Talk About Blight! Blimey! Not a Bakken Story

From Carpe Diem: solar energy -- mixing sunlight with tax dollars.

I walked hundreds of hours across the beautiful English countryside in a previous life. This is truly horrendous to see what they've done to their country.

"Hundreds of acres of countryside have been carpeted in solar panels after companies from across the globe flocked to Britain to benefit from a lucrative policy on solar power.  The Feed In Tariff (FIT), launched in April last year. promised those who built solar 'farms' an inflated minimum price for the power generated which is fixed for the next 25 years.  In a rush to beat the deadline which expired earlier this month, a sudden flurry of development has seen around 20 farms spring up, covering at least 200 acres across the country.

Sad. The good news: ten years from now, they will go back to farming.

Meanwhile, I just took a drive around Williams County tonight, and it was a gorgeous night. About every section or so, there is a well or a rig. The actual pads take up very little space, and the land is still  multi-use: oil, farming, recreation. Specifically, I was out at the state park north of the river and east of Williston and the campground was filled with folks enjoying the beautiful evening; the drive out was beautiful.

I note that the land is still multi-use: oil, farming, recreation, because solar farms are not multi-use as one can see at the link. Even wind turbines allow for multi-use in general, farming and wind, although one can question whether wind farms are conducive to recreation/tourism.