The Winston-Salem Journal is ecstatic over the prospect of a solar farm in Davidson County, putting not one, not two, but three reporters on the story.
The climate (so to speak) for renewable forms of energy is favorable here in North Carolina:
State Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, said that renewable-energy systems such as SunEdison’s proposed solar farm are “precisely” what legislators were hoping for when they drafted the energy law last year. Harrison is one of the leaders in the General Assembly on environmental issues and was a key writer of the energy law.
…..Without North Carolina’s new mandate for solar power — and without other forms of government support — the nascent solar industry would be unlikely to locate here, said Molly Diggins, the state director of the N.C. Sierra Club. Diggins added that coal and nuclear power also get heavy government subsidies.
“Solar energy is not feasible in states that don’t provide incentives,” Diggins said.
Just so happens that JLF’s John Hood has some thoughts on subsidized renewables, calling them the “major league rip-offs of the taxpayers.”
Davidson County continues its desperate search to make up for losses in the furniture industry through economic incentives, and this is the best they can do? Here’s another question: Would this project not eat up valuable site acreage that could be put to use by a company providing more than three jobs?
Update: After a citizen speaks out against the incentives package, Davidson County economic development director Steve Googe addresses the secrecy behind the project:
“We seem to attract an awful lot of attention because we put code names on our projects. And I want you to understand that that’s not something that we do,” Googe said. “Those code names are developed by consultants that search the world over for locations and the last thing we’d like to do is offend the consultant to pass over us because we didn’t like the way they addressed their projects.”
Heaven forbid anyone would offend the consultant, lest they find a better deal elsewhere.