Editor\u2019s Note: The Socotra House Editorial Staff recently left the property, a slightly unusual occurrence in these challenging times in America. This was not exactly a \u201ctrip to town for a swim at the Powell Center.\u201d Instead, it was a view of the United States of America, mostly conducted at Flight Level 360 on a generally east-north-east track from San Diego, California, and the marvelous blue of the Pacific Ocean to the efficient concrete of Dulles International Airport in the suburbs of Washington, DC. There is a lot of country out there, seen hurtling at hundreds of miles an hour from an impossible height, and having seen it east-to-west last week and west-to-east yesterday, it is an impressive display, subject to frequent interjections of memory.<\/p>\n
We were one family subject to the proposed \u201cNet Zero\u201d imposition. If you live in a city or a suburb, the idea of someone dropping nearly two thousand acres of China-produced glassware on green fields just beyond the back property line may seem sort of intrusive. And it is intrusive, since this \u201crenewable energy\u201d project has an aspect of \u201crenewable\u201d signified by the requirement to \u201crenew\u201d hundreds and hundreds of acres of that glass, manufactured by coal-fired power and coated in industrial chemicals, every thirty years.<\/p>\n
We would do this not to provide power to the people of Virginia\u2019s Piedmont, but for the bustling bureaucrat boroughs of Fairfax County and the District to the northeast. From the jet yesterday, lowering our altitude on the approach to a safe landing, it is still a fairly significant distance of green. It will stay that way based on a recent decision by our County Planning Commission. But this is not over. Our Imperial City needs electrical power for a series of largely imaginary projects- intermittent power to charge a huge new system of electric vehicles, lighting for homes after the solar power source has disappeared over the horizon based on gigantic battery storage systems that do not exist. You know, things that make us feel better about our virtue. Or at least make those who choose to live in cities feel good at the expense of those who live in \u201cgreen\u201d places that are that way naturally. It is a refreshing change to see it all the way that it is.<\/p>\n
This editorial sums up our feelings pretty nicely.<\/p>\n
– Vic<\/p>\n
TextDescription automatically generated with medium confidence
\nEDITORIAL: Some questions about renewable energy<\/p>\n
\u00b7 BY THE EDITORIAL PAGE STAFF OF THE FREE LANCE-STAR 10.24.2021<\/p>\n
Proponents of replacing fossil fuels and nuclear energy with clean renewable energy are hitting some stiff headwinds, and it isn\u2019t from the soon-to-be extinct coal companies, major utilities or Big Oil. As a recent article in Forbes points out, the stiffest opposition to installing wind turbines and industrial-size solar farms is coming from the people in rural areas who will have to live next to them.
\nSince 2015, \u201c317 local communities or government entities from Maine to Hawaii \u2026 have rejected or restricted wind projects in the U.S.\u201d That\u2014and the \u201cgrowing hostility\u201d to Big Solar\u2014 \u201care proof that land-use conflicts are the binding constraint on the expansion of renewable energy development in the U.S,\u201d writes Robert Bryce, author of \u201cNot in Our Backyard.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cLand use battles are occurring in states with some of America\u2019s most ambitious renewable energy goals,\u201d such as California, Connecticut, New York, Pennsylvania and Vermont, Bryce points out.<\/p>\n
The backlash is happening in Virginia as well. In May, Maroon Solar\u2019s proposed 149-megawatt, $200 billion solar farm on agriculturally-zoned land in Culpeper County was rejected by both the county\u2019s Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors due to intense citizen opposition led by Citizens for Responsible Solar. That same month, Fauquier County\u2019s Board of Supervisors nixed a plan to build a five-megawatt solar farm on 40 acres along U.S. 17.<\/p>\n
Local opposition is largely based on the fact that these large renewable energy projects cause noise, impact health, reduce property values, kill wildlife, and despoil rural viewsheds. But rural residents are also righty concerned about what will happen to used wind turbine blades and solar panels when their usefulness is over.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to our research, cumulative waste productions will rise far sooner and more sharply than most analysts project,\u201d stated a recent article in the Harvard Business Review. \u201cWe see the volume of [solar] waste surpassing that of new installations by the year 2031. By 2035, discarded panels would outweigh new units sold by 2.56 times.\u201d And most of the blades from decommissioned wind turbines are currently being sawed up and dumped in local landfills.<\/p>\n
Rural communities are seeing thousands of acres of arable land being converted to energy production. An industrial-sized solar farm, which produces intermittent energy, requires 450 times more land than a nuclear plant, which runs 24\/7. And wind turbines take up to 700 times more land than a natural gas well to produce the same amount of electricity. If more rural communities say no to these projects, will government authorities use their eminent domain power to seize their land?<\/p>\n
People living in urban areas don\u2019t have to worry that mountains of industrial waste from these facilities will just be abandoned in their communities. Rural residents do.<\/p>\n
For example, in Spotsylvania County, sPower refused to post a cash bond or irrevocable letter of credit to protect county taxpayers from the cost of disposing of 1.8 million solar panels containing cadmium telluride and other toxic materials at the end of its solar farm\u2019s useful life. Who\u2019s going to pay for the clean-up if the LLC that built the solar facility is not around in 30 years?
\nThat\u2019s why proponents of renewable energy\u2014which includes every member of the Virginia General Assembly who voted for a bill last year requiring Virginia utilities to transition to 100 percent renewables by 2050\u2014should give voters some answers to these pressing questions.<\/p>\n
Editorial Copyright 2021 Fredericksburg Free Lance-Star
\nComments Copyright Vic Socotra<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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