alt Hacker NewsI live in a small Danish town that would have very likely been surrounded by solar panels by now if we had not put up a fight.
The problem is that these projects are pitched to land owners, to be placed in areas they can't see from their own windows. Those who live nearby are not involved until the approval is a formality (or presented as such). Often times the investors will also pay certain house owners for their silence, making the locals suspicious of each other.
They do this because obviously no one likes someone from the outside to take away the green* surroundings that are a big part of why people live there - and in the process lowering the value of everyone's houses.
I can't comprehend why someone would think that this was a good way of rolling out solar.
I agree that we are going to need solar as part of the mix. It would just be much better to start with the locations where people do NOT want to live, for instance next to motorways.
Luckily I think we are slowly moving in that direction due to all the resistance.
*I'm well aware that fields are heavy industry, but they are plants and rarely 2,5 meters tall.
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What's the over-under on tire and brake dust settling on panels next to (presumably) high-speed motorways?
You know that all that "nature" you desire is synthetic? Living in rural areas without actually working there is as far from a natural state as it can be: the whole lifestyle is based on subsidies by cities and technology: your concrete, your car, your heating, your power, groceries... it's all getting brought to you by fossil fuels and plastics.
So maybe accepting some part of that technology to stand on your "natural" grass in your front yard might be necessary to at least offset _some_ of the costs you're imposing on the environment living your lifestyle.
So you put up a fight because people put something on their own land that doesn't look pretty without a HOA agreement in place? Or am I missing something?
If I were living there and wanted to do an upgrade like solar panels but then some neighbor complained that my house is an "eye sore" and was supposedly decreasing their property value, I'd be really frustrated.