Across America, Clean Energy Plants Are Being Banned Faster Than They're Being Built (usatoday.com) 200
An anonymous reader shared this report from USA Today:
A nationwide analysis by USA TODAY shows local governments are banning green energy faster than they're building it.
At least 15% of counties in the U.S. have effectively halted new utility-scale wind, solar, or both, USA TODAY found. These limits come through outright bans, moratoriums, construction impediments and other conditions that make green energy difficult to build... In the past decade, about 180 counties got their first commercial wind-power project. But in the same period, more than twice as many blocked wind development. And while solar power has found more broad acceptance, 2023 was the first year to see almost as many individual counties block new solar projects as the ones adding their first project.
The result: Some of the nation's areas with the best sources of wind and solar power have now been boxed out. Because large-scale solar and wind projects typically are built outside city limits, USA TODAY's analysis focuses on restrictions by the county-level governments that have jurisdiction. In a few cases, such as Connecticut, Tennessee and Vermont, entire states have implemented near-statewide restrictions. While 15% of America's counties might sound like a small portion, the trend has significant consequences, says Jeff Danielson, a former four-term Iowa state senator now with the Clean Grid Alliance. "It's 15% of the most highly productive areas to develop wind and solar," he said. "Our overall goals are going to be difficult to achieve if the answer is 'No' in county after county...."
[T]he number of new wind projects opening annually peaked in the early 2010s, according to inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and has slowed since then. Wind power is expected to grow 11% by 2025 from last year's levels. In the past 10 years, 183 counties saw their first wind project come online. However, USA TODAY's analysis found that in the same period, nearly 375 counties have essentially blocked new wind development. That's almost as many as the 508 counties — out of 3,144 total in the U.S. — currently home to an operational wind turbine....
Of the 116 counties implementing bans or impediments to utility-scale solar plants, half did so in 2023 alone. This surge in obstacles is unprecedented since green-energy technology gained broad acceptance...
The article points out that counties sometimes also limit the size of solar farms — making them impractical to build. "Other jurisdictions create shadow bans of sorts. Projects might not technically be banned, but officials simply reject all green energy plans on a case-by-case basis..."
"USA TODAY's findings were supported by research published in late January by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Energy developers reported one third of the wind and solar siting applications they had submitted in the past five years were canceled, while about half were delayed for six months or more. Zoning issues and community opposition were two of the top reasons."
The article also quotes an Ohio farmer who complained that "You live in the country, and you want to be away from all the hustle and bustle. I kind of look at it as if they're sticking a warehouse or a factory here." Last September, his county's commissioners banned all new large-scale wind and solar projects.
At least 15% of counties in the U.S. have effectively halted new utility-scale wind, solar, or both, USA TODAY found. These limits come through outright bans, moratoriums, construction impediments and other conditions that make green energy difficult to build... In the past decade, about 180 counties got their first commercial wind-power project. But in the same period, more than twice as many blocked wind development. And while solar power has found more broad acceptance, 2023 was the first year to see almost as many individual counties block new solar projects as the ones adding their first project.
The result: Some of the nation's areas with the best sources of wind and solar power have now been boxed out. Because large-scale solar and wind projects typically are built outside city limits, USA TODAY's analysis focuses on restrictions by the county-level governments that have jurisdiction. In a few cases, such as Connecticut, Tennessee and Vermont, entire states have implemented near-statewide restrictions. While 15% of America's counties might sound like a small portion, the trend has significant consequences, says Jeff Danielson, a former four-term Iowa state senator now with the Clean Grid Alliance. "It's 15% of the most highly productive areas to develop wind and solar," he said. "Our overall goals are going to be difficult to achieve if the answer is 'No' in county after county...."
[T]he number of new wind projects opening annually peaked in the early 2010s, according to inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and has slowed since then. Wind power is expected to grow 11% by 2025 from last year's levels. In the past 10 years, 183 counties saw their first wind project come online. However, USA TODAY's analysis found that in the same period, nearly 375 counties have essentially blocked new wind development. That's almost as many as the 508 counties — out of 3,144 total in the U.S. — currently home to an operational wind turbine....
Of the 116 counties implementing bans or impediments to utility-scale solar plants, half did so in 2023 alone. This surge in obstacles is unprecedented since green-energy technology gained broad acceptance...
The article points out that counties sometimes also limit the size of solar farms — making them impractical to build. "Other jurisdictions create shadow bans of sorts. Projects might not technically be banned, but officials simply reject all green energy plans on a case-by-case basis..."
"USA TODAY's findings were supported by research published in late January by the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Energy developers reported one third of the wind and solar siting applications they had submitted in the past five years were canceled, while about half were delayed for six months or more. Zoning issues and community opposition were two of the top reasons."
The article also quotes an Ohio farmer who complained that "You live in the country, and you want to be away from all the hustle and bustle. I kind of look at it as if they're sticking a warehouse or a factory here." Last September, his county's commissioners banned all new large-scale wind and solar projects.
Time to go the other way (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Time to make dirty power plants...
Or, say, solar/wind-powered coal plants ... :-)
This is going the other way ... (Score:5, Insightful)
Farmer Joe (Score:5, Insightful)
So there's forums about Texas succeeding (Score:5, Insightful)
And of course there's the world famous "Keep Government Out of My Medicare" sign....
It's astonishing how little people understand our country. And there's a never ending supply of grifters willing to take advantage of that...
All that said, Farmer Joe doesn't really exist anymore. The biggest farmer in America is Bill Gates. Seriously, go look up how much Farm Land he owns. There are very, very few family farms left and most of them are that way because mega corporations are abusing them. The Family Farmers lost that battle decades ago.
Consistent with other Separatist movements (Score:2)
and they're full of old people asking "when we succeed will I still get my social security check?".
And of course there's the world famous "Keep Government Out of My Medicare" sign....
It's astonishing how little people understand our country. And there's a never ending supply of grifters willing to take advantage of that...
Well, we lived in Canada during the Quebec Separation Referendum of 1995 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec_sovereignty_movement#History), and we saw similar ignorance during that event. Politicians were actively dishonest (on both sides), newspapers tended to be either pro- or anti- and talked only to their own side. It was hard to find credible factual analysis of the impacts if the referendum succeeded. (It was particularly galling for the premier of Quebec, who had a PhD in economics from London S
My favorite Canada moment (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
was watching Canadians demanding their 1st amendment rights because they watch so much American Fox News they don't realize Canada isn't the United States...
It's not just Fox News but all American media.
I recall hearing about people in other nations being arrested and demanding to be read their Miranda rights. There's no Miranda rights outside the USA, but with popular media from the USA being exported there's people demanding their rights be protected. This is a good thing, because America may not be perfect but it's been doing quite well in avoiding government agents abusing the citizens. Again, this isn't perfect since there are still flaws to work out bu
Re:My favorite Canada moment (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:3)
At least you guys have SOME sort of bill of rights. Here in australia we've had to do with judges fudging it by doing things like saying "Because the consitition says we are a democracy therefore there must be an implied right to free speech".
And every time a bill of rights gets proposed it gets shot down by angry conservatives with excuses like "If we had a bill of rights, we'd be forced to give refugees accsess to th
Re: (Score:2)
Psst...it's "secede" "Succeed" means something else..
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
I bet both of the NYMBY bumpkin assholes in this story would throw an absolute fit if the government tried to stop them from doing something they wanted with their land.
=Smidge=
Re:Farmer Joe (Score:4, Insightful)
Joke is on him. There'll be nothing to farm when climate change has turned the topsoil into dust and the wind blown it away.
Right, because our options are renewable energy or global warming. The thing is that renewable energy hasn't been working out so well in Europe. Germany tried to replace nuclear and fossil fuels with renewable energy but all that did was shift the load onto natural gas out of Russia. With Russia shutting off Europe from their natural gas supply we see the entirety of Europe in a panic to build facilities to bring in LNG, build and/or restart nuclear power plants, and see higher energy prices as a result.
Our options are fossil fuels (and the global warming that comes with it), energy shortages, or nuclear power. I've mentioned that before and been accused of absolutism on only nuclear power being where we should get our energy. I'm not excluding other energy sources in the option to choose nuclear power, only that if we don't want energy shortages, or fossil fuels, then we need some large portion of our energy from nuclear fission. We know this because we've already explored the different options through history.
Another common reply is there is a fourth option, some new future technology. Well, we live in the present, not the future. So until this future arrives we have only those three options. I believe that since people will not tolerate energy shortages for long, and there's all kinds of problems with fossil fuels than the CO2 emissions, people will eventually decide that nuclear is their best option. It's still a bad option for all kinds of reasons, but it is the least bad.
Re: (Score:2)
I'd not heard about them catching fire. Is it from lightning strikes? If not, what's the cause, and how preventable is it?
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I have heard of lubricants catching fire with the friction. There are a few pics on the net.
Re: Farmer Joe (Score:5, Interesting)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: Farmer Joe (Score:2)
If only there were some kind of website where you could https://scholar.google.com/sch... [slashdot.org]>google information like that.
Of course extreme drought is just a âoefor instanceâ. In reality if you read through a couple of dozen google scholar abstracts on the subject is that weâ(TM)re going to see a global patchwork of different kinds of extreme events, not just drought but extreme rain and changes in seasonal patterns that âoeaverage outâ (e.g. drought *and* flooding) that will affect
Re: Farmer Joe (Score:2)
Re:Farmer Joe (Score:5, Insightful)
If you eliminate the utility-scale grid, how do you ensure the guarantee offered to citizens that they'll have access to a reliable (with few exceptions) electricity supply?
My first thought goes to the stats showing that a significant percentage of American households are unable able to handle an unexpected $500 expense without relying on credit. Those people certainly aren't going to be in a position to raise capital required retrofit their local community with resilient local generation/storage.
The most likely outcome seems to me that those who have the financial means to invest in private micro-grids would do so, leading to less investment in whatever remains of the public grid, leading to more people choosing to invest in their own private grids, leading to less investment in whatever remains of the public grid...
In the end, we end up with a fragmented private system where people with means are just fine and those without financial means have lost a valuable public service.
Deluded farmer (Score:5, Insightful)
"You live in the country, and you want to be away from all the hustle and bustle. I kind of look at it as if they're sticking a warehouse or a factory here."
That's "hustle and bustle"? Something which sits there and does nothing (in the case of solar) or catches wind and use it for a purpose (in the case of wind turbines) and this smooth brain thinks that's a bad thing? I hope he has a John Deere tractor or two.
There's a farm about 20-25 minutes from me down the highway which has put solar panels on every single building and has an entire (small) field loaded with solar panels. I'm pretty sure that other than the past 3 weeks where we had cloud cover, the guy powers his entire operation with solar energy.
Re: (Score:3)
It's still industrializing the countryside. He has a valid point.
Too many city dwellers think the countryside has a duty to provide them with cheap food, cheap vacations, and now cheap green energy, but the concerns of those who live in the country are irrelevant.
Re: (Score:2)
No one is saying that people who live in the county are irrelevant or shouldn't have a say in these things. The issue is that back in ye olden days there was a fetishization among the people who designed our system of governance of the idea of the "gentleman farmer" as the perfect way of life for everyone. And they built in structural biases in our system government that unfairly give those country people outsize political power versus their proportion of the population.
Country people are relevant. What
Re:Deluded farmer (Score:4, Insightful)
You realize the quote is from a farmer who literally makes his living by industrializing the countryside to grow food to sell to city dwellers, right?
In his viewpoint, it's fine for him to plow under acres of countryside in the name of making a profit, but someone else installing solar cells? HOW DARE THEY!
Re: (Score:2)
People can't eat electricity so plowing under arable land for solar panels is a bad idea. We can produce plenty of low CO2 electricity with nuclear fission, fossil fuels are not required if we stop covering land with solar panels.
Profitable industrial scale farming is how we've been able to feed billions of people on Earth. There's those that will say the Earth has too many people, and to that I say they are welcome to leave Earth at any time. I don't know where they will go but it seems they are no long
Re: (Score:2)
"There's evidence all over the world of civilizations that ended because they had to choose between food and fuel"
If the US can cover 35 million acres of land to grow corn for ethanol, we have more than enough for truly massive wind and solar installations. Far more than we will need.
Considering that the ethanol is used as fuel, switching to EVs makes the need for land drop by a factor of 800 if we were powering them using solar.
In short, we''re not faced with your binary choice.
Which means we are not faced
Re: (Score:2)
You realize the quote is from a farmer who literally makes his living by industrializing the countryside to grow food to sell to city dwellers, right?
In his viewpoint, it's fine for him to plow under acres of countryside in the name of making a profit, but someone else installing solar cells? HOW DARE THEY!
Clearly, the solution is to show him how he can make a living by covering acres with solar cells, industrializing the countryside to generate electricity to sell to city dwellers.
Re: (Score:2)
but the concerns of those who live in the country are irrelevant.
The concerns of those who live in the country are FAR more than addressed by constitutional and extra-constitutional gerrymandering. So much so that this nation has become a tyranny of the minority.
If all those empty acres supposedly deserve their own extra representation in congress and selecting the president, then they damned well need be as economically productive as possible. Just being a pretty backdrop for net recipients of federal funds to look at from their back porches is not sufficient.
Re: (Score:2)
The concerns of those who live in the country are FAR more than addressed by constitutional and extra-constitutional gerrymandering. So much so that this nation has become a tyranny of the minority.
If all those empty acres supposedly deserve their own extra representation in congress and selecting the president, then they damned well need be as economically productive as possible.
Explain how gerrymandering achieves anything in a presidential election.
Re: (Score:2)
The US constitution is gerrymandered. People in nearly empty states get several times as much voting power in presidential elections as people in highly populated states.
If you haven't noticed, "rural friendly" presidents tend to be elected into office with a minority of the overall votes lately.
Re: (Score:2)
The US constitution is gerrymandered. People in nearly empty states get several times as much voting power in presidential elections as people in highly populated states.
If you haven't noticed, "rural friendly" presidents tend to be elected into office with a minority of the overall votes lately.
That's not what gerrymandering is
Re: (Score:2)
Whatever you call it, Mr. Pedantic, the outcome is the same.
Re: (Score:2)
Gerrymander is not a synonym for "rigged," it is a means of rigging elections. You're talking about the Electoral College, which is not rigging. It's our lawful system of electing a President and is subject to debate, because it has the unfortunate side-effect of electing Presidents that don't have the majority of the popular vote. It isn't pedantry to point that out. You should read about the Electoral College, instead of simply believing it's all rigged and calling it whatever you like so long as it feels
Re: (Score:2)
God damned, you are overthinking things.
In both cases, the minority of the voters select the winners.
End of story.
Re:Deluded farmer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
It's just justifying opposition to progress through "pulling the ladder up" rather than the more obvious tribalism. It's not clear which it really is. What is clear is, for this farmer, "liberty" means doing what he wants on his property...AND telling you want you can do on yours. His "rights" extend to not being burdened by the property rights of others, it's what it means to be Republican.
All Republicans have left is tribalism, their "policies" are nothing other than opposing the policies, and beliefs,
Re: (Score:2)
It's just justifying opposition to progress through "pulling the ladder up" rather than the more obvious tribalism. It's not clear which it really is. What is clear is, for this farmer, "liberty" means doing what he wants on his property...AND telling you want you can do on yours. His "rights" extend to not being burdened by the property rights of others, it's what it means to be Republican.
I'll just point out the Democrats that challenged the wind farms off the coast of Martha's Vineyard [bostonherald.com] and the Texas Republicans that have embraced wind and solar (at scale) in the Lone Star State [electrek.co].
Re: (Score:2)
Plenty here are not happy that a reasonable project to reduce emissions and electricity rates was stymied for over twenty years by a few divas whining about some faint toothpicks on the horizon.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah sure, wealthy Democrats are still wealthy and talk out both sides of their mouth. Difference's are though is this is the literal GOP platform
The United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is a political mechanism, not an unbiased scientific institution. Its unreliability is reflected in its intolerance toward scientists and others who dissent from its orthodoxy. We will evaluate its recommendations accordingly. We reject the agendas of both the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreeme
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe not. We lived for years across the road from wind installation that was built a couple of years after we moved in. Used to be a dead quiet rural area but the wind turbines fixed that. The closest was a bit over a thousand feet away (rules in Canada allow for very close spacing to houses). On a windy day the noise in the yard was around 80db (cellphone meter, not a precision tool) as opposed to the 30 it used to be. And unlike living near a busy expressway, it was never steady. Sure the person who leas
Backward people gonna backwards (Score:3, Insightful)
Re: Backward people gonna backwards (Score:3, Informative)
Maybe. But Vermont, Bernie Country, enacted a statewide banâ¦
Re: (Score:2)
Lobbying pockets run deep.
Re: (Score:3)
Re:Backward people gonna backwards (Score:5, Funny)
Right wing assholes are going to doom us all.
Yes, the famous right-wing government of Connecticut.
Re: (Score:3)
Total agree with the snark. I will even see your Connecticut and raise you Vermont. According to Pew Research polling Vermont leans left 57 to 29 percent with only 14 percent in the undecided bucket. Only Massachussets and Wyoming have a wider split in political leanings.
But I understand. It is far easier for folks to just toss issues into big buckets labeled Right and Left. They can then support or castigate according to what bucket an issue landed in and which bucket they think belongs to the good gu
Re:Backward people gonna backwards (Score:5, Informative)
Right wing assholes are going to doom us all.
From the article:
"Texas is the nation’s leader in wind-powered electricity and has been since 2005. Wind produces 23% of its electricity and solar more than 5%. There are no county-level blocks to renewables, partly because Texas has very strong rules governing the rights of private property owners and partly because of its long history of energy extraction.
Florida has the nation’s third largest solar generating capacity and is rapidly scaling up with output. In 2021 it passed a law prohibiting local governments from restricting solar energy on farmland. Liberal Massachusetts passed a similar law in 2022.
Wyoming has strong winds and already gets 22% of its electricity from them. It passed a law putting wind projects with 20 or more turbines under the jurisdiction of its state environmental agency’s Industrial Siting Council – meaning local jurisdictions can’t limit them."
All right wing
Re: (Score:2)
The capitalists were on board as soon as renewables were cheaper than the alternative, and there was an opportunity to make some money.
At that point we were supposed to have won. Thing is, you don't actually have a left wing of politics for the most part, just the odd one or two like Sanders and AOC. The Democrats are what we would call a right wing party, and sure enough just like conservative parties in Europe they are being difficult about installing renewables. There's an awkward spot between far right
Re: (Score:3)
Thing is, you don't actually have a left wing of politics for the most part, just the odd one or two like Sanders and AOC. The Democrats are what we would call a right wing party
Uh huh
French example (Score:2)
In France, it takes 11 years to build a wind farm. Mostly because of the administrative guerilla of the NIMBIES. In Germany it is 7 years. "Environmentalists" protest even hydroelectric dams.
For French nuclear it was also the case but it is less true now. It is more an issue of an industrial complex to rebuild slowly now. It is probably why some new European nuclear plants are going to be built by Koreans.
Re: (Score:2)
9 years but close enough.
https://www.thelocal.fr/201808... [thelocal.fr]
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
For French nuclear it was also the case but it is less true now. It is more an issue of an industrial complex to rebuild slowly now. It is probably why some new European nuclear plants are going to be built by Koreans.
No true. French nuclear never had push-back from the population in the last 50 years or so. They managed to screw it all up entirely on the industrial side because the technology sucks and is not ready for real-world use. The only reason the French are building new plants at all is to maintain their nuclear arsenal: https://www.lemonde.fr/idees/a... [lemonde.fr]
Re: (Score:3)
They managed to screw it all up entirely on the industrial side because the technology sucks and is not ready for real-world use.
This is a hilarious rewriting of history.
Mean while France has ha better air quality, fewer pollution deaths and emitted less CO2 than any of its industrialized peers for decades. This is bad because nookular
Re: (Score:2)
Yep more rewriting of history.
Nuclear's main competitors until very recently were coal and later gas. And even very recently when Germans lost their fucking minds over Fukushima, they switched from nuclear to coal, not renewables in the short term.
But please do go on and tell me why nuclear is worse than coal. Also it would be nice to know, with reference to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, how gas is better than nuclear.
You can also refer to global warming of you wish...
Today, renewables are not available bad
Re: (Score:2)
It's interesting how people who mostly accept that their governments are corrupt and incompetent, are willing to trust them with nuclear power. Germany has had accidents before, as has France. Japan was supposed to be a well regulated, safe country.
Germany's plants were past EOL and relying on careful checks to avoid issues. They can't be repaired. New plants would not be online for 20 years.
Re: (Score:2)
It's interesting how people who mostly accept that their governments are corrupt and incompetent, are willing to trust them with nuclear power.
People are strange. I don't consider governments to be the spawn of Satan, and have no plans to relocate to the Libertarian Paradise of the Congo.
Germany has had accidents before, as has France.
More French people have died from coal pollution wafting over from Germany than they have from nuclear accidents in France. France's record on nuclear safety is extremely good
Re: (Score:2)
It's always the way with people. Being killed slowly is less of an issue than some catastrophic event.
The thing is, Germany does have a plan to get rid of coal, a legal obligation. In the current political climate, no government would dare abandon it. Industry is moving that way, closing coal plants and replacing them with fewer, cleaner ones that are better able to follow demand.
It's not ideal, but it's where we are. Can't safely or cost effectively keep the nukes running. The only thing they can really do
Re: (Score:2)
"Environmentalists" protest even hydroelectric dams.
Since dams create artificial lakes that entirely destroy all of the habitat on the submerged land it is odd that you regard damming up rivers as being particularly benign, and opposition to destroying such habitats particularly deluded.
Re: French example (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Across the spectrum (Score:2)
It's a bit hard for me to think of two states more different than Vermont and Tennessee
Re: (Score:2)
I'll grant you Idaho - Massachusetts, instead.
Just deserts (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh no, the Enviro-nuts have to endure the same NIMBYism that they've forced upon virtually every other form of development (housing, nuclear, mineral exploration, etc) for decades. Cry me a river. How about this, let people do what they want with their own property (baring actual meaningful impacts like significant sound/smell) and tell the NIMBYs to pound sand on everything (solar, wind, nuclear, commercial, manufacturing, etc) and let the market decide which thing thrives and which fails.
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
How about this, let people do what they want with their own property (baring actual meaningful impacts like significant sound/smell)
How do people like you get out of bed without breaking something?
No problem. Just price in the eco-balance ... (Score:2)
... of electricity. 7x the price for your power or windmills, it's your choice.
Re: (Score:3)
GP appears to be alluding to externalities.
But your unsupported claims that solar are wind are more destructive are dubious. Certainly fossil fuels have enjoyed far more explicit subsidies and externalized costs [phys.org]. Do you have a reputable source pointing how production, use and disposal of PV and wind infrastructure exceeds, say the impact of mountaintop removal or strip mining for coal, the release of mercury from its combustion, creation of toxic coal ash ponds that spill into rivers, etc.? Not to mention a
5 milest setback in Nebraska? Nuts... (Score:2)
Nuts...
5 miles setback in Nebraska...
NIMBY strikes again (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh look. Not in my backyard! What an original argument. I swear to all that is good in this world. Selfish asshats are going to be the death of all of us.
Can't have nukes for them, can't have solar for them, can't have wind for them, can't have shit out here except the industrial farming BS that keeps them upside down to people like AGCO. Because these uneducated fucks cannot figure out how these companies keep stacking the deck to ensure that they're in a "profit sharing" arrangement for all eternity. And as someone who lives in rural Tennessee I can attest, the really selfish ones, you cannot reason with them, full stop. They keep fooling themselves that they're "just one really good harvest away from breaking free and being independent." Not everyone out here is a selfish bastard, but holy fuck are there a good number of them. Enough to stuff most of the seats in the county government.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, wind turbines are really freaking annoying if you leave even a mile from one. Eventually you can tune out the constant whooshing sound, but it is not something I would want to live next to.
Re: (Score:2)
To be fair, wind turbines are really freaking annoying if you leave even a mile from one. Eventually you can tune out the constant whooshing sound, but it is not something I would want to live next to.
Imagine if you could have them out of sight and hearing, like, say, 10 miles or more offshore. Crazy idea I know.
Re:NIMBY strikes again (Score:4, Informative)
Hmm... I'm not hearing it. If this is even remotely accurate you would barely hear it over ambient noises.
https://youtu.be/v-sUDSwsE_w?t... [youtu.be]
Maybe in the dead of winter where i live, where it can actually get pin-drop quiet on a cold snowy night. I can clearly hear a train horn from 7 miles away (the nearest tracks is about that far) on nights like that... but you know what? Turbine hum ain't so bad.
Of course I also live within 1000 feet of a moderately busy road so I'd probably not even notice.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
Look behind the curtain... (Score:4, Insightful)
... and see the hand of fossil fuel lobbyists at work
Astroturf War on Solar/Wind (Score:5, Interesting)
https://cleantechnica.com/2024... [cleantechnica.com]
But due largely to misinformation disseminated by fossil fuel companies, people all across America believe that renewables like wind and solar are a threat to their way of life and must be stopped.
A year ago, NPR and Floodlight reported that Citizens for Responsible Solar is part of a growing backlash against renewable energy in rural communities across the United States. The group, which was started in 2019 and appears to use strategies honed by other activists in campaigns against the wind industry, has helped local groups fighting solar projects in at least 10 states including Ohio, Kentucky and Pennsylvania, according to its website.
“I think for years, there has been this sense that this is not all coincidence. That local groups are popping up in different places, saying the same things, using the same online campaign materials,” says Michael Burger, executive director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University.
Citizens for Responsible Solar seems to be a well-mobilized “national effort to foment local opposition to renewable energy,” Burger adds. “What that reflects is the unfortunate politicization of climate change, the politicization of energy, and, unfortunately, the political nature of the energy transition, which is really just a necessary response to an environmental reality.”
Re: (Score:2)
Citizens for Responsible Solar seems to be a well-mobilized “national effort to foment local opposition to renewable energy,”
So taking a page from the anti-nuclear crowd. Turnabout is fair play.
Re: (Score:2)
Since when does the anti-nuclear crowd have a national effort to foment local opposition to nuclear energy?
Since at least the 1970s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Nobody wants to live near a nuke plant, and they don't need any encouragement to feel that way.
Lots of people don't want to live next to lots of things. This entire thread is about nimbyism, do try to keep up.
Re:Nuclear is a cult more than a power source (Score:5, Insightful)
Unjustifiable able costs, risks, construction times, costs, keeping waste safe until the sun goes nova, costs, the most unreliable power source ever invented as they go down for months at a time and ballyhooed France had over half of their radioactive water heaters down at one time?
How many people do you think they should have killed with coal pollution instead?
It's very easy to dismiss nuclear as "asinine" until you need to put some hard numbers on how many people you are advocating the deaths of. Your "unjustifiable risks" are the safest form of electricity generation second to none, as measured in deaths per TWh.
Do you think it's better or worse if France could have pushed hundreds of thousands of the pollution deaths into neighbouring countries in the direction of the prevailing wind?
Re: (Score:3)
You can make a decent argument up to the late 2000s, possibly later.
And frankly when Germany replaced it's nuclear plants with coal ones recently, that was a terrible choice. Oh and cosying up to Putin and finding hid way machine for cheap energy... arguably an even worse choice.
That's recent, not the 1960s. Would renewables be a good choice now? Probably yes, but to make it sound like France has been making poor choices since the 1970s is inaccurate.
Farms don't exist to make nice vistas (Score:2)
Or if they started growing all their food there...
Sorry, but unless you're strictly living on subsistence agriculture, then your income/existence is predicated upon meeting the needs of other people in other places. That's just life. If demand and profitability for wind or solar outstrips dem
Eye sore (Score:2)
Say what you will but to me wind plants are just a massive eye sore. I don't want to see spinning turbines from my garden all day every day. Would you?
Re: Eye sore (Score:2)
It's not about being manly. Stop being sexist. It's about living a happy, peaceful life at your home, in visually pleasing surroundings. Where we live and what we see every day is very important to human mental health.
Re: (Score:2)
Trains, Plains and Panels (Score:3)
I suspect that is what the complaints by the farmer and the other quoted family. They don't like different. I suspect that is the major reason for the bans.
This isn't too different from the old ranch rebellions against railroads being built through their land. To be honest a railroad is quite invasive and it comes with noise too. But over the decades, we've grown to accept them as part of the landscape. I suspect the same will happen with solar and wind.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
The correct answer (Score:2)
This is why all other countries assign responsibility for x to one tier of government. Create a tax on the states for high-voltage transmission lines: The more electricity pulled in from other states, the more tax a state pays to the federal government. It will make the states generate their own electricity, like Texas already does: Call it an incentive for small-government. Self-righteous NIMBY activists will have to choose between higher taxes (the state will get that money from somewhere), gas-power
There's an easy solution... (Score:3)
"Free Markets" be damned (Score:2)
Belief in the "free markets" apparently only goes so far as the movements of the invisible hand aligns with your personal and religious belief system.
Soooo many morons.... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Wow, you are really making stuff up bigly. Good work coward!
Re: clean? (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> The only way to do this is to run high gain power lines to the facilities.
They already have that if they have any power at all. Might need to be a bit larger of course, but assuming they live by any standard more modern than the 1930s they already got high tension power lines running through their area somewhere.
> it's hundreds of acres which animals actively avoid due to the danger it poses them
I guarantee more consideration on the impacts to local habitat is put into wind turbine or solar farm p
Re: (Score:3)
Is there any point at which the American public gets wise and brings these eleites to heel?
Nope. American pseudo-conservatives in general believe they can become elite, so why would they bring to heel that which they aspire to? Sure, less than 0.01% of them ever will, but the low likelihood doesn't impact the inspirational aspect of the dream. Therefore, they fully support "drill, baby, drill" [wikipedia.org] policies, even if the slogan itself went away.