As Joe Biden arrives at Cop27 in Egypt, he comes with a good story to tell on America’s transition to renewable energy. But on the ground in rural Indiana where the country’s biggest solar plant is being built, things are getting nasty. Oliver Milman reports
Pulaski county, Indiana is flat, sunny and full of farmland. For decades its farmers have produced cobs of golden yellow corn. But now the area is being earmarked to produce something else: energy. Its famers are being offered a guaranteed income to use their land to host America’s largest solar power farm. It’s an offer many are keen to take up.
The Guardian’s US environment correspondent, Oliver Milman, tells Hannah Moore that when fully operational, the solar farm will be able to power up to 250,000 households. But not everyone is onboard. Attempts to get the power flowing have been disrupted by an increasingly bitter campaign from opponents who believe the solar panels to be an eyesore, a threat to their way of life and for some (without evidence), a conspiracy that would fry birdlife and intoxicate the soil. Lawyers on both sides are involved and progress has been painfully slow.