Plan B Forum

North Carolina citizenry defeat pernicious Big Solar plan to suck up the Sun

The citizens of Woodland, N.C. have spoken loud and clear: They don't want none of them highfalutin solar panels in their good town. They scare off the kids. "All the young people are going to move out," warned Bobby Mann, a local resident concerned about the future of his burg. Worse, Mann said, the solar panels would suck up all the energy from the Sun.

Another resident—a retired science teacher, no less—expressed concern that a proposed solar farm would block photosynthesis, and prevent nearby plants from growing. Jane Mann then went on to add that there seemed to have been a lot of cancer deaths in the area, and that no one could tell her solar panels didn't cause cancer. “I want information," Mann said. "Enough is enough."

These comments were reported not in The Onion, but rather by the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald. They came during a Woodland Town Council meeting in which Strata Solar Company sought to rezone an area northeast of the town, off of US Highway 258, to build a solar farm. The council not only rejected the proposal, it went a step further, voting for a complete moratorium on solar farms.

That seemed to please the residents evidently tired of Big Solar's relentless intrusion into their community. One resident, Mary Hobbs, said her home was surrounded by solar farms and has lost its value. That led Ars to the satellite view of Woodland on Google Maps, to see if we could verify the veracity of Hobbs' claims. This publication will not look the other way as Big Solar attempts to railroad the good citizens of small-town America. Alas, when we looked at the satellite view we didn't see any sign of solar farms as we perused the verdant fields and woods of the aptly named Woodland.

source

Hey, this is the USA - we must stand up for our right to be totally wrong and ignorant!

I'm surprised they didn't mention how solar panels make you gay and convert to Islam.


yrs,
rubato

In defense of the Woodentoppers, they may not know much science but I bet they might know that Google maps photos are often years old - especially those of rural areas. Ars doesn't seem to know it but then what does an Ars ever know?

I didn't know that about solar panels, rube. Thanks for the tip!

MajGenl.Meade wrote:In defense of the Woodentoppers, they may not know much science but I bet they might know that Google maps photos are often years old - especially those of rural areas. Ars doesn't seem to know it but then what does an Ars ever know?

I didn't know that about solar panels, rube. Thanks for the tip!

Maybe they check facts. Which I just did and the current view is from 12-2015. You can also go back in time using the history bar at the top.


yrs,
rubato

Here on LI they want to cut down a bunch of acres (100+) of trees to put in a solar panel farm. Rather fun to watch the greenies (renewable energy poeple) fight the other greenies (tree huggers).

I'm on the tree hugger's side. More trees, more forest. Besides, a forest looks better than a bunch of blue-gray panels.

rubato wrote:

MajGenl.Meade wrote:In defense of the Woodentoppers, they may not know much science but I bet they might know that Google maps photos are often years old - especially those of rural areas. Ars doesn't seem to know it but then what does an Ars ever know?

I didn't know that about solar panels, rube. Thanks for the tip!

Maybe they check facts. Which I just did and the current view is from 12-2015. You can also go back in time using the history bar at the top.


yrs,
rubato

There you go - confusing me with facts again!

https://www.google.com/maps/@43.8216852 ... a=!3m1!1e3

If you click on the link and look at the map above, you will see the "American Micro Dairies" location with a small solar array (9kW).

Then, scroll over to the highway, head south, and just before the Town of Sharon you can see a larger solar array (2.2MW).

A 500kW solar array has also just come on line, in the town to the west (Tunbridge) but it won't be on google maps quite yet.

Oh wait - here is a photo:


A full 50% of my law school's electricity needs will be provided by that array. The electricity from the small array on campus is used for two electric car recharging stations.

There you go. Confusing me with re-facts!

oldr_n_wsr wrote:Here on LI they want to cut down a bunch of acres (100+) of trees to put in a solar panel farm. Rather fun to watch the greenies (renewable energy poeple) fight the other greenies (tree huggers).

I'm on the tree hugger's side. More trees, more forest. Besides, a forest looks better than a bunch of blue-gray panels.

The bluish ones are poly crystalline silicon while the black ones are etched mono crystalline silicon.

There are disagreements even in the best of families.

yrs,
rubato

Ah the Luddites strike again,a lot of people would sooner have a smokestack belching filth into the air.
A little story,where I live there is a resort community,the campus was heated with steam,there used to be a coal fired boiler(the little town was filthy)(also once upon a time C&O had a railroad spur into said community,then they switched to bunker grade fuel oil(used to be a couple tanker loads of No.5 OR No.6 offloaded there a week) big improvement,noticeably less pollution and soot around,the old smokestack looks like its ready to collapse as rusty as it is,you could hardly see any smoke coming from it,then they switched to gas,better still,now you dont notice any pollution.Tech gets better all the time,my closest little community choose to not let the local utility put a solar array on an old barren school campus(think it might now be used for parking-in the summer that place is a desert)so the co-op went to the next county over and built the array,thus probably knocking us out of the chance to join the solar program,anyway the neighboring county welcomed it with open arms and that county is full of college grad,greenies.
My county of residence will not allow anything progressive in, no industry only tourism and upper class residential(no wind turbines on the ridges either)as a result most of the few young people around here have to leave(our graduating class was around 30 some people and the next county north of here had 17 seniors graduate this year-we have plenty of deputies and state troopers although(but still no paid firefighters or paramedics,that I'm aware of.)A nice neighbor gave a Christmas party this year and I was talking to one of the older residents,He said there has been an increase of about 50% more houses and and a decrease of about 1000 people in this county(you couldnt prove that where I live they are clustered around my place,with their town lights etc,argh!)
So I guess all we can really look forward to,is change and not for the better,appears like they will turn this county into a gated community,gotta stop,my BP is rising

There is actually an interesting followup on this:

http://www.vox.com/2015/12/18/10519644/ ... solar-town

But mock or don't mock, the important thing is to understand. It's not kooky beliefs driving Woodland's opposition to solar farms, it's the entirely valid perception that they are getting nothing out of the industrialization of their land — that, at least for now, renewable energy is just one more face of a contemporary world that has devalued and forgotten them.

Worth reading the link. It makes their decision make a lot more sense from a rational self-interest point of view. A limited local resource, open land near the power grid, is being taken permanently with no economic benefit to the local community. All the money goes to people somewhere else.


It is worth recalling that in any local civic or county government meeting there is an open microphone; an open microphone and a captive audience are irresistible attractions to crazies and snoremongers. They could have been considering paving a road and some loons would have shown up to claim they were killing pixies and faeries with hot asphalt.


yrs,
rubato

I read that article. Thanks for the link and the follow-up. This changes nothing elsewhere but here... good job