Tag: solar energy

Commentary: Solar’s Lofty Ambitions Are Consuming Ever-Larger Expanses of Land Down Below

RealClearWire

Wedged in the southern flank of Virginia, Charlotte County is home to some 11,500 people who live amidst rolling hills and family farms, pastures and sawmills, a historic Civil War battlefield, and four townlets tinier than many suburban subdivisions.  

But this pastoral tableau will be swept up in the green revolution when construction begins here on the nation’s largest solar power facility east of the Mississippi River. The planned 800-megawatt Randolph Solar Project in Charlotte County will replace a commercial lumber farm of loblolly pines with 1.6 million photovoltaic panels covering an area equivalent to seven square miles. 

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Climate Activists Oppose Major Solar Projects over Deforestation Concerns

Michigan Star Staff

A group of environmentalists voiced opposition to potential Massachusetts solar projects that could generate at least 250 kilowatts of electricity.

The majority of those who attended a public hearing hosted by the Amherst, Massachusetts, Community Resources Committee said they supported a moratorium on such projects that would expire in May 2023, the Daily Hampshire Gazette reported. The proposed moratorium would prohibit surrounding municipalities from green lighting any solar project that exceeds the 250-kilowatt-capacity threshold.

The moratorium was proposed by three town councilors after an 11-megawatt solar farm was proposed in the area, the Gazette reported. A solar field that produces 250 kilowatts of electricity would power 71 households while one that produces 11 megawatts would power more than 3,000 homes, according to a federal estimate.

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Experts Slam Biden’s Plan to Build Government-Funded Wind Farms

Michigan Star Staff
Dan Kish

Energy experts criticized President Joe Biden’s plan to prioritize wind farms, arguing wind power is costly, inefficient and indirectly produces greenhouse gas emissions.

Wind energy, like solar, is often unreliable since it is intermittent, or highly dependent on nature and out of the control of suppliers, according to the experts. Higher reliance on wind to produce even a fraction of a nation’s energy supply, therefore, cou ld lead to higher prices depending on the weather.

“Both wind and solar have Achilles heels in that they’re intermittent,” Dan Kish, a senior fellow at the Institute for Energy Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in an interview.

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