This does not appear to be satirical

[TightEnd]

"The good burghers of Woodland, North Carolina, have successfully torpedoed plans for a solar farm, arguing the panels would suck up all the sun's energy"

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/un-climate-conference/us-town-rejects-solar-farm-after-residents-say-it-would-suck-up-the-sunlight-20151213-glmqa6.html

[teddybloat]

reality is a bit more nuanced.

http://www.snopes.com/north-carolina-town-rejects-solar-panels/

snopes is a boss site to use when an outlandiuh story comes up.

the one you posted about the man gold plating his testicles, for example

http://www.snopes.com/lottery-winner-dies-gold-plating/

[Jon MW]

reality is a bit more nuanced.

http://www.snopes.com/north-carolina-town-rejects-solar-panels/

snopes is a boss site to use when an outlandiuh story comes up.

the one you posted about the man gold plating his testicles, for example

http://www.snopes.com/lottery-winner-dies-gold-plating/

To be fair I don't think snopes says any more in this instance than could be inferred by critical analysis. The headline is sensationalist but from the story you could probably guess that they're only basing it on a couple of opinions that came up.

The headline is the funny part - but the fact that a former science teacher could imagine the solar panels could stop photosynthesis is the part which really highlights the problem in US education.

[teddybloat]

I didn't read the story tbh.

The extract posted was enough for me to prefer ctrl+v into snopes rather than follow the link, innit.