The first article in the Mount Vernon News last fall about a planned solar farm simply noted that residents were “expressing their concern.” But soon the county’s only newspaper was packed with stories about solar energy that almost uniformly criticized the project and quoted its opponents.
Then a new “grassroots” organization materialized and invited locals to an elaborate event billed as a town hall, with a keynote speaker who denied that humans cause climate change.
Someone sent text messages to residents urging them to “stop the solar invasion” and elect two county commission candidates who opposed the solar farm. And one day this past March, residents received an unfamiliar newspaper that contained only articles attacking Frasier Solar, a large project that would replace hundreds of acres of corn and soybeans with the equivalent of 630 football fields of solar panels.
To many in the deep-red central Ohio community, it seemed that solar had become the focus of news and politics. They were right. Fossil fuel interests were secretly working to shape the conversation in Knox County.
Here in Ohio a lot of criticism is that they think it’s ugly.
Well, I mean, it’s not like the field is there to provide ornamentation to people driving down the road, and it’s not like the people complaining own the field. The person could build whatever they wanted there. A row of pink barns, I dunno. That’s not specific to solar farms. Maybe there’s someone who doesn’t like the aesthetic of a field of soy or something.
I don’t personally find solar farms particularly beautiful or ugly.
Not solar, but I’ll concede a point to the people who don’t like wind turbines on ridgelines, because then when the sun sets behind them, they create enormous flashing shadows as they rotate that are really hard to ignore if you’re in the path of the shadow. Most of the time they don’t do it, of course, but when they do, it’s a pain.