One of my favorite Dalrymple quotes is (paraphrased) that misery will always rise to meet the government subsidies created to alleviate it. And so it is with residential solar. The number of installs near my home has exploded, as has another interesting habit.
Related: Biden’s Green Future Makes Solar Panels More Dangerous to You and the Environment
We have had, for years, a handful of homes nearby with solar on them, several of which appeared to be bad decisions. Limited sun exposure or obstructions make them of minimal, if any, benefit. That’s not uncommon in a state like New Hampshire, which is in a neighborhood of 90% forested. We’ve got a lot of trees. Tract neighborhoods have fewer as do homes in cities – the few we have – but there are a lot of homes surrounded by oak, maple, and white pine, to name a few. They block the sun, and solar is already inefficient and unreliable in the Northeast, so the solution to that problem is simple. Remove the trees.
Oh, the irony.
We need solar because of CO2, but to have solar, we need to remove CO2 syncs so the solar companies get paid, the tree people get paid, and someone else pays for cut wood, not that we don’t have plenty of that already without the solar installs.
But it happens – the tree removal. I’ve seen “neighbors” clear their yard of trees for no apparent reason, only to (a few weeks or months later) find their roofs littered with a new solar installation. It’s not just existing solar installs but pre-installs.
It’s as if Solar companies, catalyzed by government meddling in the marketplace, are the Once-ler from The Lorax. Solar is the Thneed that everyone needs, and the only way to get that is to cut down the Trufula trees—Seussian prophecy, not at the hands of the irresponsible capitalist Once-ler but so-called environmentally conscious solar companies.
Related: Michael Moore’s Green Energy Documentary Admits “Solar and Wind are Not Going to Save Us”
It is not as awful a thing as clearing an acre or two for a solar farm or, absent that clearing, the devastation to everything else that was there when they dug up the land to install the footings and structure for the panels, which will keep the sun from reaching the ground. But it still strikes me as ridiculous and, at the same time, very much in keeping with the politics of the party pushing solar.
It’s like offshore wind saving the planet, but not for endangered whales or sea birds. But if government money is available, an industry or two will rise to ensure it gets spent on them, no matter what the other “costs.”
