Slashdot Mirror
North Carolina Town That Defeated Solar Plan Talks Back (newsobserver.com)
mdsolar writes with news that city officials in Woodland, North Carolina have taken issue with being ridiculed by the internet and want to set the record straight. According to the article: "Usually what happens in Woodland stays in Woodland, a town 115 miles east of Raleigh with one Dollar General store and one restaurant. But news of the Northampton County hamlet's moratorium on solar farms blew up on social media over the weekend after a local paper quoted a resident complaining to the Town Council that solar farms would take away sunshine from nearby vegetation. Another resident warned that solar panels would suck up energy from the sun. As outlandish as those claims seem, town officials say the Internet got it wrong."
They didn't want to be surrounded by solar farms? Why not? That still doesn't make any sense.
I don't respond to AC's.
Tendentious article in local paper generates an Internet and social media lynch mob that gets all the important facts wrong.
I don't agree, but they are certainly entitled to their opinion, and if they want to block a FOURTH solar farm from being built around their two horse town, I really don't think we have any room to bitch.
How many solar farms does YOUR town have? less than 3 per 800 people, I imagine.
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story. :-)
Costco and other Big Box stores such as Home Despot and Lowe's carry solar and some of them even offer installation. So why don't they cover their parking lots with panels? Among other things, it means that, no matter where you park, you're parked in the shade. In the summer, that's a godsend.
Jane Mann said she is a local native and is concerned about the plants that make the community beautiful. She is a retired Northampton science teacher and is concerned that photosynthesis, which depends upon sunlight, would not happen and would keep the plants from growing. She said she has observed areas near solar panels where the plants are brown and dead because they did not get enough sunlight. She also questioned the high number of cancer deaths in the area, saying no one could tell her that solar panels didn’t cause cancer."
It sounds to me like this backlash is mainly pretty deserved. Even if they had legitimate reasons to say no to this new solar, it is clear that those were not the reasons articulated by the people in question.
It just doesn't matter any longer. We're all going to die from global warming. It's too late to stop it.
The zoning board meetings are where the NIMBYs and BANANAs rule the roost. Someone turned over the rock and all these creepy crawlies are running away on seeing daylight. Since no one ever bothers to follow these meeting they use any handy excuse they can think of. Even now other than saying "internet" is wrong, they are not denying that the used the reported reasoning to deny the zoning permit.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The city in question already has 3 solar farms for their small population of 800 people. Are you doing any better?
"Another resident warned that solar panels would suck up energy from the sun."
Well, technically this resident got it right.
They're just too stupid to understand that's kind of the fucking point of solar energy.
Congratulations North Carolina. It's not very often that Florida gets a laugh. This would be one of them.
Is there a difference? Star Trek based that race off of white 20th century Americans.
Plants primarily use the Red and Blue portions of the EM spectrum. Could we build areas that harvest most of the Sunlight (especially Non-Red, Non-Blue frequencies) while supplying Plants directly beneath with enough overall light for growth? Many species of plants are quite shade tolerant. Does Corn for instance use all available light for growth or could lower levels still support near full growth?
This might be a particularly attractive strategy in arid areas. Solar Farms might do double duty as green houses to hold in moisture which is at a higher premium than light in those areas for agriculture.
Letter To Iran
.
The things that the townspeople said were correctly quoted and, imo, properly ridiculed.
.
But the Internet was laughing so hard, that it was not able to get the entire story.
This is impressive. The North Carolina town that banned new solar farms because they were afraid they would soak up the sun sets the record straight and manages to sound even stupider.
Solar farms are only less efficient than fossil fuel plants if you leave out the fact that you have to, you know, put fossil fuels in fossil fuel plants.
You are welcome on my lawn.
“How would you and your family like to live in the middle of a solar farm, surrounded on all four sides?” said Lane
Um, a heck of a lot?
Solar farms are silent, nonpolluting, and provide jobs. It's hard to think of a better neighbor than that. Maybe I could work there and walk to work. Sounds awesome. Please build one next to my house, then another one other side.
Ultimately, he said, the Strata Solar project was not doomed by irrational fears. The photovoltaic panels were proposed just 50 feet from residential homes
Oh noes! FIFTY FEET! That's super close! He'd better do something, or else pretty soon people might start attaching solar cells directly to their homes!
I think the internet got this one right.
There should be forests, rivers, meadows, birds, etc. around us, but what we have are agriculture fields, power-lines, motorways, and now also batteries of solar panels.
Just dry clothing outdoors on dry warm days, use economy lamps, heat (air-condition) a reasonable size house, and half of the existing electric generators could be stopped. Production energy by its economy is a cheap, clean, and reliable approach.
It just doesn't matter any longer. We're all going to die. It's too late to stop it
fixed for accuracy
All those black or blue solar panels aren't 100% efficient, while they convert 1/5 of the sun's energy they absorb into electricity, the remaining 4/5 is emitted as heat. It nearly like taking those fields and paving them with asphalt, it is going to heat up the local area. Solar panels make sense on areas that are already black like a roof, but taking large undeveloped areas and installing panels you are just creating a large heat island. Let's not forget the reflections they make in latitudes further north where they are angled such that they reflect light into neighboring homes. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
[North Carolina has] installed a massive amount in the state (to the point where they are running into problems with lack of storage during peak sunlight).
North Carolina has on the order of 1,100 MW of PV installed (source. Duke Energy Progress (NC + SC) has a peak summer load of 13,232 MW for planning purposes. Duke Energy Carolina (NC + SC) has a peak summer load of 18,691 MW. The combined load -- because Duke Energy and Duke Progress (in North and South Carolina) are now a single jointly operated system -- is 31,923 MW. See 2013 DEP IRP Table 3-A and 2013 DEC IRP Table 3-A (pdfs). Duke has roughly 36,000 MW of generating capacity (Tables 8-D, row 5), of which ~15% is combustion turbines (Charts 8-E). CTs are fast ramp, and Duke has roughly 5,400 MW of CTs -- far more than enough to easily integrate 1,100 MW of PV distributed across its system. Duke Energy operating in North Carolina should have absolutely no trouble integrating the 1,100 MW of solar PV operating in the territory, on time scales of sub-second, 15 second, 5 minute, 15 minute, hourly, and daily operations. As Duke continues to retire coal units and build CTs and combined cycle (CC) gas plants, its ability to integrate PV will only increase.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
the "objections" raised by the town elders are just plain delusional. end of story. a tower of dead computers burning in the dump is smarter than those two who were quoted.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
In short, just because SOME of the people in the community are in fact bumpkins, doesn't mean that those people drove the discussion, as entertaining as their quotes were.
In fact, the community had some very good reasons to decline a THIRD solar farm (for now).
Hard to imagine internet wankers jumping to patronizing (wrong) conclusions, isn't it?
-Styopa
Social media uses false pretenses to jump onto and judge and mock people?
No beer and no TV make Homer something something
Headline: Town rejects location for solar farm, also, listen to these idiots
I can just hear JJ saying "The Bugle can't run that! It's too many words. Just trim it to 'Listen to these idiots' since that's all people care about anyway."
Funny world where the terrible boss in a 1963 comic book would still recognize the stupidity of the public today.
Contrary to your statement "They never told us WHY it got rejected." they clearly stated WHY. It is the 4th solar farm in the same small town of 800 people. It further states that the reason power companies want to build in these areas is because they can acquire land from not so wealthy people on the cheap, taking advantage of the financial situation many families are in (largely due to corporate influence on Agricultural business and economics at a much larger scale). It also discusses a professor who believes this causes long term damage to the agricultural industry.
Since I actually did read TFA, it makes me wonder who actually started the disinformation campaign.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Because you think a field, forest, street, city or whatever would be there if they didn't opt for solar panels wouldn't absorb any of that heat and reflect 100% of it? That sounds silly.
Actually, the arguments that PV solar, as currently deployed in the USA, are largely a "government boondoggle" and "highly inefficient" are two really valid accusations with merit.
IMO, like so many things, the truth is somewhere in the middle. I invested in PV solar for my own house, at considerable expense. So no, I'm not a "hater" of the technology. But the only reason you see so much solar adoption right now is the artificial construct the government created to sweeten the economics of doing so.
Right now, the company that installed my panels, as well as many of their competitors, are campaigning aggressively to make sure the Federal tax break for solar doesn't expire by the end of 2015, as it was originally scheduled to do. That's because it amounts to a full 1/3rd. of your total installation cost that's received back as a tax credit. People like me who buy one of these systems typically do so with the help of a "bridge loan" that's given for an amount roughly equivalent to this tax credit, with 0% interest for 1 year. The "plan" is, you'll use the loan to help cover the up-front cost of your installation, and then pay the bridge loan off before any interest is due on it, using your Federal tax refund you get the next year.
Some states give back $1,000 or more, as well, as part of a solar rebate program or state tax credit. Typically, these rebates have a few hoops to jump through to qualify, including providing proof that you paid off the cost of your PV solar installation in full.
If these credits disappear, the typical consumer who buys one of these systems is looking at shelling out approximately $34,000 for a system that might not even offset more than 60-70% or so of their total electric usage. At that point, it really becomes a questionable purchase. Because yes, they can probably run numbers and projections in Excel and crank out a spreadsheet that shows it will save you tens of thousands of dollars over its 25-30 year average lifespan. But a LOT can happen in 25+ years. Will you be living in the same place? Will a new technology come along that drives the kilowatt hour cost of electricity way down? Will the system's inverter(s) fail outside of warranty (or the company who made them goes out of business), adding thousands to your total cost of operation?
Oh, and surely some people will bring up the additional "money maker" for having solar ... the solar reclamation credits (SRECs) issued in some states. Well, again, these are more artificial government constructs because they simply penalized the power companies in those states for not producing above a certain percentage of power from "green sources". In turn, the power companies get to purchase these SRECs to make up for their shortfalls, and that money goes back to people with PV solar installations, based on how much power the systems generate per quarter.
I receive the SRECs in my state, and I'd say a typical check is around the $450-525 range. So sure, nice to receive those and they help make a better economic case for purchasing the system. But there's no guarantee what an SREC will be worth down the road. The more people who install solar, the more people there are generating SRECs in that state, and there are only so many a power company needs to buy to be compliant. Early adopters of solar typically got the best deal with SRECs, back when they were worth a lot more than today.
No but a blackbody absorbs more than something green or brown.
Actions not Words.
Climate Change is NOW, boys and girls, and it cares nothing about your excuses. Nothing like 100 miles of Carolina coastline being inundated during an every 2-3 years "100 year storm" to give you deniers a wake up call ...
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
You still have to explain how a solar farm isn't "more efficient" than a fossil fuel plant, when you figure in that you have to 1) find the fossil fuel, 2) extract the fossil fuel from the Earth 3) refine the fossil fuel, 4) transport the fossil fuel and 5) store the fossil fuel. And that's before you even get to the externalities of having to clean up after the fossil fuel.
It sounds to me like the good people of Woodland, North Carolina have a whole bunch of separate reasons for not wanting solar farms, most of which are bad science, misunderstood words or simple stupidity. They're worried about being surrounded on all sides by solar farms, but apparently don't have a problem with being surrounded by tobacco farms.
You are welcome on my lawn.
No but a blackbody absorbs more than something green or brown.
This study found that covering deserts with solar farms would reduce the absorbed heat enough to create regional cooling. Plants are darker in color than dry dirt, usually, but like solar panels they also convert incoming radiant energy into a different form. They're far less efficient at this than PV panels are, though, so it's unclear whether their reduced efficiency but lighter color results in more or less heat absorption.
One interesting thing to note about the study's conclusion about deserts, though, is that arguably the "know-nothings" complaining about solar panels "sucking up the sun" are right, in the sense that the solar energy they convert to electricity is not converted to heat, which can result in cooling. It's possible that they've even noticed this effect directly, since the town is surrounded on three sides by large solar farms.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Typical of media in general. Alternative media is even worse, with the same clickbait, but delivering pure propaganda in whatever flavor you want.
the overall effect must be negligible, since 20% of the sun energy is converted to electricity.
You still have to explain how a solar farm isn't "more efficient" than a fossil fuel plant,
You list the inefficiencies of fossil fuel plants, but forget the ones attached to solar. You have to mine the materials to manufacture the panels, supply the energy to make them, ship them, install them, clean them, and combine the small-scale generation capabilities into a larger scale distribution system.
And then you need to factor in the conversion efficiency of the panels, compared to the heat generated by the absorption of unconverted sunlight and by the conversion process itself.
It sounds to me like the good people of Woodland, North Carolina have a whole bunch of separate reasons for not wanting solar farms,
Like: we already have three of them, this new one is planned within 50 feet of residences, and too close to a major highway.
but apparently don't have a problem with being surrounded by tobacco farms.
Productive farm land is a valuable resource. You don't need farm land to farm solar energy. The article says nothing about tobacco, but it does mention soybeans.
Were this a project intended for a similar space where I live, it, too, would be shot down very early in the process. Our "comprehensive land use planning" laws define farmland as farmland and don't allow easy conversion to other uses. These hicks in this solar-hating town allowed that zoning conversion three times, and said to the fourth "no". That's how much they hate solar power.
You have to do all of the same with fossil fuel energy plants.
Plus you have to man them with workers. All that before the "finding/getting/refining/transporting/storing/cleanup" of the fossil fuels.
So I'll ask again: How is a fossil fuel energy plant more "efficient" than a solar farm?
You are welcome on my lawn.
It's true that the panels aren't 100% efficient. What energy doesn't go out over the wires either gets absorbed, reflected, or grounded. Grounded? Yes, you could heat up the metal frames and that heat could find its way into the ground, which is usually a pretty good heat sink. That's probably negligible though. Much of the heat would get transferred to the air. Some would get reflected back--even though the panels are dark in visible light, infrared might be another matter.
The real devil is in what the panels replace. You have to compare the panels to what they're replacing. Another poster said putting the panels in the desert would make things cooler. If you're covering sparse vegetation and hot rocks with panels, and taking out some energy in the form of electricity that makes sense.
North Carolina isn't desert though. They're going to put those panels over land that probably used to be either woods, pasture, or fields full of some agricultural product. Plants can cool things down in a number of ways that might be more effective than the removal of energy in electrical form by panels. Aside from that, if the electricity is consumed locally it's a zero-sum game.
I'm sure there are some more fine points I'm missing here; but the main point is that the equation is a bit more complicated than just a simple thermodynamic analysis of the panels.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
Someone commented on the previous /. article the town's people are right for the wrong reasons. Cutting down a huge swath of forests to erect solar panels is probably not such a good idea. Though I don't know if they cut down trees (like everyone else I didn't RTFA) but I have to agree that replacing a natural area with solar panels is not exactly "green."
mfwright@batnet.com
Sigh, bleeding heart study stating the opposite http://www.kcet.org/news/redef...
Solar panels have an albedo of about 0.11 http://journal.frontiersin.org... but for a farm, they transfer energy out of the area, so rather than turning 89% of sunlight into local heat they turn about 71% into heat locally, less than a desiduos forest which turns more than 80% of incoming sunlight into heat.
http://www.kcet.org/news/redef...
What Shocked me was that one of the geniuses that made one of the mocked comments was a retired science teacher! What's the point of school anymore...
All those black or blue solar panels aren't 100% efficient, while they convert 1/5 of the sun's energy they absorb into electricity, the remaining 4/5 is emitted as heat.
Yes. It's radiated upwards, because the backs of the solar panels are white. That means that solar panels actually increase albedo over soil even though they are black. Congratulations, kid, you just made your opponent's argument for them, admittedly with just a little help from yours truly. You may resume your anti-solar FUD tomorrow when you come up with some new bullshit to peddle. The sign that you're a gigantic fucking idiot is that you linked the Daily Fail as if it were a valid source of citations.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
No but a blackbody absorbs more than something green or brown.
This study found that covering deserts with solar farms would reduce the absorbed heat enough to create regional cooling.
Sigh, bleeding heart study stating the opposite http://www.kcet.org/news/redef...
Surprised, surprise: We already knew you were a spectacular idiot because you were willing to link the Daily Fail as if it meant something. I tracked down more information on Sinervo's bullshit (note he does not provide nor cite his own study, claims to have this information and then does not provide an adequate citation!) but he fails to comprehend how heat islands work. They produce a minimal localized heating effect down wind of the source, which rapidly dissipates, because heat rises. This actually even happens with wind power; the turbulence causes heating, but the effect dissipates rapidly. The highest temperatures in solar power are found in thermal solar with collectors, but in that case, the collector is substantially elevated; meaning the heat escapes the area even more rapidly.
The truth is that the albedo of a solar panel is only 25% from that of sand, and we are only covering a minuscule percentage of the desert with panels, so you can only have a minuscule effect.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sigh, bleeding heart study stating the opposite http://www.kcet.org/news/redef...
From what I can find (just the abstract and the letter linked by drinkypoo), the study referenced in the article assumes the heat island effect, then evaluates its effect on tortoises, it doesn't actually attempt to model heat absorption to determine whether the heat island effect would occur. The referenced papers on heat island effects are all about urban heat islands, caused by paving.
So, it appears to me that the author, biologist Barry Sinervo, just assumed that solar farms covered in PV panels would produce urban heat islands similar to urban regions covered in black pavement, and then calculated what would happen to tortoises if they were exposed to the same level of heating as if big chunks of the desert were paved. The study I cited (written by atmospheric and climate scientists) did model the differential heat absorption effects, and found that large solar farms will cause localized cooling, not heating.
So, ignoring epithets like "bleeding heart" and focusing just on the science, it appears to me that Sinervo's assumption of heat islands was unsupported and wrong, though I can see his rationale if one forgets about the energy converted to electricity.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
1/5 is converted to energy, the rest is radiated into the surrounding area just like pavement does, albeit a little less than asphalt. Vegetation, absorbs light and emits heat as well, but it also cools the area via evaporative cooling. What people need to realize is that solar and wind power aren't completely free of environmental downsides. The best solution is to distribute your power generation among all the ways of making power. But honestly the best way to make power is hydroelectric, always has been. The Niagara powerplant provides 1/4 of all New York State's power.
1/5 is converted to energy, the rest is radiated into the surrounding area just like pavement does, albeit a little less than asphalt.
Apparently when compared to sand or dirt, less heat is radiated by PV panels.
Vegetation, absorbs light and emits heat as well, but it also cools the area via evaporative cooling.
Are you very certain about that? Plants can only cool evaporatively using water that is already present. I suppose they may pull some water back up that would otherwise have drained down through the soil, but on the other hand the photosynthesis process consumes water, locking it up in hydrocarbon chains. You're guessing that they provide a net cooling effect that wouldn't be present with non-living material of similar albedo.
But honestly the best way to make power is hydroelectric, always has been.
Though as a boater I happen to love the sort of environmental damage that hydro does, it does a LOT. Niagara is a special case, not available in most areas. In most places you have to build dams and flood valleys to make hydroelectric power. Even in cases where you can use existing bodies of water the change to the flow rates often does a lot of damage downstream.
IMO that's all worth it to make more bodies of water for recreation, oh, and to generate power. But there are a lot of opponents of hydro power for very good reasons.
The best solution is to distribute your power generation among all the ways of making power.
Well, not all the ways. We can remove fossil fuels from the mix. But all the rest... nuclear, hydro, geothermal, solar, wind, wave, etc.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
They get out of the bus or whatever, find the first yokels they see wandering the streets in the middle of the working day with time on their hands, and question them. If they get a long thoughtful answer, that will never fly on the TV news, so repeat until you get some simple sound byte, most likely doofish. Although the occasional halfway rational remark will make it to broadcast, to demonstrate "average Joe not as dumb as he looks. As long as it's short and simple, it flies.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
All those black or blue solar panels aren't 100% efficient, while they convert 1/5 of the sun's energy they absorb into electricity, the remaining 4/5 is emitted as heat. It nearly like taking those fields and paving them with asphalt, it is going to heat up the local area. Solar panels make sense on areas that are already black like a roof, but taking large undeveloped areas and installing panels you are just creating a large heat island. Let's not forget the reflections they make in latitudes further north where they are angled such that they reflect light into neighboring homes. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/new...
In some case it makes more sense to collect the solar heat directly, rather than covert the light into electricity. Depends what you are going to use it for, and where you want to use it.
Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
Every story need a car analogy ;-) Can we have a Hitler analogy instead then?
Human Rights, Article 12: Freedom from Interference with Privacy, Family, Home and Correspondence