" ... Klickitat County lies in south central Washington along the border with Oregon.
The county’s 22,500 residents inhabit a rural area of lush farmlands offering a spectacular view of the majestic Cascade Mountains to the west.
... With taxpayer subsidies, Wall Street money, and government mandates behind it, Big Solar, like Big Wind, is a force to be reckoned with.
... The invaders are three out-of-state utilities – Invenergy, Cypress Creek Renewables, and NextEra – that have joined forces with Avangrid subsidiary Iberdola of Spain.
Together, they want to develop the state’s largest solar farm yet — known as Lund Hill — with 1.8 million large solar panels on 6,000 acres of prime farmland, all surrounded by an eight-foot-high fence.
Solar panels have a life expectancy of 20 to 30 years.
They are notoriously difficult to recycle, because the cost of recovering the materials outweighs the cost of extracting what can be recycled.
As a result, most end up being dumped in landfills or shipped off to developing countries.
The dead panels are laden with toxic chemicals that can leech into groundwater if landfills are not properly lined.
By 2050, the world will have to deal with nearly 80 million tons of solar waste.
An even greater risk is posed by batteries ... also loaded with toxic chemicals, and when the batteries die and must be disposed of, the chemicals inside them can also contaminate soil and groundwater.
What is being billed as “clean” energy has the potential to create a new class of hazardous waste sites.
... the threat these industrial-scale facilities pose of igniting or spreading wildfires.
... In June 2019, a bird flew into two wires at a California solar farm, creating an electrical circuit and a shower of sparks. The resulting fire scorched 1,127 acres, adding to California’s perennial wildfire woes.
Klickitat County has already had its first wildfire courtesy of renewable energy.
The county already has over 600 wind turbines, and in 2019 one of them caused the Juniper fire, which destroyed 500 acres.
... Klickitat’s dry, windy climate makes for an ideal setting for wildfires.
The more high-voltage solar farms there are in the county, the higher the risk of potentially catastrophic blazes.
... Solar and wind power are land-intensive and intermittent and, as such, are a terribly inefficient way to produce electricity.
They are favored by the political class, which is oblivious to the harm so-called green energy does to people, wildlife, and the environment."