This rumor about solar panels originated with a site that publishes outrageous fictional stories.
In May 2014, someone alerted Snopes to a purported Facebook post that claimed solar panels drain the sun’s energy.published by the National Report on May 21, 2014, that supposedly announced the alleged discovery by scientists:
This week, a scientific research facility in Wyoming made a startling discovery that is certain to change the way millions of Americans look at the environmentalism movement, after they found conclusive evidence that solar panels not only convert the sun’s energy into usable energy, but that they are also draining the sun of its own energy, possibly with catastrophic consequences far worse than global warming.
Scientists at the Wyoming Institute of Technology, a privately-owned think tank located in Cheyenne, Wyoming, discovered that energy radiated from the sun isn’t merely captured in solar panels, but that energy is directly physically drawn from the sun by those panels, in a process they refer to as ‘forced photovoltaic drainage.’
By the following day, links and excerpts referencing this article were being circulated via social media, with many of those who encountered the item mistaking it for a genuine news article.
National Report is a news and political satire web publication, which may or may not use real names, often in semi-real or mostly fictitious ways. All news articles contained within National Report are fiction, and presumably fake news. Any resemblance to the truth is purely coincidental.This article was updated to meet Snopes' current formatting standards on Aug. 26, 2022.
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