In the Shanxi Provence of China, the hills aren’t alive with the sound of music—they are dead under a blanket of solar panels.

In China, in the Shanxi province, there is a huge solar energy farm right on the mountain. Solar panels stretch for 80 kilometers. It looks as if the mountain was covered with a blanket.
(Shanxi is on the Loess Plateau which has nothing but silt and dust. Nothing grows there.) pic.twitter.com/Z49WAvZGjv

— ShanghaiPanda (@thinking_panda) May 31, 2023

The Panels stretch for 80 kilometers (close to 50 miles). It looks like an alien virus has infected the Earth, and it’s spreading. In a morbid way, it makes sense that China would appropriate entire mountain ranges for solar panels. China controls the market, and the Chinese Communist Party doesn’t wait for an EPA study. They bury cities under a mountain of water.

Eighty percent of solar panels come from China, and 95 percent of the polysilicon wafers come from Communist China. Said International Energy Agency (IEA) Executive Director Faith Birol:

China has been instrumental in bringing down costs worldwide for solar PV, with multiple benefits for clean energy transitions.

Yeah, using slave labor tends to bring down costs. Funny, that. Birol added:

At the same time, the level of geographical concentration in global supply chains also poses potential challenges that governments need to address. Accelerating clean energy transitions around the world will put further strain on these supply chains to meet growing demand, but this also offers opportunities for other countries and regions to help diversify production and make it more resilient.

In America, solar panels are ubiquitous. In my neighborhood, solar panels uglify about 20 percent of homes in my ‘hood. On any drive east from SoCal, there are solar farms seemingly every 10 miles. Big ones too. But they are all in the middle of a desert, not blotting out a mountain. In Nebraska, there was a solar array. Past tense. It’s broken now. It got blasted with baseball-sized hail.

14,000 panel, 5.2 MW community solar array in Nebraska destroyed by hail storm last night.

This doesn't happen to baseload power plants.https://t.co/I94OCkKKeL pic.twitter.com/iLeNMSA9wr

— Steve Milloy (@JunkScience) June 29, 2023

The NPPD solar array located along 42nd Street has been reported to have significant damage, though damage estimates have not yet been made publicly available.

The array isn’t just damaged; it’s busted. Climate nuts are blaming climate change.

I couldn’t find a source for what the array cost to construct the solar farm, but its panels almost certainly came from China, and now almost all of them have to be replaced. The estimated 25-year lifespan will have to wait.

But solar is the future! It’s zero-cost and totally green! Yeah… not so fast. Solar has a bigger carbon footprint than wind or nuclear energy. Sweden has seen the future and doesn’t contain Greta Thunberg or AOC. It’s nuclear. My buddy Mike Miller wrote:

Wait— it wasn’t supposed to be this way. That is, according to Al Gore, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Kerry, and Joe “Existential Threat to Mankind” Biden, et al. “It,” of course, being the utopian green energy of the Shangra-La of tomorrow — which Sweden is abandoning and returning to nuclear power.

A professor of Geochemistry explained that solar isn’t all that “green.” Solar releases nitrogen trifluoride. What’s NF3’s impact on the environment? It is 17,000 times worse for the atmosphere than the dreaded CO2.

As much as 80 percent of the silicon ripped from the earth is lost in the process of making crystalline silicon. And, there are other health problems. Cancer biologist David H. Nguyen notes the toxic chemicals associated with and in solar arrays include cadmium telluride, cadmium gallium, copper indium selenide, and a bunch of other nasty toxins.

Even pro-solar peeps admit that there is a chemical downside, including a manufacturing byproduct, silicon tetrachloride. The byproduct is toxic and, if not handled properly, will cause severe burns. Keep it away from water because it can create hydrochloric acid. But none of China’s slave laborers are complaining, so never mind.

Will NPPD rebuild the solar array? Likely yes. All it has to do is clean up the site, bury the old panels, and order new ones—from China.