The Debate on Solar Farms

By Jim Accardi

When first mentioned there sounds nothing more green and healthier for the environment than a solar farm. It is a renewable source of energy and the greenest form of commercial energy. Solar Energy has become the leading alternative to costly and eco disasters of fossil fuels. The true nature and cost of large arrays of solar farms on the environment has yet to be decided. Now that it has become profitable for companies to venture into this modern day oil rush some people are thinking twice.

Everyone pretty much agrees that we do need cleaner and renewable sources of energy. The cost of the modern day industrial age has taken a great toll on the planet. The natural resources that have fed the technological age are dwindling while the planet heats up from its pollution.

Solar energy is a must if we want to save our planet from the devastating factors causing high pollution and the sociological disaster that would happen if we were ever to run out of source of fuels. Solar energy is abundant and as long as the sun shines we will have an endless supply of it. It is clean and no waste comes from it. So the question is what is the problem?

The debate over solar farms is not that it produces clean reusable energy but what the exact impact these giant farms will have in the immediate surrounding environment. The most logical choices so far for energy or wanna be energy companies have been the western deserts of California, New Mexico, Nevada, etc.

Though they appear to be a barren landscape, life teems within. A whole ecosystem strives here that cannot be simply destroyed over solar panels. Doing so would push back decades of conservation efforts already made against standard logging, development and energy exploration and mining. The fact that no giant solar farms have ever been built before is also a huge concern.

The question to be answered is how big a solar farm has to be to produce enough energy to be profitable and suit the needs of consumers. How big can they be without totally destroying the surrounding environment and changing the landscape of a community? They answers will be hard; the problems lay also among residences that have the notion of Not in My Backyard. People will have to make sacrifices; environments will have to be destroyed for the greater good.

Can we really stall progress forever? Will everyone be pleased by outcome? No and we should not expect it to be otherwise. At the same time we cannot ignore the impact that large solar farms will have on our environment, we cannot solve one problem by creating another. We must learn to conserve our land and develop it properly for green energy. In the next few decades the need will be greater, the debates and opposition stronger and yet science must continue. If not now when?
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