marcusb 9 hours ago

This is a very frivolous argument against solar farms given the amount of noise and other pollution emanating from regular farms.

Farm-scale irrigation is not silent.

Crop Dusters are not silent.

Combines and other tractors are not silent.

Burning fields are both not silent and release a tremendous amount of sooty smoke that spreads far beyond the boundaries of a farm.

Farms make a lot of noise.

  • dylan604 6 hours ago

    Crop dusters do not run 24/7, nor do the combines or other tractors.

    • marcusb 5 hours ago

      Really? I had no idea! Thanks for clearing that up.

BolexNOLA 10 hours ago

Compared to literally every other way of generating power, they are relatively silent and unobtrusive. They also don’t poison the air around them which is pretty neat.

  • mauvehaus 9 hours ago

    Yes, but the relevant comparison for the residents isn't to a coal plant, it's to the undeveloped field that the solar arrays replaced.

    Depending upon their other priorities, they may be upset about the loss of hunting access as well. Understandably, people putting up solar arrays don't want people firing guns in the middle of their arrays.

    • BolexNOLA 5 hours ago

      We have to make power somehow and they all want to use said power. It mostly just boils down to nimbyism at the end of the day. They are just unaware of (or don’t care about) areas like cancer alley where we dump all our mining/refining/processing/etc. in an already impoverished area that can’t push back the same way wealthy neighborhoods with social status can.

      • Spivak 3 hours ago

        > and they all want to use said power

        If I were to hazard a guess every person complaining would happily suffer the 'consequences' of a solar farm not being near their neighborhood.

        It really should be a no brainer compromise to zone solar as industrial so they're not near where people live. There's in practice infinite amounts of land you can get zoned like this. Living to electrical noise sucks in a way living need next to a wind farm doesn't.