleigh with one Dollar General store and one restaurant. But news of the Northampton County hamlet's moratorium on solar farms blew up on social media over the weekend after a local paper quoted a resident complaining to the Town Council that solar farms would take away sunshine from nearby vegetation. Another resident warned that solar panels would suck up energy from the sun. As outlandish as those claims seem, town officials say the Internet got it wrong."
Surrounded? (Score:2, Insightful)
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I can understand people wanting to put appearance before functionality. While a solar farm is a great resource, if it has a negative impact on people, then it needs to be rethought. It is not unlike someone getting upset because a 24 story high-rise is going to be blocking their view of the sea. One possible solution is simply to use existing roofs to install the solar panels?
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That's why they should build solar farms in cities instead. The insolated area on top of all those roofs mostly isn't being used for anything important.
Re:Surrounded? (Score:5, Interesting)
How about because being surrounded by solar farms is about as aesthetically pleasing as being surrounded by parking lots.
Re:Surrounded? (Score:4, Interesting)
Only when done wrong. There are dozens of solar farms near me and I barely see them. The great thing about solar farms is 50 foot of trees at the edge of the property completely hides them from ground level.
Re:Surrounded? (Score:5, Interesting)
Since they already have three solar farms, I guess they are probably well familiar with what they look like, and have decided they don't want a fourth one in that spot.
Re:Surrounded? (Score:5, Informative)
TFA says they *would* take a 4th solar farm, but the "photovoltaic panels were proposed just 50 feet from residential homes, and the project was too close to State Route 258 leading into town." The developer is going to increase the easement distances and resubmit.
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Hence the 'on that spot'
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But wouldn't fifty-foot trees also affect how much sunlight they get in the mornings and afternoons? Y'know, shadows and such.
I suppose it isn't that big of a deal if you're talking about several acres of land...
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The great thing about solar farms is 50 foot of trees at the edge of the property completely hides them from ground level.
If you live in a region where 50 foot trees grow naturally, then they are a reasonable sight block. In parts of the world, those trees would require assistance to survive, possibly using water that isn't available locally.
Re:Surrounded? (Score:4, Informative)
Exactly.
How many have even been "down east" North Carolina? I find acres of PVs no less appealing to look at than acres of tobacco, dilapidated barns and silos, rusting mobile homes, chicken or pork processing plants, or mega warehouses. If it was either soybeans or PVs, that's one thing. But it's often just idle fields or something worse, like tobacco or enormous distribution warehouses. Has the town ever limited cell phone towers or rotting vehicles permanently planted in front yards?
Re:Surrounded? (Score:4, Insightful)
This may surprise you, but different people find different things pleasant to look at. Some people LIKE looking at acres of tobacco, dilapidated barns and silos, etc. You can even buy artwork of such things. Some people LIKE to look at big cities, other people think they are as ugly as ugly can be. Who are you to be deciding what the town should or should not be looking at?
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In that case the correct solution is to make a good offer to buy the land rather than block land owners from exercising their property rights.
Re:Surrounded? (Score:4, Informative)
In that case the correct solution is to make a good offer to buy the land rather than block land owners from exercising their property rights.
Pretty sure that only one State in the Union offers honest-to-goodness property rights, and it certainly isnt North Carolina. Its Texas.
Re:Surrounded? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because solar farms, while really cool-looking from the air, look like miles and miles of supporting hardware from ground level.
The plan is basically "turn a farm community into an island surrounded by several square miles of industrial plants." People move to the country to get away from such things, it's not surprising that they're resisting having their property values trashed because someone decides to take a bunch of government cash to build the darned things.
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So you're saying the farmers want an HOA for everyone?
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There is no existing value to trash. That's why the companies want to install solar farms there.
Not true. The reason the companies have located solar farms adjacent to the town is to be close to a substation. There is plenty of cheap land out in the county, but they would have to run transmission lines.
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Because of basic city planning? Surrounding yourself with solar power plants cause a break in zoning and can interrupt your tax base. Take a look at most small/medium sized towns, and check out just how severely the freeway segments them. Solar plant would be worse.
I wouldn't even want three sides. One, maybe two sides at most.
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They didn't want to be surrounded by solar farms? Why not? That still doesn't make any sense.
Probably the same reason that people don't want to be surrounded by acres of parking lots or gravel-covered industrial zones.
People who live in small towns often consider nature to have a beauty worthy of preserving.
I am totally amazed at the fuckwits on slashdot that are shrieking "they hatez the solar because they rednecks" when this town probably has more solar energy panels installed than almost any other town in the country.
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Because they would like to live to nice green pastures, forest, woods, and neighbors.
Not everyone prefers the appearances of glass tables with metal structures.
One of the big tradeoffs with Solar Farms is the amount of land they use. Which means cutting trees paths and less farm land to use. It isn't 100% green, they are still tradeoffs to concern. Going all solar in a town where the person is living in a field where there is just solar collectors isn't considered part of a nice life.
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They didn't want to be surrounded by solar farms? Why not? That still doesn't make any sense.
Having a solar farm right next to residential lots destroys property values. The residential lots are inside the city limits and taxable; the solar farms are just outside the city limits and are not.
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Solar farms will grow anywhere, food cannot.
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They didn't want to be surrounded by solar farms? Why not? That still doesn't make any sense.
It makes perfect sense.
Some people like or at least don't mind being surrounded by buildings, so they live in a city. Some people prefer to be surrounded by green scenery, or mountains or the ocean...so they live near these places.
For anyone who wants to live somewhere nice, having a view of solar panels...never mind being effectively surrounded by them, would suck.
some people think they're an eyesore (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't agree, but they are certainly entitled to their opinion, and if they want to block a FOURTH solar farm from being built around their two horse town, I really don't think we have any room to bitch.
How many solar farms does YOUR town have? less than 3 per 800 people, I imagine.
Re:some people think they're an eyesore (Score:5, Insightful)
I wish my town had three per 800 people! Since I live in a major city, that probably means every roof would have solar and we'd be supplanting coal for a pretty big fraction of our power usage.
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You might be able to enlighten us as to how this is in any way a negative thing?
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um what?
Re:some people think they're an eyesore (Score:4, Insightful)
On the other hand, given the environmental issues caused through the burning of Carbon to make power, I have my doubts as to the potential for real ecological damage compared to the status-quo.
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A solar farm takes a lot of land. The Eastern Coast of the US isn't flat land as far as the eye can see. There are a lot of trees that would need to be cut down, farm lands that we use for food, cannot be used, most crops will not grow under a solar cell, as well gathering them would be hard.
Also people who moved there to live there, wanted to live closer with nature, Not a rows of glass panels
Re:some people think they're an eyesore (Score:4, Insightful)
One way this is a bad thing is applicable whether it's domination by solar farms or anything else; it's a lack of diversification. It's a similar problem faced by the cities of Cupertino and Mountain View in California. Cupertino is dominated by Apple, and Mountain View is dominated by Google. Both of these cities want to be favorable to their respective companies, who pay massive amounts of local taxes. On the other hand, if something goes poorly - for example, Apple hits hard times again and shrinks rapidly - then they're suddenly left with a huge hole in their budget, large numbers of unemployed citizens, and all the resulting downstream issues from that.
The solar business isn't quite so fickle, but it's still reasonable to not want to be boxed in by solar farms. For example, if the companies that maintain them go out of business, or if the maintenance costs of the solar farm exceed the price they can get for the power, the town might suddenly be surrounded by thousands of acres of unmaintained waste. I imagine that these farms will bring a few permanent jobs to the area for maintenance - a quick google shows that a solar farm can create a few hundred temporary construction jobs, followed by 10-15 permanent maintenance jobs. In a town of 800 residents, where maybe half or so are working (ie not students, retired, or family caretakers), then having 40-60 jobs all in the same industry is a pretty big percentage of your workforce, and it can have a pretty big effect if they all suddenly go away.
So it's not unreasonable to limit the expansion of a single industry in a small focused area.
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You might be able to enlighten us as to how this is in any way a negative thing?
They are an eysore.
Re:some people think they're an eyesore (Score:4, Insightful)
This characterization that "the Internet" got it wrong is such a lie. This was a deliberate shaming of honest brokers by media savvy enviro-bullies because someone had the temerity to push back before they found themselves marooned in a glass hell. The Internet was lied to by these assholes and you, dear reader, need to be keeping score about who the bad guys in this really are; you're being lied to and soon their going to be around your town, bullying you out of whatever land you happen to care about.
But the meme is out there now, and it will resonate forever in the libtard echo chamber; stupid 'muricans think solar panels will suck up all the sun........
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You know, why do you have to ruin your totally valid argument with a word like libtard? Gee, right wingers must be totally free of this kind of media manipulation, right? I mean, everything Fox News says is totally legit, and 100% free of rabble rousing, right? How about, just treat your fellow countrymen decently, as your fellow countrymen because that's the right thing to do.
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It's in its 10th? 20th? year and it seems that the battle to push the True Spirit of Xmas (tm) sales back to before Thanksgiving is being won by the Pro Santa Jesus forces.
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I don't agree, but they are certainly entitled to their opinion, and if they want to block a FOURTH solar farm from being built around their two horse town, I really don't think we have any room to bitch.
How many solar farms does YOUR town have? less than 3 per 800 people, I imagine.
But big solar has already passed this off as fear from simple ignorant people. And many folks right here on /. were happy to eat that clickbait without any real thought. So, lets stick with the big solar's story, after all, when it comes to solar, any means is justified, including belittling people, misleading articles, and keeping the facts to a minimum .
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I don't agree, but they are certainly entitled to their opinion, and if they want to block a FOURTH solar farm from being built around their two horse town, I really don't think we have any room to bitch.
How many solar farms does YOUR town have? less than 3 per 800 people, I imagine.
A fourth solar farm doesn't block the town in any more than the existing fields on which the solar farms are built on block the town in. It's the roads between the fields than enable access.
It's a specious reason invented after the fact to try and make them not look small minded.
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I don't know about *no* reasonable argument against solar farms.
Production of solar cells is pretty nasty. And we've dealt with it similar to how we deal with other issues - outsource it to China.
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Because illiterate rednecks be rednecking. There's no reasonable argument against solar farms, and there's nothing dubious about it's ability to generate power. FFS you can cover your roof with them, half-assedly, and power your whole house from the electricity generated and stored in batteries. That town is full of asshats, plain and simple.
And the illiterate rednecks from Martha's Vineyard rejected wind farms. Let me revise your post:
"There's no reasonable argument against windfarms, and there's nothing dubious about it's ability to generate power. FFS you can cover your rooflawn with them, half-assedly, and power your whole house from the electricity generated and stored in batteries. That townMartha's Vineyard is full of asshats, plain and simple."
if the hogs move out, the IQ will plummet (Score:2)
the "objections" raised by the town elders are just plain delusional. end of story. a tower of dead computers burning in the dump is smarter than those two who were quoted.
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So farmers will buy products that will cause them to operate at a loss?
Farmers are some of US richest people. They make millions of dollars, however most of that money they reinvest into the farm so they are not living the high life with all the money they make, but if they want to retire at 50 they can sell the farm, and live quite well for another 50 years.
The reason farmers go with the big agro companies is that their products help produce larger yields or are more resistant to environmental variances.
Th
Re:Surrounded? (Score:4, Informative)
Farmers are some of US richest people. They make millions of dollars ...
Farming is not lucrative. Inheriting farmland is lucrative. There are different classes of farmers. The ones who inherited large amounts of land are often very well off, just like everyone else who inherits millions of dollars from their parents. The farmers who rent farmland are almost never wealthy. Rich farmers could be more accurately labelled as rich real estate owners.
Re: Surrounded? (Score:5, Informative)
Farmers don't make real money for anyone but the owner and few select ag services business individuals.
You nothing about agriculture if that's what you think. Most farmers are very well off. Especially after the commodity prices of the last 8 or 10 years.
I come from a farming community in the Midwest (mostly corn, soybeans, and livestock). The only farmers who are well off in my home town are those who inherited land. Farmland is incredibly expensive. According to Iowa State University [iastate.edu] the cost of growing corn is $887 per acre in 2015. This comes to $4.79 per bushel @ 185 bushels per acre.
Of that cost, $37 goes to farmers (4%) and $312 goes towards cash rent or equivalent (35%). Seed, fertilizers, and other additives make up another $386 (44%).
It is painfully obvious the only people making money off farming are the land owners and seed/fertilizer/herbicide/etc providers. Just like the GP said.
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Re: Surrounded? (Score:4, Informative)
So for a change, family farms are actually more economically viable than large new upstart businesses operating as factory farms?
Depends on what you mean as "more economically viable." If a farmer is making $150,000 per year farming, but could be making $130,000 per year if he retired and rented his land out to a factory farming operation, is it really economically viable for him to remain a farmer? If he loves the job (like my father did) then more power to him. But in that case the farming is more of a hobby, while being a landlord (to himself) is his primary profession.
Factory farms make up for the low margins with scale. They don't make more money per acre than a family farmer other than through better practices their extra scale allows them to do. Like larger combine heads, computer driven tractors, better research into increasing crop yields, etc.
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If this was true, the whining farmer would sell off the incredibly expensive land, go get a cushy job at the local mart.
Most do just that. The rise of corporate farms has a lot to do with the newer generations realizing farming isn't worth it. They sell the land they inherit for millions of dollars and live the good life. I know six farmers who owned their land and passed it on to their children (including my great grandfather). Only one of those farms is still owned by descendants. The rest were sold to either corporate farms or to build housing complexes / shopping malls. In my grandparents case they went from a life of ne
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I don't doubt that the other players involved do make money, but you have failed to take into account what their expenses are. The $386 that goes into seed, etc. isn't pure profit. When you have an open and competitive market with many players and a low enough barrier to entry you tend not to see profit in the double digit percentages.
Well it appears agricultural chemicals and pharmaceuticals have among the highest profit margins in the chemicals industry [investopedia.com], which would put them both at around 13%-14% profit margins. This is a very capital intensive industry, since R&D spending is very high in these sectors, so it is not a very open market. It is very clearly an oligopoly. The top 6 pesticide and GMO corporations make up 68% of the market [sourcewatch.org], and are all companies with market caps above $50 billion.
As for seeds, three companies control al
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Hillary may be a corporate tool, but I wouldn't exactly characterize her as a fascist.
Just as I suspected... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Might RT(f)A?
" Ultimately, he said, the Strata Solar project was not doomed by irrational fears. The photovoltaic panels were proposed just 50 feet from residential homes, and the project was too close to State Route 258 leading into town.
“We’re not opposed to the solar farm itself, just that particular location,” Lane said. “We wanted to make sure they didn’t overtake the town.” "
Re:Just as I suspected... (Score:5, Informative)
What fact did the 'Net or Social Media get wrong, or can you even answer that question?
1. The town does not oppose solar farms, just one at that location.
2. The fourth solar farm to be built was not rejected because it would "soak up the sun".
Who could imagine, a small rural town might have a couple of people who don't understand solar power, and that those couple of people would be paraded in front of the world as representing every person in that town. I hope you don't live somewhere where you might find some ignorant people who are made into your town spokesmen by a media looking for web traffic and eyeballs.
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What fact did the 'Net or Social Media get wrong, or can you even answer that question?
1. The town does not oppose solar farms, just one at that location.
2. The fourth solar farm to be built was not rejected because it would "soak up the sun".
Who could imagine, a small rural town might have a couple of people who don't understand solar power, and that those couple of people would be paraded in front of the world as representing every person in that town. I hope you don't live somewhere where you might find some ignorant people who are made into your town spokesmen by a media looking for web traffic and eyeballs.
To be fair it was never said that "sucking up the energy" is WHY it got rejected. It's just said that they had to literally explain to someone complaining that this was not the case and this new article does not contradict that. They never told us WHY it got rejected. The original article was just on the stupid complaints that people brought up to try to reject it.
Though yes it's pretty important that they already have three solar farms.. that's almost negligant.
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It's just said that they had to literally explain to someone complaining that this was not the case
Then this becomes specific error number 3: they did not have to explain this to anyone, it was a vote of the town council and they didn't have to educate every doofus who opposed it for ridiculous reasons. There wasn't even the issue that they would have to worry about losing the doofus vote because they voted against the project just like the doofii wanted, just not for the reasons the media tried to make it out to be.
Try again (Score:4, Insightful)
Contrary to your statement "They never told us WHY it got rejected." they clearly stated WHY. It is the 4th solar farm in the same small town of 800 people. It further states that the reason power companies want to build in these areas is because they can acquire land from not so wealthy people on the cheap, taking advantage of the financial situation many families are in (largely due to corporate influence on Agricultural business and economics at a much larger scale). It also discusses a professor who believes this causes long term damage to the agricultural industry.
Since I actually did read TFA, it makes me wonder who actually started the disinformation campaign.
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Thank goodness you're here. I was terrified that people might not know or (gasp) care what you think. I can't believe the town didn't just consult you before making this stupid mistake.
Truth (Score:2)
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. :-)
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Story: Town Rejects Thing For Bad Reason
Truth: Town Explains Its Bad Reasons For Rejecting Thing
The town's reasons are bad reasons. The internet got this one right.
How about parking lots? (Score:2)
Costco and other Big Box stores such as Home Despot and Lowe's carry solar and some of them even offer installation. So why don't they cover their parking lots with panels? Among other things, it means that, no matter where you park, you're parked in the shade. In the summer, that's a godsend.
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Great idea, but they should cover the roof of the building with panels first (because the mounting system is cheaper since they don't need clearance for cars).
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A local Walmart did that, as did our local library.
Claim it isn't the whole story but quotes true? (Score:5, Insightful)
Jane Mann said she is a local native and is concerned about the plants that make the community beautiful. She is a retired Northampton science teacher and is concerned that photosynthesis, which depends upon sunlight, would not happen and would keep the plants from growing. She said she has observed areas near solar panels where the plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight. She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer."
It sounds to me like this backlash is mainly pretty deserved. Even if they had legitimate reasons to say no to this new solar, it is clear that those were not the reasons articulated by the people in question.
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True, those plants were probably brown and dead from the heat island effect of solar power plants
http://www.kcet.org/news/redef... [kcet.org]
Thus she was just observing an effect and attributing it to the correct source for incorrect reasons.
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so i can ask some random stranger around you why you did or didn't do something and take the answers as "your" reasoning? I mean seriously, for all you know whomever said those silly things could very well be tree huggers or even representatives of the corporation wanting to build out the solar farm
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Worst detail: that was a SCIENCE TEACHER. Holy shit.
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... the primary backlash was not so directed at the town as much as that one had many different people in the town saying really stupid things.
"Many" different people? It's not altogether clear, but from the article it looks like something in the range of 2-3 different people saying stupid things. Now I know that that seems like a lot for a town with only 800 people, but I think we still have little right to judge the entire town based on a handful of morons. The problem is that when people read stories like this, they do not simply conclude that 2-3 people in that town are stupid. Rather, we jump to conclusions about the town and make sweeping s
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"Many" different people? It's not altogether clear, but from the article it looks like something in the range of 2-3 different people saying stupid things. Now I know that that seems like a lot for a town with only 800 people,
In my estimate, about 0.5% of any group of people are utter and total idiots. 2-3 out of 800 means this town is a good deal better than average :-)
Just thinking about another article... Takes 200 other politicians to compensate for Donald Trump...
Erm... no (Score:4, Informative)
[North Carolina has] installed a massive amount in the state (to the point where they are running into problems with lack of storage during peak sunlight).
North Carolina has on the order of 1,100 MW of PV installed (source [seia.org]. Duke Energy Progress (NC + SC) has a peak summer load of 13,232 MW for planning purposes. Duke Energy Carolina (NC + SC) has a peak summer load of 18,691 MW. The combined load -- because Duke Energy and Duke Progress (in North and South Carolina) are now a single jointly operated system -- is 31,923 MW. See 2013 DEP IRP Table 3-A [duke-energy.com] and 2013 DEC IRP Table 3-A [duke-energy.com] (pdfs). Duke has roughly 36,000 MW of generating capacity (Tables 8-D, row 5), of which ~15% is combustion turbines (Charts 8-E). CTs are fast ramp, and Duke has roughly 5,400 MW of CTs -- far more than enough to easily integrate 1,100 MW of PV distributed across its system. Duke Energy operating in North Carolina should have absolutely no trouble integrating the 1,100 MW of solar PV operating in the territory, on time scales of sub-second, 15 second, 5 minute, 15 minute, hourly, and daily operations. As Duke continues to retire coal units and build CTs and combined cycle (CC) gas plants, its ability to integrate PV will only increase.
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"Lack of storage" is an interesting way to explain the problem. Others would call the practice of charging well above market equilibrium, "price gouging."
Basically NIMBYs and BANANAs running amok (Score:4, Insightful)
how many solar farms does your city have? (Score:2)
The city in question already has 3 solar farms for their small population of 800 people. Are you doing any better?
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Where? I didn't see any of them on google maps earth view.
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built within the last few years, i suppose? you are aware that google maps earth view is not realtime, right? the average image on there is 3 years old, but i'm sure some are older.
If you're really that interested in it, you can fire up google earth - it should reveal how old the satellite imagery is.
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So I take it you would not object to anything that happens near your property? Want to build an open-pit mine? Go ahead! Want to build a giant Walmart? Go ahead! Want to build a trash burning facility? Go ahead!
Or are you one of those people that think only YOUR concerns are valid, and everyone else who has any concerns is an idiot?
NC resident got it right. (Score:2)
"Another resident warned that solar panels would suck up energy from the sun."
Well, technically this resident got it right.
They're just too stupid to understand that's kind of the fucking point of solar energy.
Congratulations North Carolina. It's not very often that Florida gets a laugh. This would be one of them.
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The comment about stopping photosynthesis was accurate too...underneath the solar panels.
Dual Use Question (Score:3)
Plants primarily use the Red and Blue portions of the EM spectrum. Could we build areas that harvest most of the Sunlight (especially Non-Red, Non-Blue frequencies) while supplying Plants directly beneath with enough overall light for growth? Many species of plants are quite shade tolerant. Does Corn for instance use all available light for growth or could lower levels still support near full growth?
This might be a particularly attractive strategy in arid areas. Solar Farms might do double duty as green houses to hold in moisture which is at a higher premium than light in those areas for agriculture.
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Work hemp into it somehow and the pro-legalization weedies will get right on that.
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It doesn't look like the Internet got it wrong... (Score:3)
.
The things that the townspeople said were correctly quoted and, imo, properly ridiculed.
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But the Internet was laughing so hard, that it was not able to get the entire story.
A genuine feat (Score:2)
This is impressive. The North Carolina town that banned new solar farms because they were afraid they would soak up the sun sets the record straight and manages to sound even stupider.
Solar farms are only less efficient than fossil fuel plants if you leave out the fact that you have to, you know, put fossil fuels in fossil fuel plants.
re: efficiency (Score:4, Informative)
Actually, the arguments that PV solar, as currently deployed in the USA, are largely a "government boondoggle" and "highly inefficient" are two really valid accusations with merit.
IMO, like so many things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. I invested in PV solar for my own house, at considerable expense. So no, I'm not a "hater" of the technology. But the only reason you see so much solar adoption right now is the artificial construct the government created to sweeten the economics of doing so.
Right now, the company that installed my panels, as well as many of their competitors, are campaigning aggressively to make sure the Federal tax break for solar doesn't expire by the end of 2015, as it was originally scheduled to do. That's because it amounts to a full 1/3rd. of your total installation cost that's received back as a tax credit. People like me who buy one of these systems typically do so with the help of a "bridge loan" that's given for an amount roughly equivalent to this tax credit, with 0% interest for 1 year. The "plan" is, you'll use the loan to help cover the up-front cost of your installation, and then pay the bridge loan off before any interest is due on it, using your Federal tax refund you get the next year.
Some states give back $1,000 or more, as well, as part of a solar rebate program or state tax credit. Typically, these rebates have a few hoops to jump through to qualify, including providing proof that you paid off the cost of your PV solar installation in full.
If these credits disappear, the typical consumer who buys one of these systems is looking at shelling out approximately $34,000 for a system that might not even offset more than 60-70% or so of their total electric usage. At that point, it really becomes a questionable purchase. Because yes, they can probably run numbers and projections in Excel and crank out a spreadsheet that shows it will save you tens of thousands of dollars over its 25-30 year average lifespan. But a LOT can happen in 25+ years. Will you be living in the same place? Will a new technology come along that drives the kilowatt hour cost of electricity way down? Will the system's inverter(s) fail outside of warranty (or the company who made them goes out of business), adding thousands to your total cost of operation?
Oh, and surely some people will bring up the additional "money maker" for having solar ... the solar reclamation credits (SRECs) issued in some states. Well, again, these are more artificial government constructs because they simply penalized the power companies in those states for not producing above a certain percentage of power from "green sources". In turn, the power companies get to purchase these SRECs to make up for their shortfalls, and that money goes back to people with PV solar installations, based on how much power the systems generate per quarter.
I receive the SRECs in my state, and I'd say a typical check is around the $450-525 range. So sure, nice to receive those and they help make a better economic case for purchasing the system. But there's no guarantee what an SREC will be worth down the road. The more people who install solar, the more people there are generating SRECs in that state, and there are only so many a power company needs to buy to be compliant. Early adopters of solar typically got the best deal with SRECs, back when they were worth a lot more than today.
Re: (Score:3)
You still have to explain how a solar farm isn't "more efficient" than a fossil fuel plant,
You list the inefficiencies of fossil fuel plants, but forget the ones attached to solar. You have to mine the materials to manufacture the panels, supply the energy to make them, ship them, install them, clean them, and combine the small-scale generation capabilities into a larger scale distribution system.
And then you need to factor in the conversion efficiency of the panels, compared to the heat generated by the absorption of unconverted sunlight and by the conversion process itself.
It sounds to me like the good people of Woodland, North Carolina have a whole bunch of separate reasons for not wanting solar farms,
Like: we already hav
Re: (Score:3)
"Economical" and "efficient" are not the same thing. Don't interchange those two words and pretend you are refuting my statement.
Answer To Stupid Question (Score:5, Interesting)
“How would you and your family like to live in the middle of a solar farm, surrounded on all four sides?” said Lane
Um, a heck of a lot?
Solar farms are silent, nonpolluting, and provide jobs. It's hard to think of a better neighbor than that. Maybe I could work there and walk to work. Sounds awesome. Please build one next to my house, then another one other side.
Ultimately, he said, the Strata Solar project was not doomed by irrational fears. The photovoltaic panels were proposed just 50 feet from residential homes
Oh noes! FIFTY FEET! That's super close! He'd better do something, or else pretty soon people might start attaching solar cells directly to their homes!
I think the internet got this one right.
Space for living (Score:2)
Just dry clothing outdoors on dry warm days, use economy lamps, heat (air-condition) a reasonable size house, and half of the existing electric generators could be stopped. Production energy by its economy is a cheap, clean, and reliable approach.
Solar Farms in Rural areas actually heat the area (Score:5, Informative)
This might be more complicated than it seems (Score:5, Interesting)
It's true that the panels aren't 100% efficient. What energy doesn't go out over the wires either gets absorbed, reflected, or grounded. Grounded? Yes, you could heat up the metal frames and that heat could find its way into the ground, which is usually a pretty good heat sink. That's probably negligible though. Much of the heat would get transferred to the air. Some would get reflected back--even though the panels are dark in visible light, infrared might be another matter.
The real devil is in what the panels replace. You have to compare the panels to what they're replacing. Another poster said putting the panels in the desert would make things cooler. If you're covering sparse vegetation and hot rocks with panels, and taking out some energy in the form of electricity that makes sense.
North Carolina isn't desert though. They're going to put those panels over land that probably used to be either woods, pasture, or fields full of some agricultural product. Plants can cool things down in a number of ways [nasa.gov] that might be more effective than the removal of energy in electrical form by panels. Aside from that, if the electricity is consumed locally it's a zero-sum game.
I'm sure there are some more fine points I'm missing here; but the main point is that the equation is a bit more complicated than just a simple thermodynamic analysis of the panels.
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No but a blackbody absorbs more than something green or brown.
This study [nature.com] found that covering deserts with solar farms would reduce the absorbed heat enough to create regional cooling. Plants are darker in color than dry dirt, usually, but like solar panels they also convert incoming radiant energy into a different form. They're far less efficient at this than PV panels are, though, so it's unclear whether their reduced efficiency but lighter color results in more or less heat absorption.
One interesting thing to note about the study's conclusion about deserts, thoug
Re: Solar Farms in Rural areas actually heat the (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
It just doesn't matter any longer. We're all going to die. It's too late to stop it
fixed for accuracy