Remarks on the Kidder Township Solar proposal

Plans are afoot to build a 300 acre solar farm in Kidder Township.  The plan calls for extensive grading and the destruction of quite a few wetlands.  An environmental group, Save Carbon County, is asking people to testify against the project.  I sent in the following statement to the PA DEP earlier this evening:

Remarks on the proposal for a solar installation in Kidder Township

Roy Christman, Ph.D., former adjunct in the San José State University Environmental Studies Department

Environmentalists love renewable energy.  If power is produced by solar panels or wind turbines we generally like it.  No mining is required, no drilling is needed, nothing is burned, no toxic fumes are emitted, no fly ash is produced.

Nonetheless, we must exercise caution when discussing “renewable” energy.  We can put a “pinwheel generator” on a stream to produce electricity, or we can build the Glen Canyon Dam on the Colorado River to produce electricity.  Obviously the environmental impact is different.

We could also use wind power as either an example of environmentally sound or environmentally destructive energy production.  A wind turbine in the corner of an Iowa farmer’s field benefits both the farmer and the grid.  Iowa is not on a major migration flyway.  On the other hand, a similar wind turbine at Hawk Mountain would result in the slaughter of thousands of birds annually.  Both turbines produce “renewable” power, but the effects are very different.

One more example more pertinent to this hearing: my wife and I have solar panels on our shed roof.  In most months of the year those panels produce enough electrical power for our own needs and some extra for PPL Corporation.  That is renewable power production at its best.

On the other hand, a solar farm (love the word “farm”) that requires the destruction of hundreds of acres of trees, obliterates wetlands, requires extensive earth movement, and needs an upgrade on the grid is most definitely not “environmental.”  Let’s use some judgement here.  Let’s understand that “renewable” and “environmental” are really not synonymous.  And let’s halt this project.