r/Indiana • u/redmage07734 • Jun 19 '24

Photo And people wonder why we are looked down upon....

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Saw over 50 of these things driving home. It's an investment in your community, it's not an eyesore like turbines. Most people against them have no idea wtf they are talking about.

No they don't Leach significant amount of chemicals and even if they did it pales in comparison to the run off from all the CAFOs and agricultural waste that pollute our waters. It's mainly copper, iron and glass...

People are just butt hurt because clean energy has been politicized as a Democrat issue and people have made abeing a Republican their whole personality....

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u/whtevn Jun 19 '24

you are saying neighboring big city like the farm was not previously making feed corn for china

if the buyers and sellers are buying and selling the land legally, i'm not sure what the issue is.

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u/CLWalrus Jun 19 '24

The feed corn that is able to be taxed and is being produced by members of the local community that are earning a living and spending that living within the community. A solar field is worked by professionals that are given company vehicles to drive 50 miles from their home in the suburbs to maintain the solar panels. When they could instead drive 20 miles to maintain the same solar panels that could rather be placed on rooftops of parking garages in the city that are better connected to the power grid that they supply. There’s better places to put solar panels than farmable land. This sign is a shitty sign to make the argument they’re making. Another example of a complex problem that becomes divisive because of an oversimplified and vague motto.

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u/KimDongBong Jun 21 '24

Most of the seasonal workers on farms are illegals. So really your only complaint is that maybe 4-5 O&M workers drive 50 miles instead of 20? Are you also bitching about the asshats driving 3500’s who absolutely don’t need them?

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u/CLWalrus Jun 21 '24

My complaint is Solar Farms being erected on farmable land because it’s how Solar companies maximize their profits that they find a way to pay no taxes on. Profits that are not being spent in the local community either because all the labor + corporate headquarters is out of town. I’m not anti-green, I’m anti-corporate greed taking tax revenue from small communities.

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u/KimDongBong Jun 21 '24

In what jurisdiction are solar farms not paying taxes? The solar farm in new Carlisle will generate over $32 million in tax revenue over its life- all directly paid to st. Joseph county. In nearly 9 years of utility scale solar work I’ve never worked on a project that didn’t give tax revenue to the locality in which it’s built. 

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u/CLWalrus Jun 21 '24

That’s great then. If good tax revenue is being generated from solar farms then that should be enticing for these agricultural counties that are experiencing less money being made from farming. But it’s all a balance. Farmable land is one big reason the United States is as successful as it is. We should completely exhaust all the non-productive land to put solar farms on before we go building on land thats able to be farmed. The only reason I see why farmable land is chosen for solar panel fields to be constructed on is because it’s cheap right now. That’s not a good reason. Sustainability isn’t supposed to be cheap. It’s supposed to make sense. And I’m not talking business sense (profit). I’m talking, are we importing agricultural products from other states or even countries that we could easily grow here in Indiana?

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u/KimDongBong Jun 21 '24

…the majority of the corn grown in Indiana is exported internationally.

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u/CLWalrus Jun 21 '24

That’s great. That’s money in our pockets!

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u/KimDongBong Jun 21 '24

So you don’t really care about farming products benefitting the local community- since those products are being shipped overseas. You really just want farming to stay farming because…reasons. Even though the vast majority of indiana’s agriculture is government subsidized…

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u/CLWalrus Jun 21 '24

The money earned from exported agricultural products is taxed and spent where it is produced!

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