In the latest of countless cautionary tales about green energy, a large-scale Texas solar farm has been devastated by a hail storm that took much of the facility off-line for an unknown duration. 

The March 15 storm battered thousands of panels with hail described as anywhere between golf ball- and baseball-sized. “They look like somebody took a shotgun and blasted it into the air and let the pellets fall down and shatter holes all in them,” awestruck Fort Bend County resident Nick Kaminski told ABC 13. Actually, the damage looks much more like it was inflicted with direct fire:

Located about 43 miles southwest of downtown Houston, the Fighting Jays Solar farm is a joint venture of Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and AP Solar Holdings LLC. Sprawling across 3300 acres, it’s billed as promising 350 MW of capacity. Or, at least, it was before Mother Nature intervened.

Flyover video showed the sweeping breadth of the destruction:

A spokeswoman for GOP Rep. Troy Nehls, whose district encompasses the solar farm, told Fox News Digital that the incident raises serious questions about where solar farms are built, and undermines green zealots’ belief that fossil fuels can be retired anytime soon:

“As far as solar farms being damaged where hail and tornadoes are common, those companies knowingly run the risk of building solar panel farms in these areas. Events like this underscore the importance of having an all-of-the-above energy approach to meet our energy needs and showcase how our country cannot solely rely on or fully transition to renewable energy sources like this.“

Some residents worried that cadmium telluride, a toxic ingredient of some solar panels, would find its way into the local soil and well water. However, Copenhagen Investment Partners reassured Fox that “the silicon-based panels contain no cadmium telluride and we have identified no risk to the local community or the environment.”

Nonetheless, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has dispatched investigators to make their own assessment of the health implications.

The sweeping ruin witnessed at the Fighting Jays solar farm is far from unique. A 2019 hail disaster caused roughly $70 to $80 million in damage to the Midway Solar farm in West Texas. Last June, a hailstorm in Nebraska destroyed nearly every last panel at a solar farm north of Scottsbluff: Of 14,000 panels, 13,650 were instantly turned into trash, though a spokesman for the facility unconvincingly assured a reporter that the goal was for the panels to be recycled.

These and other episodes underscore a troubling trade-off in solar power: States with abundant sunshine are simultaneously more prone to hailstorms and tornados. 

Of course, solar isn’t the only renewable energy with increasingly evident drawbacks. As the Epoch Times last week reported in a story republished at ZeroHedge, some scientists are sounding alarms about the effects on cell and membrane structures of “infrasound” produced by wind turbine blades.

However, nothing will derail leftists from mindlessly plowing money into inefficient and problematic “green energy solutions.”  – zerohedge.com

article website here

I wonder how this is going to be fixed. Are the damaged panels going to be replaced and the repaired?  Are they going to be repaired in place?  Are they going to be replaced and disposed of somehow?   No mater what your choice is going to be, there is going to be some environmental issue. Carbon will have to be injected into the atmosphere.

I do not believe solar is a ‘green’ energy solution. Materials required to build the panels must be produced.  The panels must be built. The panels must be transported to the site.  The solar farm covers 3.300 acres of land that could be used to grow food.   Building something like this in an area such as a desert would be better. Of course, then you have sand issues. Sand can damage the panels. Solar and wind are simply not feasible for large energy producing installations.  Nuclear and Natural Gas are the way to go until something better is found.

previous related post here and here