Norwich Solar Farm Another Snake Oil Pitch at Our Expense

Victor Furman
Upstate New York Landowner, Shale Gas Activist

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“Norwich solar farm will benefit everyone” the pitch goes, but Vic Furman has a different view. It’s just more of the same energy con game he says.

Yesterday, a post showed up on Facebook announcing a 76 acre 56,000 panel solar farm in Norwich, New York, and the story was reported on Action News locally.  No big deal, I guess. Taxpayers and ratepayers have been footing the bill for solar projects all across New York even though very few people benefit from these solar farms. What’s one more? Well, it does matter because it’s all a con.

The proponents of solar are soaking up millions of our tax dollars and advertise it in a way that is consistently deceptive and dishonest. They say we’ll be stopping climate change and get clean energy. They promise our electric bills will be 5% cheaper. Here are some of my problems with these snake oil sales pitches:

1. They call solar energy clean, but it’s not so clean. Consider, for instance, this:

The materials which are required for the manufacturing of the solar panels i.e. silicon, cadmium and polycrystalline come under the category of hazardous substance and later dumping of the panels after at the completion of their lifecycle will lead to hazardous waste.

2. They say solar will save us 5% on our electric bills. But, they can’t answer how when you question them. The evidence I gathered on the Broome County solar fiasco shows just the opposite.

Just read the nonsense being offered by the promoters of this project and compare it to the Broome County facts. It’s marketed like a free lunch, as if everyone was going to benefit but they never say who is really paying for them; all ratepayers and taxpayers.

If you ask these solar proponents questions or post links to dispute their claims they will not debate or even acknowledge your questions, but simply remove them from their post and block you from asking more. Why is this?

I would think it would be only fair for them to remind every NYSEG Customer, or any other power customer in the State of New York that, whether or not they hook up to one of these solar farms, the state taxes their NYSEG bills so they can subsidize these solar farms. Don’t you agree? The math behind their claims is self serving but the fact is that signing up for solar only fuels more future snake oil pitches and deceptive practices.