Slashdot Mirror
North Carolina Town Defeats Big Solar's Plan To Suck Up the Sun (arstechnica.com)
mdsolar writes with this excerpt from Ars Technica: 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."
Srsly, I'm amazed that some people are clever enough to breathe.
Interesting. Euro leftists are always harping on americans, generalizing and stereotyping.. you know, all those behaviors they bitch about americans having?
More Sun to us!
Just checking the calender, no, not April 1, must be for real......oh dear...
Finally someone stands up to these big energy companies, the co2 emissions from the sun far exceeds anything produced by burning oil, and the radiation have caused massive problems with equipment!
The sun is dangerous, we need to stop using it!
These people will be the death of us all.
People with IQ's averaging UNDER 100 are 50% of the vote. Some day dumb people should be just set up to vote in fake elections. They won't know.
This is the lack of education and level of ignorance of the average American in the 21st century. You'd think this was an April fool's joke, or something from The Onion, but it's not. Anywhere else in the world this would've been dismissed as a joke, but in the U.S it's reality.
America FUCK YEAH!
Glad I live in Canada
What's the betting her specialty was young earth creationism
I think there might be other reasons for young people moving away. Their narrow-minded elders, a town council willing to be swayed by nonsensical arguments, the simple pure idiocy that seems to prevail. The people who stay are happy with the situation (or just can't get out).
Oh arse
I thought it was too early for April Fool's day jokes.
These are just regular fools.
"Sterilize!"
I'm confused. Were the plans to build the panels directly over the town, Mr Burns style?
Or are Americans actually that stupid?
But I bet there's a hidden agenda and these are just the useful idiots that will be moved out of the way the instant somebody makes the necessary concessions. I'll admit though that it is a tad disconcerting to hear the nonsense from the retired science teacher, useful idiot or not.
You see, that's the problem: all this radiation.
Nuclear energy creates radiation. And the sun IS radiation.
No, no. The only safe energy is the Oil that He has giveth, for us to burn as we please!
(do I need a sarcasm tag? I hope not)
I appreciate that the summary and associated news stories are presenting a fair, unbiased view of the situation, free from ridicule and sarcasm (SWIDT?).
This would have been the THIRD solar farm approved in the vicinity of the town -- there are already two solar projects underway.
The solar farm would not have increased tax revenues or added value to the town. It would not likely employ any of the town's residents.
Yes, the town residents are poorly informed about solar -- they have two projects underway and haven't seen the results of them yet.
The town council did what the town council is supposed to do -- represent the will of their constituents. The solar company seeking the zoning change would have been well advised to work on communicating and educating the town they needed permission from. Why would the town council overrule their voters in exchange for...nothing?
There's quite a double standard when it comes to education -- take someone in an urban environment who can't name their state capital or point to the United States on a map, and it's the fault of the school system and their environment. Take a similarly ignorant person for a rural environment and suddenly they become a willfully hick and fully at fault for not seeking out and drinking deep of the cup of knowledge.
Someone is planting these wild ideas into the people of Woodland's heads. There are probably some local commercials running that are running ads promoting the idea that solar farms might not be safe. They might cause cancer, they might suck up all the extra sun, they might even scare away all the young'ns. So be careful about solar farms. Vote against them until we have all the information. I'm sure all the power plants nearby are coal-fired which leads me to believe there's a power company that doesn't want to reduce their revenue from competing solar.
Solar power is just nuclear power done in a very inefficient way. Here in Maryland we get the vast majority (~65% ) from two nuclear power plants. (And we share most of one with Pennsylvania). Yet people still want to build these tiny little 2 megawatt solar panels that only work during the day.
The mayor and 3 council members are Democrats, the final council member is unaffiliated.
Woodlawn is 65% registered Democrats. The state does have a single House member who is a Dem and one GOP senator and one Dem senator and a GOP governor.
So this is a Dem town, like other longtime Dem towns like Detroit, Baltimore and D.C.
Of course, Ars Technica can't let some accuracy in reporting interfere with getting a big hate going for Republicans who are pretty scarce in Woodlawn. The writer at Ars is one of their most shameless hacks on these kinds of tabloidy stories that play loose with facts. He is their lousiest writer.
At any rate, I would support these Woodlawn residents' right to refuse to put a big solar farm in their backyard. Clearly, they could find an area with less population density. You don't have to site these utility sites right next to a town. The solar plant can go buy some land out in the rural where it isn't zoned. Woodlawn is a tiny village of 800 people and the area has low population density.
Shocking news for some of you but communities do have a right to control where development occurs and what kinds of development occurs via their zoning laws. And every city, town and burg does so.
"expressed concern that a proposed solar farm would block photosynthesis."
Enough shade and nothing will grow, same reason you don't put the solar panels in the shade. Making him sound like an idiot when he is actually correct is a bit of a dick move. makes you wonder if who ever wrote this has an agenda...
Thank the Great Maker.
Stupidity should be criminalized!
I really respect their decision. We had a solar plan around here and it got partially built and then the company went bankrupt. Same thing happened to a foreign wind power plan. Several hundred were going up and luckily the company went belly up before installing all those. We have a wind farm south of us that sits idle more then it provides power. Truth is not enough planning is being done with alternatives. Its like Solyendra it had no chance because it had no practical ideal on how to make money.
http://nationalreport.net/sola...
Just tell them we'll add two hours to daylight savings time to make up for it.
Mostly random stuff.
Looks like ALEC's misinformation campaign is going on more smoothly than scheduled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cesSRfXqS1Q
This is speculation on my part but I think I have it right. You're going to have to read between the lines of the original side to see the serious side (newspaper article linked by ARS). Woodland is a tiny little farming community with almost no revenue coming in. The per capita income is ~$12,000 (wiki). There us no upside to these solar farms; it doesn't create jobs, it doesn't generate tax additional revenue, there is no return on the land/dollar trade. So Woodland wants a cut of the profits. Strata Solar has not offered said cut
However, Strata Solar has bought the acreage. Woodland is holding them over a barrel. Now, Woodland can't say that outright so instead they use NIMBY politics.
Ô_Ô
chin -> floor
It doesn't sound like the solar farm was compensating the town much for the rezoning. But then again it's also clear that they're woefully ignorant of how solar works and perhaps it speaks of a wider problem.
As for wondering why young people are moving away then five minutes spent with Google maps would supply them with the obvious reason. The lack of bars / restaurants and the large number of churches explains a lot - the place is as boring as hell and with some largish cities 10-15 miles away it's not hard to see why people would leave.
How the GOP get so many voters.
Trump must be proud of his peeps!!
rofl.
Truth isn't Truth - Guliani
Interesting Where do you get this "intelligence" that Euro leftists are always harping on americans, generalizing and stereotyping? You know, the behaviur you just did.
Obviously they are nuts. Solar panel do not scare young people. However, a minimum of 405 idiots might just do the trick. Solar panel do also not suck energy from the sun. We all know that if they do not know that then they never really paid attention to the topics at school. But there is a positive side to that. First, the range of total nut cases is only between 405 and 809. It may be even lower, if people did not vote and if there are any children left. Second, we could promote the town to people who have similar ideas of "reality" and concentrate them in North Carolina. And third, now the town has at least one thing on Wikipedia for what they are famous for. I wonder why such small village is called a town.
All the young people are going to move out
Of course, that could not possibly have anything to do with the town being ruled by a bunch of retired retards.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
I am highly educated and ignorant of how solar works. I could theorize and I suppose I could design a primitive solar system, but most people don't know the details of how anything works.
There's nothing wrong with ignorance. There's nothing wrong with voicing a public opinion despite your ignorance or asking an ignorant question.
Ignorance is only a wrong if you're unwilling to learn better. These example concerns are pretty ridiculous if you know better--which should mean that you can answer the concerns.
You can't fix all of stupid, but you can answer one stupid question at a time.
Wilson N.C. fought the cable company and won, got Fiber To The Home (FTTH).
Raliegh N.C. barely got their FTTH approved before North Carolina passed an outright ban against other cities getting FTTH.
And in N.C. if the Republican Governor does not sign the legislation (to not get his political hands dirtier) legislation becomes law.
The Freedom Caucus owns North Carolina. After they rolled out their laws, Alec helped at least 17 other states roll out bans to FTTH. Another 14 states used the Alec legislation to restrict FTTH.
North Carolina will never be FREE. Move or suffer poor bandwidth, setbacks to development, especially high bandwidth industries.
The idea that crazies in NC would go after solar while allowing Duke Industries to pollute their drinking water should surprise noone.
phewww... dream come true becomes nightmare fairytail... as for money stealing solar startups... may as well say they take the lightness out of potential hostage free energy... ask ed snowden continues... all over the rest of the wwworld?
I thought people this stupid only existed in comedy films. However it should be noted that two other solar projects in the same area have been approved and one is already under construction. Sounds similar to something that took place in my area, they were trying to put up a wind farm and same NIMBY arguments were used (they're unhealthy (sound waves) they'll destroy property values (its all farmland anyway), etc). So instead of a new industry brought to our community, increased tax revenue and more (though limited) employment opportunities we've got nothing. I'm not saying that all renewable energy projects are worthwhile, but sabotaging them for these idiotic arguments is akin to burning all of your money because you're afraid the trace amounts of cocaine on the bills will get you thrown in jail.
North Carolina is a satire state, you gullible fools.
"All the young people are going to move out."
If I were a young person and lived in rural America, I would be chomping at the bit to move to a city somewhere. As an older adult that is currently living in rural America, I can wholeheartedly understand. Living in rural America sucks, especially if you're educated and cultured. I spend the first 35 years of my life living in cities and thought country farm living might be a nice change of pace. Boy, was I wrong.
"The solar panels will block photosynthesis in nearby plants"
Absolutely true, if we change the word "block" to "reduce." After all, solar panels cast a shadow on the ground, and grass on the ground is a nearby plant.
But see, here's the reason it is completely irrelevant how this town voted. It is because they voted. We do not live in an authoritarian dictatorship where the technorati or envirorati or hipsterati get to decide for everyone else what is good for them. The voters of a political subdivision get to decide for themselves how to deploy and use their resources, because, you know, democracy. If they want to be stupid-as-fuck rednecks, it is their right whether the rest of us like it or not.
The one saving grace might be the ACA precedent that gave the government the power to force people to take action and buy products. This may allow the federal government to compel people against their will to buy solar panels and carbon credits and other products the government sees fit we should buy. But, someone with standing will have to sue in federal court that the lack of deploying solar panels is causing them a demonstrable loss. That might be tricky, but if the SCOTUS can apply the same tortured logic that they used in Wickard v. Filburn and NIFB v. Seleblius, then it should be only academic once a test case floats to the top.
Yeah, the concern about as valid, as the fear, that the inhabitants' flatulence raises the planet's temperature.
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
My town has an excellent school system, wealthy residents, and is politically liberal democrat.
There were still protests against a large solar farm project.
Reporting the ramblings of a few crazies is funny but hardly indicative of anything, The more rational objections of appearance, environmental impact, and cost/benefit aren't as much fun.
There, happy?
You can find ignorant people anywhere. Some places, like slashdot, just have more than their fair share.
Seriously - why is this even in the news. You could ride your skateboard though this town in a few minutes.
This sounds just like the silly sorts of thing said by anti-nukes when they're fighting to keep a nuclear power plant from being built.
So, I take it that the problem here is that they're opposed to something that we like, as opposed to something we dislike?
"I do not agree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it"
I see bigotry for the southern US is alive and well here on Slashdot. Why look into all the facts when you can parrot this juicy headline.
Conservative, mod down for violating
I read TFA, Mary Hobbs of Woodland, N.C. lied. Why?
I wonder if Canada is accepting the few remaining intelligent, informed Americans as refugees. :-) I've only half-considered moving -- I work for a multinational and could pretty easily get a European work visa through the company. Maybe if Trump wins the election, I'll finally go hand in the old passport.
This sounds a lot like the same folks who get scammed by homeopathic "doctors" and buy thousands of dollars in quack remedies. Or the people who are scared by exposure to "electromagnetic radiation" and cite it as a cause of health problems.
I like a previous poster's idea of setting up "dumb people elections" and running the government via a secret bunch of smart people. When all the candidates are going for the dumb people, the outrageous stuff they say should be very amusing, even more than it is now.
Brawndo -- it's got what plants need!
this guy is right.... in the shade below the panel, it prevents photosynthesis. So does his house. I suggest we demolish it and let him live in a hole in the ground.
are an environmental catastrophe. Solar panels and wind turbines require huge quantities of rare earth elements, and they all come from China today--even the ore mined in the US is shipped to China for processing. Until this is addressed, the so-called "green" technologies are not remotely green. Restoring our local rare earth industry would also enable local manufacturing of high-tech products, most all of which has been moved to China, for access to their rare earth resources.
There is no shortage of rare earths, and they could be mined and produced locally in an environmentally friendly manner. However, it would require changing the insane regulations surrounding thorium, which drove the industry to China in the first place. Concentrated ores invariably have high thorium concentrations, and the thorium could easily be separated and safely stored if only regulations allowed it. It is just barely radioactive, not water soluble, found in rocks everywhere anyway, and probably the least problematic of the mining wastes. Even ingesting it is essentially harmless; only inhaling thorium dust is of real concern. As it is a metal, there is a rather trivial way of preventing that from happening.
While this town may be shunning solar for the wrong reasons, there are good reasons. The area looks heavily wooded as well, and clearing vast areas of forest to collect a pitiful amount of unreliable solar energy is not productive. Moreover, unlike wind, PV solar does not coexist with vegetation at all, as even a stray leaf can damage the cells. The entire solar farm becomes a lifeless monument of irony to Big Green, which will long outlive the panels themselves.
Sadly, the greenest and most promising energy source is equally hampered by insane regulation. Nuclear is not only the least resource intensive, it also has the least environmental impact by far, and has proven to rapidly scale and displace fossil fuels in a number of countries.
Ugh... my face is pink from all the facepalms in that paragraph.
Hurry, put a Dome over this town. We can record them and create an award winning mini-series!
Sounds like a SimCity newspaper story.
I seriously checked the date to see if it was April 1st when I read the summary.
Yes, towns do not function efficiently, nor do cities.
That's what farms are for. In farms there are animals which is an analogy for in cities there are people.
Please, please don't judge North Carolina by these rubes. This dumb little town is about 100 miles from Research Triangle Park, the largest concentration of PhDs in the world. North Carolina is a progressive and beautiful state with the best climate in the eastern US. It has traditionally had the best public education system in the South.
Yes, we are currently in the clutches of a backwards Republican state government so there are lots of headlines about regressive policies. But this is an aberration ( the first Republican government in over 100 years) and it will not last long.
"He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
This says nothing more then that a subset of Americans are morons...
The same can be said about quite a few different groups...
I was seriously hoping that was an Onion article that escaped into the wild masquerading as a real story but nope, just a whole town of people that obviously worship it's insightful reporting style.
NC town filled with drooling morons.
Seriously, this is a beautiful example as to how public school is an epic failure.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Oh and hellz yeah I only buy China Solar panels. Because the scumbags here in the USA are charging 4X the price for the exact same panel. I refuse to buy USA made solar panels unless I get them used at a deep discount that is lower than the monosilicon panels I am buying new from china.
Fuck american made, it's just as crappy and 99% of the time it's from the exact same parts that my China panels are made of, they just glue the frame on here in the USA to call it "made in the USA"
Right now most american companies are ran by incompetent and greedy assholes, and they do not deserve any of my money.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Stop global warming, move to a different solar system.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
I'm sorry. Null-A logic was discarded in America in the 1980's. Since then it's got to be either all or nothing.
I think you could be right about that. #EXXONKNEW is an example of spreading lies for market advantage. But so long as towns can zone to keep out fracking, they should be able to zone to keep out wind or solar too. They'll come around on the latter but the news on the former will only get worse.
At first I thought the town was a dangerous place.
Going there would suck IQ points from your head.
But except for the Cancer comment, their position seems reasonable.
The Solar company wants to build near a substation.
They need permission from the town to do this.
There is no benefit to the town because it will be outside their tax district.
The concentration of solar farms is lowering the property values for the town's folk.
These folks are making whatever arguments they can to prevent yet another farm from being built.
The Cancer argument is off the wall FUD.
The Shade causing plants not to grow is true, but silly.
The property values argument seems to valid.
The no benefit to the town is certainly valid.
They might could use a public speaking class, but they seem to know who's on first.
And the company seems not to.
Too bad, because more solar farms is a net win for the rest of us.
I lived in NC for 15 years (unfortunately) - and was glad to see it go (I grew up in VA). Unless you are in Asheville or RTP....Beware!
There have been alot (let me say that again) ALOT of solar farms spring up in NC in just 3 years. I counted at least 12 during a recent trip to Wilmington - what I don't understand is...they've talked about solar and wind power since time out of mind. They finally have some infrastructure going into place, and I have to take a trip to see it????
Drive through NC and look at the poor towns and leaning houses, it's depressing! I've never seen so many ignorant hillbillies in my life. I'm just surprised something like this didn't come out sooner. People there never ceased to to amazed with being a few french fries short of a happy meal.
Goodbye NC
(paddle faster, I hear banjo music)
Motto: At Least We Aren't Mississippi
Well someone is a bit high and mighty, aren't they? Whatever the reasoning, these people are in the right. I live in southern Ontario and we have wind turbines dotted all over the landscape. I don't mind them. I actually like the way they look. I do however dislike the fact that in the years that they've been installing the turbines, hydro costs have only gone up. Hydro rates are at an all-time high here even though we were promised time and time again that the rates would go down substantially while "healing" the environment.
The only thing those turbines generate are profits for the companies and the farmers who let them build on their land. Now not to mention the fact we're losing good farm-able land to these turbines, but they generate such a massive amount of CO2 in their construction and transport that they are essentially useless. They generate too little power and rarely ever do I see more than a couple going at a time.
Hey, as long as they tell you it's good for the environment you can sleep easy while ignoring all the waste these things do in fact create, and they benefit nobody but the companies and the landowners.
The same is true of solar panels. Aside from the landowners, as most have to pay for their own. Around here they are older, expensive, and inefficient static models that don't do anything more than say "I can afford carbon credits so I'm able to pollute guilt-free." So pick on the little rural bumpkins if you'd like, editor, but they are doing more to realistically protect the environment than most people in the Church of Climate Change.
You can hang out up there on your high-horse all you want. I've got some tires to burn.
The science teacher actually read a little bit of physics and learned that technically the Sun is a black body, since it emits radiation in all frequencies. The town decided it is is too politically incorrect to state their real objection to the black body, at least not until Donald J Trump becomes the President. So they pulled a little euphemism and misdirection to give some vague reason for the ban.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
...are probably decrying the evils of that destructive and pervasive dihydrogen monoxide.
I think we should have an intelligence test to be allowed to vote...
However, that post DOES prove the case that most ACs are morons.
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
come on.
they are obviously trolling.
10/10
oh, please, i hope they are...
Not all of us lick windows full time, however we are #1 in education if you count 50 as being the best.
Localities do have an interest in promoting things like public safety. If you want to put up a subdivision with no fire hydrants, zoning should prevent you from doing that.
How does the Town Council have any jurisdiction to reject the solar farm if, as the article in the local paper states, "the town would not benefit from the solar farms because they are not located within the town limits, but only in the extraterritorial sections."
According to the Wikipedia entry on Woodlawn, NC, right now:
Why not instead cite the Wikipedia entry on Woodland, which is the town being talked about here?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
We live in a Democracy. They have a right to choose how their town operates, even if it's entirely at odds with reality.
(plotting new course to stay atleast 200 miles away from that town)
Democracy wins. Some of us may not agree with the decision but the political process worked. Go suck down some humble pie.
(plotting new course to stay atleast 200 miles away from that town)
That seems like it would be a logical explanation to their reaction... that is all.
I love it when the Greens' favorite technique, letting a tiny minority of conspiracy-theorizing idiots manipulate the legal system to derail every needed infrastructure project, gets used against them.
We will enjoy progress again if we can elect candidates who will take more of a Chinese approach: whenever a protest movement gratuitously ignores scientific facts, just ignore the yammerheads and ram it through.
Interesting. Do we derive any other rights from the Government, or is everything else coming from our Creator (whoever that might be), with government merely being hired to help us protect them?
You are putting up great defence of property seizures by the government — without bothering with criminal convictions and even making accusations. You aren't alone, of course, but it is rather rare to see such an idea being so highly moderated.
Ah, so the grass is not mine either, right? It belongs to a community, is that it?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
If your very first statement is factually incorrect, why should anyone listen to the rest of your argument?
Siriously people, seriously
Weren't that far off the mark as the rosy projections of the promoters of solar power, I'd say this is nothing more than fighting fire with fire. In Milwaukee, a solar farm was set up under two 1000 foot broadcast towers. After the first winter, about half of the panels were removed. Turns out damage from falling ice tends to make the things useless. Not to mention all the trees that were cut down to make space for that boondoggle. Progress!
Checked calender. Not April Fools Day
There is simply enormous potential for not using electricity in the first place and people are pushing the expensive solution of solar power generation,.
A dehumidifier is this device that people put in their basement with the best intentions of fighting dampness and the accompanying mildew, a device that is cheaply made in a Certain Country so the refrigerant leaks out, after which the dehumidifier runs constantly to effectively double the household energy usage only the dehumidifier isn't doing anything except act as a space heater, a device that no one these days will repair after the refrigerant leaks out because government regulations, only it doesn't matter because homeowners with the humidifier discharging to a floor drain that they don't have to empty the bucket don't check on the operation of this device or even know how to check.
Even if you keep tabs on your dehumidifier, if you run it on the humidistat control, the humidity setting can be wildly inaccurate and setting it to a "reasonable" level can have the unit run constantly at great expense in electric use, and even if you check it against a humidity gauge that you have checked against outdoor weather reports of temperature and humidity, most units today either run the fan continuously or have a long fan run-on time past when the humidistat clicks off, where you end up evaporating moisture clinging to the coils by surface tension amounting to about half the moisture condensed during the on-time part of the cycle. And this is for an Energy Star qualified unit. And the neither manufacturers nor Energy Star won't answer their e-mail when asked about this.
So we are to spend effectively 10's of thousands of dollars per house to generate the electricity to supply the energy wasted by a $200 dehumidifier?
I do not have any solar cells nor any exotic tech and don't do anything apart from 1) run the dehumidifier on a timer and empty the bucket manually, 2) use fluorescent lights, and 3) turn off stuff not is use, and my electric usage (I air condition, dehumidify, cook, and dry clothes electrically) runs about 220 kWHr/month whereas houses in the same neighborhood are using 4 times as much per month or more. The local power company lets you look up household energy use by address and I have checked.
Because clearly one small town in North Carolina is representative of the other 330 million people.
Didn't anyone tell you that painting hundreds of millions of people with the same brush is even stupider than anyone quoted in TFA?
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
They would have been all over that solar deal then.
Lived in Hickory for 4 years, nice town. State is pretty, but wouldn't want to live their....plus I hate colslaw, and they put it on everything.
They are right to worry, it seems like something has already sucked up all their common sense.
Website Just Down For Me? Find out
People of North Carolina: Stop sleeping with your sisters. Got it?
Protecting the little people from progress. The Dirty South, a bastion of democratic thinking and hatred for the last 300 years, has been historically the party that prevented enlightenment and progress. They did not want to use fossil fuels, and instead to use the power of slave labor to power their civilization. Then that was no longer feasible they chose to use fossil fuels instead of clean cheap nuclear power. Now that fossil fuels are no longer feasible they refuse to us PV, and instead would rather buy their electrons for other places. Yes the Democratic party has done more to check the advancement of humans than any conservative right wing supporter of guns rights and family values (I am of coarse talking about Al-Quaeda) can ever possibly hope to do. When can we wage a war on the real terrorist. Let's carpet bomb the Democratic party. Freedom will reign
Just wow. I'll put this up there with Guam tipping over if there are too many troops on one side of the island.
Okay, sure, the people of this town have some loony reasons but one should also consider how panels covering a vast land area (not on rooftops) will affect the natural effects of sunlight on the soil and vegetation.
Here is their town officers (from http://www.townofwoodlandnc.com/council.htm)
James Ellis Garris – Mayor - Democrat (http://voters.findthedata.com/d/b/James-Garris)
David Cooper – Commissioner - Democrat
Jean Barnes – Commissioner - Democrat
Ron Lane - Commissioner - Democrat
Joe Lassiter – Commissioner - Democrat
In other words - all stupid Democrats
Here's the real tl;dr: Town opposes new solar plant for numerous reasons. One or two people involved have stupid reasons.
And your objection to this is?..
Has the court ever held that — contrary to the cited statement?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
they all come from China today--even the ore mined in the US is shipped to China for processing. Until this is addressed, the so-called "green" technologies are not remotely green.
"Made in China" has nothing to do with whether or not a resource counts as renewable. Economies of scale frequently make it more efficient to ship raw materials halfway around the world than to process them on-site.
You could, of course, argue that anything mined has a finite supply present on Earth; but at least in the case of the Rare Earths, we can recycle 100% of them (and in fact, we'd count as idiots not to - Your $100 solar panel, even once it has reached the end of its working life, contains a good $20 in silver alone).
Wasn't this a Simpson's plot?
Of course, that hold for almost anything like this....
Number Six: Where am I?
Number Two: In the Village.
Number Six: What do you want?
Number Two: Information.
Number Six: Whose side are you on?
Number Two: That would be telling. We want informationâ¦
information⦠information.
Number Six: You won't get it.
Number Two: By hook or by crook, we will.
Number Six: Who are you?
Number Two: The new Number Two.
Number Six: Who is Number One?
Number Two: You are Number Six.
Number Six: I am not a number! I am a free man!
Number Two: [laughs]
I'm surprised they didn't' attribute solar panels to witches, witchcraft, and the moral degradation of the youth. Maybe throw in the existence of D&D and we can call it a day, although I didn't see any mention of Obama, or terrorism so there may be a few more things that could be piled in there too.
Time to offend someone
You're probably more right than you think - living in NC, I can tell you that unless you're in the Raleigh/Durham/Chapel Hill/RTP area, or in Charlotte (and if you have a brain), your number one goal is to get out. Tobacco and apparel sewing are pretty much gone - all that is left is agriculture and healthcare. Until you get to one of the big cities, which are basically like Atlanta (traffic and all). Public education isn't being dismantled per se, but is better described as "decommissioned in place" - no new capital spending or inflation adjustment for operations. When the collapse came, it was fast and catastrophic.
Additional factor - huge damage in Northeastern NC from Hurricane Floyd in 1996 has had ripple effects in the eastern economy that continue today.
Gibson was two thirds right - there will eventually only be two cities in America - California and the Amtrak Northeast Corridor. It won't make it south all the way to Atlanta. Makes sense, really - it's a Markov process, and left to themselves they tend to go hard-stop against one limit or the other.
If the panels suck up all the sun then they should cool the planet down, and provide free power at the same time.
The problem of plants not growing could be solved by getting food from McDonalds instead of from fields or animals.
"Build yourself a power plant?" "Give my daughter a job?" You've got to remember that these are just simple Southerners. These are people of Fox News. The common clay of the new America. You know... Morons.
Bugrit! Millenium hand and shrimp!
Which that are you talking of? The AC who complained that european lefties were always complaining about the stereotyping merkins do, the AC who then said that the evidence for this was that Europeans are fuckwits, or the anonymous (since barsteward isn't your name, though it may be your character flaw) you who can't really seem to determine what they're talking about?
NOWHERE here is there any evidence of the claims of the retard AC who started off complaining about "euro lefties", which probably includes LePenn to most merkin "lefties", never mind the right over there in insaneland.
LOL! North Carolina, you never fail to highlight just how backwards The south really is. Priceless.
No, seriously, this has to be a joke. *please* let it be a joke.
because those folks... aliens or an asylum.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
But don't let facts get in the way.
http://censusviewer.com/city/NC/Woodland
There is a troubling trend in media to give a voice to nonsense. Reporting anonymous twitter messages or the ranting's of fools to cherry pick or reinforce narratives that may very well have no basis in reality.
If you want to report on what people think about a subject then conduct a poll. Random quotes from random folks are completely worthless.
Too sunny already. I'm having to stoke the coal fires more often just to help blot it out.
I'm not sure what you're referencing. I figured it was a tale of two cities, but that's not about the US. Sounds like it may be an interesting book though.
Americans are getting more pants on head retarded every year it seems....
The citizens of Woodland, N.C. have spoken loud and clear: They don't want none of them highfalutin brain cells 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, brain cells suck up all the intelligence from everyone else. Another resident -- a retired science teacher, no less -- expressed concern that a proposed school would block education, and prevent nearby kids from growing up. 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 brain cells didn't cause cancer. "I want information," Mann said. "Enough is enough."
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
Don't be mindless Republican hating sheeple. There are just as many idiots in the blue states, you just have to ask them questions too. I am pretty sure if i went to whatever the "most educated state" would be and held a walked around with a petition and a clipboard and told people solar panels can reduce nearby plants ability to produce oxygen or some such crap that I would get more than enough signatures to prove my point.
I'll take the hot, humid summers any day over the crappy winters everywhere north of Virginia.
Mom's basement is air conditioned isn't it? :-)
Seriously, I don't get that. From personal experience hot humid seems the worse. The cold can be dealt with using layered clothing. The wet can be dealt with using an outer layer. Hot and humid can only be endured. You don't even get relief at night like you do in hot and dry regions.
And then there is the complication that different parts of North Carolina have very different climates. Its not simply a north/south thing, there is also altitude. There are parts that get a lot of snow and very cold temperatures.
I'm not sure where the cancer risk concept is coming from ...
Solar panels absolutely produce cancer, but its at the factory in China where they are made.
1- How exactly is it that solar panels cause cancer? I can understand if it were something putting a chemical into the environment, but These do not change the environment. Solar panels do not pump carcinogens into the air, they do not pollute the groundwater so how is it that deriving electrical power from a solid state device, rather than heating minerals up to the point they become volatiles, causes cancer? Cite references or it didn't happen!
2- What sort of confusion of ideas causes someone to think that solar panels deriving photovoltaic power from the sun in one spot makes less sunlight fall on another spot? I know that there is a shadow behind the solar panel, but not on the farm field next door. I wonder what sort of brain damage causes this kind of error in thinking!
Ah, bitter nuke fan eh?
Two photons walk into a bar... The first waves while his friend particles on the wall.
http://www.roanoke-chowannewsh...
The original article shows several disputes concerning the project including the fact that the community would not receive any benefit from converting the property besides working along with the power company which owns the massive power junction around the town. No tax benefits, no diminshed power bills, unsightly sites all over the place (This was to be another addition to the 4 solar locations in their area). The council disputed the more controversial/uninformed reasons, passed 3 additions and rejected one (for unspecified reasons). Then tabled discussions for further additions. The people primarily objected to loss of taxable business property locations and lack of a tangible benefit to the community (which the town council represents). The sunlight comments arent in quotes which makes them at least questionable considering the rest of the comments are in quotes. If one makes reasonable accomodations to the nature of the objections, you could easily see that the comments about cancer would apply to the GIANT ELECTRICAL ARRAY in town, which the WHO states the that they arent sure why but there seems to be high incidents of correlation to cancer... The article amounts to so much Trolling by the original author, and subsequent hangers on to illegimately bash objectors to the current idealogical correctness.
Wasn't the Sun bought by Oracle a while ago?
the people in that town are all mentally retarded.
Here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Only I can judge you.
This can't be real, the writers for south park must have let one of their 2016 episodes loose in the wild.
I've been to tremendously shitty places in Virginia, West Virginia, Maryland, SC, New York, Pennsylvania, etc. I would live in Raleigh, NC over any place on the east coast except maybe for Boston. I've seen dumb, ignorant people in rural areas of all those states. I will say, I did get the hell out of rural NC as soon as I could. HOWEVER, Raleigh NC is a very nice place to live and it is very diverse. And if you want to generalize or stereotype NC, reply back with your own state and let the peanut gallery decide if there's any backwards dumbasses where you live. In response to some of the KKK comments, in over 30 years living in this state, including very rural areas, I have never once seen anyone that said they were in the KKK, I've never seen anyone in a robe, never saw any marches, etc. The most racist person I've ever met was an Italian guy who lived in a town about 1-2 hours outside New York City. Racism is everywhere. I do have a theory about a lot of the racism in rural NC however. I grew up in a small area that was 50% minorities and it was not fun. My elementary school was literally in the projects. We had Rodney King backlash going on in our high school. The problem is that a lot of the locals who don't leave these towns end up living with high minority populations. They only know very uneducated people that act obnoxious and dangerous and they draw correlations along racial lines. When they see a redneck they don't say, 'oh look, there's a dumb white person...white people sure are dumb!', but they draw those conclusions when the person isn't white because they don't know any other minorities. The minorities (and everyone else) that are educated and more intelligent leave to find better jobs in the city.
Please try to string enough letters together to explain to us the phenomenon ("happening" for those of you ftom NC) causing people there to become brain-dead?
Just thinking how many of these people actually go out and vote. Pretty scary.
http://gamehacking.org/vb/threads/12747-nensondubois-codes http://twitter.com/nensondubois_
Over half of NC's population was not born in the state, a majority of them moving to NC from the Northeast. It is well known to be a huge transplant state.
Bet you have a small penis too.
The issue may be obvious. They love Ken Hamm.
The actual original article is here: http://www.roanoke-chowannewsh... Various phrases and the general tone makes me question the accuracy. There are other little tidbits that make me wonder. The town gets no benefit. And there are a few other phrases that creep in that somewhat makes me question the bias of the article in Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald, the cited article in Ars Technica, and the little clip posted in slash dot. To my eyes, this looks like a smear campaign by big solar to make it clear that if anyone pushes back against the big American corporations, you will get mocked by the ignorant blood thirsty press. And, it also may be a poker game that has not finished the last hand. Perhaps what the town is really saying is -- make it worth my while to allow you to build there and then we'll talk. Seriously, if you want me to welcome you, then do something positive for me. Otherwise, get off my @#$%ing lawn! Are you thinking some hip liberal Austinite is going to do anything different?
Oh, America... Jesus will provide you all energy you need.
This is the link to the ORIGINAL source article. (http://www.roanoke-chowannewsherald.com/2015/12/08/woodland-rejects-solar-farm/) It appears that they already have several solar farms and they are sick of seeing them. There is no benefit to the town. The only money goes to the solar firm and the landowner. It does not help their utility cost nor does it contribute to their tax base. It looks like some of the quotes are out of context. Since some of you are making this a political issue you should note that the county went to Obama in 08 and 12. The Mayor of Woodland is also a democrat.
Tell them all that the sun is really just an out-of-control nuclear power plant showering them continuously with solar radiation! That'll fix their wagon. Next generation will have our first fully formed Morlock society in NC.
If I sound stupid, it's not me talking....