Solar power is draining local communities’ budgets
NOV 26, 2012
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.026558
Los Angeles Times : Solar power plants, part of the renewable energy push by the Obama administration, are proving to be more of a burden than a boon to local economies in California. Unlike most large projects, which traditionally mean new jobs and more revenue for the counties that host them, solar plants eat up land and require large investments from the counties themselves to upgrade roadways and increase fire, safety, and other public services. Counties such as Inyo in California’s Mojave Desert are finding themselves stuck between a rock and a hard place: the state and federal governments, which support the growth of solar power with loans, tax credits, and property tax exemptions, and the solar power companies, which are balking at absorbing any of the extra costs to the counties where the plants are built.
© 2012 American Institute of Physics
