The drive from Long Hill to Sturbridge is routine, but barring
some auto mishap, mostly pleasant. At certain times of day, sunrise or
sunset, it can be sublime. There is a
farm on the left that milks cows. Out front is occasionally something for
sale with small signage.
This June, there was a different type of sign up. It was not
on a poster nor did it look carefully drawn. It consisted of two white
wrapped hay bales with words written in black, "Stop the Solar Farm."
Unless you drive with blinders on, you've seen them. They
seem to be situated on slopes that decline gradually to take advantage of the
sun. Whatever view existed previously is now completely obscured by banks
of panels. Sometimes, what seems a whole
forest is uprooted to set it up.
The farmer who put up that bale sign appears to have had some
unwanted controversy and announced his withdrawal from the battle on social
media.
If instead of heading to Sturbridge one takes Brookfield Road
towards Brimfield many more protest signs come into view on the right. It
turns out that the panels are to be set on a hill behind those dwellings.
Not everyone was going
silent and social media had leads to other opponents.
Krista Virchow is a longtime resident and her sister lives next
door. She will be directly affected and when I spoke with her, her voice
was emotional and the concern was heartfelt. Krista with deep roots
elsewhere, chose to live along Brookfield Road saying "my home is my
life."
I spoke to Krista's brother-in law, Mike Burke, who said one day
heavy equipment arrived to build an access road through the driveway Krista and
Mike and his wife share. He was able to send them off, but that will
hardly be the end of it. The forested
hill is to be clear cut.
The solar company made Krista and her sister an offer of $3,000
each for 25 years to use the right of way between their neighboring houses.
They might have been trying some divide and conquer tactics as they also
offered one sibling $6,000 for an easement.
Mike told me of the fortune being offered to the landowners who
will be able to move away while all their neighbors are stuck.
There was a meeting at the town hall on June 17th with lots of
questions and few answers and it is to be continued. It turns out, there
are other solar farms on tap for Warren.
Townspeople are in for a long fight.
Can the little guys win? The odds are not good. Over in Monson, a similar battle has been
going on since 2016 and it is not over yet. Jessica Lee Allen is a
daughter of the town and lifelong resident.
It also appears that she is the point person in the opposition.
It is from Jessica I first heard the term, "Big Solar."
We've all heard of Big Pharma (much in the news with the Opioid crisis),
Big Tech, the Big Banks, et al. When you put Big in front of an industry,
it signals a negative.
It is hard to blame Ms. Allen for the way she feels. She and
other citizens voted it down on August 22, 2016, but the Big Solar Company saw
that coming and filed what is known as an ANR or Approval Not Required on the
17th to get the project grandfathered.
It appears enterprises that are part of Big Solar and their legal
teams learn from each project while for the small-town folk who want to resist,
it is always, as one might say, "the first rodeo."
Supposedly, the Monson solar farm, though built, does not have
final approval to be running. Something is happening as Jessica and her
mom hear an audible hum coming from the project. I heard it too when I visited the array.
In an inquiry to Mass DOER (Department of Energy Resources) to
find out if there were any subsidies to the project we came up empty, as the
state agency claimed no knowledge of a project at the stated address.
DOER did acknowledge one down the street that became operational in
February of this year, but according to Jessica, that address does not exist.
As it is, Jessica and the team fight on though the panels are up
and humming.
In an interesting and informative book, Out of Gas: The End of the Age of Oil, Professor David Goodstein
surveyed the forms of energy available on this earth and what they can do for
us. The tone of his book is pessimistic.
Dr. Goodstein is a professor of physics and applied physics at the
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), one of the premier scientific
universities in the world, and no diploma mill. Maybe the man is not
infallible, but he is hardly making anything up.
If civilization is to survive, solar will be huge, if not the
major part of the equation. From Out
of Gas, it is clear, we are not there yet.
Advances are being made, but compared to what we need, the state of the
art is primitive.
We can see some evidence of that just by reading or listening to
ads for rooftop solar. If it were perfected, there would not be the need
to push tax incentives to homeowners to panel the roof. Your columnist
has looked into it for his residence, but though there are some good reasons,
the benefits are not that large, at this time.
In the April issue of this magazine, supergrids were discussed.
A supergrid can take power from a region where it is easier to generate
and transport it to where it is not with minimal loss in transmission.
Clearly, New England is not where generation is easy.
The future is solar and so was the past. All life depends on
the sun, but that will take a big improvement in Photovoltaic technology to
make it truly worthwhile locally.
The future is also a "waste management issue," according
to Garvin Heath, a senior scientist at the Renewable Energy Laboratory.
The panels do not have an overly long use life and then they must be
disposed of and that is its own "green" issue.
Rest assured the executives from Big Solar have no intention of
helping out with that task.
