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A New Kind of Farming


This field once held hundreds of  roaming chickens, or at other times, sheep and baby lambs.  I am pretty sure there may have been pigs there for a while.  Now the field is given over to solar farming, although there may be days when farm animals graze there as well.

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It is not uncommon to see acres of these solar panels when traveling on Vermont country roads.  Are they common in other parts of the country?

I did not see any installations like this on our trip to Florida and back—in spite of the fact that we drove through much sunnier states.   We did see many windmills lining the ridges while driving through Pennsylvania.  Wind mills have been proposed for some Vermont mountain ridges, but they are not popular with property owners or environmentalists.   All I know is that it seems like we have much more wind in Vermont than sun.  I guess I will have to inform myself about alternative energy sources.

Comments

  1. Around here, they put those panels up on the utility poles. We see them all along the highways. Aren't they supposed to be saving us money? So far, I haven't seen that happening!
    Peace,
    Muff

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  2. Interesting. I've never seen such a thing. Of course, I don't travel much (at least not by car lately). I wonder if the farming folks on the plains of my state (Colorado) have such panels in place. Will have to check into it.

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  3. I have not seen panels here in Wisconsin, just wind turbines! No bad farm smells there!!!

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  4. I have heard that we have these in West Texas. It seems years ago I saw a field with these going to South Texas.
    In a few years I am sure we will see lots of them.
    Hope your doing well.
    Love
    Maggie

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  5. Not as pretty as sheep but perhaps more necessary in today's world.

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  6. A smart person would design them to be more asthetically pleasing but then when you look at power poles and lines, I guess energy just isn't pretty. I am all for alternative energy. I would love my roof to be covered in those panels.

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  7. I agree, not as pretty as a pig but just as important.

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  8. I have never seen these in Texas... although I have seen the fields of windmills. And I know people who have solar panels on their homes (here and in Louisiana), but have never seen a field of them.

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  9. Solar technology is still quite expensive, so the pay off is longer term. We don't see much here in the Seattle area. We do have big wind farms east of the Cascade Mountains, where the wind blows much of the time.

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  10. It isn't uncommon to come across such panels here. I'd like to have them onmy roof.

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  11. They're a little intrusive visually, but you could plant all kinds of gardens around them, or graze all kinds of animals.

    These things take time, I guess.

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  12. We have wind farms in Texas. I haven't really seen the solar farms, although we certainly have lots of sunshine, too!

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  13. They are in Cali but I would love to see many more all of the country!!

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  14. I think they are a better way than the windmills. We have them on homes not infields.

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  15. Not in fields though they have a huge project in the works right now. We do see them on the roofs of houses though. You would think there would be more here with all the sun we get.

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  16. I love it! This is putting us into the future!

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  17. We have lots of wind farms here. Not very nice to look at and it seems like they are not turning all the time. We are working on a solar panel to heat our greenhouse though.

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