In "Solar Panels Stolen in Carbondale Found in Aspen" we had:
"There's a sort of a reverse-Robin Hood symmetry to this."Here's another oddity from Slate's The Big Money:
Making Weed While the Sun Shines
California's wine country has seen a rash of thefts of solar panels from vineyards recently, giving rise to a mini-industry of vineyard security systems.
It makes sense. Thefts of scrap metal—the usual market for rural thieves—are way down thanks to falling prices. And solar panels are proliferating in vineyards, usually installed in remote (but easily accessible) locations.
There is another factor at work: Wine is legal, but marijuana isn't. That means criminals are running the massive marijuana-growing operations north of wine country, while legitimate businesspeople are growing grapes. The criminals, who also want solar energy to keep their electricity use undetected, steal from the businesspeople, according to the cops in wine country. (We won't go into the obvious solution to this problem.)...MORE
