As Demand for Green Energy Grows, Solar Farms Face Local Resistance (finance-commerce.com) 106
Hecate Energy's plans for a 500-acre solar farm in upstate New York were cut by 50% "after facing an outcry from some in the community who feared the installation would mar the bucolic setting," reports the New York Times. (Alternate URL here.)
The Copake fight mirrors similar battles raging across the country in rural areas like Lake County, Oregon; Clinton County, Ohio; and Troy, Texas. Developers say industrial-scale solar farms are needed to meet the nation's goals to mitigate the rise of climate change, but locals are fighting back against what they see as an encroachment on their pastoral settings, the loss of agricultural land and a decline in property values.
Until recently, most farms were built in the West, where abundant sunshine powers industrial-scale solar arrays and installations were farther away from sight lines. But now, with federal and state governments committing to a reduction in fossil fuels, joined by corporate giants like Amazon and Microsoft, the industry is seeking solar installations in areas where the calculus is more complicated... Improvements in the capabilities of the panels — including the development of so-called bifacial panels that capture the sun on both sides of a panel — allow for greater electricity generation in fewer panels, meaning a smaller footprint. Nonetheless, finding appropriate sites with sufficient sunlight, proximity to the grid and up-to-date infrastructure is challenging. Approximately 0.5 percent of U.S. land would need to be covered with solar panels to achieve the decarbonization goals proposed by the Biden administration in April, according to a study by the Energy Department. Urban settings usually lack enough space for significant projects; as a result, 90 percent of the suitable land sits in rural areas.
But even rural land is not entirely suitable. It needs to be in proximity to the electricity infrastructure that can add more power. The grade of land matters: Steeper slopes can be less efficient in the energy captured than flatter land. And wetlands are usually protected by federal or state law.
More important, development depends on owners willing to lease their property often for decades over the objection of neighbors.
Until recently, most farms were built in the West, where abundant sunshine powers industrial-scale solar arrays and installations were farther away from sight lines. But now, with federal and state governments committing to a reduction in fossil fuels, joined by corporate giants like Amazon and Microsoft, the industry is seeking solar installations in areas where the calculus is more complicated... Improvements in the capabilities of the panels — including the development of so-called bifacial panels that capture the sun on both sides of a panel — allow for greater electricity generation in fewer panels, meaning a smaller footprint. Nonetheless, finding appropriate sites with sufficient sunlight, proximity to the grid and up-to-date infrastructure is challenging. Approximately 0.5 percent of U.S. land would need to be covered with solar panels to achieve the decarbonization goals proposed by the Biden administration in April, according to a study by the Energy Department. Urban settings usually lack enough space for significant projects; as a result, 90 percent of the suitable land sits in rural areas.
But even rural land is not entirely suitable. It needs to be in proximity to the electricity infrastructure that can add more power. The grade of land matters: Steeper slopes can be less efficient in the energy captured than flatter land. And wetlands are usually protected by federal or state law.
More important, development depends on owners willing to lease their property often for decades over the objection of neighbors.
My property my way. Right? (Score:3, Insightful)
If some fracking company wants to drill two miles down from my property and suck natural gas from a square mile of rocks and dump the waste water on to the creeks, my property my rules.
No government is going to tell me how to run my land, or run a power transmission tower through my land. My land, my rules.
What? you want to install solar panels, it is all bucolic setting, views, zoning laws, its not your property your rules. Even if it is your property it is my rule. Got any problems with that?
Re:My property my way. Right? (Score:5, Funny)
If it has some wetland used by migratory birds, and I want to pave it over for a parking lot, my property my rules.
You seem to have been missing from the US for the past 50 years.
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>>If it has some wetland used by migratory birds, and I want to pave it over for a golf course [golf.com], my property my rules.
FTFY
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Fine, do it your way. In a few years time when sea levels have risen and violent storms are more common, etc, which all make it much harder for you to do things your way - what will you say ? Will you be proud that your obtuseness has made your life, and that of others, much harder, more unpleasant ?
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Got any problems with that?
Depends on which coast you are living on. West Coast: Most of your land is owned by the Department of the Interior anyway. If a bunch of East Coast liberals need it to save some silly groundhog or generate power that they can ship back East. East Coast: We need to think of the needs of the many instead of the wants of the .... What?! You're going to put that thing in my view?? How dare you! Now I'm going to scream about my property rights like some Texas rancher.
Just wait until someone discovers a great wi
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The real question is do you feel that I can treat my property as my land. Vs your property. Then what if what I do to my property pollutes your properties water supply, or creates poison gasses that will flow to your property.
You see in the areas that have higher population density, they are more laws on what you can or candy do with your property, because what you do on your property will affect others.
I know there is a trend where people feel that freedom lacks responsibility to others in the community,
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Completely agree with your position.
But what do you think of the argument that, "it will ruin *my* view, so I can control what you do on your land?" (outside of controlled communities where you signed a contract when you bought the land)
Because that's what the rich people are doing. If it changes their view, they argue they can veto what you do on your own land.
Yet many have ties to industries which emit actual pollution, or put tons of herbicide on their huge lawns which runs off, or get discounts for us
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But what do you think of the argument that, "it will ruin *my* view...
If you don't get a big enough bribe, pretend you're a cop and look the other way.
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Exactly. ~10 years ago they decided to put a high voltage power line (the huge 365KW type) across my property. We fought it to the bitter end, but they just used eminent domain and condemned our property. It's on the far side of my property so I learned to live with it and farm around it. Now that the power line is here, Solar is rolling in and building 6000 acres of panels surrounding my house. We learned our lesson, there is no fighting it, we are just moving. Our beautiful scenery and country life
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In the old days when a big project was deemed necessary for the common good, the "nimby" crowd was ignored. Might be a time to revisit that policy on some things.
Just put up a nuke plant (Score:3, Informative)
And paint some trees and flowers on the cooling towers. At least it won't take up so much acreage. If you put the panels out in the fields, put them up high enough to walk/drive underneath.
Re:Just put up a nuke plant (Score:5, Informative)
In this article, they detail a University of Arizona study where solar panels where place on 9ft stands to allow working of crops underneath. [thecounter.org]
This allowed grazing animals and crops to benefit from exposure to too much sunlight (Arizona, the too much sunshine state) while producing power for the farmers.
Re:Just put up a nuke plant (Score:5, Interesting)
The ironic thing is that there is a whole class of solar panels, bifacial panels, which work significantly better when at a height, because they will not just collect sunlight from above, but from below, especially during the "shoulder hours".
Solar panels can be very beneficial if used right. It is surprising why they are not more common. Of course, solar isn't a base energy source, but battery technology and advances in safe (thorium reactors) nuclear energy generation can address that.
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Solar combined with hydro seems ideal but that is also rejected by the nimby's with Maine recently refusing to allow a power line to supply Massachusetts with power from Hydro-Quebec
https://globalnews.ca/news/834... [globalnews.ca]
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The ironic thing is that hydro is arguably the best thing going Virtually all of Paraguay has their supplied by the Itiapu dam. Not allowing a power line is declining free power.
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Excuse the post to a post and "the ironic thing" to an "ironic thing". However, I cannot see any real reason that a power line allowing a state to have effectively free power at pretty much zero added cost to the environment allows NIMBY people to get away with that. If Mexico had a damn generating several gigawatts of power and they offered to sell it to Texas, I'm sure even the most libertarian lawmaker would be taking that up, if only to keep power going for the BTC miner company proposals.
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Nuke is obsolete. (Score:1, Troll)
Nuke is obsolete.
I don't suppose... (Score:5, Interesting)
...this would help?
"Honey producers Travis and Chiara Bolton keep bees at three solar farms where developers seeded native plants underneath and around panels. “The advantage to these sites is that they are intentionally planted for pollinators,” says Travis Bolton. “At these sites, they’re really trying to get them back to a native prairie, and that’s a benefit to us.”"
https://theworld.org/stories/2... [theworld.org]
Just think about it, practices like encouraging biodiversity, improving the health of pollinating insects (needed for local crops to thrive) and even integrating crop plants that seem to grow better _under_ the solar panels [thecounter.org]must make sense to some land owners out there...
oh yeah, culture war I forgot myself
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or put another way, "sure, we can create a better world but who want to live in it ?".
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Sadly, yes, for some people being contrarian (even counter to their own best interests) is a primary goal.
It is an easily manipulated state of mind, and made us of by leaders of all sorts.
As for myself, I would stick solar panels on every inch of my property if I could afford it
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I was wondering about planting under panels. The plants would have to be something that required shade. Harvesting a crop under solar panels might be challenging.
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Yes, they hand harvested tomatoes, potatoes and peppers in one mention and allowed grazing animals access to fodder grown there in another. In addition, panels were placed at 9' above crops to enable access.
It would not be hard for me to imaging integrated systems that allowed for automation, but that would take a while to sort and out create economically viable farming machines
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
It's far from a new concept, and a lot of crops suprisingly do better without direct sunlight beating down on them. Also tends to reduce water usage from less evaporation loss.
Not suitable for every crop, and yes it can make mechanized harvesting more difficult, but it's got a lot of potential to scale up.
=Smidge=
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grow crops under solar panels [Re:I don't suppose] (Score:3)
I was wondering about planting under panels. The plants would have to be something that required shade. Harvesting a crop under solar panels might be challenging.
Turns out that solar panels don't shade the 100% of the ground, because the sun moves during the day. Most plants don't need full sunlight 100% of the time.
Some links: https://theworld.org/stories/2... [theworld.org]
https://interestingengineering... [interestin...eering.com]
https://www.futurity.org/agriv... [futurity.org]
https://www.wired.com/story/gr... [wired.com]
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Don't you know honeybees are an invasive species?
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Honeybees came to North America with European settlers, on the scale of ~300 years ago.
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Honeybees in many cases can outcompete local pollen foragers. North American Indians called honeybees "white man's fly" due to their stings. In addition, and this is a bit speculative, European honeybees preferred homes are cavities in trees. Many native species that have declined or gone extinct entirely, such as the Carolina Parakeet, also preferred to live in this type of cavity. It's possible that honeybees explosive growth across the continent disrupted a huge part of the North American ecosystem.
With
Re:I don't suppose... (Score:4, Interesting)
A friend was willing to lease land for a large solar farm.
The deal fell through when he asked for a bond to restore the land once it was no longer in service.
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Astroturf... (Score:5, Insightful)
Dig one level deeper and you'll find that this is outrage manufactured by the fossil fuel industry and their toadies.
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Dig one level deeper and you'll find that this is outrage manufactured by the fossil fuel industry and their toadies.
Hardly. People are stupid enough without help from some corporation. Heck half the time you'll find NIMBYism outrage is actually fueled by a single Keren.
Rooftop Solar is better (Score:2)
These large projects tend to draw astroturfers.
Rooftop solar could meet all of US energy needs if installed on only half the roofs. It's also ideal for grid resiliency and doesn't require expensive long distance transmission.
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These large projects tend to draw astroturfers.
Rooftop solar could meet all of US energy needs if installed on only half the roofs. It's also ideal for grid resiliency and doesn't require expensive long distance transmission.
Rooftop is good if you have a home, but what if you live on the 5th floor of a buildong? Unless the panels on the roof are 90% efficient, they won't be able to produce enough electricity for everyone in the building.
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But buildongs are unsuitable for rootfotp solar due to their overly phallic shape.
Re: Rooftop Solar is better (Score:2)
Just the tip.
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But buildongs are unsuitable for rootfotp solar due to their overly phallic shape.
I thought it was because the panels were closer to the sun and would overheat.
Re: Rooftop Solar is better (Score:2)
Only in the summer, in the winter they are lower.
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Right, rooftop is less ideal in many types of high density housing. It's better for single unit homes, but even there, issues exist. There was a deal in my state where rooftop solar was heavily subsidized, so we looked into it. We didn't qualify unless we cut down all of the shade trees around the house. I declined. So I have solar for an outbuilding behind the house, and solar for the trailer, but the house is still on the grid. I guess someone else will have to generate power.
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Rooftop is good if you have a home
Even if you're a homeowner, there's significant expenses involved. Besides the costs of the PV panels, inverters, batteries (if not going fully grid tie) and installation labor, you still need a structurally sound roof underneath the panels and you'll be literally adding an additional layer of complexity in maintaining it.
It if really was just as simple as buying a bunch of panels and inverters from eBay, tossing them up on the roof like Christmas decorations and flipping a switch, then yes, lots more home
Re:Rooftop Solar is better (Score:5, Informative)
Rooftop solar requires a bespoke installation for each roof, doubling the cost.
The average rooftop solar system has an area of 30 square meters.
So for a hectare of panels, you need 300 individual rooftops, each with its own design, installation, wiring, and admin overhead.
Grid-scale solar, as described in TFA, is far more cost-effective.
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It's not quite that can, because in many parts of the world the same house is built over and over again.
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It's not quite that can, because in many parts of the world the same house is built over and over again.
Rooftop solar is more effective when installed at the time the house is built.
But that is not where most of the subsidies are directed.
As is often the case, taxpayers are subsidizing something that doesn't make economic sense, which is why it needs subsidies.
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One thing you get with rooftop solar (or parking lot solar, or whatever) that you don't get with purpose-built industrial-scale solar is land. The parking lot, the rooftop, is already sitting there. Not being used by migratory fowl, farmers, runoff abatement, bucolic scenery etc. There's only so much land available, and a lot of it needs the sunlight it gets to fulfill its current purpose, including scenic vistas (ie tourism).
You did count that in to the cost, didn't you, instead of considering it an ext
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There's only so much land available
America can generate all of its electricity on 0.5% of its land.
and a lot of it needs the sunlight it gets to fulfill its current purpose
Arid land benefits from partial shade.
We have millions of square miles of arid land.
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As is often the case, taxpayers are subsidizing something that doesn't make economic sense, which is why it needs subsidies.
That rather depends on whether you are taking into account the externalities of climate change or not.
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Grid-scale solar, as described in TFA, is far more cost-effective.
Rooftop solar doesn't require nearly such a large investment in infrastructure in terms of the grid. That makes it the perfect solution for e.g. Texas where such a thing is a political impossibility.
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One could put them offshore [youtu.be] same as wind. [youtu.be]
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There have been floating arrays on lakes. It keeps the water cooler, and it's flat. OK, technically is follows the curve of the earth, but it's flat enough at practical scales.
Water skiers may be affected, fishermen not so much. Some species of fish will like hanging out in the shade.
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Deploy floating PV on water reservoirs to reduce evaporation losses. A good deal of effort goes into controlling evaporation already, may as well kill two birds with one stone.
=Smidge=
Re:Rooftop Solar is better (Score:4, Interesting)
Solar panel MTBF is ~10-15 years. The US needs 1 *billion* solar panels to meet all US *electrical* energy needs. That means we need manufacturing capacity to produce 65 - 100 million solar panels *annually*.
There's a reason that centralized power plants are prioritized over 5 million tiny installations of solar. Even wind reduces the number of parts required by a factor of 1000.
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Solar panel MTBF is ~10-15 years.
Citation? Are you talking about panels or system (which includes an inverter failure, which is more likely)?
Solar panels ? (Score:2)
I have RTFA and i read these plants are made with solar panels. Why ? If you put a plant in a rural area and use a lot of surface why not going for thermal solar ? A thermal solar plant can store energy for several hours and better follow demand. Photovoltaic is more intermittent.
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PV-solar is more cost-effective than thermal-solar.
As the price of PV has gone down, several proposed thermal-solar projects switched to PV.
The solution to intermittency is geographic distribution.
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Also setting a lower price when the panels are producing surplus electricity so people can run their air conditioners during the hottest time of day more cheaply.
Cheap but intermittent electricity is also useful for water desalination, electrolysis, charging cars and so on.
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Moreover, those plants will be idle most of every day, making their electricity and water that much more expensive.
If they are charging cars, how are they also idle?
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So, we stop using gas for heat, and our solar installation has to generate enough power to provide heat during those long, cold winter nights as well. What's the solution then?
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Pellet stoves.
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What's the solution then?
The solution is ground-loop heat pumps.
You use green electricity to pump heat into the ground during the summer and to suck it back out during the winter.
Ground source heat pump [wikipedia.org]
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The American method of house building is to make a large, uninsulated box and brutalise the temperature into submission with HVAC (this description was given to me by small American construction business owner). You can brutalise it more efficiently with heat pumps. Or...
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Re: Solar panels ? (Score:3)
Maintenance costs on PV are as close to zero as you get with energy production. Not so for thermal. PV is also easier to scale, especially now with microinverters, because you can literally scale a panel at a time - not that you would, but you can (and would) scale by any amount of panels you like, and you can replace any number of panels even with unlike panels at any time.
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Where did all the Entitled A-holes come from? (Score:1, Troll)
I 100% bet that the people that demand the personal right to ignore safety requirements are the exact same people demanding that others not be allowed to use their property the way they want to because they think it is ugly.
The ability to do what you want with property you bought is an actual right. It's called property rights and are guaranteed by the 5th and 14t amendment tot he US constitution.
Ignoring what the government's own health experts decided was the temporarily required thing to do because even
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>>You do not get to make up rights, you have to point at an actual amendment to the constitution. At least in the US.
Admittedly, there is a strong correlation between this group and the one that regularly attributes things like "life begins at conception" to the Bible (inspired word of God), which actually says life begins at first breath (Genesis 2:7, Job 33:4, Ezekiel 37:5&6), religious courts can order abortion ( Numbers 5:11-31) and fetus is treated like property (not alive) under religious la
Re:Where did all the Entitled A-holes come from? (Score:5, Informative)
That's right, screw the rural conservatives, while those good folk from the other side of the political spectrum would NEVER engage in Nimbyism. Nimbys on Marth'a Vineyard and Nantucket have been fighting windfarms for literally decades. Vermonters have done the same.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sie... [sierraclub.org]
Let's just skip over the boring partisan mud tossing and realize that politics are personal, and people are mostly interested in their own personal interests--left or right.
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I think that the old saying is, "All politics are Local" [wikipedia.org]
And yes, the blade swings both ways on this one, the environmental movement's (primarily GreenPeace in the US) fear mongering about nuclear power is the primary reason that President Carter (a nuclear engineer) backed off of building nuclear power plants in the 70's and (due to OPEC) set America on building coal power plants.
Since then, the fossil fuel industry has refused to let coal go, even after Clinton set the date for an end to coal energy in the
Re: Where did all the Entitled A-holes come from? (Score:1, Offtopic)
This whole country was literally founded on entitlement. The question is not at all where they came from, but how do we get rid of them before their actions get rid of our biosphere?
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Do you have any idea how large an area 500 acres is? We have a 50 acre solar farm near work and you can see it from everyw
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I have owned two separate properties.
I did not say there are no legal rules about property. I said we had actual legal rights to property. The government can do a lot but they can not outlaw an entire business that already confirms to existing zoning and other regulations because a bunch of local yahoos think the business is ugly.
As for the idea that in 20-30 years it will become a scrap metal farm, that is the most inane, stupid reasoning I have ever heard. It illustrated total ignorance of how any bus
well yeah, (Score:5, Insightful)
solar farms are ugly, frankly, and have a massive footprint. There's bound to be resistance. Although, individual property rights is a mighty strong argument.
Re: well yeah, (Score:2)
Solar farms are rarely seen, actually. Few people live where they are located, and they tend not to be sited in amongst population centers. There is no reason a handful of nimbys should hold our future hostage.
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This one is 50 acres and supplies about 3 days of power to the business (yes, they use that much electricity $35M/yr)
https://goo.gl/maps/qKnm3fAuKE... [goo.gl]
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Solution: carbon tax. (Score:2)
It's very simple to change make idiots like this STFU, you just need to put a carbon tax on goods, which include electricity. When solar power means cheap electricity then these idiot will get their heads handed to them by everyone else.
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[citation needed].
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Seriously? OK, check out the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. I'm surprised you had to be told.
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Seriously? OK, check out the Rural Electrification Act of 1936. I'm surprised you had to be told.
And somewhat more recently, subsidies for rural broadband.
https://thehill.com/policy/tec... [thehill.com]
And all those rural highways. The 5 people per mile that live on those didn't pay for them.
OTOH, those rural folks do produce something called "food", a product that can be converted into basement fuel such as pizzas, mountain dew, cheetos, etc.
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OTOH, those rural folks do produce something called "food"
You do realize that farming is also heavily subsidized too, right?
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OTOH, those rural folks do produce something called "food"
You do realize that farming is also heavily subsidized too, right?
Yes, most of my extended family here in the deep south are farmers or in the farm support business, so I'm aware of that tangled mess that farm subsidies are.
The poster Gravis Zero started this subthread by suggesting that rural folk be punished for opposing some solar arrays in some rural areas.
My point, and I apologize for not being more clear about it, is that farmers are rural folk and food is more important than cheap electricity.
Because we all must have food, subsidizing farmers is managing our own fo
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My point, and I apologize for not being more clear about it, is that farmers are rural folk and food is more important than cheap electricity.
A) Covering less than half a percent of the US would power the entire country.
B) This isn't about the price of electricity, this is about moving to renewable power because of this little things called climate change that is having a global impact.
Honestly, I don't care about the desires of "rural folk" or any other type of folk when they come in conflict with preventing that unyielding cruelty of rapid climate change. We're talking about billions of people being displaced, a band around the Earth which is
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Honestly, I don't care about the desires of "rural folk" or any other type of folk when they come in conflict with preventing that unyielding cruelty of rapid climate change
If you've switched your brain off with a "I don't care", then you can't be taken seriously.
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Then you aren't taking climate change seriously because the laws of nature do not care and will kill without remorse.
Rednecks⦠(Score:1)
Pay what the market will bear (Score:2)
Everything has a price and the solar farms exist to make PROFIT not power. Buy the souls of those who object and they'll fold like a wet paper bag except for a few schizos.
Want land? Pay for it just like they do in Frisco and NYC. Problem fucking solved.
Put them over car parks (Score:5, Informative)
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It's already being done in a big way here in leftopia, otherwise sometimes known as california. It has the additional benefit that it shades your car from the evil california sun. Too bad california already has so much solar power that at peak generation times it needs to pay other states to take some.
Not surprised (Score:2)
NIMBY has raised its head again.
So typical, people demand solutions to the environmental crisis caused by burning fossil fuels for electricity and then throw a tantrum when one of the solutions they demanded impacts them in a way they don't like.
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99% of NIMBY is actually YIYBY, "yes, in your back yard," i.e., the people pushing the projects want them put not in their own back yards, but in someone else's.
And once again, (Score:3, Informative)
it's time to start decentralizing. I understand the need for some, and maybe even a lot, of large-scale solar farms. But I have a problem with one line from TFS: "Urban settings usually lack enough space for significant projects; as a result, 90 percent of the suitable land sits in rural areas." If "urban settings" had solar panels on every roof, the need for large solar farms in rural areas would be reduced.
This practice would be in line with an approach I've advocated many times over the past few decades, in which as much power generation as possible would be decentralized. It would accomplish several things. First, it would reduce conversion and transmission losses; power wouldn't need as many trips through transformers or converters, and transmission distances would be measured in metres rather than kilometres. Second, it would make the supply of electricity much more resilient; smaller local power grids would decrease reliance on national grids, so failures and/or sabotage would be less likely to bring entire states to their knees. Third, there would be less gouging by power companies because they'd no longer hold local monopolies.
This approach, in combination with the occasional small neighbourhood-level nuclear reactors... oops, sorry, there's that damned N-word again. But really, we can't have our cake and eat it too.
We can suck it up and live with nukes; we can have absolute shitloads of solar and wind generation on every available surface; we can vastly simplify our lifestyles. It will be one or some or all of those choices, or it will be the end of modern civilization and the beginning of the second Stone Age. We need to make a choice soon, or it will be made for us by default.
Build HVDC to deserts (Score:2)
The cost for arable land is only going to go up, wasting it on solar panels is stupid. There's plenty of unprotected desert and more HVDC interconnect is useful beyond just PV farms.
No wonder (Score:2)
No wonder they oppose it: no one knows what a hectare is.
Hybrid solar/farming (Score:2)
I don’t understand why there are not more hybrid solar and farming operations; you need about 6-7’ clear below the panels and you have plenty of space for partially shaded crops. You can even create a screened “greenhouse” with minimal additional cost.
Sure, the support structure is more expensive, but the value created by hybrid lane use should easily offset the cost.