3) Source: Newsday, Jan. 11, 2010
5) Miller Chapter: 17
6) Regional Area: Long Island
7) Plans are currently being made for the largest solar panel farm in the Northeast, right here on Long Island. The farm could potentially power 4,500 houses, or most of Seaford. The project will be spread across 200 acres at the Brookhaven National Laboratory; unfortunately, 150 of trees will have to be cleared. This indusrial size project will cause a large amount of forest to be cut down which angers many member of the Long Island Pine Barrens Society. To counter thier preservatory views, others say that the benefits from the farm far outweigh the cost of cutting down the trees. The fact is that solar panels in clusters near sub-stations don't allow much energy to be lost in translation and solar panels on random buildings could be more costly. About 2 million dollars will be put towards preserving the rest of the pine barrens. A lot of politics are also going on dealing with the purchase of this energy and benefits that may come along with it.
8) I feel that putting solar panels on Long Island is a very good and beneficial idea. Just as Mrs. Platt said in class, the Pine Barrens should not be cut down to do this. I'm sure there is some unused farmland that has already been cleared to put the solar panels on rather than cutting down a large chunk of a perfectly good forest.
9) Pine Barrens: a large area of publicly protected pine barrens in Suffolk County, New York on Long Island, covering more than 100,000 acres
1 comment:
I was thinking more like parking lots and garages and even large industrial buildings for solar panels. That way, we are not using potentially productive farmland or a natural area to produce electricity.
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