‘Land no one else wants’ gets solar as coal-and-nukes era fades

For two decades, coal has been pulled from a Bent Mountain mine in eastern Kentucky. But in a startling move in the heart of coal country, a rival –solar – is preparing to move on to the land.

From Appalachia in the US to Queensland in Australia and Chernobyl in Ukraine, solar and wind farms are being developed or built in places not normally associated with clean energy, and in some regions long resistant to it.