Sunday, August 4, 2019

A Quibble

Power Line's John Hinderaker writes something with which I take exception, as I believe he overstates the case against solar energy. He writes:
One of the worst features of both wind and solar energy is that they are terrible for the environment. They use up an enormous amount of land that otherwise would be available for agriculture, development or recreation. They are eyesores. And they kill huge quantities of wildlife.
My quibble is with his sweeping description of the drawbacks of solar. He ignores that there are two very different types of solar.

Solar farms focus massive amounts of sunlight on a boiler to generate steam. They do kill birds that fly through the concentrated sunlight.

Photovoltaic panels do not kill wildlife. They can be an eyesore and take up land, unless they are rooftop as most are. They don't do any killing.