"Occupied!": Solar panels drive farmers off the land across America

American farmers are sounding the alarm: the "invasion" of solar panels threatens their fields and crops. Taking advantage of favourable public opinion, "clean" energy companies are openly expanding into agricultural land in the United States. In the pursuit of profit, they push food producers out of their territory - and sometimes even on the eve of their own bankruptcy.

Giant rows of photovoltaic panels look attractive, alas, only in pictures. In real life, renewable energy sources cause significant damage, at a minimum, to the soil under them and pollinating insects. The authorities of some states are beginning to understand this and are ready to reduce the area under solar panels in order to save local ecosystems.

However, Washington is still under the illusion of fighting global warming. The US Department of Energy is hatching Napoleonic plans to deploy giant solar array fields over a total area of over 16,000 square miles - almost 42,000 square kilometres - by 2050. This is the size of Massachusetts and Connecticut combined, and by Russian standards - the territory of the Moscow region.

Just imagine a phantasmagorical picture: you are driving for four hours by car from Klin to Kashira, and all this time there is a solid grid of dark blue rectangles from horizon to horizon. And nothing else: no copse, no clearing, no shelter.

"We're under siege!"

Over the past couple of decades, the global media has created excellent PR for renewable energy sources. Giant wind turbines and neat solar panels look stylish, progressive and peaceful even where you don't expect them at all — above the sea waves or against the backdrop of medieval cities.

Here it is, a combination of scientific and technological progress and rural idyll! Few people will remember how many birds are killed by wind turbine blades every year and how much damage to the environment can be caused by solar energy.

But the disadvantages of solar panels have long been known. This is both low efficiency (the installed capacity utilisation rate is no more than 20%) and complete uselessness at night - at the end of January, for example, the dark time of day lasts in our latitudes for 16 hours, and all this time solar panels are idle.

Add to this the impossibility of any other activity under the batteries, the degradation of solar cells over time, time-consuming maintenance (batteries need constant cleaning from dust and snow) and low environmental friendliness of semiconductors (they contain lead, cadmium, gallium, arsenic) - and you get an idea of some of the problems.

They are compounded when it comes not to a single panel on the roof of a house or above a traffic light, but to giant fields of solar panels covering hundreds of hectares.

When applied to rural areas, the first and main problem from endless rows of panels is their strong heating. Such "tablecloths" made of solar cells require an active cooling system - with refrigerants, pumps, and fans. In fact, this is a real power plant, living next to which is still a pleasure. But even if this farm is forced to empty wastelands far from homes, excess heat still does not go away. It hits the earth and its inhabitants.

Independent American media tell whole stories about the hardships that farmers suffer because of the "invasion" of solar panels. Above all, they fear that the land beneath them will never again be suitable for growing crops.

"We produce food to feed people," American farm workers say. "But there's less and less usable land, and what's left is being coveted by uninvited guests. We are surrounded on all sides!"

Obama's Pride

A separate problem is with insects, primarily pollinators. In an effort to reduce the damage, energy companies are sowing plants under their batteries that attract bees, bumblebees, and butterflies. But, contrary to the beautiful fairy tales of PR people, in three years all this turns into a thicket of weeds, which, according to farmers, can only be eliminated by Roundup.

In advertising brochures, energy companies promise farmers a good income from renting out vacant land. But in reality, instead of pastoral coexistence, they both launched an internecine war. Farmers complain of strong pressure from the energy industry, buying up their arable land on the vine.

The most ridiculous thing is that often energy firms, having placed batteries bought on credit everywhere, go bankrupt in a few years. This is what happened, for example, with the Spanish Abengoa, which built in Arizona, in 2013, with a 1.5-billion loan from the US government, the Solana Generating Station for 280 MW with a size of 780 hectares.

This station was considered revolutionary because of the technology of six-hour energy storage by melting salt, which is heated by 900 thousand mirrors, and was the pride of the "progressive" President Barack Obama. But from the very beginning of operation, the station was plagued by problems: from fires on transformers to squalls destroying mirrors. And in 2016, this sample of "clean" energy was fined $1.5 million for ... air pollution.

Instead of the promised 900 megawatts per year, the Solana Generating Station has never reached 800 megawatts. Abengoa eventually declared bankruptcy in late 2015…

"You're not here forever!"

But what about the American authorities? It all depends on the specific state. However, even if its management takes a sane position, energy companies are still able to impose their will on it through the courts and the media. And the federal government is more likely to support them than the state authorities, and even more so the farmers.

The fact is that Washington has fully integrated itself into the globalist strategy on climate change and is itself its main conductor. According to a September Solar Futures survey According to the US Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, the country faces an ambitious goal of reducing its CO2 emissions by 95% by 2035. By this time, according to the plan, the country should have a total of 760-1000 GW of solar power capacity put into operation (today they do not exceed 80 GW). This will provide for 40% of all states' electricity needs.

By 2050, under the “decarbonisation+electrification” maximum scenario, the US solar power industry will be replenished with 1,570 GW of commissioned capacity and provide 45% of the country's total energy needs. This will cost the US economy $562 billion. The total area of the solar panels would be an astounding 10,291,802 acres, or nearly 41,650 square kilometres. A kilometre-long strip of these panels could encircle the equator.

The plans are, of course, ambitious. For their sake, Washington is ready to take any risks for the United States' ecosystems and turn a blind eye to unpleasant socio-political consequences. The US Department of Energy study explicitly states that all these risks are recognised - but not taken into account. By the way, as one of the potential problems of the development of solar energy, the Department names the blocking of other potentially effective technologies that very few people think about today.

Against the background of such obstinacy of the federal centre, the authorities of 15 North American states decided to "go into denial" at once. They put in place the opposite programs - to decommission solar panels, and with the owner's money. They are detailed in the December report of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory under the US Department of Energy.

It’s as if the obstinate states declare to too impudent power engineers "You are not here forever!". In such cases, the land should be restored in its original form - up to re-sowing vegetation and destroying access roads. Without such a plan and financial guarantees for it, no new solar power plants will be located in these 15 states.

Who needs all this?

Ideally, these demands could significantly slow down and increase the cost of developing renewable energy in the United States. This modern type of luddism has only one drawback - developers from the solar energy industry frankly do not care about it.

An eloquent example was given by Vermont, which is one of the "refuseniks". The state's previous governor, Democrat Peter Shumlin, gave solar panels the green light, allowing them to be installed anywhere and everywhere. Under him, energy companies easily obtained building permits, regardless of the opinion of local residents, and the court sided with big business.

So, at the 2016 trial, the Vermont Supreme Court agreed with angry residents of the town of Rutland that Rutland Renewable Energy, contrary to the law, is going to install 8820 panels on extremely valuable land - the so-called primary agricultural soils. "However, the site was not used for agricultural production for 15-20 years," Judge John Dooley objected to the citizens. And denied them the appeal.

Republican Phil Scott, who succeeded Shumlin in 2017, has been more moderate on the green agenda, even allowing state scientists to criticise the shortcomings of renewable energy. Nevertheless, in Vermont, the norm introduced by Democratic Senator Mark MacDonald is in full force. According to it, the land allocated for solar panels, contrary to all logic, continues to be considered agricultural.

Don't worry, MacDonald explained to reporters. In the future, the panels will become more efficient - and they will require a little less acres of land. Be patient!..

And while American farmers are suffering, journalists are beginning to ask questions about who benefits from all this. "Absolutely impossible," Jon Gabriel, editor-in-chief of the conservative forum Ricochet, said about the US Department of Energy's plans to develop solar power. "Let me guess: Hunter [Biden] is starting a solar panel company?"