← Back to context

Comment by UltraSane

10 hours ago

I can understand not wanting to live close to wind turbines but I don't understand the issue with living next to a solar farm since the panels just sit there silently.

21 comments

UltraSane

Reply
ben_w  9 hours ago

Lots of people dislike change. Neophobia is a thing, and it's not particularly uncommon.

The good news is, they'll rapidly adapt to each new solar farm; the bad news is, they'll forget about all the ones they're used to by the time comes to expand — I've seen anecdotes of the same thing happening with power lines, where people were upset that some proposed new ones would ruin the view, the person proposing them said they wouldn't be any different from the current ones, and the complainers said "what current ones?" and had to have them pointed out.

  • hermannj314  9 hours ago

    That human psychology eventually adapts to tolerate enshittification is probably the main reason we have enshittification.

patall  9 hours ago

The only problem that I kind of understand are the huge fences surrounding the farms. Because copper thefts are a big problem for them, it is quite common to have 3m high fences all around, which is obviously more gated community like than a monoculture field. And of course, it depends on how the farm is run. Solar farms can be ecological heaven if managed properly, unless growing weeds are just killed of with round-up every few months. Everything else seems more pretended problems, like inverter fans that may just be placed in the middle and should barely be hearable from 100 meters away.

  • Geezus_42  9 hours ago

    How is that fence any different than the 3m high fence the deer breeder down the road has?

    • patall  1 hour ago

      Idk, maybe 3mm wire of 15cm grid size vs. 6mm wire in a <=5cm grid. But I have never seen a big deer farm, that is probably also not so nice to have right next door. But what do I know, here in Scandinavia, you have the right to roam pretty much everywhere, makes countries with too many fences seem claustrophobic.

alexdns  10 hours ago

Well its not silent those panels go into MPPTs that produce noise when high amps are flowing through them to charge batteries if they don't direct export , if they direct export then there is noise from inverters to convert DC->AC

  • Geezus_42  9 hours ago

    But is it honestly enough to notice if you live half a mile a way? Couldn't they just put up sound damping like the oil rigs do?

    • alexdns  6 hours ago

      Well depends on where they are they might be obligated to put due to some noise polution law or they might not care because there is no such law

AlfeG  10 hours ago

Because they are not silent. Or sometimes are not. Inverters do have quite large fans.

  • marcusb  8 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.

  • BolexNOLA  9 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  8 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.

      2 replies →

ourmandave  10 hours ago

Maybe the guy who cleans them complains loudly, or the squeak of his 4' squeegee is annoying.