Using Solar Power for Evil: Panels on a Poultry Barn
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 12.19.06
Everyone is so happy with this research project to "evaluate the use of solar power as an economical source of energy for poultry houses." It is a partnership between Allen Family Foods, WorldWater & Power Corp. and our favourite green giant GE Energy. “This project is important to help our poultry industry stay competitive and our producers remain profitable, as well as cut our dependence on foreign oil,” Delaware Secretary of Agriculture Michael Scuse said. Charles C. “Chick” Allen III, chairperson and CEO of Allen Family Foods, offered the use of a company-owned farm in Laurel for the pilot study. “We work with 550 independent contractors on Delmarva who raise our chicks,” Allen said. “I was happy to have the opportunity to collaborate on a research project that has the potential to reduce costs for these growers. I want to do anything I can to maintain the economic viability of the Delmarva poultry industry.”
Then I read Peter Singer in "the Way We Eat" and learn what goes on in these poultry barns. Or read articles like this one on "the Battery Hen: Her Life is not for the Birds" or Grist on "Finger-Lickin' Bad" how those independent contractors are exploited, how awful those barns are and how nauseating the working conditions are. And I think that putting solar power on a chicken battery is truly the definition of putting lipstick on a pig. ::University of Delaware
Yes, it's bad, and the best way we can fix it is through a combination of regulation (which will be hard to do because the last thing a politician will want to be known for is making life hard on farmers in the heartland to appease a bunch of treehugging liberals), and through buying free range/ organic chicken/eggs only.
But until we sway the market enough to effect change, at least it's good that they are reducing greenhouse emissions, right? Let's not discourage people from using solar by working against those who have made such a big positive change on a generally negative industry. Just make sure that when a free range farmer goes solar, we really heap twice the praise on them.
**and through buying free range/ organic chicken/eggs only.
**
Yes, but even these nomenclatures often mean very little - the birds are often still kept in cruel conditions and the male chicks are still killed because they are useless to the industry. Education about the overall process seems like the real way to go.
So, if we accept that the "organic" and "free range" chicken farming buisness cannot expand to the exponential degree that would be needed to produce the number of chickens that consumers demand, then what? Is the world supposed to stop eating chicken altogether, putting many farmers- small, large, and their workers, out of buisness? Are farmers to be vilified for attempting to make their operations more energy efficient? I fail to see how using solar power for anything that replaces conventional power consumption could be called "evil". You wouldn't say that your neighbor was 'using solar panels for evil' to power his house, even if he was dedicating the output of his solar panels to even the most nefarious purposes.
More PV-based generation is better than less.