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Katie Andraski's avatar

6000 acres of the best farmland in the world is going to solar. The one company doing 5,000 of those acres as NO experience with industrial solar by their own website. And they are an LLC so can sell, avoid lawsuit. I see brownfields in those 5000 acres when the state and federal subsidies run out.

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GuardianofHumanity's avatar

also electric cars dont like cold weather. that means all of us canadians would be screwed if we had electric cars. people dont think these things through though.

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GuardianofHumanity's avatar

people dont understand the inputs into solar as well. i have a massive solar array that powers my entire large home. i also have 2 automated arrays that track with the sun that feed into the grid and we get paid for that. if you have ever worked with solar you know it is not going to replace petroleum. its not possible. the inputs are highly toxic and hard to mine and finite. our home is also a very modern FLW style passive solar design so it heats in winter bc of all the windows on the south side and the giant overhangs cool in summer. its also run on geothermal. and back up electric. and back up generator. and back up battery system. these inputs are expensive. they cannot replace nor be scaled up in that way. in the winter here in canada we have at LEAST 50% of the time no sun. NONE. how are we going to run everything on solar but no sun? and the inputs required to build a new car are greater than the energy required to fuel older ones. so the concept of everyone buying an electric car that most cannot afford is a joke. essentially it is has a greater energy footprint. my oldest son drives a hummer. we'll leave it at that.

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Katie Andraski's avatar

Yes, and again yes to what you say. When we renovated our farm house we wanted to do solar or wind but our contractor didnтАЩt know anything about it. I am glad we didnтАЩt do wind and our place isnтАЩt set up for solar because we have a lot of trees around the house. We did install geothermal and it seems to work well for us. We are able to stay warm in the winter and our bill in the coldest months goes to about $400. I knew IтАЭd resent paying for propane. We get tornadoes so donтАЩt want it on the place. IтАЩd love to hear more about your back up. I have talked about a back up solar generator but am not sure it would be strong enough to operate our geothermal heat pump.

I so agree with you on the expense and rarity of inputs. I donтАЩt think people have any idea what they are in for with the sacrifice theyтАЩll have to make. I think its about taking control and destroying capitalism.

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GuardianofHumanity's avatar

also we cant eat solar. if we cant eat real food all the solar in world doesnt matter. maybe thats the point.

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Katie Andraski's avatar

No we canтАЩt. And people have no idea what that will mean. A farmer told me that we produce too much food, so his 300 acres going for solar will just take that much out of production. But you add those acres up and it could get nasty. Plus there is a water shortage out west and the Ogalala aquifer is being depleted so corn country west of the MIssissippi might be useless with a long term drought.

My husband and I are active with a community group resisting the solar plants. We are quiet, showing up at meeting with orange stickers on. And we speak during public comment. It is rewarding work. We were able to lobby the county to make a thoughtful ordinance with regards to wind. WeтАЩve also hired a lawyer. We know we are fighting the feds and the stateтАЩs wallets. The solar companies are in it for the subsidies, and the farmers are in it for the 1,000$ an acre per year which sounds more like selling the Brooklyn Bridge.

At any rate thank you for your comments.

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GuardianofHumanity's avatar

as for wind...so ontario has endless windmills. we produce excess electricity and bc you cannot save it it has to be used immediately and we sell it to a loss to NY state. thats how stupid we are. you cannot dump wind electricity and save it any way on the grid. so its a net loss here. pretty clever.

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Katie Andraski's avatar

ThatтАЩs so disappointing. Maybe theyтАЩll figure out storage one of these days.

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GuardianofHumanity's avatar

absolutely true. not to mention depletion of actual productive soil. soil is actually being lost a rapid rate. fertile virgin non chemically destroyed and altered soil is very rare. and a farming crisis is certainly coming. once the costs of the toxic and chemical pesticides herbicides fungicides and fertilizers become more costly as inputs into agro...... its going to be a shit show to produce. nothing will be able to be produced on a grand scale. and if we arent going to be able to be a petro based industry anymore...what are tractors, spray planes, harvesters and the likes going to run on? try growing stuff. try growing organic. my husband and i always laugh bc we say if we ever sold anything it would be like a $100 tomato. the amount of work to grow organically is no joke. you to constantly properly ammend the soil and a certain amount of loss will go to pests bc of not using carcinogenic pesticides. it is surely a learning process. we have expanding all of our growing this year bc we are not wanting to be reliant on a failing system. or handouts from monsanto. no thank you.

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Katie Andraski's avatar

But farmers have been working on ways to preserve the soil by planting beets instead of plowing, to loosen soil. THough this summer when they worked the land, the clouds of dust were incredible. Inputs have gone way up just this year. And the neighboring farmer sprayed the crap out of the beans across the way and still got some weeds. Granted the spray may have been getting after bugs or fungusтАжI too have wondered how they can make battery operated tractors and combines.

Organic is very labor intensive. Neighbors are trying Joel SaladinтАЩs methods. They are young men. And they might make money without so much debt. We could learn some things from the Amish.

The green revolution as in the improvements in agriculture that happened in the 70тАЩs staved off predicted starvation because we got very good at feeding people. They also said we were headed for another ice age back then too. (My money is on that predictionтАж)

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GuardianofHumanity's avatar

i love joel. his method is sustainable. green revolution was not very green. more like chemical revolution. which killed the soils. it was another play on words. as always. the opposite.

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Katie Andraski's avatar

Very true. True.

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