Posted on 04/27/2024 12:48:26 PM PDT by karpov
JASPER COUNTY, INDIANA - Dave Duttlinger's first thought when he saw a dense band of yellowish-brown dust smearing the sky above his Indiana farm was: I warned them this would happen.
About 445 acres of his fields near Wheatfield, Indiana, are covered in solar panels and related machinery – land that in April 2019 Duttlinger leased to Dunns Bridge Solar LLC, for one of the largest solar developments in the Midwest.
On that blustery spring afternoon in 2022, Duttlinger said, his phone rang with questions from frustrated neighbors: Why is dust from your farm inside my truck? Inside my house? Who should I call to clean it up? According to Duttlinger's solar lease, reviewed by Reuters, Dunns Bridge said it would use "commercially reasonable efforts to minimize any damage to and disturbance of growing crops and crop land caused by its construction activities" outside the project site and "not remove topsoil" from the property itself. Still, sub-contractors graded Duttlinger's fields to assist the building of roads and installation of posts and panels, he said, despite his warnings that it could make the land more vulnerable to erosion.
Crews reshaped the landscape, spreading fine sand across large stretches of rich topsoil, Duttlinger said. When Reuters visited his farm last year and this spring, much of the land beneath the panels was covered in yellow-brown sand, where no plants grew.
"I'll never be able to grow anything on that field again," the farmer said. About one-third of his approximately 1,200-acre farm – where his family grows corn, soybeans and alfalfa for cattle – has been leased. The Dunns Bridge Solar project is a subsidiary of NextEra Energy Resources LLC, the world's largest generator of renewable energy from wind and solar.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
There are numerous examples out there should you care to look, instead of pontificating.
There's even waste processing plants going up and now folks are concerned about them polluting the environment. The locals in Cass County tried to fight the construction of one there but the local government stalled any meetings or votes due to Covid restrictions long enough the developer to finish constructing the facilities even though no formal or legal contracts had been signed. By then, "their hands were tied." The same company who forced this upon Cass County tried to construct a similar facility in another part of the state but were finally told to get lost by the locals and they won the battle in the court of law. But they saw a willing victim here locally and exploited the process long enough to get it done. Totally criminal.
I really don't want to be around this kind of stuff.
Liberals can’t put these in their crime ridden neighborhoods so they destroy the ountryside.
“I really don’t want to be around this kind of stuff.”
Me, either. We bought a retirement home looking out over a lake and National Forest land on the far shore, so I thought we were protected. Then a rich guy bought the house next to us (he has lake frontage) and is putting up a huge and very ugly auxiliary building close to our house. His main house is way below on the lake shore, so he won’t see it (plus he will be here only during the summer months!) but it impacts us every day. Ugh.
if only the public would connect the dots between the war on farmers, the co-opting of some farmers to the “climate” scam, the amount of land required if solar/wind is to work, the costs, including the transmission lines, etc....the real protests could begin.
instead, we’re losing the farms while the culture wars keep being fanned.
1/3 of 1200 acres. Do the math.
That area is just a couple of miles east of Indiana 49 and on the south side of the Kankakee River. About a 30 minute drive from where I live in Jasper Co., Ind.
By design. From the same hypocrites who crow about the importance of urban growth boundaries.
Native of Jasper County. Know exactly where this place is. Wonderful flat sandy loam soil from the Kankakee River bottom. Just a few miles from the Jasper-Pulaski State Game Preserve.
Farmer Duttlinger was a greedy F that fell for the BS from the solar developers. And the local county government, who could have passed legislation to prohibit such developments, didn’t because the Northern Indiana Public Service Company had announced that they were going to retire the nearby coal-fired Schaefer Generating Station with the attending loss of property taxes. So they permitted the solar installation to get the property tax revenue.
All involved should be strung up on the courthouse lawn.
Who cares about eating when you’ve a battery car to suck up all the juice
Don’t you hate it when someone does that? Ugh. If I could find a nice smaller little hamlet somewhere far enough away from the big city to be quiet, yet close enough to stock up on supplies, I’d be happy.
Does it affect you where you live?
No. Although the closing of the coal fired electric plant and replacing it with this solar panel piece of junk, will effect the electrical supply in the entire northwestern quarter of Indiana.
Yeah, especially when the next hail storm or tornado takes it out.
So everybody is screwed because of the greeniac’s climate / carbon scam that forced the coal plant to close. That scam is causing massive destruction to America.
This isn’t like ethanol where there has to be an existing end product actually wasting food. Why can’t they do the magic done with most solar projects where billions of dollars disappear with little or no end results and food can still be grown on the land?
If we do not do solar cells, we may experienced hunger.
If we do solar cells, we WILL experience hunger.
Solar cells destroy everything they are on. And introduce major pollution.
That’s some high quality FUD I would love to see your sources for those statements. I have panels all over my roofs plural because I have multiple structures on my properties also plural. Two of them habe rain water harvesting directly off the roofline under the panels there is zero and I mean zero ppm of contamination in that rain water captured from under those panels how do I know? The water in the storage tank is regularly tested by analysis for lead,mercury ,arsenic, dioxides ect. If mercury showed up it would be from the coal stack emissions not the panels. At least argue from a point of facts if you don’t like solar fine but spreading FUD is unethical. I love my panels they paid for themselves and make me money every month plus if the grid goes down I still have power as a prepper that’s a huge win. My Tesla also gets it’s “gas” for free I’m saving $3600 a year in fuel costs in a car that is cheaper upfront than the luxury car it largely replaces now. And it’s a 450hp beast vs the 280 something of the turbo sport sedan it replaces.
Here are some legitimate scientific sources for exact opposite to what you blanket statement.
“Common Incorrect Statements Regarding Solar Panel Toxicity
You may read online or hear in your community similar inaccurate statements regarding solar panel toxicity.
“Solar panels contain a substantial amount of toxic chemicals. Fragile, they become damaged and leak into the soil, risking our health and the health of our wildlife”
“Solar panels contain harmful chemicals which are known to leak. These toxins [include] . . . Cadmium Telluride [and] . . . Lead . . . .”
“Leakage of . . . chemicals pose a threat to our residents as well as our waterways, livestock, wildlife, fields, and well water. Disposal of broken, malfunctioning or obsolete solar panels also causes toxic leakage in landfills.”
FACTS AND CREDIBLE SOURCES
The “sources” for these statements address solar panel manufacturing or recycling/disposal, neither of which will take place in Hartford Township. The safety of these activities is important, which is why they are highly regulated by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (manufacturing) and the Environmental Protection Agency (recycling/disposal). But these activities are irrelevant to the safety of neighbors of an operating solar facility.
Most of the “sources” of these concerns are opinion pieces or editorials by known commentators who are staunch proponents of other kinds of energy generation, such as nuclear or fossil fuels. They are not research results or studies published by knowledgeable and objective experts. Even most of these sources do not actually support the claims made (as quoted above).
Solar panels are not at all fragile; they are made mostly of aluminum and shatter-resistant glass. They can withstand golf ball-sized hail. Similar to a car window, if they crack, they do not usually shatter.[1]
Solar panels contain only materials in “solid state” form, just like the electronic components in laptops and smart phones. They do not contain liquids that can “leak.”
The amount of “chemicals” in solar panels is miniscule. For example, a typical solar panel has about half the amount of lead (used as solder) as a single shotgun shell, and a single battery used in a car or farm equipment has more lead than 700 solar panels.[2] An Ohio manufacturer uses a semi-conducting layer of cadmium telluride in its solar panels that is only 3% of the thickness of a human hair.[3]
Several of the chemicals used in solar panels that the website claims are toxic to humans are not. For example, cadmium telluride (CdTe), which presents no safety issues at solar facilities, is not the same as the element cadmium (Cd), which may be toxic. According to Virginia Tech, “[t]o draw a simple analogy, the properties of water (H2O) are not similar to those of hydrogen gas (H2) just because the two species both contain hydrogen. Just as it is improper to assume water can burn because hydrogen burns, it is invalid to treat CdTe as if it were as toxic as Cd.”[4]
Rain or moisture at operating solar facilities is not a concern. In order to ensure their functioning over decades and satisfy warranties, solar panels’ semi-conducting layer is protected from moisture by encapsulation within an airtight envelope. As reported by Virginia Tech, “[w]hen photovoltaic modules break in the field, they remain intact. Encapsulation of the module components is achieved through use of a glass-laminate-glass design . . . [whose] bond strength is on the order of ~50 kg/cm2 making it very difficult to separate the front and back of the module. For example, in a landfill experiment, photovoltaic modules were crushed with six passes by a landfill compactor with a compact load of 50 tons, and the crushed module pieces maintained the front-back encapsulation.”[5]
Even if an operating solar panel’s encapsulation failed, it would be promptly repaired or replaced. Virginia Tech notes that “[s]ystem performance monitoring and routine visual inspections of solar facilities ensures that non-functioning modules are detected and promptly removed from the field so even when breakage occurs, long-term exposure to rain is not a likely scenario.”[6]
Most solar panels are so safe that, contrary to the unsupported claim that has been made (as quoted above), they can be disposed of in regular landfills along with household trash. According to N.C. State University, “[l]ike many silicon-based panels, CdTe panels are reported (as far back as 1998) to pass the EPA’s Toxic Characteristic Leaching Procedure (TCLP) test, which tests the potential for crushed panels in a landfill to leach hazardous substances into groundwater. Passing this test means that they are classified as non-hazardous waste and can be deposited in landfills.”[7] Additionally, studies have found that chemicals do not “leach” from solar panels into the environment under normal conditions or even possible accidents such as storms or fires.[8]
Resources:
[1] See
https://youtu.be/4T6VbzC889k and https://youtu.be/hR0dHl58zwE
for videos that demonstrate solar panels’ ability to withstand impacts without shattering.
[2] A 12-gauge shotgun shell contains ~1 ounce of lead (https://www.fws.gov/uploadedFiles/FAQsfortheweb.pdf).
The average solar panel has ~12 grams, or <½ an ounce, of lead, mostly in the soldering (“Recent facts about photovoltaics in Germany,” Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems, section 22.1, available at:
https://www.ise.fraunhofer.de/content/dam/ise/en/documents/publications/studies/recent-facts-about-photovoltaics-in-germany.pdf).
As referenced below, unlike the lead in shotgun shells which are regularly distributed annually across many farm fields by hunters, the lead in solar panels is encapsulated within an airtight, waterproof, and shatter resistant envelope mounted off the ground. A typical 32 lb car battery contains 8.7 kg of lead (Linden, David; Reddy, Thomas B., eds. (2002). Handbook Of Batteries (3rd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill. p. 23.5. ISBN 978-0-07-135978-8, available at:
https://dl.icdst.org/pdfs/files/b334382400c223631bea924f87b0a1ba.pdf).
[3] First Solar, “Thin Film Photovoltaic Technology FAQ,” available at:
[4] “Assessment of the Risks Associated with Thin Film Solar Panel Technology”, Virginia Tech Center for Coal and Energy Research, March 8, 2019, p. 5, available at:
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/90197.
[5] “Assessment of the Risks Associated with Thin Film Solar Panel Technology”, Virginia Tech Center for Coal and Energy Research, March 8, 2019, p. 8, available at:
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/90197.
[6] “Assessment of the Risks Associated with Thin Film Solar Panel Technology”, Virginia Tech Center for Coal and Energy Research, March 8, 2019, p. 8, available at:
https://vtechworks.lib.vt.edu/handle/10919/90197.
[7] North Carolina State University, “Health and Safety Impacts of Solar Photovoltaics” (May 2017), p. 9, available at:
https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/health-and-safety-impacts-of-solar-photovoltaics.
[8] Sinha, P., Balas, R., Krueger, L., and Wade, A. Fate and Transport Evaluation of Potential Leaching Risks from Cadmium Telluride Photovoltaics. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry. doi: 10.1002/etc. 1865. (2012), available at:
https://setac.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/etc.1865.
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