John Hinderaker – 
Solar Power: An Environmental Disaster | Power Line
Solar power is expensive, unreliable and environmentally destructive. So it doesn’t come into being through consumer demand; rather, by government fiat or subsidy. The federal government controls the military, so, sadly, our armed forces have been dragged into the government’s alleged fight against ‘climate change’ to a humiliating degree.
Tell me again how much energy this 60 acre facility provides?
The solar facility can provide electricity for only 1,700 homes, a ridiculously small number, at “full capacity.” But solar installations never reach full capacity, and if it is dark or cloudy, they are irrelevant. No one would argue for ugly 60-acre scars on the landscape based on a cost/benefit analysis.
In Duluth, the best proxy for Camp Ripley, there are an average of 77 sunny days per year. Hey, that is better than one in five! Of course, they don’t have any sunny nights in Duluth, so there’s that. (emphasis added)
Seventy seven, that is 77, sunny days per year and they build a 60 acre solar farm!? The people behind this are dumber than a box of rocks and the citizens who allow their tax dollars to be spent that way are just as stoopid. Then leave it to a local politician to bring up the “save the planet” vision.
It was left to Lieutenant Governor Tina Smith (D) to deliver the most mind-numbingly stupid commentary on the occasion:
“With four megastorms in the past seven years in Minnesota, we don’t need any more reminders of the impact of a changing climate on our state,” Smith said. “Projects like you see behind us will be helpful to mitigate some of that damage.”
Perhaps Ms. Smith is unaware that no respectable scientist claims “megastorms” have increased as a result of purported global warming. Perhaps she doesn’t know that hurricanes in the Western Hemisphere–to take just one example–are at a historic low. Perhaps she is unaware that the models on which global warming hysteria is based forecast fewer extreme weather events, not more.
Hinderaker concludes:
But maybe it is irrelevant to point out how wrong the global warming alarmists are, and how severely their uneconomic installations damage the environment. Their doctrine is a religious faith that has nothing to do with science or history, and everything to do with government greed, so rational arguments are wasted on them. (emphasis added)
Could NOT agree more.
I am unsure if politicians really believe in AGW, or if they see it as an opportunity to raise revenue, and get in the good graces of the people with whom they want to ingratiate themselves.
My understanding is most of the manufacturing for solar and wind power takes place in China. So, they’re benefitting from this. There was an attempt at the Dept. of Energy to fund some U.S.-based solar manufacturers, which were dismal financial failures. One of them was a CO-based company, up in Greeley, I think. Part of the reason they failed was the Chinese did their usual practice of dumping product at below market value, so they could take over the sector.