(The Center Square) – Concerns are being raised as solar energy facilities displace Midwestern farmland.
The Institute for Energy Research reports that the target for solar operations is increasingly in the Midwest, where government subsidies allow solar companies to pay more to rent land than the farmers feeding the nation.
Myke Luebbers of the Illinois Freedom Alliance said there were more green areas in Southern California before solar farms were built there.
“And now you find these areas are all brown. Why is that? Solar panels are dark. They heat up. You heat up the atmosphere. You dry up the moisture that’s in the air, again, no precipitation. Everything dies,” Luebber said.
The Solar Energy Industries Association reported that there are 373 solar companies in Illinois. According to the SEIA, 2% of the state’s electricity comes from solar sources.
Gov. J.B. Pritzker announced earlier this year that Illinois would receive $156 million from Environmental Protection Agency taxpayer funds for solar programs. In addition, the governor announced that the nonprofits HIRE360 and the 548 Foundation would receive nearly $14 million in state taxpayer funding to expand its clean energy careers training program.
Luebbers said farmers in Minnesota want wind energy generators off their properties.
“They leak oil, it gets flung into the ground. It washes away topsoil with the vortexes off the blade tips,” Luebbers said.
Homeowners could utilize wind power by installing their own generators, he said.
“There’s many types of wind generators out there that are like a squirrel-cage design or a helical design that could be put on rooftops, don’t take up a lot of space, operate in the slightest of breezes and can take higher wind conditions than these great big turbines can,” Luebbers said.
Bird strikes are also an issue, he said. Hundreds of thousands of birds are killed each year by wind turbines across the United States.
The Energy Information Administration reported that wind power accounts for 12 percent of Illinois’ energy generation.
The Illinois Power Agency said the state ranks fifth in the nation in wind energy production.