TheGazette-Virginianreports
that the town of Halifax is considering its first
solar project. The proposed facility would occupy 46 acres on an 85.8-acre parcel. Town Councilman Jack Dunavant made his position clear: “Personally, I don’t think we should allow solar farms within the town limits of Halifax. I like solar energy, but I don’t want it somewhere in my front yard or my back yard. It ought to be out in the country.”
(comments below)
(comments below)
Country folk say solar should be in the cities, city folk say solar should be in the land. Nobody’s happy. Hey, maybe we could put the solar panels offshore!
Shh! Don’t give them ideas! They’d end up putting them in the whale migration paths, fishing areas or naval training areas.
I definitely think existing rooftops, particularly on large factories and warehouses could/should be used as ‘solar farms’.
Great idea if three requirements are met:
Roof must have been designed to carry the extra weight.
Roof must allow for proper orientation of panels to the sun.
Roof cannot have other buildings or trees shading it.
Our county looked into the possibility here and one or all ruled it out.
Yes. There are certainly limitations, but designing things to overcome limitations is what engineers do. 😉
One could only wonder at what life would bloom in the shade cast in a world of constant sun. If you’ve ever fished in lakes and streams, life teems under the docks and overhanging trees.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wkquzioPGQo
About 30 years ago, Charles Kuralt did a story of a man in New Mexico who had put out so many hummingbird feeders for so many years that he changed the birds’ migration route.
Who knows what shade in the offshore shallows will do?
Do you think maybe the guy has died, causing a precipitous drop in the hummingbird population? Unintended consequences?
😉
The upshoot of the story was that his estate set up money to slowly reduce the number of feeders in hopes the birds will find natural routes. I have searched multiple times for what happened.
Don’t know about you, but if I go into a large parking lot on a hot sunny day and there’s a shade tree somewhere I’ll park under it. https://e360.yale.edu/features/putting-solar-panels-atop-parking-lots-a-green-energy-solution
This would be a boon in places like Dallas where one uses an oven mitt to open the car door in summer…
Solar farms should be placed over land that is unsuitable for agriculture or silviculture or home developments. Brownfield sites are one possibility especially if greenscaped to eliminate seeing the panels from adjacent areas.
” EPA awarded $3.5 million in grants to the Central Virginia Planning District Commission, City of Danville, Halifax County Industrial Development Authority, Lynchburg Economic Development Authority, City of Martinsville, Mount Rogers Planning District Commission and Shenandoah County. DEQ provided support to these localities, facilitating the application process and helping to secure a total of $5.5 million in federal brownfields funding for the Commonwealth.”
https://augustafreepress.com/virginia-deq-awarded-2-million-brownfield-grant-by-epa/
Why should the land be unsuitable for home developments? Using land for solar farms instead of homes could be a conservation of open space and contribute to biodiversity.
Why should the land be unsuitable for home developments? Using land for solar farms instead of homes could be a conservation of open space and contribute to biodiversity.
Solar farms do not conserve open space..they use it in a way that prevents future utilization for food and forests. They destroy biodiversity in the area by removing woods and natural growth and wildlife habitats. They destroy watershed function by eliminating intermittent streams. What do you think they use to prevent plant growth? They sure don’t mow between the panels. They use herbicides and chemical sterilants. Solar farms are sterile, ugly, heat islands.
PS. By definition, solar farms aren’t open space per EPA: What is Open Space/Green Space?
Open space is any open piece of land that is undeveloped (has no buildings or other built structures) and is accessible to the public.
re: intermittent streams..
water runs off solar panels the same way it runs off tree leaves and roof barns.. and finds it’s way to streams.
re: herbacides and chemicals
virtually every crop farmed in Va does the same as well as many folks in their yards.
why hold solar to a different standard?
When the land is graded for the solar development, it eliminates the natural contours. The stream paths are obliterated. If the developer follows DEQ stormwater management, the watershed functionis also eliminated. DEQ doesn’t understand watersheds or they wouldn’t impound stormwater!
No, most farmers do not use sterilants. Many are enrolled in conservation programs and manage their fields responsibly. Can you document your statement?
what’s a stirilant? is that like roundup?
Worse. Kills all growth for a year or more.
and farmers don’t use fertilizer and pesticides/herbicides?
Not the same thing. They don’t destroy the ability of the land to permit desirable growth.
That’s a pretty vague statement Carol. Solar Panels do not “destroy” any more than most other kinds of development unless you’re talking about stuff like mountain-top removal.
Nothing would keep a solar farm from replacing panels as they aged out , they’d go on for as long as they were viable. But once done, you take them down and the land reverts to at least open-space. not that different than some brownfield sites or other.
We have thousands of old farms with their buildings still standing, not tore down and no longer used for farming.
Anyone who spends anytime looking out their car window on a trip through rural Va can see this. This is no shortage of farm land.
People who own this land STILL have to pay taxes on it. Somehow it still needs to produce, right?
When the land is graded for the solar development, it eliminates the natural contours. The stream paths are obliterated. If the developer follows DEQ stormwater management, the watershed functionis also eliminated. DEQ doesn’t understand watersheds or they wouldn’t impound stormwater!
got contours on the ones in Spotsy… they smooth the contours but do not flatten the land.
The same thing happens when we develop land for houses or build highways… build landfills, WaWas and Walmarts, right?
again – why double standards for one type of land development?
Yeah, it is graded to drain properly and they pay civil engineers a great deal to make sure. They have to meet the same storm water management requirements that any development does (and farmers don’t, btw).
Right. I’m sure that is why there have never been any major storm drainage issues at any solar farms anywhere.
As long as you ignore Essex County, and Louisa County, and a few other solar farms in other states.
Storm water management is hardly rocket science. If County engineers can’t be bothered to develop and enforce the standards properly, they’ve no one but themselves to blame.
The state sets the rules and they didn’t get it right.
Absolutely. There were some poor decisions taken when DEQ was determining their rules for development of ‘solar farms’. Far and away the largest mistake was not requiring the portions of the sites which were covered by the solar panels to be treated as impervious surfaces.
This resulted in runoff calculations which grossly underestimated the amount of increased runoff during the design-storms upon which SWM plans are based. Underestimating runoff flows and volumes coming from the solar fields resulted in severely undersized drainage channels, storm drainage pipes and SWM facilities. This made these facilities susceptible to being overwhelmed by relatively small rain storms, and put them in danger of catastrophic failure when encountering larger storms. And that is exactly what happened.
The DEQ is absolutely the culprit in the promulgation of inadequate design standards.
Carol – are you saying this for all development? Like Walmarts, new schools, new rods, etc or something specific about solar?
Yes. Stormwater management rules affect all development.
It’s DEQ who writes the standards.
We ain’t got no time for facts around here.
I’ll take a solar farm over McMansions and data centers any day of the week.
not to mention, biosolids and combined animal feeding operations for poultry and hogs.
and not a peep out of the “concerned” when this kind of land development was being done for folks electricity:
Now THAT would make an ideal solar farm.
You’d think…….. yes…. the thing about solar farms is that they can’t be anywhere – they need to be near a major transmission line to connect to the grid.
this is what 5000 acres looked like before solar was put there:
The landowner in Virginia has the right to clearcut their land and they do.
And they can take down solar panels and return the land to it’s clearcut or open state also.
As long as a property owner obeys the law and regulations they have a right to use their land to produce income, provide for their families and pay taxes.
Used to be a Conservative Ethic. Conservatives have jumped the shark these days.
No offense, but land covered with solar panels is not open space. Unless perhaps people will be allowed to hike, bicycle and ride horses on them.
I think a great way for solar farms to roll is to have the land used in permanent conservation easement. Look in a few years I think the solar bling will be gone and will be moving on to the next big thing. So, when the solar farms are obsolete let them return to a conserved state.
That might work. And if, perchance, they don’t fail, no developable land has been lost.
Ya know, they can be stacked verically. Somewhat, more or less, depending on latitude. So, up the south facing wall of a skyscraper.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.