December 18, 2025
Industrial Wind and Solar Projects are All About Tax Credits
By: Dianna Troyer
Bannock County Commissioners, the Planning and Development Council, and certain farmers have become evangelists who are preaching the salvation of utility scale wind and solar projects on agricultural land.
Unfortunately in their sermons, they intentionally omit reality of the documented environmental harm these projects cause, how lousy and expensive they are at producing electricity, and the amazing inextinguishable fires at Battery Energy Storage Systems.
So why in the world do they support the projects and why is there such an urgency in changing zoning regulations to accommodate them?
Their proselytizing for the projects has little to do with electrical production and everything to do with a looming deadline concerning subsidies. To qualify for a federal tax credit, commercial solar and wind projects must begin construction by July 4, 2026, or be placed in service by December 31, 2027. Warren Buffet explained it clearly with his investment in wind projects. “They don’t make sense without the credits.”
The best joke about them is, “What do utility scale wind and solar projects run on?” Subsidies, of course.
In reality they do a lousy job of running at all and produce a paltry amount of electricity. Based on non-partisan laws of physics, solar and wind projects only work at about 24% and 40% of capacity, respectively. Think of them as that person in a Dilbert cartoon or episode of “The Office” who takes up space at work but is productive only one or two days a week or not at all.
When opposing a ban on these projects last year, Commissioner Jeff Hough cited private property rights as his reason. Based on this logic, would the commission and council allow a feedlot, gravel pit, mink farm, and cheese whey waste disposal site like Whey Hill in Utah to be built next to Marsh Valley High School because a landowner says it is his right to do whatever he wants with property? I would hope not.
Whose property rights take priority – the person developing a project or neighbors opposing it?
According to county zoning regulations, land uses cannot “damage the public health, safety or general welfare within its vicinity or be materially injurious to properties or improvements in the vicinity.”
Industrial solar and wind projects violate all those points.
More than 700 solar and wind projects and battery storage systems have been rejected nationwide. Robert Bryce maintains a database of the rejections. Nearby Custer and Caribou counties still have a moratorium on these commercial projects.
Here is a list of realities that these evangelists omit from their sermons and why these projects don’t belong on agricultural land.
Recent studies document that solar projects installed in 2012 have leached toxic chemicals including lead and cadmium into the soil at SUNY-Buffalo as well as Upper Silesia, Poland. Details are documented at Will Thompson’s substack article, “From Buffalo to Poland – Two Solar Farms, A World Apart, Same Toxic Story.” Why would anyone want those chemicals in their beef and bread?
Farmers who want solar projects on their land say that is the only way for them to survive. Honestly, you can innovate with crops and not sell your soul and soil to a solar company. In 2015, Penfold Farms in Driggs launched quinoa and turned eastern Idaho into the largest quinoa growing area nationwide with Teton Mills in Idaho Falls processing it with a capacity of 20 million pounds annually. Listen to a podcast about ag innovators by Jessie Jarvis, a third-generation cattle rancher near Kings Hill. Read the ag newspaper Capital Press with its weekly column about Ag Innovators. Check out Grand Teton Ancient Grains in Teton or the Uhlorn Family Farms.
Supporters say the electricity from these solar and wind projects is needed because Idaho is a net importer of electricity. This is not even an issue. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, Idahoans pay the lowest electrical rates nationwide despite the state being a net importer. More than 25 states import electricity. All states are part of a vast network that imports and exports electricity to balance the grid. The implication that importing electricity is detrimental is an intentionally misleading talking point espoused by many organizations including Portland State University’s program on energy policy and management.
When lithium-ion Battery Energy Storage Systems spontaneously ignite, fires cause neighborhoods to be evacuated and last for days and reignite weeks later. The most recent example occurred at the Moss Landing Power Plant in California in January and February, forcing evacuation of 1,200 residents. A database documents BESS fires worldwide.
How much does a Battery Energy Storage System cost? A four-hour BESS supply of electricity costs $100 million, according to the manager of an electric co-op in Homer, Alaska where one was installed. Isn’t there a better investment of money?
Evangelists of the projects say they are inexpensive, based on the Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) analysis by Lazard, a financial consulting firm. Lazard’s LCOE is intentionally dishonest because it fails to account for the additional costs of integrating intermittent energy sources like wind and solar into the electrical grid. Numerous studies documenting this have been done by longtime electrical rate analysts Isaac Orr and Mitch Rolling at their substack Energy Bad Boys.
Also, the incorporation of wind and solar into the grid is the reason electric rates increase, according to utilities requesting rate increases from their public utility commissions. “Specifically, states with clean energy and renewable energy mandates have sought 32 percent higher rate increase requests since 2020 than states without mandates—and mandate states have higher electricity prices as a result, which are growing at almost double the rate as no mandate states,” according to Isaac Orr.
Wind and solar aren’t clean energy at all. No electrical generation is clean. While wind and solar projects have no CO2 emissions, the amount of emissions produced during mining of their components means that it takes three to five years for the projects to offset their carbon footprint, according to studies. They are also made with petroleum derivatives.
Wind and solar infrastructure have shorter lifespans (20–25 years) than natural gas (40 years) or nuclear plants (40–80 years). Decommissioned materials are rarely recycled and often end up in landfills.
These projects offer short-term employment similar to Amazon and UPS hiring seasonal workers for holidays.
If commissioners and the development council override the ban, the best place for these projects is at industrial sites, on roofs, parking lots or the landfill – but not agricultural areas.
Dianna Troyer is a freelancer, who writes for ag publications and nonprofit rural electric co-ops.
Rate increases due to wind and solar — https://energybadboys.substack.com/p/states-with-clean-energy-mandates?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=42pu0h&triedRedirect=true
