Bleak stuff and unfortuately, maybe, I agree with you. There’s going to be over a billion solar panels to recycle in the next decade or so and still no large scale techniques to do it. Here in the UK government grants have meant tens of thousands of ASHPs are going in, all requiring electricity plus increasing numbers of e-cars needing charging yet there’s no money to upgrade the power grid…Meanwhile newer, bigger wind farms are going up because overseas companies can rake in the dosh. Small scale, local renewables, local grids and living within the energy means of your environment would seem like a good idea but who is really interested in good ideas? Too many companies just want to make the easy money and when it dries up, cut and run. A courageous piece Lynncady. Thanks.
On the other hand, I am extremely jealous of your beautiful butterflies! However, this year, for some reason, has been really good for ours and we do have some equally lovely ones- peacocks, brimstones, red admiral (my favourite as a kid).
Thanks for comment, Chris! We are having a tremendous butterfly year here. Not that I'm seeing large numbers, but certainly the variety has been amazing. It might be that I'm just becoming more observant and better at identification.
It seems wrong to hit the little heart-shaped 'Like' button for this. I do, however, think your observations are spot-on. We've been here over 20 years now and have made it through two gas/oil booms without having our area destroyed, and our roads overloaded with heavy truck trafffic. So far, so good. And so far, no one around here has an interest in solar power or wind power farms. Good again.
I have to look at the positive. I can't ignore the problems - but I can't bask in them, either. I also recognize my limitations on being able to change much on a large scale. We can only control ourselves (and sometimes not well even with that). So I am extremely thankful for my life where and as it is. In my heart I know we're doing the best we can. Hopefully we're an example to others.
Yes, there needs to be a "I really don't like this but I agree with your observations" button. You're right that all any of us can do is just do the best we can at the moment. You're probably doing much better at this than most!
You are right of course. Destroying rural lands so that everyone can have iPhones, Amazon distribution centers, Ai, crypto, etc. etc. is terrible. I sincerely wish society could rediscover its old conservation consciousness which seems to have become passe in today's tech-loving America. I've been reading about how much power these new data centers for Ai will require and it's staggering. Current crypto mining in the US uses more energy than entire electrical output of Argentina I just read, and crypto is completely unnecessary. It's nothing but a boondoggle. But all the vectors point to more, more and more so what to do? The CO2 problem isn't going to go away. Nuclear might have the smallest footprint. Do we want to take a chance on that? I'm not sure. Conservation and the "small is beautiful" philosophy (remember that?) is the best course but the powers that be will never go for it.
I don't even really understand crypto, but I've learned enough to be totally against it. It seems like a monumental waste. There is a data center coming to West Virginia, not far from me (2300 acres!) so I'm sure I will be learning lots about the issues surrounding them.
This is such a great piece. Beautifully written and so insightful in the way it pulls diverse, complicated threads together into a coherent, easily accessible whole that gets to the heart of the issue: who is solar energy development really good for and how?
I have two main thoughts building on yours.
1) Pressures building on Big Wind and Solar, Inc.
Solar (and wind) development in rural areas depend heavily on subsidies from federal and state government. Renewable industry experts themselves seem to concede this when they say argue that recent GOP cuts to subsidies will devastate the prospects for future solar and wind expansion. The federal government is in the process of ending subsidies for rural solar and wind by the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of the Interior. Meanwhile, Congress has repealed the huge subsidies on non-fossil energy contained in the 2022 "Inflation Reduction" Act. Meanwhile, there's real evidence that massive solar and wind development in California and elsewhere has, in fact, destabilized the electric grid, raising questions about the viability of the industry that are physical, not ideological.
Together, all these changes seem to promise that funding for rural solar projects like the ones promoted by Farm-to-Power are drying up. I would guess that will mean less money for grant-funded positions at that organization, from philanthropies, billionaires, and national governments (notice the plural on that last one).
Side note: I find it odd that the renewable people see corporate conspiracies everywhere among the anti-renewable groups, while the renewable enthusiasts themselves are so heavily funded by big industry, just a different wing of it.
There are intriguing arguments beginning to emerge, among some people who follow energy, environment, and economic development issues, that the era of economic growth is in the process of ending already -- not someday, as your piece speculates, but right now. There's no guarantee that these arguments are correct. We might just be in a temporary pause.
But the argument is interesting. It says that, in developed countries, population (a source of growth in the past) is declining, consumer demand in the declining population shows signs of reaching saturation, and economies that are larger in the aggregate can't physically create enough new industry and services to sustain the same *rate* of growth as in the past.
For all these reasons, in developed countries it's true that: economic growth has been slowing, consumer demand stagnating, and absolute population size entering a period of steep decline. Demographers now expect that the United States, Europe, and Japan in 2125 will have dramatically fewer people (not counting immigration). The EU, for example, will go from a population of about 500 million now to 300 million in the early 22nd century.
On a local, rural scale, that seems to translate into a landscape free of people, not overflowing with new ones. It also would seem to translate into zero demand for new infrastructure projects and new built environment. The future may consist not of endlessly metastasizing new warehouses and roads and power plants but instead into depopulated rural areas haunted by the eroding hulks of projects from the last century.
But there's a catch, say the people making these arguments. A vastly decreasing population, and stagnating economy, could lead to pressure to squeeze more resources out of the Earth to support the same living standard for fewer people. If robots and AI are available to substitute for human labor, maybe the end of economic growth might not mean the end of vast new structures proliferating in rural areas.
I guess the only point I want to make with all of this is that when we look around us now, in rural areas of Ohio and elsewhere, it's easy to imagine a simple scenario for the future: growth keeps metastasizing like a vast tumor, rural America gets swallowed by it, eventually there's an apocalyptic crash, lots of destruction and death, then maybe nature reclaims the ruins. I'm saying that the actual future might be more complicated than that. Not necessarily in a good way, but at least there could be enough complexity that it's worth questioning the particular form that our doomerism takes. I say that as someone who is a lifelong addict to doomerism.
The best example I've seen for an "it's complicated" perspective on the end of growth is this essay by Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute:
Thanks for the compliment and the reading material. I always appreciate your suggestions. I was aware that renewable subsidies might be ending or at at least being curtailed and was glad to read details. I see this as overwhelmingly positive, though it's clearly the result of Trump being elected. This isn't to say renewables are always bad, but the way we're going about implementing them is wrong in so many ways.
Part 2. I was commenting in the app and had to switch to the web because the app sucks so bad it literally took me 15 minutes to write the first comment! (End of rant) As for the issue of growth ending and something else catastrophic happening, who knows? Each pipeline and data center and cracker plant, etc represents a waste of resources and destruction of land for no good (enough) reason in my opinion. It's all a step in the wrong direction and means resources not spent on actually taking care of people.
I question whether "the right direction" or a sane response is to wish for the destruction of industrial society, an event that would cause billions of agonizing deaths while itself inflicting cataclysmic ecological damage, when it isn't clear that industrial society is the problem.
The first inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere probably hunted the native megafauna to extinction, slaughtering millions of innocent creatures and wiping whole species from existence, without any help from industrial society. There are other examples from the pre-industrial world, at varying scales, throughout history. Waste and tragedy are human characteristics, not industrial ones.
Wishing for mass death to punish industrial humans won't change the basic human tendency at work. It will just condemn people today to living in nihilistic despair and pointless guilt.
The human capacity for destruction and violence toward all life is real. It used to be known as "evil." It demands a response. The reality is that most of us won't be able to affect the direction of the future in any way that's noticeable to us in our lifetime. We do have the power to speak and act in our little private circles of meaning, in ways that will make those circles more loving, more brave, more just, more willing to surrender to the insane but essential hope that more is going on for something good and beautiful than we will ever know.
I'm sorry. That was more of an asshole reply than I intended. I'm just so starved for hope, shouldn't take that out on you. I wish everything would be okay, someday.
I think we're operating on different definitions of industrial society. What I'm wishing for wouldn't cause billlions of agonizing deaths. It would free billions from lives of drudgery and meaninglessness to do real work, taking care of themselves, their families, and their communities. I'm not advocating for suddenly ending all industrial processes that serve people, or hoping for that end. The fact is that most industry as practiced doesn't serve human needs. It serves to generate profit and only meets needs as a side effect. Much could be immediately stopped and the world would be a better place.
Bleak stuff and unfortuately, maybe, I agree with you. There’s going to be over a billion solar panels to recycle in the next decade or so and still no large scale techniques to do it. Here in the UK government grants have meant tens of thousands of ASHPs are going in, all requiring electricity plus increasing numbers of e-cars needing charging yet there’s no money to upgrade the power grid…Meanwhile newer, bigger wind farms are going up because overseas companies can rake in the dosh. Small scale, local renewables, local grids and living within the energy means of your environment would seem like a good idea but who is really interested in good ideas? Too many companies just want to make the easy money and when it dries up, cut and run. A courageous piece Lynncady. Thanks.
On the other hand, I am extremely jealous of your beautiful butterflies! However, this year, for some reason, has been really good for ours and we do have some equally lovely ones- peacocks, brimstones, red admiral (my favourite as a kid).
Thanks for comment, Chris! We are having a tremendous butterfly year here. Not that I'm seeing large numbers, but certainly the variety has been amazing. It might be that I'm just becoming more observant and better at identification.
It seems wrong to hit the little heart-shaped 'Like' button for this. I do, however, think your observations are spot-on. We've been here over 20 years now and have made it through two gas/oil booms without having our area destroyed, and our roads overloaded with heavy truck trafffic. So far, so good. And so far, no one around here has an interest in solar power or wind power farms. Good again.
I have to look at the positive. I can't ignore the problems - but I can't bask in them, either. I also recognize my limitations on being able to change much on a large scale. We can only control ourselves (and sometimes not well even with that). So I am extremely thankful for my life where and as it is. In my heart I know we're doing the best we can. Hopefully we're an example to others.
Yes, there needs to be a "I really don't like this but I agree with your observations" button. You're right that all any of us can do is just do the best we can at the moment. You're probably doing much better at this than most!
You are right of course. Destroying rural lands so that everyone can have iPhones, Amazon distribution centers, Ai, crypto, etc. etc. is terrible. I sincerely wish society could rediscover its old conservation consciousness which seems to have become passe in today's tech-loving America. I've been reading about how much power these new data centers for Ai will require and it's staggering. Current crypto mining in the US uses more energy than entire electrical output of Argentina I just read, and crypto is completely unnecessary. It's nothing but a boondoggle. But all the vectors point to more, more and more so what to do? The CO2 problem isn't going to go away. Nuclear might have the smallest footprint. Do we want to take a chance on that? I'm not sure. Conservation and the "small is beautiful" philosophy (remember that?) is the best course but the powers that be will never go for it.
I don't even really understand crypto, but I've learned enough to be totally against it. It seems like a monumental waste. There is a data center coming to West Virginia, not far from me (2300 acres!) so I'm sure I will be learning lots about the issues surrounding them.
Lynn,
This is such a great piece. Beautifully written and so insightful in the way it pulls diverse, complicated threads together into a coherent, easily accessible whole that gets to the heart of the issue: who is solar energy development really good for and how?
I have two main thoughts building on yours.
1) Pressures building on Big Wind and Solar, Inc.
Solar (and wind) development in rural areas depend heavily on subsidies from federal and state government. Renewable industry experts themselves seem to concede this when they say argue that recent GOP cuts to subsidies will devastate the prospects for future solar and wind expansion. The federal government is in the process of ending subsidies for rural solar and wind by the Department of Energy, the Department of Agriculture, and the Department of the Interior. Meanwhile, Congress has repealed the huge subsidies on non-fossil energy contained in the 2022 "Inflation Reduction" Act. Meanwhile, there's real evidence that massive solar and wind development in California and elsewhere has, in fact, destabilized the electric grid, raising questions about the viability of the industry that are physical, not ideological.
Together, all these changes seem to promise that funding for rural solar projects like the ones promoted by Farm-to-Power are drying up. I would guess that will mean less money for grant-funded positions at that organization, from philanthropies, billionaires, and national governments (notice the plural on that last one).
Side note: I find it odd that the renewable people see corporate conspiracies everywhere among the anti-renewable groups, while the renewable enthusiasts themselves are so heavily funded by big industry, just a different wing of it.
On these topics, see, for example:
https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/climate-energy/usda-ends-programs-solar-wind-projects-farms-2025-08-18/ (on Department of Agriculture)
https://newsletter.doomberg.com/p/sunblock (on California situation)
https://energybadboys.substack.com/p/wind-and-solar-fanboys-are-big-sad (on "Inflation Reduction" Act)
2) The complicated future of economic growth
There are intriguing arguments beginning to emerge, among some people who follow energy, environment, and economic development issues, that the era of economic growth is in the process of ending already -- not someday, as your piece speculates, but right now. There's no guarantee that these arguments are correct. We might just be in a temporary pause.
But the argument is interesting. It says that, in developed countries, population (a source of growth in the past) is declining, consumer demand in the declining population shows signs of reaching saturation, and economies that are larger in the aggregate can't physically create enough new industry and services to sustain the same *rate* of growth as in the past.
For all these reasons, in developed countries it's true that: economic growth has been slowing, consumer demand stagnating, and absolute population size entering a period of steep decline. Demographers now expect that the United States, Europe, and Japan in 2125 will have dramatically fewer people (not counting immigration). The EU, for example, will go from a population of about 500 million now to 300 million in the early 22nd century.
On a local, rural scale, that seems to translate into a landscape free of people, not overflowing with new ones. It also would seem to translate into zero demand for new infrastructure projects and new built environment. The future may consist not of endlessly metastasizing new warehouses and roads and power plants but instead into depopulated rural areas haunted by the eroding hulks of projects from the last century.
But there's a catch, say the people making these arguments. A vastly decreasing population, and stagnating economy, could lead to pressure to squeeze more resources out of the Earth to support the same living standard for fewer people. If robots and AI are available to substitute for human labor, maybe the end of economic growth might not mean the end of vast new structures proliferating in rural areas.
I guess the only point I want to make with all of this is that when we look around us now, in rural areas of Ohio and elsewhere, it's easy to imagine a simple scenario for the future: growth keeps metastasizing like a vast tumor, rural America gets swallowed by it, eventually there's an apocalyptic crash, lots of destruction and death, then maybe nature reclaims the ruins. I'm saying that the actual future might be more complicated than that. Not necessarily in a good way, but at least there could be enough complexity that it's worth questioning the particular form that our doomerism takes. I say that as someone who is a lifelong addict to doomerism.
The best example I've seen for an "it's complicated" perspective on the end of growth is this essay by Ted Nordhaus of the Breakthrough Institute:
https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/must-growth-doom-the-planet
I don't know what I think about every aspect of it, but it did make me think.
Thank you so much for writing this! Hope you and your family are well.
Thanks for the compliment and the reading material. I always appreciate your suggestions. I was aware that renewable subsidies might be ending or at at least being curtailed and was glad to read details. I see this as overwhelmingly positive, though it's clearly the result of Trump being elected. This isn't to say renewables are always bad, but the way we're going about implementing them is wrong in so many ways.
Part 2. I was commenting in the app and had to switch to the web because the app sucks so bad it literally took me 15 minutes to write the first comment! (End of rant) As for the issue of growth ending and something else catastrophic happening, who knows? Each pipeline and data center and cracker plant, etc represents a waste of resources and destruction of land for no good (enough) reason in my opinion. It's all a step in the wrong direction and means resources not spent on actually taking care of people.
I question whether "the right direction" or a sane response is to wish for the destruction of industrial society, an event that would cause billions of agonizing deaths while itself inflicting cataclysmic ecological damage, when it isn't clear that industrial society is the problem.
The first inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere probably hunted the native megafauna to extinction, slaughtering millions of innocent creatures and wiping whole species from existence, without any help from industrial society. There are other examples from the pre-industrial world, at varying scales, throughout history. Waste and tragedy are human characteristics, not industrial ones.
Wishing for mass death to punish industrial humans won't change the basic human tendency at work. It will just condemn people today to living in nihilistic despair and pointless guilt.
The human capacity for destruction and violence toward all life is real. It used to be known as "evil." It demands a response. The reality is that most of us won't be able to affect the direction of the future in any way that's noticeable to us in our lifetime. We do have the power to speak and act in our little private circles of meaning, in ways that will make those circles more loving, more brave, more just, more willing to surrender to the insane but essential hope that more is going on for something good and beautiful than we will ever know.
I'm sorry. That was more of an asshole reply than I intended. I'm just so starved for hope, shouldn't take that out on you. I wish everything would be okay, someday.
Well, I'm just an optimistic person I think. It has to do with where I live. 😉 I hope you're doing okay and I hope you visit soon.
I think we're operating on different definitions of industrial society. What I'm wishing for wouldn't cause billlions of agonizing deaths. It would free billions from lives of drudgery and meaninglessness to do real work, taking care of themselves, their families, and their communities. I'm not advocating for suddenly ending all industrial processes that serve people, or hoping for that end. The fact is that most industry as practiced doesn't serve human needs. It serves to generate profit and only meets needs as a side effect. Much could be immediately stopped and the world would be a better place.