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Yeah, in Oconto county Wisconsin, residents are all up in arms about a solar farm going up. It's the poorest county in the state and would bring in much needed

Yeah, in Oconto county Wisconsin, residents are all up in arms about a solar farm going up. It's the poorest county in the state and would bring in much needed money. The arguments against it are "this destroys farmland", "who will clean the snow off of it in winter", "I don't like how it looks", "static electricity will kill the crops around it", "it will raise the temperature of the surrounding area", "you can't recycle fiberglass so it's bad", etc.

bluedino 1y ago
> It's the poorest county in the state and would bring in much needed money. What money? Power bills won't go down. The solar panel factories aren't in that county. The installers will be brought in from out of state contractors.
- bongodongobob 1y ago
  The contractors that build it and the jobs to maintain them.
  - PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
    We should be honest and admit that the maintainance jobs are very, very few.
- adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
  Power bills will go down. Solar electricity is by far the cheapest form.
  - JuniperMesos 1y ago
    But it's unreliable, and needs a lot of battery tech + overbuilding to make it reliable. Can people be confident that building the array will in and of itself make their electricity bills go down?
    - PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
      Even with those additional costs, it is still arguably the cheapest generation technology.
    - adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
      if people can't be confident about this it's only because a bunch of grifters and oil company propaganda. The math here is pretty easy.
  - Loughla 1y ago
    I guess you're assuming that power will be used locally and not sold to a different city/state? Source: the butt tons of wind farms that sell their power to the state next door and the fact that our power bill has doubled in that time frame.
enraged_camel 1y ago
>> "who will clean the snow off of it in winter" Not sure why they are whining. Sounds like job creation to me!
bee_rider 1y ago
> "who will clean the snow off of it in winter" This is something I don’t really get. There’s always concern around change of course. But tending to renewables sounds so much nicer than fossil fuel issues. Like clearing snow off the panels doesn’t sound fun exactly, but it is outdoors… realistically for these giant fields of panels it should be a fairly mechanized process, so somewhat low impact… compare to black lung or, whatever, petrochemicals causing your tap water to catch fire.
- blacksmith_tb 1y ago
  PV panels are typically angled to catch the sun better, and they're smooth and dark... snow slides off by itself if the sun is shining (and if the sun isn't shining, you aren't losing much by having the panels covered).
  - buckle8017 1y ago
    Snow only rolls off after a lite dusting. If there's a foot of snow on the panels they don't catch any sun, don't get warm, and it doesn't melt off. More than about 3 inches needs to be manually cleared.
    - analog31 1y ago
      I wonder if you could just run them backwards for a while to clear them. Use the V*I loss.
      - buckle8017 1y ago
        The energy it takes to do that is significant. Often exceeding the energy gained in the winter.
        analog31 1y ago
        I'm thinking if the sun can warm the panels enough for a thin layer of ice to slide off, then it can't take that much more energy to make a thick layer slide off.
adabyron 1y ago
You could ask them why they grow so much dang corn then? > 1/3 of corn is used for fuel - https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-detail?chartId=58346 https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-detai... > Corn raises temp & humidity - https://extension.illinois.edu/news-releases/corn-fields-add-muggy-humid-midwestern-temps https://extension.illinois.edu/news-releases/corn-fields-add... > Corn destroys farmland & requires very high fertilizer & pesticide inputs, plus extra fuel to to apply all those - ask any old farmer but this one has a lot of sources Also solar farms can easily be hidden. They don't need to be next to a public road way and you can put trees around them. They're also great for dual use land with small animals &/or certain crops.
- bongodongobob 1y ago
  Normal people understand this. The people of northern WI are a bit challenged.

bluedino 1y ago

> It's the poorest county in the state and would bring in much needed money. What money? Power bills won't go down. The solar panel factories aren't in that county. The installers will be brought in from out of state contractors.

bongodongobob 1y ago
The contractors that build it and the jobs to maintain them.
- PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
  We should be honest and admit that the maintainance jobs are very, very few.
adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
Power bills will go down. Solar electricity is by far the cheapest form.
- JuniperMesos 1y ago
  But it's unreliable, and needs a lot of battery tech + overbuilding to make it reliable. Can people be confident that building the array will in and of itself make their electricity bills go down?
  - PaulDavisThe1st 1y ago
    Even with those additional costs, it is still arguably the cheapest generation technology.
  - adgjlsfhk1 1y ago
    if people can't be confident about this it's only because a bunch of grifters and oil company propaganda. The math here is pretty easy.
- Loughla 1y ago
  I guess you're assuming that power will be used locally and not sold to a different city/state? Source: the butt tons of wind farms that sell their power to the state next door and the fact that our power bill has doubled in that time frame.

enraged_camel 1y ago

>> "who will clean the snow off of it in winter" Not sure why they are whining. Sounds like job creation to me!

bee_rider 1y ago

> "who will clean the snow off of it in winter" This is something I don’t really get. There’s always concern around change of course. But tending to renewables sounds so much nicer than fossil fuel issues. Like clearing snow off the panels doesn’t sound fun exactly, but it is outdoors… realistically for these giant fields of panels it should be a fairly mechanized process, so somewhat low impact… compare to black lung or, whatever, petrochemicals causing your tap water to catch fire.

blacksmith_tb 1y ago
PV panels are typically angled to catch the sun better, and they're smooth and dark... snow slides off by itself if the sun is shining (and if the sun isn't shining, you aren't losing much by having the panels covered).
- buckle8017 1y ago
  Snow only rolls off after a lite dusting. If there's a foot of snow on the panels they don't catch any sun, don't get warm, and it doesn't melt off. More than about 3 inches needs to be manually cleared.
  - analog31 1y ago
    I wonder if you could just run them backwards for a while to clear them. Use the V*I loss.
    - buckle8017 1y ago
      The energy it takes to do that is significant. Often exceeding the energy gained in the winter.
      - analog31 1y ago
        I'm thinking if the sun can warm the panels enough for a thin layer of ice to slide off, then it can't take that much more energy to make a thick layer slide off.

adabyron 1y ago

You could ask them why they grow so much dang corn then? > 1/3 of corn is used for fuel - https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-detail?chartId=58346 https://ers.usda.gov/data-products/chart-gallery/chart-detai... > Corn raises temp & humidity - https://extension.illinois.edu/news-releases/corn-fields-add-muggy-humid-midwestern-temps https://extension.illinois.edu/news-releases/corn-fields-add... > Corn destroys farmland & requires very high fertilizer & pesticide inputs, plus extra fuel to to apply all those - ask any old farmer but this one has a lot of sources Also solar farms can easily be hidden. They don't need to be next to a public road way and you can put trees around them. They're also great for dual use land with small animals &/or certain crops.

bongodongobob 1y ago
Normal people understand this. The people of northern WI are a bit challenged.