Recently I published a first article in what I plan to make a regular series about the various sustainability projects underway to mitigate climate change, particularly renewable energy and carbon reduction programs. This piece discussed a study that examined the idea of using California’s water conveyance canals (4,100 miles of aqueducts) as a place to install solar PV. The study concludes there are multiple benefits — evaporation mitigation, aquatic weed mitigation, and of course generated solar electricity.
I’m at work on my next article, which I think will be about a carbon sequestration idea I’m highly interested in, and I’m also reading a lot on hydro energy storage. But that’s for another time. I hadn’t planned to write anything this week.
But when I read the referenced op-editorial in the Washington Post, I felt it deserved some reasoned and logical dissent. (Sorry, the paywall isn’t my fault.) I think the best way to dissent to this op-ed is to pick apart the arguments one by one. So let’s see if we can turn this naysayer into a solar PV advocate (or more likely, showcase how foolish his arguments are, lol).
Argument 1: for decades, coal, oil and gas have powered the U.S. with admirable efficiency.
Dissent: There are three major logical fallacies at play here. First, this is a form of the fallacy of relative privation (dismissing an argument because of perceived bigger issues). In this op-ed, the author is going to completely gloss over the issue of CO2 emissions and climate change. He knows full well that this is the argument for solar energy, but he dismisses it for the supposedly larger issue of “efficiency.” I’d dare him to find one case of a progressive demanding we replace the grid for efficiency…that’s not what the discussion is about.
The second fallacy here is “ignoratio elenchi,” or missing the point. Yes, fossils have been efficient. That isn’t the point, they are also dirty. Three, we have a definist fallacy in play — using a term that you present in a biased manner in order to make dissent difficult. The author uses the word “efficiently” in this manner. What does an “efficient” energy grid mean? I reject his definition of this meaning “power when you want it,” and I expand my definition to mean “power when you want it AND not having to clean up entire cities destroyed by storms, rising tides and wildfires.”
Argument 2: Every bad weather event is blamed on fossil fuels.
Dissent: The author is suggesting that environmentalists are doing this. This is another fallacy…several, in fact, but mostly a straw man. Environmentalist do not blame every severe weather event on climate change, we are blaming the growingly severe weather largely on manmade climate change, and have the scientific data to back up our claim that this is being exacerbated by fossil fuels. Not every storm is caused by climate change, but that doesn’t negate that many are.
Argument 3: The government is knee-deep in tax incentives for renewables.
Dissent: In which we pretend that subsidies are “knee deep” and ignore the century of tax incentives for fossil fuel production. Because, you know, why be honest or accurate in an op-ed in one of the nation’s largest papers?
Argument 4: The author says that environmentalists claim that fossil energy requires extraction and carbon emissions, but renewables don’t.
Dissent: Another straw man. We do not claim that wind turbines, for example, require no resources and we don’t claim they emit no CO2 in their production, installation and maintenance. In analyzing energy sources, we employ a specific and established field of science that analyzes how much of these things various energy sources cause/require and we rank them. Yes, wind produces some CO2, but wind produces less than coal, period period period. Solar produces less than coal, period period period.
We are like ¼ of the way into this piece, and we’ve run across straw man after straw man amd a variety of other fallacies, as I lay out. This is about the point where any reasonable adult would figure that the author is either a liar or on the grift, and look up their bio. However, I don’t want to get into a debate about the author’s affiliations, because the op-ed is so easy to dissect and slaughter on the merits of the topic at hand. I just want to establish that something smells in the state of Denmark here.
Argument #5: where are the millions of acres for Biden’s energy goals coming from? Omg the land! Think of the land!
Dissent: Here the author cites a real challenge of a renewable grid, then tries to fallaciously paint the Biden goals as unreachable because the problem is hard. He links to a website that says “omg, that much PV would take up a footprint as large as New Mexico!” As though progressives are advocating paving over New Mexico entirely. (New Mexico, no. Florida, yes, but for other reasons,lol.)
This is a “nirvana fallacy,” the author is saying that solar PV CAN’T be a solution because it’s imperfect, the imperfection being land requirements. But he ignores any possible solutions that mitigates this drawback and makes some land very good for solar PV use.
Which was the entire point of my previous article.
In my piece, I discussed a study that looked at making California’s canal land dual-use — we use it for both the existing water conveyance infrastructure and solar PV. That is what serious minds who want to build a sustainable future are doing — we are searching for real solutions with real benefits. We are looking for real places where real land exists that would be great for solar energy production.
We are putting solar PV on rooftops. Why? Because that land is already consumed and it’s otherwise wasted space. What about every retail store parking lot in America? Does anyone object to PV stalls that shade the cars AND produce electricity? Is there some DIRE DRAWBACK to maki g this specific land dual use?
The author would like to pretend that we are seeking to take away America’s precious farmlands to make room for solar. No…we are seeking to use our lands in smarter and innovative ways, so that we make the most of the space we have. In some cases, yes, some crop lands are promising for dual use as crops AND solar PV. That’s a longer conversation, but it offers those landowners a potential second revenue stream on that land.
And let me say one thing directly to Mr. Abernathy: yes, finding all that land might be hard. Also:
We choose to go to the Moon. We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
Argument #6: The author insinuates that solar projects in rural areas (specifically his home state of Ohio) are bad because local governments can’t step in to block solar PV projects despite many anti-solar yard signs and concerned citizens.
Dissent: ooooooooohhhhhh ppppppppppllllleeeeeeeaaaaaassssseee.
Ok, fine, I said I’d be logical and respectful. In this case the author is discussing PV in rural areas, we presume with crops with or near the PV installations. Right now in the U.S., every single solar PV project on private land is…private. Sometimes there are government incentives or partnerships, but we’re talking here about farmers who own land and decide to allow solar PV on it, usually because it makes them money. It’s just another form of farming. They have all these areas, and want to harvest strawberries AND electricity. More power to them, pun intended and emphasized.
The author is lamenting that the town governments…some hypothetical radical right wing Trumper yahoo, we presume…can’t step in and block a farmer from allowing PV on his own land under some argument of the good of the community. This is yet another case of the modern conservative movement becoming one giant troll party — if they don’t like something, they think they should have absolute power to tell solar companies and farmers what they can and cannot have on their land. I will, as I do 0.0005% of the time, take a stance that sounds like something Reagan would say: local governments can stay the @$#@ away from farmers if they want to do business on their land. Period.
Argument #7: what if solar PV decreases property values? What if they make the land toxic for future crops?
Dissent: [grits teeth and resolves to play nice]. Here we really start to get into the weeds of truly bad faith arguments. This is almost as absurd as if the author asked “what if the solar makes people turn communist?“ Sigh.
Solar PV has been in use for over 20 years in widespread enough applications that these arguments would have evidence to back them up if they are valid, which they are not. It’s not my job to prove that solar PV doesn’t make farmland toxic, it’s the author’s job to prove that it does, and he doesn’t cite a single shred of evidence. Solar PV does not poison the land. And this is an even more ridonkulous point considering the cleanup consequences we assume as a nation from our farmlands…the water use, the salt runoff, the fertilizers and pesticides. We accept these costs to get food. So if the author wants us to look away from solar energy, he needs to quantify the supposed PV pollution and present it so that we can decide if it’s a risk worth taking. Do we reeeeeally want to spend the money to hire a hauler to take the old PV to a recycle center for it to be responsibly disposed of? (Spoilers: probably yes, but Mr Abernathy hasn’t presented any real costs for us to consider because his argument stinks.)
Argument #8: “The growing doubt nationwide among landowners and their neighbors over whether shiny solar modules are what they want sprouting from fields in their communities…”
Dissent: So much of this trash op-ed revolves around the author’s perceived public opposition to solar PV. He cites some random people who show up at a town hall and complain, and draws the conclusion that this justifies slowing down progress.
If Joe Smith over on Main Street doesn’t want the Sunny Acres farm to put solar PV on their land, then that opposition surely justifies local government blocking Sunny Acres from engaging in their desired commercial activities!
But what about the residents who want it? What about the farmers who want the extra income stream? What about the millions and millions of Ohio residents who want to mitigate climate change through solar energy and think it’s a-okay for a farm to put in solar if it wants to? Every single supportive voice is “mysteriously” absent in this garbage op-ed…because (of course) the loud minority should always have a right to silence everyone else, ‘cause we’re the troll party! Sigh.
Argument #9: Some day scientists will make solar energy viable, but we need reliable energy, so we better not close coal mines yet.
Dissent: Unless this piece was sealed in a time capsule in 1975 and WaPo dug it out last week, I can’t forgive this argument.
Solar energy is viable today. Wind energy is viable today. For both of these options, the cost to install a new watt of generation is a FRACTION that of a new watt of coal, and those cost analyses don’t consider carbon pollution costs. The renewables are running 2-4 cents per watt, coal is running 13-17 cents per watt. Dems da facts.
This is why renewables are going to pop up across Ohio despite the author’s nonsense arguments. Economically, renewables have won. Technology-based generation (defined as putting a machine at the source of the fuel and generating energy there) were always going to beat fuel-based generation (defined as extract fuel, drive it all over, burn it). As our existing plants age out, energy companies will gravitate to the cheaper sources. Farmers will gravitate toward the extra income. Homeowners will gravitate toward rooftop installations. The economic incentives are lining up with the environmental incentives, which is why solar electricity is here to stay, dude.
As I said before, the author ends with the same fallacy of relative privation he started with — missing the g-d point. The author ignores that we are not moving to replace fossils with renewables over issues of reliability, we are rushing because science has proven beyond any doubt that we need to do so out of self-preservation, national security, economics, and just good old-fashioned progress. We must act now. We will not wait, solar and wind’s moment has arrived.
Argument 10: Okay, I will end the rant, which ran longer than the opinion piece itself. The author ends with a har-dee-har quote, citing the immortal Mark Twain to bolster his fallacious argument that we just can’t do this because it will take too much land. As Twain said, “buy land, they’re not making any more.”
Dissent: Mr Abernathy, I read your piece with an open mind. It is full of fallacious arguments, misdirection, bad faith points and ethically dubious assertions about various civil rights and liberties. As such, I would respectfully suggest that you had the wrong Twain quote in mind. You should have considered another, and used it to refrain from ever writing that nonsense op-ed. I will leave you in peace with the recommendation from both myself and Mr Twain:
It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt.