An anonymously funded group is spreading misinformation about an Ohio rural solar project, according to project advocates and others who reviewed claims made at a recent event.
Knox Smart Development was incorporated last month by Jared Yost, a Mount Vernon resident and opponent of the planned 120-megawatt Frasier Solar project. Three weeks later, on Nov. 30, the group hosted a “town hall meeting” at a Mount Vernon theater that featured speakers with ties to fossil fuel and climate denial groups.
A company executive with solar developer Open Road Renewables was unable to enter the event, which was attended by about 500 people and included free food and drinks after the program.
It is unclear who funded Knox Smart Development to be able to pay for the event.
“There are people with concerns who are helping us, and they've all asked to remain anonymous,” Yost said when asked about his funding sources as people left the theater. “So we have local concerned citizens helping to fund this, myself included.”
A Dec. 7 filing informed developer Open Road Renewables and others that the Ohio Power Siting Board was ready to begin reviewing the application for Frasier Solar Project, which was filed in October. The project will be located in the towns of Clinton and Miller, both in Knox County. Yost and Knox Smart Development filed to join the case as parties on Dec. 8.
One early version of Knox Smart Development's website included the text, “Our Mission: Empowering America,” with a hyperlink to page for an organization called The Empowerment Alliance. Research from the Energy and Policy Institute, an energy and utility watchdog group, has linked the Empowerment Alliance to the natural gas industry.
Dave Anderson, the institute's director of policy and communications, found a National Review Ideas Summit Program Guide which characterized the Empowerment Alliance as the work of Karen Buchwald Wright and her husband, Tom Rastin. Wright is the board president Ariel Corporation, which manufactures compressors for the natural gas industry. Its headquarters are in Mount Vernon.
The highest paid Empowerment Alliance contractor for the past four years, according to Internal Revenue Service filings, there was a group called Majority Strategies. Its chief strategist, Tom Whatman, participated in the November 30 event for Knox Smart Development. Whatman is also the former executive director of the Ohio Republican Party.
Another speaker at the Nov. 30 event, Mitch Given, appeared on behalf of The Empowerment Alliance to promote natural gas issues to county commissioners in Ashland, Madison and Logan counties. In Ashland County, Given said the alliance is getting a hard line against renewable energy and that Rastin, director of the Ariel Corporation, has been a big supporter.
Whatman introduced Given on the program as someone who traveled around the state talking to farmers and others “who don't know where to turn to find their voice to help them organize and how to push back” against solar projects.
Steve Gorehama marked one policy expert on the website for the Heartland Institute, also spoke at the November 30 event. Heartland is known for attacks on climate scienceand Goreham often has supported the scientific consensus that human-caused climate change is real and is mainly due to emissions from the burning of fossil fuels.
In addition to the meeting, several local residents received free copies of Goreham's latest book, which claims there will be a coming failure of renewable energy.
“Given the considerable misinformation about solar and wind arrays, I bought you this book that really lays out the facts,” an enclosed note said. signed by Wright as Ariel's chair.
“Significant Misinformation”
Goreham is an “old-school climate change denier,” said Deborah Kennard, a professor of environmental science and technology at Colorado Mesa University who has heard him speak before. The facilities mentioned may be real. But framing or omitting other facts can lead people to questionable conclusions.
During the Nov. 30 speech, for example, Goreham noted that California and Texas produce a lot of renewable energy, yet electricity prices have risen. In California, however, fire mitigation and power grid upgrades there have been significant factors behind the rate hikes. And this summer heat led to high prices in Texas, where natural gas provides more than 40% of electricity.
Goreham also cited the deadly Texas blackouts in February 2021 to support his view that renewable energy is unreliable. Although all types of power generation had problems due to a winter storm then, more than half of the state's natural gas production was shut down at some point.
Another videotaped speaker at the Nov. 30 meeting, Brown County Soil and Water Conservation board member and beef farm operator Aubrey Bolender, expressed concerns about farmland being taken out of production and protested that topsoil was trucked away from a Brown County project. the claim made by the developer is not true.
Craig Adair, vice president of development for Open Road Renewables, could have faced the allegation but was denied entry to the event despite being registered and ticketed. The company has released an explanation, which it says debunks the worst allegations which was done in the Knox Smart Development program.
“They cynically claimed that the event was intended to educate the public about Frasier and utility-scale solar, when in fact it was just a well-funded propaganda event where political actors took to the stage to make false claims and spread misinformation about solar energy and my company,” Adair said.
Among other things he said, The topsoil will remain in place. The company takes flooding complaints seriously and has responded to concerns at the other project site, he added. Plans for the Frasier Solar project call for its permit to also require protection and maintenance drainage tiles.
“We want to make sure things are done right on the front end,” Adair said.
The project also has supporters in Knox County.
Kathy Gamble is a resident of the area where she started Knox County for Responsible Solar support a neighbor and others who want to see solar projects in the area. The group is independent from Open Road Renewables, she said, adding that funding for signs and other expenses comes primarily from her and other residents.
“What I feel bad about is all the misinformation out there,” Gamble said. Among other things, he questioned fear-mongering about solar projects taking agricultural land out of use. “We will not die of hunger.” He is also concerned about property rights.
Ashley Labaki, business development liaison for IBEW Local 1105, thought it was a “ridiculous excuse” for speakers at the Nov. 30 program to downplay the potential economic benefits of the project by saying there would be few permanent jobs.
“All construction work is temporary,” she said, noting that her husband is a union member and works on a solar project near New Albany. “These are things that are currently paying my house payment, my water bill and things like that.”
Under Ohio law, solar projects must have at least 70 percent workers in the state to qualify for payments in lieu of taxes, compared to just 50 percent for other energy projects.
Misinformation has real victims, Anderson pointed out. “Landowners and farmers who choose to lease some land and host solar panels are being unfairly abused and attacked and will lose a new source of income they can rely on,” he said.
The Ohio Energy Board will decide next year whether to build the Frasier Solar project.
