US town rejects solar panels for sucking 'up all the energy from the sun'

A small US town in North Carolina rejected a proposal for solar panels in the area claiming that solar farms would suck up all the energy from the sun.

The Woodland Town Council voted to reject a rezoning application on Tuesday that would allow a solar farm to be built by Strata Solar Company, reports Mashable quoting the Roanoke-Chowan News-Herald.

It also put a moratorium on all solar development.

The council had previously ruled in favour of three other solar farms that are yet to be completed, but suspicious locals put the kibosh on the latest application.

Retired science teacher Jane Mann said she was concerned the panels would prevent photosynthesis from occurring, keeping plants, which rely on the chemical process, from growing.

Plants in the area around the solar panels are brown and dead due to not getting enough sunlight, Mann claimed.

No reports have yet emerged as to whether science education is also "brown and dead" in Woodland.

Local resident Bobby Mann, for his part, announced he was worried the panels would "suck up all the energy from the sun," the paper said.

Brent Niemann, for one, tried to argue the panels only use sunlight that hits them directly rather than sucking it up willy nilly. "The panels don't draw additional sunlight," he said. "This is a tried and true technology."

The global climate change accord completed in Paris on Saturday was the most significant indication yet the world is turning way from fossil fuels and looking to renewables.