The Portage County Commissioners will host a public hearing regarding certain wind and solar installations at 6:30 p.m. March 26 at the county Emergency Management Agency headquarters.
The hearing is a required step before the commissioners can consider any zoning resolution. If the feedback provided at the public hearing prompts them to do so, the commissioners will on April...
Read moreThis is the most ridiculous thing I ever heard of.
At the same time we are sending our troops to die in the middle east because we are held hostage by a terrorist regime over oil.
China and Europe are way ahead of us. While we head into the modern dark ages.
With the looming threat of data centers increasing energy costs, we should be exploring all energy sources and investing in them. If someone wants to utilize solar or wind to offset their energy costs, they should be not just allowed, but encouraged to do so.
I think we should be going further and requiring all government-owned buildings to have solar panels on the rooftops. We should also be covering parking lots with solar panels. The Cincinnati Zoo has done this and it generates 2/3 of their energy needs to run the zoo.
I’m a little surprised, normally I’m on board with environmental council. Do they really believe farmers should do whatever they want on their land? Or just a good talking point for this issue. More importantly it is extremely shortsighted to irreversibly alter prime farmland for non-ag purposes. Portage county truly has some of the most productive lands in the world and farmers are increasingly managing them for long term sustainability. The dual farm/energy goals with solar production has had extremely limited success and very little research, much of it funded by the solar companies themselves. You simply cannot grow lots of calories (including grass for grazing animals ) under an artificial shady forest -the physics dont work out. The real benefits of small scale wind and solar are those taken by individual building/ land owners and communities for rooftop energy generation, these have proven benefits, including distributed, flexible and cheap clean energy, but also less profit opportunity for or control by major energy companies. I personally would love to see solar on every south facing warehouse and barn roof in the county and not a one solar cell taking up land base for ag and environmental conservation.
Your last sentence, “I personally would love to see solar on every south facing warehouse and barn roof in the county and not a one solar cell taking up land base for ag and environmental conservation” is the way forward. Not only on every south facing rooftop, but covering every parking lot with panels will not only provide energy, but will give us shaded parking out of the elements. There are so many places that do not take up land that solar panels, or newer vertical wind turbines (better for the birds), could be installed and municipalities could become partially, if not fully, self sufficient.
So with that said, I would agree with KEC that a total ban like this is a bad idea. I want to see progress forward, lower utility rates, and less reliance on other countries for our energy. And to be completely honest, if a farming family wants to sell part of their land to a company I would much rather see solar panels than another 100,000 sq ft warehouse or storage facility.
I as well agree that smart use of solar panels/energy production should become norm. In my opinion, this is a perfect example of where government - local, state, and/or federal - could step in and prove its worth by providing attractive grants or tax-relief for people who put in solar. The issues is not that simple of course, but sometimes one just has to make a change and start the ball rolling.
To continue to just ignore energy use, though, as the US is doing (if not coming up with idiotic ways to burn through even more energy - think about that when you use AI) is more than merely unwise, and like most things, it seems, it is going to be up to the local governments and communities to step up and be the actual adults in the room. A unilateral ban, though, does seem unwise.
You can learn more about community solar here, Behind Community Energy: Jobs, Installation, and Investment · Solar United Neighbors