Special Report: U.S. solar expansion stalled by rural land-use protests

TATA Health International Holdings

07/04/2022 12:00

(For more Reuters Special Reports, click on  SPECIAL/ )
    * Utility-scale solar projects require far more land than
comparable fossil-fuel plants
    * Solar farms under attack as a blight on the small-town
landscape
    * Social media-fueled campaigns are blocking land-use
permits

    By Nichola Groom
    April 7 (Reuters) - The Solar Star project in California is
among the largest solar energy facilities in the world, boasting
1.7 million panels spread over 3,000 acres north of Los Angeles.
Its gargantuan scale points to an uncomfortable fact for the
industry: a natural gas power plant 100 miles south produces the
same amount of energy on just 122 acres.
    The dynamic encapsulates the industry’s biggest obstacle to
growth: Solar farms require huge amounts of land, and there’s a
fast-growing movement, fueled by politicized social-media
campaigns, to prevent solar developers from permitting new sites
in rural America.
    That’s a major problem for the transition away from fossil
fuels to combat climate change. Solar currently makes up 3% of
U.S. electricity supply and could reach 45% by 2050 to meet the
Biden administration’s goals to eliminate or offset emissions by
2050, according to the Department of Energy. To get there, the
U.S. solar industry needs a land area twice the size of
Massachusetts, according to DOE. And not any land will do,
either. It needs to be flat, dry, sunny, and near transmission
infrastructure that will transport its power to market. 
    As solar developers propose new, often sprawling projects in
places like Kansas, Maine, Texas, Virginia and elsewhere, local
governments and activist groups are seeking to block them and
often succeeding. They cite reasons ranging from aesthetics that
would harm property values to fears about health and safety, and
loss of arable land, farm culture, or wildlife habitat.
    “This is increasingly one of the top barriers that we're
going to face,” said Steve Kalland, executive director of the
North Carolina Clean Energy Technology Center, a research center
that supports clean energy development nationwide. “If we can't
get projects sited and deployed, then we're going to have real
problems on our hands.” 
    Officials at the White House and the Department of Energy,
who are pushing for a rapid expansion of solar power, did not
comment on the industry’s land-acquisition problems.
    In most cases, the opposition to these projects is being
organized on Facebook, where the number of pages devoted to
blocking solar development has exploded in recent years. The
pages air a mix of legitimate concerns, such as the loss of
scenic vistas, tree removal, and soil erosion, with
misinformation about climate change and alleged health hazards
from solar electricity. The false claims include arguments that
climate change is a hoax to groundless assertions that solar
farms leach the carcinogen cadmium into the soil and nearby
waterways when it rains, or that they rarely produce
electricity.
    Reuters identified 45 groups or pages on Facebook dedicated
to opposing large solar projects, with names such as “No Solar
in Our Backyards!” and “Stop Solar Farms.” Only nine existed
prior to 2020, and nearly half were created in 2021. The groups
together boast nearly 20,000 members.
    “For every single large-scale solar project, you’re seeing
very well-organized opposition on social media,” said Matthew
Sahd, a solar market analyst for energy research firm Wood
Mackenzie. “It’s very impressive what these local communities
are able to organize.”
    Beth Snider, of Virginia’s Page County Citizens for
Responsible Solar, said she believes solar developers are using
the climate change issue to justify profit-making businesses
that hurt the environment in other ways. 
    “The solar companies don’t care about the environment - the
farmland, and the rural communities they will destroy to get
these projects,” she said. “They are all about the money.” 
    Construction of the first large solar projects, including
Solar Star, completed in 2015, drew little opposition. They were
sited mostly in remote areas such as the California desert. Now,
tensions are rising as the sector plans bigger projects and
reaches into more populated rural areas unfamiliar with solar.
    The industry is expanding rapidly with government and
corporate backing, and seeking permits or zoning revisions from
county and town boards that oversee land use in residential
neighborhoods and farmlands. Often, they are in politically
conservative regions where citizens are less concerned about
climate change and more supportive of fossil-fuel industries and
jobs.
    Their protests are persuasive. More than 1.7 gigawatts of
proposed solar capacity was canceled during the permitting stage
in 2021, according to an analysis by Wood Mackenzie conducted
for Reuters. That’s equivalent to a tenth of the 17 gigawatts of
utility-scale solar capacity installed in the United States last
year. Wood Mackenzie did not track the data on permitting prior
to 2021.
    Those figures do not account for the potential projects that
have been preempted by locally imposed limitations or moratoria
on solar applications. An analysis by Columbia Law School last
year found 103 localities nationwide that have adopted policies
to block or restrict renewable energy development – a list the
report said is not exhaustive.
    The American Clean Power Association, an industry trade
group, said in a statement that the protests present a major
challenge to the solar industry and threaten its role in
addressing climate damage. 
    “Community concerns have made it harder for some developers
to scale solar projects at the rate that science dictates that
we need to,” said David Murray, ACP’s director of solar policy.
    Site acquisition is at the top of the U.S. solar industry’s
list of threats to growth. In a poll of 44 developers last year
by clean energy marketplace LevelTen Energy, 52% said permitting
challenges were among the top three barriers to achieving the
nation's solar energy goals and nearly 20% called out land
availability. Other challenges included access to transmission
lines and supply-chain disruptions.
    “It's pretty obvious that, if there's a climate urgency,
we're not behaving that way,” said Armond Cohen, executive
director of environmental group Clean Air Task Force. “There's
this assumption that there's so much solar and wind available at
such low cost, it's obviously going to get built... maybe it
will, but something pretty serious is going to have to change.”
    
    ONLINE OFFENSE
    Carrie Brandon’s home sits near the proposed site for a
2,000-plus-acre solar farm that renewable-energy behemoth
NextEra  NEE.N  hopes to build at the border of Kansas’ Douglas
and Johnson counties. When she heard about the planned
320-megawatt project, Brandon leapt into action to stop it. She
hired a consultant, sent petitions to neighbors and produced a
YouTube channel and Facebook site under the name Kansans for
Responsible Solar.
    “That’s not what we signed up for,” Brandon said, noting
that she and her husband built their dream home on 40 acres in
Douglas County in 2018.
    Brandon says she does not oppose green energy but believes
solar projects belong in places such as former industrial sites
or on rooftops. She worries about her property value but said
her primary concern is the health and safety of people residing
nearby. She said she worries that herbicides on the site, used
to prevent vegetation from growing on panels, could contaminate
ponds and groundwater. She also said solar panels raise the risk
of fires and health problems from exposure to electromagnetic
fields. 
    “It’s not about looking at it,” she said. “It’s about the
health impacts.” 
    Researchers have found no evidence to support increased fire
risk or health concerns from solar panels.
    Brandon found an ally in Kansas State Senator Mike Thompson,
a Republican who has been criticized for spreading
misinformation about the safety of COVID-19 vaccines and the
science behind climate change.
    "Why are we investing in all of these renewable sources of
energy? A lot of people will say it's because we've got to
combat climate change. And that is one of the biggest scams out
there," Thompson, a former TV weatherman who chairs the Senate's
utilities committee, said in a video on one of Brandon’s sites.
    Thompson did not respond to a request for comment.
    Brandon says she considers some of the contributions on her
group’s Facebook page extreme but does not censor them. “I find
opposing points of view to be stimulating conversation,” she
said.
    The impact of Brandon's group is being tested as Johnson
County crafts zoning rules for large solar facilities that could
determine the fate of the NextEra project. Planning officials
initially drafted what would have been among the most
restrictive rules for solar facilities in the nation - limiting
leasing terms to a maximum 20 years and capping acreage at 1,000
acres - but were directed by a county board this week to
reconsider their proposal next month.
    NextEra’s project is designed to last 30 years, and the
company has already leased more than 2,000 acres of land. 
    A NextEra spokesperson did not comment on the opposition to
its projects.
    The Virginia solar protest group led by Beth Snider, in Page
County, also uses Facebook to organize against solar
development. Their focus is a 500-acre project in Virginia’s
Shenandoah Valley by Urban Grid, a unit of Canada’s Brookfield
Renewable  BEPC.N , one of the world’s top renewable energy
asset owners. Snider, who lives near the proposed site, worries
it will mar the landscape. 
    Posts by her group’s more than 500 members include
wide-ranging criticisms of all kinds of renewable energy. One
post included photos of solar panels in Arizona covered in snow
and not producing electricity. Another cited a post from the
climate change skeptic blog NoTricksZone saying that EV owners
in Germany can barely afford to charge their vehicles because of
surging electricity prices there.
    The group brought an overflow crowd earlier this year to a
planning meeting. After 33 people testified against the project
- none in favor - the four-member panel voted unanimously to
recommend rejection of the project by the county Board of
Supervisors, which has a year to take up the application. Urban
Grid would not comment on the project.
    In central Texas, meanwhile, school district and county
officials in at least four counties this year have dealt blows
to solar development by refusing the requests of developers for
tax breaks intended to ensure the projects are economical. 
    The projects would have generated millions in tax revenue
over decades. Local officials, however, were convinced by
arguments made by local residents on Facebook and in public
meetings that the projects would undermine the region’s rural
culture and create few jobs.
    "They call themselves solar ‘farms,’ which is irritating to
me," Ron Pack, a landowner in Erath County, Texas, said in an
interview. "They give the indication that it's all bunny rabbits
and butterflies over there. And it's not. It's 2,400 acres of
total destruction." 
    Pack, whose property is adjacent to where NextEra is
planning a 225-megawatt solar plant, worries about soil erosion
under the panels polluting the water of the nearby Bosque River.
    Solar developers must often clear land of trees and other
vegetation before they install their equipment to ensure the
panels have unobstructed access to sunlight, which has in some
cases led to erosion during heavy rains.
    NextEra did not respond to requests for comment. On the
project website, the company says: "No form of energy is free
from environmental impact; however, solar energy has among the
lowest impacts as it emits no air or water pollution."

    NEW FRONT IN THE CULTURE WARS
    The protests reflect declining support for renewables
nationwide. 
    A Pew Research Center poll this year showed 69% of U.S.
adults favored developing alternatives to fossil fuels, down
from 79% two years ago. The drop came almost entirely from
respondents on the political right, with just 43% of Republicans
or those who lean Republican saying they support alternative
energy development compared with 65% in 2020.
    Joshua Fergen, a sociologist who has studied rural attitudes
toward renewable energy development, said solar power has
transformed into a subject of the U.S. culture war - a
politically divisive issue along the lines of vaccine mandates,
police reform or abortion.
    “You can't divorce what you see on these anti-renewable
Facebook groups from the larger political context,” he said. 
    Residents of liberal-leaning areas, however, have also
organized against large-scale solar installations. 
    Alameda County, a San Francisco Bay area Democratic
stronghold, for example, is considering more restrictive solar
policies after residents sued over the approval of a
100-megawatt project in a rural valley over concerns about the
visual and environmental impact.

    UTILITIES SQUEEZED
    Local pushback could delay plans by utilities to retire
aging coal plants and replace them with solar projects to
appease climate-conscious investors and regulators.
    The Northern Indiana Public Service Co (NIPSCO), for
instance, plans to retire more than 2 gigawatts of coal and
gas-fired generation by 2028, replacing it with wind and solar.
But one of the solar projects it had planned to start operating
this year, a 200-megawatt facility in Boone County, was rejected
last year by two separate local boards after residents organized
against it, decrying the loss of farmland and rural culture, as
well as the impact on views and local property values. 
    NIPSCO told Reuters that it continues trying to make the
project work and remains confident about its broader
clean-energy transition plan. 
    The difficulty finding workable solar project sites has led
developers to pump up their bids for available land. Solar
developers have been offering around $1,000 an acre for suitable
land nationwide, far more than the $200 or so an acre landowners
would get from a tenant farmer, according to Nathan Fabrick,
executive vice president of solar for National Land Realty, a
real estate brokerage that specializes in rural land.
    “We get so many calls from landowners that are interested,”
he said.
    It’s a harder sell to communities as a whole, which often
see little economic upside to offset the downsides of large
installations, which often create only one or two full-time
jobs.
    The solar industry in some places has worked to make
projects more palatable to the public. New Jersey, for instance,
became a major market for solar despite the state’s dense
development, primarily by putting projects on landfills or other
disturbed land. And Minnesota has voluntary standards that
encourage establishing pollinator-friendly vegetation at solar
sites to reduce environmental opposition. Such projects help
dissuade local concerns about solar farms, according to the DOE.
    The Land & Liberty Coalition - a pro-solar group backed by
donors associated with the political left, such as the
Rockefeller Brothers Fund and MacArthur Foundation - is also
trying to improve the solar industry’s chances by appealing to
libertarian values. The coalition argues, for instance, that
private landowners should be allowed to strike deals with
developers without obstruction. 
    “Nobody ought to tell you, within reason of course, what you
can and can’t do with your land,” said Tyler Duvelius, a
spokesperson for the coalition.
    The group has set up satellite offices in several states
where battles over solar are raging, including Virginia, Indiana
and Wisconsin, he said.
    Landowners like Robert and Donna Knoche agree with the Land
& Liberty Coalition’s arguments. The couple has an agreement
with NextEra for its Johnson County project in Kansas to lease
hundreds of acres that have been in the family for generations,
and they are hoping their neighbors don’t ruin their opportunity
to make some money from it.
    “Our six children, none of them are farmers,” Robert Knoche,
94, said in an interview. “They’d probably get along better with
NextEra than they would farming it.”

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GRAPHIC: Why solar farms need so much land compared to coal,
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 (Reporting by Nichola Groom; editing by Richard Valdmanis and
Brian Thevenot)
 ((Nichola.groom@thomsonreuters.com))