News :  A Certain Aroma: Disinformation, Solar and Wind Power (By Kenny Bruno, 3/20/25)

A Certain Aroma: A Three-Part Blog About Disinformation, Solar and Wind Power

Kenny Bruno, 3/20/25

Part I: Cutting Through the Bull About Solar Energy

There’s a whole lot of misinformation, disinformation and just plain crazy made-up stuff floating around about solar energy.

In a way, that’s understandable. The United States is undergoing a major energy revolution. It’s a big deal, and it makes some people uncomfortable. Especially uncomfortable are the giant corporations that have been manipulating and controlling too much of our energy markets, and too much of our lives.

Fossil fuels – coal, oil and gas – have been exceptionally useful discoveries, packing a giant energy wallop in a fairly small volume. They’ve been king for a century. But their age, like stone and bronze, will inevitably come to an end as cleaner and cheaper technologies take over. We’ve been too dependent on a single form of energy. When gas prices have been high, we’ve had to buy it anyway, because it’s the only choice. The oil companies, naturally, like it that way.

These giant corporations became some of the biggest and wealthiest in history. They have gone to really extreme lengths to stall progress. They knew their products were the main cause of global warming, but they decided that instead of cleaning up their businesses they preferred to deceive everyone about it. They set up entire academic institutions devoted to deception. They lied like a dog in straw to keep their monopoly on your energy source. And they continue to spread misinformation about solar and wind energy, to keep us dependent on the energy sources they control.

There are legitimate reasons someone might not want a wind farm or large-scale solar array near their home. But there’s a lot of nonsense floating around too: solar is expensive, unreliable, contaminates groundwater, will mean an end to food production and is a plot to ruin your life. Rural people know a certain familiar aroma when we smell it.

So let’s cut through the bull about solar.

Solar panels are safe near groundwater. The accusation about groundwater contamination is pretty clever, because a lot of people who love solar also love clean water. Come to think of it, I don’t know anyone who prefers dirty water, which is why we should be thrilled to reduce oil spills and danger from coal ash ponds. Yes, there are heavy metals in solar panels, but they are enclosed. They don’t leach out.

Solar energy is cheap. For every 10 economists there are 20 calculations. And utility pricing is pretty complicated. But the bottom line for your town is that as of now – 2024 – solar will be the cheapest energy around.
Solar energy is reliable. Solar energy works when it’s cloudy and it works when it’s cold. Solar energy is not produced at night, but there’s this thing that stores the energy produced during the day. It’s called a battery and engineers are improving batteries all the time.

Solar is compatible with agriculture. In states with a smaller amount of available farmland, we must protect it, whether from condos, malls or energy projects. And if a farmer is doing well and doesn’t want any solar panels on the farm, that’s fine. But some farmers are finding that harvesting the sun helps make ends meet, and in some cases they’re finding ways for solar arrays and livestock to co-exist.

Solar will take up little land in the grand scheme of things. The US uses 81 million acres of land for energy, and 51 million of those are for biofuels like corn ethanol. Wind and solar take up just 0.57 million acres, while oil, gas and coal take up 4.1 million.

Solar can protect our way of life.
A lot of rural towns in America are hurting. Clean energy will be a cornerstone of economic revitalization and keeping young people home. Our access to electricity will be the same. Our economy will be stronger. Groundwater will be protected and pollution prevented. The landscape will look a little different, but every time you drive past a solar array you can be proud that homegrown energy is ending our dependence on far away fuels controlled by a few giant and greedy corporations.

If we can feed the world, we can power the world!