The best way to understand something is to start a conversation about it. That's precisely what happened when a Redditor posted an image of a vast solar farm.
The image sparked a conversation about solar farms located near commenters and the benefits that these projects can bring.
The Redditor posted the image in the r/conspiracy subreddit captioned, "'Green' Energy."
These types of solar farms are all across the U.S. Solar Feeds compiled a list of the 10 biggest ones in the U.S. in 2021. Many of them were in California, but some were also in Nevada and Arizona.
One in Antelope Valley Solar Ranch, California, provides electricity for about 75,000 homes.
Some people criticize solar farms for displacing wildlife and harming habitats. It's likely how an image like this ended up in the r/conspiracy subreddit, and it prompted one user to ask, "Why is this a conspiracy?"
If you know what good solar farms do, this is a reasonable question to ask, and it's what spurred the conversation.
While solar farms need land or some other large surface to be built, they can actually serve as a biodiversity hub, providing shelter for wildlife.
They can also help restore nature. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the University of Minnesota, Temple University, Minnesota Native Landscapes, and Argonne National Laboratory found that solar panels can restore native prairies. Solar farms can also help create rich soil for plants, pollinators, and wildlife.
Solar farms can save people money, too. For example, community solar sites can save those who usually pay $125 a month on electricity bills around $150 a year.
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Definitely 💯 Additionally, these solar farms are excellent job creators. That Antelope Valley Solar Ranch project "created 400 construction jobs and 15 operations and maintenance jobs," per Solar Feeds.
They also help improve the air quality. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, solar panels don't produce polluting gases, so replacing dirty energy with cleaner energy sources reduces the release of toxic gases into the atmosphere and makes the air cleaner.
Many Redditors in the comments know these benefits and shared solar panels locations near them.
"I drove past a large open parking lot that had a weird roof over it, then I realized it was solar panels on high poles," one user said. "What a perfect solution."
Another user spotted some in their local Costco parking lot: "The panels generate energy to offset the cost in the store, and in the summer your car isn't 1,000 degrees inside because you were able to park in the shade."
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