I'm certainly a big fan of solar power, but rooftop solar is a little silly. Rooftop solar would make sense if we had some shortage of land and couldn't just fill up empty fields with panels, but that's not the case. It's much cheaper for utility companies to buy up big plots of land than it is to try to figure out how to outfit odd shaped surfaces with panels.
California is really missing the forrest for the trees here. There's so much low hanging fruit (things that could kill two birds with one stone) that they're ignoring. If the state would focus on higher density living and public transportation over imposing regulations that will drive more people away and lower the standard of living for those who remain, then we would see a much bigger global impact on reducing climate change. Because of this, more people will decide to live in Texas instead of California, where they'll run their air conditioners 10 months out of the year in their huge, inefficient houses which draw power from coal plants.
>If the state would focus on higher density living...
>...where they'll run their air conditioners 10 months out of the year in their huge, inefficient houses
The type of people that live in huge inefficient homes are generally also the same type of people that don't want to live in high density areas. California could turn open fields in to solar farms like you mentioned, but that requires that someone foot the bill and also build the infrastructure for it. "Forcing" people to put solar panels on their own home solves both of those problems. It also makes you more immune to losing power in a natural disaster, of which California has plenty.
I'm not saying I'm even for this issue, I don't live in California. But your view is extremely negative and ignores the negatives of your way while also ignoring the positives of the way mentioned in the article.
> California could turn open fields in to solar farms like you mentioned, but that requires that someone foot the bill and also build the infrastructure for it. "Forcing" people to put solar panels on their own home solves both of those problems.
You're missing the obvious alternative, which is that Cali could instead tax new homes the amount required to install the equivalent panels in some field, where they're cheaper and easier to service, where they can be positioned for optimal sunlight, etc.
> You're missing the obvious alternative, which is that Cali could instead tax new homes the amount required to install the equivalent panels in some field, where they're cheaper and easier to service, where they can be positioned for optimal sunlight, etc.
No thanks. Then some other org controls the power I can get from those panels, can corrupt officials to raise my rates unnecessarily, charge me higher rates for generation facilities that may not be needed except to juice shareholder returns (Duke Energy collected over a billion dollars for a nuclear power plant they'll never build in Florida, and they are under no obligation to return those funds to ratepayers). This is not uncommon. NV Energy in Nevada, Duke and FPL in Florida, utility coalitions in Kentucky and Arizona have all fought against distributed generation, the list goes on.
Rooftop/distributed solar is a hedge against utility shenanigans, and with how quickly rooftop solar pays itself back (under 10 years in over half the US states while rolling the cost into a long term fixed rate loan product, ie your mortgage), it's insane we don't mandate its installation in more places on new/retrofit construction [1].
Disclosure: I own a 10kw solar install on my roof. I’m biased and opinionated.
Only if you are off grid are you insulated from the power companies. If you are grid tie you are subject to whatever rate they will pay you for your power and charge you for power.
Storage will only get cheaper, it's only a matter of how quickly [1] [2]. Based on historical renewable generation and storage rapid cost declines, you will be able to be self sufficient faster than utilities will be able to put you over the barrel by moving peak pricing away from the solar "duck curve" [3].
Storage doesn't matter if the solar panels on your roof cannot cover your average power consumption, if they don't you need someone to supply power externally.
Most inverters don't work without connection to the grid. If you flip the fuse or meter box to go "off grid" the inverter will stop working that very same second.
You can however get expensive inverters than do work of the grid, but they are, as mentioned, expensive compared to a simple grid-tie inverter.
The “expensive” part isn’t necessarily true. Some grid-tie inverters have limited backup capability for very little cost. IIRC the SMA Sunny Boy series can supply 15A 120V using a dedicated outlet. SolarEdge’s StorEdge is their standard DC-coupled storage inverter, and it can supply 5kW of backup power.
Electricity is not a public utility in California, so wouldn't that solution require the four(?) private utilities in California to raise prices or sell bonds to purchase land/build a solar power plant?
This is how California works; privilege old residents over the new.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it is very clearly what California voters want. The idea is that we have these massive boom/bust cycles (that seem to trend upwards) and we want to ensure that those who are already here benefit from the boom times, even at the cost of making things rather harder for the newcomers.
The interesting thing is that... a lot of the older service people I've talked to, barbers, uber drivers, etc... own homes around here that they bought when it was cheap. because of these rules, sure, they can't eat out everyday, but they can continue to live around here, should they so choose, on very small wages. I think that our rent control and our prop 13 and other favoring of existing residents does in part subsidize our service industry; in some ways, I think it's why services around here just aren't as expensive as you would expect, when you consider how much more expensive rent is here (and programers are here) vs. the rest of the country.
I personally think that the economy would be better overall if we just built a lot and then raised the costs of the output of locally produced services in line with rent, e.g. raised service wages in line with programmer wages. But, I do think it's important to understand the majority California view.
by the same percentage as, perhaps? Both are intensely local, and while local tech industry wages have been increasing pretty dramatically over the last decade, I think that service industry wages have stagnated, as have prices. I think the economy would be better off if we had the same degree of inflation in the service sector as we have in the tech sector.
Just my opinion, of course, and I understand it's an unpopular one.
Ultimately the wage increases would increase costs to the consumer, so it seems that you’d want to factor in the population as a whole (minus the service industry, as is the example).
Avoid that altogether and tax energy production equal to the economic cost of its damage. Redistribute the funds gathered to all citizens since they're the ones impacted by the damage. Buy solar panels, pay the steep tax, take whatever steps work for you, where you live, etc.
Tax energy according to its externalities. Then fix the resulting poverty by redistributing money according to the standard of living you want to ensure. Do not mix both policies.
Pensioners receive a check from the tax funds just like everyone else. Assuming pensioners use less electricity than average, they will receive a net benefit.
Corporations using a lot of electricity get the same sized tax dividend check the pensioner gets, so it's a net loss for them. The wealthy subsidize the poor under this system.
They don't use more than factories, big box retailers, large corporate offices, data centers, families with children, etc. As long as they're less than the average, they get a net benefit.
Their income is irrelevant. If they consume fewer kWh of electricity than the average power company customer, they will get a net benefit. They might pay a $25 tax, but get a $40 benefit. Meanwhile the large factory might pay $5,000 but they still get the same $40 rebate the pensioner gets.
Given that large corporations who consume huge amounts of electricity are in the pool, it's almost impossible that the pensioner could consume more than the average.
Businesses will use orders of magnitude more than the pensioners. The fact that a pensioner might use more per capita than a young person doesn't matter. When the young person leaves the home for work, they're just going to a different building that is also consuming electricity, generating more pollution tax. Plus, there are more people per household in a young home because of children.
> It also makes you more immune to losing power in a natural disaster, of which California has plenty.
Unfortunately, this is generally not the case. Most grid-tie solar inverters do not support disconnected operation. They all have anti-islanding features that disconnect the solar panels when the grid goes down (to prevent back-flow into the grid that could injure linemen working to repair outages). There are a few inverters that include an emergency-outlet on the inverter that works when the power is out, but you have to run an extension cord from the inverter to the devices you want to power.
It is possible to buy a hybird off-grid inverter, but they are much more expensive than either plain grid-tie or off-grid, and the power company is going to scrutinize their installation a lot more closely.
Backfeed prevention devices are not the only arrow in the safety quiver, but they are required for lineman safety purposes (as well as other net wins, like reduced problems with downed lines meeting up with everyday people). Backfed generators (and now solar, wind, etc.) injure and kill.
>(to prevent back-flow into the grid that could injure linemen working to repair outages)
Back-flows from generators, solar and other home power sources are not really an issue. It takes a specific set of circumstances where there's both equipment failure and the utility worker fails to check if lines are live.
Basically, the resistance of the entire neighborhood is indistinguishable to a short from the perspective of the breakers on your power generation equipment.
Still, you shouldn't back feed because we live in a society where everyone must play by the rules of idiots regardless of whether or not they can prove themselves to be otherwise. Therefore you cannot be trusted to flip switches properly yourself and I must advise you to use a proper transfer switch.
Yes, and so is a neighborhood. A dim lightbulb has a high resistance. A bright lightbulb has a lower resistance. Multiple bright lightbulbs in parallel, measured together as one, have an even lower resistance.
It's not powering the whole neighborhood that's the problem. With downed lines it very well might not put any significant load on the inverter yet still have a significant amount of downed distribution lines live. Normally the fire department or the power company can just take a hot stick and within a couple minutes pull out the fuse upstream of a segment and ground out the lines making it safe from the rest of the grid. With improperly installed generators every house is a potential source of power, there's no quick and easy way to isolate all of them like their is with utility power, and grounding out every segment might not be as easy to do reliably as with utility power. If you ground out the line upstream of the fault then you know with certainty that utility power isn't going to somehow energize the portion of line being worked on but when it's being fed from more than one direction there could be a fault that isn't readily apparent that creates a dangerous situation where a linesman thinks a line is safe when it is live being powered by a generator.
Sans incentives, it is NOT cheaper than other forms of energy in MOST areas. Yes, there are exceptions to everything, but by and large, it is NOT profitable without subsidies. You can argue whether or not it's worth the extra cost to taxpayers and consumers etc., but you cannot argue that it's profitable and/or cheaper in most markets without subsidies.
> Sans incentives, it is NOT cheaper than other forms of energy in MOST areas.
You may be referencing old sources. For example, even though the UK's solar potential is reasonably low, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) shows that levelized cost of solar-generated power IS cheaper than MOST other forms of energy.[1]
People in inner parts of California have to spend significantly more on energy because of extreme weather while we enjoy the moderate weather in Mountain View.
California has higher energy prices and the poor people who tend to live in inner parts are suffering a lot.
When you look at profitability you need to deduct the government subsidies and assume that it comes from our taxes. Is it really sensible idea to tax a farmer in yolo county to pay more for his energy usage because the rich people in bay area have decides that solar is more important ?
This leads to more inequality, resentment and a divided society.
> The type of people that live in huge inefficient homes are generally also the same type of people that don't want to live in high density areas.
Is this true? IIRC the shortage of urban-style denser housing is so severe that pretty much everyone who prefers that type of housing has to buy a sprawly McMansion anyways, since that's what on the market at prices people can afford.
"Huge" and "inefficient" is in the eye of the beholder, and in most countries your standard-sized American house would fall under both of those categories.
The median home across all California is up 9% last year to $537k [0]. That's a change on the order of $40k. 1.5% of a million dollars is indeed a lot of money, but in this context, you pay the same penalty for letting 6 months elapse.
Housing affordability was never going to be fixed with new single family homes. If you’re so fabulously wealthy that you can live in a house, let alone build one, you can afford this.
In many places in America, you do not have to be anything close to wealthy to live in a house. Unfortunately the market in SV is so skewed that everyone who lives in a house is "the rich," who we don't mind making things more expensive for - without realizing that we're actually adding to the gigantic stack of unnecessary distance between ourselves and home ownership. Instead of moving home ownership from "fabulously wealthy" to "wealthy beyond compare," we should pursue policies that move it away from there.
It’s structurally impossible for house ownership to be affordable in a place this popular and geographically constrained. Affordability will require multifamily development.
The regulatory environment currently has its thumb on the scales in favor of single-family homes. Shifting the pendulum the other way, even a little bit, is a good thing. We shouldn’t be building anything less than 4 stories tall, and if we do, costs like this can and should be spread across several tenants.
You could keep the single-family homes if the corporate campuses were spread out into the countryside. There's no good reason why one tech company should be five minutes away from their competitor but three hours away from the nearest affordable housing.
>There's no good reason why one tech company should be five minutes away from their competitor
I disagree strongly. I think the most valuable thing about silicon valley is that I can walk to tens of small employers, from my house, and at least two big employers who could reasonably hire me.
In bicycling or uber distance, there are thousands of small places and hundreds of large employers.
Because I live in the silicon valley, I can switch jobs almost on a whim; I don't have to move, I don't have to upset my social circles, etc...
I think this is actually a big part of why Silicon Valley is valuable both to the workers and to the employers; there's a huge pool of people and a huge pool of jobs that we can match up without inconveniencing anyone. You don't have to settle for the job that is nearby or for the employee who is willing to move.
Correct. Not sure why Facebook to Netflix can't have some of their teams work from Morgan Hill instead of everyone sitting in the same HQ creating really bad traffic patterns.
The only reason I think is that owners of these companeis don't give shit.
Riding crowded mass transit and living in apartments with your neighbors 4" away should be a choice and there should exist reasonably priced alternatives. The target is a society so wealthy that the median person can own a home where they want and commute in their luxury car if that's what they want to do.
(And before everyone complains about pollution I would like to point out that achieving that level of wealth is so far off that home heating/cooling and transportation are likely to be basically all electric and the grid will be what determines the environmental impact of that)
That’s not geometrically possible for metros beyond a size threshold we’ve long surpassed. There are diminishing/negative returns to road expansion and a finite supply of land within natural barriers.
It’s relatively straightforward to alleviate transit crowding, and to sound-isolate apartments, with money. But no practical amount of road expansion fixes congestion, and we’re not likely to remove the mountains or fill in the Bay for more tract housing.
Note that this is only on 1-3 story buildings. This will raise the cost of low-density housing. The point of 827 was to incentivize higher density construction, and what is essentially a new tax on single-family homes should also have the effect of incentivizing higher density.
827, in its terminal form, contained a provision that anyone building within a quarter mile of a transit station had to provide their tenants with transit passes in perpetuity, a net present cost of about $50k. I really don't think 827 would have done a lot to lower prices if it had passes with that impractical provision.
Sure! But trusting the power companies to continue to "do the right thing" and buy up all that cheap land for solar power doesn't seem worthwhile. This certainly could read "New homes must be powered by 20% solar", of which rooftop is a viable option, but I wonder how far that legislation would go.
to try to figure out how to outfit odd shaped surfaces with panels.
That's a pretty silly take. Less expensive houses have large areas of simple roof (in areas with variable climate, about ½ of the areas even face south).
The economics are worse than utility solar, but its not a puzzle how to attach them to a rooftop.
Odd shaped surfaces? Roofs tend to be flat rectangles or triangles. Every solar roof installation I’ve seen in the wild is just rectangular panels bolted on top, with no attempt to cover the entire thing. If the panels don’t align neatly with the roof edge, then they just leave a gap.
The space is free if you’re already building a house anyway. Installation seems fairly straightforward. Is it really that much cheaper to install separate panels that it offsets the cost of buying dedicated land for it?
Eh, some houses have really funky roofs (my house, for example) or roofs with no south facing surface. But the other thing to consider is that, with solar becoming mandatory, roof designs will be changed to better accommodate solar panels.
Easier to survive a war or natural disasters if everyone has their own way to generate power from the sun. It would be a shame if solar power, which allows for that, wouldn't be used that way, and instead everyone just kept getting their power from a centralized source, just as before.
I'm not sure why you're getting downvoted here, as this is a pretty solid argument. Maybe not so much in California, but just look to the natural disaster in Puerto Rico. Folks who had branched out with solar panels were suddenly the only ones with power at all in their neighborhoods. California may have a better built infrastructure, but it's no stranger to natural disasters.
There's certainly efficiency to be gained from pooling our resources into a centralized power grid, but I think redundancy and protection from grid failures are also perfectly valid goals.
That electricity still has to be transported, with the attendant power loss. I don't know the economics behind it, but cheap land being so far from the destination of the electricity's major use might be a relevant factor.
> figure out how to outfit odd shaped surfaces with panels.
Well, if it's mandatory, then we may see roofs being developed/built that are more friendly for installing panels on. Most homes with panels had them installed years after the home was built, in many cases before "installing solar panels on your roof" was a thing people could even do on their homes.
>Because of this, more people will decide to live in Texas instead of California, where they'll run their air conditioners 10 months out of the year in their huge, inefficient houses which draw power from coal plants.
I think the parts of Texas and California with tech jobs are... not substitutable for a large part of the tech workforce on political/social grounds.
I do agree that higher density and public transit would help make California better by my standards more than requiring rooftop solar... but at least in the higher density parts of California where I am? I don't think requiring rooftop solar will make much difference. If you have a large multi story complex, adding rooftop solar won't do a lot, but it also isn't going to add significantly to the cost of the building, just 'cause there isn't much roof compared to the rest of the building.
In the high density parts of California that I want to live in, single family homes are already the domain of the rich. Personally, that's okay with me; I don't need a single family home, and I think we should be focusing on building more condos in the high density parts of the state, and as I said, requiring the roofs to be covered with solar isn't going to significantly change the cost of building those higher density buildings.
Austin is comically liberal which is great because Ted Cruz has to drive past a bunch of communists from uta legally flashing their freedom boobies at him whenever he visits the capital building.
It's also a pretty intense flashpoint though, when those same communists exercise their Texas mandated long gun open carry rights, while wearing hammer and sickle armbands and shit.
I dunno man. You won't be hard pressed to find fellow liberals in Austin, but you're still in Texas. Ford f150s will still aggressively run your bicycle off the road, your Bernie stickers will still get you vandalized if there happens to be some sort of Republican event at the capital. It's constant idealogical warfare between the young people and the rest of the state, and not even all the young people because uta is the biggest university so all sorts end up there, including people that probably would have found more like minded colleagues at a&m.
See, that's what I like about Silicon Valley. There are a lot of crazy conservative folk here, a bunch of the people I hung around as a younger person were right-libertarian almost to the point of being anarcho-capitalist, and I still know a fair number of those types, though they aren't as common once you start working for big companies rather than startups... but they got along just fine with the socialists in the same office. And they both were okay with the immigrants who, I imagine, came away with the idea that Americans, while a little nutso if you talk about politics, are generally decent people.
But that's the thing, and what made silicon valley so much more attractive than my (rural california) hometown... nobody tries to run anyone off the road. Sure, sure, we disagree and puff and stuff, but people leave their guns at home, and the taboo against vehicular manslaughter is maintained, even if the victim is on a bicycle. We socialize in groups that cross ethnic and political boundaries.
But then, I'm one of those people for whom Texas is not a substitutable place for Silicon Valley. (New York might be. Texas is not.) I'm completely aware that there are people who prefer Texas in the same way I prefer Silicon Valley. (I'm also aware that I haven't spent a lot of time in Texas, and I'm mostly comparing rural California to Silicon Valley... but rural California has a lot of the problems Texas is perceived to have, re: big trucks aggressively running bicycles off the road and other acts of everyday terror )
In any case, the bay area being a liberal hub isn't exactly a strike against it, considering most cities are liberal hubs, and the existence of conservative hubs means that one can't necessarily judge a place for having a cultural zeitgeist.
Wait, what was the point of linking that article? I read it but it just furthered my point - a ton of metro areas lean liberal.
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "little tolerance," are you saying people are being run over by cars for being conservatives? Are houses being spray painted? Are wedding cakes not being baked for Republican couples?
>Wait, what was the point of linking that article?
The bay area is the most liberal area. Comparing to other cities that happened to have liberal majorities is pointless. It's like calling a community with 3% minorities just as diverse as a community with 45% minorities.
>are you saying people are being run over by cars
If you think it requires violence to be intolerant, you need to expand your views.
>Are houses being spray painted?
Cars with Trump stickers vandalized, yes.
>Are wedding cakes not being baked for Republican couples?
I'm not sure. It would be a little hard to tell since political parties rarely show up on the cake request forms.
This is a very old debate (I mean, the 'If we are intolerant of intolerance, is does that make us intolerant ourselves?' thing) - and I'm not saying I have the answers, (and my perception is that at least before Trump, Republicans were totally acceptable) but it's really not very relevant to my point.
My point is just that Texas and California are not exactly substitutable goods, as it were. just like how there are people who would be much happier in Texas than California for non-monitary reasons, there are people who would be much happier in California than in Texas for non-monetary reasons.
My argument is just that saying that lining up Texas with California as competitors for talent is... probably not as correct as, say, lining up California and NYC.
You're assumption that Republicans represent intolerance already reveals your partisanship. It's comical that you can't even see the insanity of that equivalence.
>My argument is just that saying that lining up Texas with California as competitors for talent is... probably not as correct as
More preconceived notion crap. I suggest you lookup the city that most bay area residents moved to last year.
> I think the parts of Texas and California with tech jobs are... not substitutable for a large part of the tech workforce on political/social grounds.
For some part of the workforce. 15% of software developers in the US work in California. For comparison, CA has 12% of the US population.
Many folks that work in CA are from out of state and do it for career/financial reasons, not for political/social reasons. And they'd be fine with living in a suburb of Austin if it were materially more appealing than some suburb of San Francisco.
>Many folks that work in CA are from out of state and do it for career/financial reasons, not for political/social reasons.
The fact that most folks in CA are from out of state doesn't imply that they would be just as happy in Texas. Something like 40% of our STEM workforce is from outside the country. Do you think an immigrant would be treated as well in Texas as in California? (maybe this is my prejudice showing, but everything I've seen and heard is that they would not.) add to that the developers who aren't heterosexual (or who are but who don't look it) or who aren't white, and I think you have a lot of people who... probably have good reason to stay on this side of the mason-dixon line.
(I feel the need to add a disclaimer; I've not spent a huge amount of time in Texas, and perhaps it isn't so bad, but... this perception is common, and it does mean some people won't take jobs in Texas, just like the perception that California is a nanny state where you will get fired for not being politically correct will keep many Texans out of California.)
> Do you think an immigrant would be treated as well in Texas as in California?
Yes. I would expect an immigrant living in one of Texas' cities to be treated just as well as an immigrant living in one of California's cities and same for the rural areas.
Yes, they would be just fine. “Southern hospitality” really is a thing here, and our cities are much more diverse than what one might think if you haven’t visited. On my street where I live in my very affordable single-family home, we have virtually every major ethnicity represented, and everything from blue collar workers to doctors and software engineers.
Texas is different politically than California, but it is just as good a place to live for anyone coming to the Melting Pot. And in the end, both states face many of the same problems, the major cities are very similar, and the rural areas are also very similar.
Disclaimer: I live in Texas, and have lived in many other less cowboyish states, as well as living several places internationally.
Don't baselessly stereotype an entire state. Having lived in both the bay, LA, Austin, and Dallas, I can tell you that there is no issue for immigrants or homosexuals in either of those locations.
The only difference is the sense of superiority in California echoed in your comment indicating that California is the only place with enlightened people.
>Many folks that work in CA are from out of state and do it for career/financial reasons, not for political/social reasons. And they'd be fine with living in a suburb of Austin if it were materially more appealing than some suburb of San Francisco.
If I could be paid what I make in San Francisco in almost any other metropolitan city in the US I would move. The weather that people rave about sucks and the politics are rage inducing.
What I was trying to say is that most people have pretty strong preferences for the bay are or for texas. And you can induce some to switch using higher wages/lower CoL... but those preferences remain pretty strong, and for some are almost absolute. For me, I think I'd need to make about 2x the money to live in Texas; and I'm sure there's a lot of people who feel that way about coming to California. (to be clear, I'm not saying either one is better in general, just that many people, perhaps most have strong preferences one way or the other, preferences it would take significant money to overcome.)
Rooftop solar is a double benefit in very hot locations - you get the electricity, and also shade on the conventional roof, which can greatly reduce the amount of electricity used to cool the house.
Here in AZ with rooftop solar, the shade difference is quite noticeable.
I disagree. Mandatory solar on houses is the low hanging fruit, and it's easier to address than higher density living or public transport. And it makes sense to put the otherwise unused roof space to work.
Besides that, big open plots of solar panels are an eye sore, and don't make sense when land is so expensive.
> If the state would focus on higher density living
Contrary to popular belief, the Los Angeles metro area has a very high population density. It's 2nd in the US, and the SF Bay Area is 7th. Both are on par with European metros.
Your numbers are technically correct, but a measurement along the lines of "perceived density" is probably more accurate. I would define perceived density as the density of people living in urbanized census blocks (i.e. 1000 people per square mile [0]). For example most people in the Bay Area don't live in (or even afford to) Marin County. Yet all those multi-acre properties are counted in our land measurements.
The Bay Area is basically a series of valleys where everybody lives and works, mountain ranges that are barely developed, and a large body of water right in the middle.
Land is less in short supply than T&D infrastructure and built environment.
Total built area is, very roughly, equivalent to solar PV insolation requirements, and at least a portion of that space (or area) is low-hanging fruit.
Undeveloped land has other potential uses, including rec, ag, and ecological ones.
> I'm certainly a big fan of solar power, but rooftop solar is a little silly. Rooftop solar would make sense if we had some shortage of land and couldn't just fill up empty fields with panels, but that's not the case. It's much cheaper for utility companies to buy up big plots of land than it is to try to figure out how to outfit odd shaped surfaces with panels.
I think a ton more people generating their own power and being shown the data of how much power they're generating and using in real time is a great thing. People I know with solar panels are excited to try and run net zero and know stuff like their energy peak usage during heat waves. I don't know anyone without solar panels that monitors their energy use like that.
Submitters: since the HN guidelines call for original sources, we'd appreciate it if you'd scan an article for a link to one before posting. It's one step of manual web crawling in exchange for better content on the site—plus it's fairer to give credit to the original instead of a cribbed knockoff.
I don't understand your complaint, especially since the OC register article you seem to like for whatever reason is not the first to publish and is itself just a cribbed knockoff.
Are we expected to research every URL and find the first to report on it no matter what? Even if it's obscure, out of date, or wrong?
Scanning an article for a link to a more original source is one manual step. That's not hard, since one presumably reads an article before submitting it and the link to the other source is usually prominent, like it was above. Another recent case is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17007441.
If the earlier article is out of date or wrong, then presumably the new link includes significant new information, in which case it's not a knockoff.
The OCR article looked to me like original reporting, but if you know of another piece that it's copying, we can change the URL again.
By "cribbed knockoff" I mean the thing that media properties do where they lift material from somewhere, make a fig leaf's worth of modification, and publish it themselves. Some people call this blogspam, but that's a contested word. There are plenty of these sites. If knockoffs are all they do, we ban them, but some also publish original articles, and we don't want to exclude those.
Are we expected to research every URL and find the first to report on it no matter what?
Not always but primary sources are definitely preferred. If it's a science paper split the difference, eg an explainer article may provide valuable context missing from a highly technical paper, but then it's nice to link the paper in the comments.
It is a great idea, as there are two other benefits:
1. Transportation of over large distances has efficiency loss on electricity and requires more cumbersome infrastructure.
2. Less heat on the neighborhood as some of that energy is absorbed into electricity instead of being bounced off to the surrounding. Having normal tiles that just absorb heat will increase the temperature of both the building and the surrounding environment. (requiring even more energy to cool off).
During the summer, NYC, especially manhattan, is famous to have 2F higher temperatures that it normally should have just because of the heat radiation from the building, pavement, and air conditioners.
Requiring a rooftop garden on large buildings is another interesting idea.
> Transportation of over large distances has efficiency loss on electricity and requires more cumbersome infrastructure.
On a rooftop, you have the more significant inefficiencies of trees and suboptimal angles. In a field, you can optimize for efficient collection, and you can even install pivoting panels (much more cheaply than on a house, anyway) which can optimize collection throughout the day.
Even if the transmission loss is larger than the gain from optimal positioning (and I doubt it is), it's all marginal compared to the maintenance difference (having a technician walk out to a panel in a field vs setting up appointments with home residents, driving out to their homes, climbing on their roofs, additional risk of injury for the technician from falls, risk of damaging homes, etc).
No affiliation with this project, but you do know that it is possible to tilt the panels.
(http://www.heliowatcher.com)
>We designed and built a system to automatically orient a solar panel for maximum efficiency, record data, and safely charge batteries. Using a GPS module and magnetometer, the HelioWatcher allows the user to place the system anywhere in the world without any calibration. The HelioWatcher then calculates what the sun’s current location is and orients the panel to the appropriate angle
Yes, I am aware. I mentioned it in the second sentence of my post:
> ... you can even install pivoting panels ...
And like I said in my post, installing these is cheaper and easier in a field than on every home. For one, you only need one "tilt computer" module that can determine the optimal angle for all of the panels in the field. More importantly though, moving parts will wear and break eventually, and it's a lot easier (and safer!) to walk out into the field and service them than scheduling appointments, driving to customers' property, climbing on roofs, etc.
Just for fun, I've built these. You don't even need a GPS module nor magnetometer, you just need a few light sensors, one or two small motors (depending on whether you tilt in one dimension or two), and a couple dollars' worth of standard electronic components.
Non-grid-tie set up here. 4 100 Watt Panels on mine, powers everything except for the propane. Generator for cloudy days. Total Cost: $2000 (wiring, kinda expensive MPPT charge, kinda expensive swing-capable brackets, kinda expensive inverter) already had the propane generator. After learning how to do this on an RV I've decided to never buy a stick home again since most states will require a grid-tie (which is the dumbest thing you can do)... So living in a trailer is the best way to live now.
My system cost about $15,000 via solar city for a 6kwh system. Austin utility paid me about 3000 and I got a 4000 tax credit. Last month my bill was -20 dollars. Looking back on solar, probably not the best financial decision but I think it's pretty cool and I will be able to run the AC this summer at 70 for a reasonable bill.
From June till September last year(pre solar) my energy bill was near 200. My financing is about 70 dollars a month for the next 20 years... I'm expecting my solar production to cover probably 70% of my bill. Since I'm paying financing plus utility hookup(mandatory $10), plus what ever I use after solar; I will likely not recoup my investment. Imho, it's more feelgood and a hedge against future energy price increases.
I have also noticed that I pay attention more to my consumption. I've debated on buying an energy consumption device like sense, but it seems like a toy...
The -20 bill was the result of having pleasant weather and not running the AC as frequently in April, plus it was a very sunny April... I'm pretty sure I will not have a negative utility bill in August.
I think this is quite interesting, but despite being a strong fan of solar power, I don't think this is a great idea. There are plenty of homes in areas of low insolation (under trees, facing the wrong way) and this becomes simply a pointless tax for them.
A specific solar incentive (payable only on new construction if you'd like) based on yield would make more sense.
Transportation across single-family-home sprawl, which we explicitly cultivate with regulation, is a far greater contributor to climate change than utility power.
The cost of the solar panels doesn't necessarily come out of the buyer's pocket. Instead, the cost could come out of the previous landowner's profits, if prices are mostly determined by what buyers can afford. In other words, the land drops in value by the cost of the solar panels that will have to be installed on it.
Specifying HOW to go about being energy efficient is the entirely wrong approach. Instead specify a minimum energy efficiency per square meter and let home builders sort it out.
By specifying minimum efficiencies builders are free to adopt new technologies, new methods as they come along or
use alternate means which are more suitable for a specific project.
For example I live near a river and intend to use micro-hydro for my electricity. Do I still need to have solar panels? Or will the legislators need to add in a thousand exceptions to the rules?
I agree, this is ridiculous California virtue-signaling at its finest and will result in a heck of a lot of unintended consequences (just like prop 13 has) - meanwhile many of the houses in my city were built in the 30s and 40s and have plaster walls, no insulation, no heat return, single pane glass etc which results in easily 10x more energy use for heating than modern construction would, but can't be rebuilt with modern materials because of the expense and difficulty of building new homes thanks to wrongheaded legislation like this.
Not really. You can blow in insulation into walls and attic. Air seal the house. Replace the windows with better ones. These regulations do not drive up the cost to upgrade existing houses.
When the regulation requires that modifications bring things up to the new code and you've got decades of regulations like that piled up the most reasonable options are touch nothing or rebuild the entire house
In Indiana, for example, you don't have to upgrade the electrical system if you are adding insulation, replacing windows, or replacing the roof.
You may or may not need to upgrade your electric to replace a plug, mostly because some older systems aren't grounded. It is possible to rewire a single room without upgrading the entire house.
You don't need to upgrade the plumbing while you upgrade the electrical, just like you don't need to upgrade the electrical if you are treating the asbestos (a problem my parents had with an old house built in 1918). Most times, whatever you are fixing needs to be up to code but not everything. If it weren't reasonable, it wouldn't be prudent to buy an old house without detailed upkeep and upgrade records.
The current "best wall we know how to make" is sufficiently different from the existing walls that it basically becomes new construction.
Siding or brick, four to six inches of rigid foam overlapping insulation, a fully sealed waterproof, windproof membrane, structural sheathing, 2x4 or 2x6 framing, internal wallboard, latex paint.
Consider the existing state of most of those houses:
Painted sheathing or siding, 2x4 framing, fiberglass batt insulation with kraft paper vapor barrier inside the framing, wall board, latex paint.
Essentially the only piece you get to keep is the 2x4s, assuming you come at it from the inside. If you come at it from the outside, you can do marginally better by keeping the interior walls, but you also have to brace the structure while you replace the exterior sheathing since it's almost always structurally loaded.
Blow in insulation is fairly common. A small hole is drilled into the walls and cellulose fibers are pumped in. If you have water leaking through walls you have bigger problems that need to be fixed anyway.
Specifying how to go about it ensures that the lobyists, former termed-out reps on the Energy Commission, and state political parties all get their appropriate kickback.
Energy efficiency per square meter doesn't discourage people from economizing space. In other words, people will still be able to consume more energy by building larger living spaces.
Ideally the target metric would be expressed as energy efficiency per resident occupant, but that would be significantly more challenging to enforce.
It defines specifically HOW a bunch of aspects of the build are to be achieved. Even when there are vastly better options already available, or the LEED approach is inappropriate for a particular build site. It requires a bunch of gimmicks that aren't necessary or even a net negative in many cases.
Part of the LEED "energy" criterion is labeling the building as LEED. Which is absurd on its face.
I partly agree in principle, your idea is much better generally. But it's also tricky for government to evaluate every energy efficiency invention. When you know certain solutions work and work at scale, it makes sense to mandate them. It's like saying let's not require every home to be connected to sewage because that reduces incentives to invent new waste management systems. Some things 'just work' and make sense as a minimum building standard. Whether solar is part of that, I don't know for sure, but the notion it's useful to agree on a few basic ideas strikes true.
It's also important not to forget the economies of scale here. It can be a blessing to know you and all your competitors will need to create solar roofs, the one who builds the best standardised product at scale wins.
I'd prefer to see builders be able to choose from a set of proven standardised technologies (e.g. not just panels but also say solar water heaters) and allow an exception procedure for people like you, which allows you to showcase efficiency-equivalence... rather than for all builders to do their own thing and government having to evaluate each system individually.
My home isn't connected to sewage (or water). The municipality doesn't provide that in my low-density area.
Instead I have well water and a septic field.
Require that a home has a source of electricity, water, sewage and meeds some efficiency standards but do NOT specify how those are to be met. You can issue guidelines separately, but they shouldn't be legislated.
If it’s anything like here you probably would. In Washington state, most power is generated by dams [0]. For whatever reason, most (all?) renewable energy laws in this state do not consider hydro to be renewable.
See Pharma companies for an example of what happens when you have a guaranteed market that capitalises on research funded by the public. Solar is very similar.
Israel mandated roof top solar water heaters for a while (since 1980 according to [0], but essentially every building built since 1960 or so has one). It's relatively cheap, pays for itself in 3-5 years, and is carbon neutral. This stores energy as hot water, not using PV panels (such as those discussed in the article). A relatively small panel per apartment is sufficient.
I do not claim that the California directive is sensible, but it is worth comparing to a somewhat similar directive that has been in place for 40 years with great effect - reducing grid energy production by 8%, saving everyone money (if the article is to be trusted), and only being a minor eye sore ....
Residential solar thermal no longer makes any kind of economic sense. These existing mandates only show how government regulations can serve to ossify bad practices and harm innovation.
Not a citation, but when I last looked at it for a cabin, the plumbing costs, pumps, and extra stuff required in addition to the normal heater drove the cost so high that it was just cheaper to add more PV panels, which have been coming down because they are made in great volume.
Someplace without freezing weather, or someone who might just say “too cloudy too long, no warm shower today” might have a different calculus.
As far as sun goes, Israel is comparable to California, and all data I was able to find is along the lines of "8% less energy production required, 3-5 years ROI".
To me that does make economic sense, both at the state level and at the individual level; why do you call it a "bad practice"?.
AFAIK, the laws do allow PV panels instead of solar thermal. I'm not aware of any innovation harmed by such a mandate in either Israel or Portugal. Do you?
Tangentially - how about mandatory rainwater storage? A sink for rain to reduce flooding, and a source for grey-water (non-potable water, although residential purification is entirely possible) to alleviate pressure on reserves in times of drought.
It's actually the opposite. In some parts of California, it's illegal to capture rainwater. Because it affects groundwater runoff and the surrounding ecosystem.
A typical failure to understand the law of unintended consequences.
The total volume of water consumed remains the same, but the water lost to evaporation & distribution leakage (collectively akin to the transmission losses for electricity mentioned elsewhere in this thread) means that not collecting rainwater is less efficient.
Then there's the flood damage caused when the increasing expanses of paved ground fail to absorb heavy rain that rainwater collection can help alleviate.
If you are fabulously wealthy that you can [have a latte each morning], let alone [buy it at Starbucks], you can afford [an additional tax on your latte for the peasant that got the coffee beans.]
A latte is $3.65. If you made your own cup at home, you would spend $0.05. Starbucks is 73x. I believe you need to stop buying lattes from Starbucks and start making your own coffee at home like I do. Stop being such an elitist. Get to work.
I'm sorry! Was that an attack? I figured if you are into telling others how they should spend their money or live their lives or be taxed by government in freedom-restricting ways, then that maybe you would be intellectually honest and not be bothered if I TOLD YOU what to do with some element of your life. How is that an ATTACK?
I make my coffee at home. Sustainable shade grown fair trade coffee in my parts costs $15.50 a pound. 17g of coffee for a cup is $0.58 per cup. So for sustainable coffee you are off by an order of magnitude.
What is pretentious about buying products that attempt to be better for the earth, and better for your body? It's fine if "coffee is coffee" for you (heck, I've been known to skip coffee altogether in favor of caffeine pills), but there's nothing pretentious about being conscious of one's consumer choices.
Not to mention for an 8 oz latte you'll be paying around $0.70-$1.20 for organic, pasture-raised, eco-friendly milk. We're already at a $1.70 for a morning latte.
ANy actual numbers on that? New terracotta versus terracotta solar panels as one example (measuring in longevity and estimated cost/income on the balancing sheet etc..?
Typical politics. Increase the costs of building homes in a housing poor area while claiming to help the environment. The increased new development costs is likely the entire motivation(i.e. market manipulation).
I wonder if a device could be built to generate power from earthquakes. Apparently southern California has 27 earthquakes every day. If a device could be built to harness that it could be useful. I know they're not all in the same place each day but 27 per day in such a small area may be enough.
California is too big to do state-level regulation. For Bay Area homes this is pretty insignificant and possibly positive (sometimes regulation might be more efficient), but adding $20-30k to houses in less-expensive parts of the state is crazy.
This should have been done at the local or regional level, if at all. California should remain one state, probably, but add regional regulatory entities between counties and the state.
> California should remain one state, probably, but add regional regulatory entities between counties and the state.
We could accomplish this by giving regional government authorities like the Association of Bay Area Governments
more authority. Essentially the metropolitan areas become like city states. The state could set certain goals (reduce carbon by this much, increase housing by that much), but it would be up to regional government to specify implementation details.
The question I'd have would be should there be:
1) direct democratic participation in those authorities (elected by the residents of the area), or
2) should they be selected by the subsidiary jurisdictions (counties/cities),
3) or by the state (legislature or governor).
The state government seems dysfunctional in a lot of ways, so while maybe goals could come down from the state, the actual authorities should be 1) or 2). Maybe some combination.
The effects of their policy. High carbon output. High cost of living. High cost of energy. And as little bonus, water shortages.
Bad in every possible way for poor people living in California. Its truly sad state, specifically because all of these problems have extremly simple solutions.
- Don't only force renewables, but rather allow all forms of new energy that are better then the current (don't close nuclear plants for example). This is also better for prices.
- Allow more house building. No brainer.
- Make a proper water market with block pricing so poor people have basically free water and water is directed where it is sensable. Farmers SHOULD consider water cost when making a choice of crops. People should pay to have a green garden and/or clean their car every day.
Many people have expressed concern that this will make houses less affordable. That's not clear to me, at least in the case of people who borrow most of the money for their house (which is the vast majority).
The solar part of this adds about $15k to the cost of the house. That's about $75/month on a 30 year fixed mortgage at current rates.
Much of that, if not all or more, comes back in savings on the electric bill.
Doesn't that mean that for most single family home buyers the difference will mostly just be a slightly higher down payment?
You're being optimistic. There is depreciation and maintenance cost. It also assumes a lot about the cost of electricity in the future, given how if this has any real effect it is meant to move exactly that market.
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[ 2555 ms ] story [ 3887 ms ] threadCalifornia is really missing the forrest for the trees here. There's so much low hanging fruit (things that could kill two birds with one stone) that they're ignoring. If the state would focus on higher density living and public transportation over imposing regulations that will drive more people away and lower the standard of living for those who remain, then we would see a much bigger global impact on reducing climate change. Because of this, more people will decide to live in Texas instead of California, where they'll run their air conditioners 10 months out of the year in their huge, inefficient houses which draw power from coal plants.
Stonefruit, you might say.
>...where they'll run their air conditioners 10 months out of the year in their huge, inefficient houses
The type of people that live in huge inefficient homes are generally also the same type of people that don't want to live in high density areas. California could turn open fields in to solar farms like you mentioned, but that requires that someone foot the bill and also build the infrastructure for it. "Forcing" people to put solar panels on their own home solves both of those problems. It also makes you more immune to losing power in a natural disaster, of which California has plenty.
I'm not saying I'm even for this issue, I don't live in California. But your view is extremely negative and ignores the negatives of your way while also ignoring the positives of the way mentioned in the article.
You're missing the obvious alternative, which is that Cali could instead tax new homes the amount required to install the equivalent panels in some field, where they're cheaper and easier to service, where they can be positioned for optimal sunlight, etc.
No thanks. Then some other org controls the power I can get from those panels, can corrupt officials to raise my rates unnecessarily, charge me higher rates for generation facilities that may not be needed except to juice shareholder returns (Duke Energy collected over a billion dollars for a nuclear power plant they'll never build in Florida, and they are under no obligation to return those funds to ratepayers). This is not uncommon. NV Energy in Nevada, Duke and FPL in Florida, utility coalitions in Kentucky and Arizona have all fought against distributed generation, the list goes on.
Rooftop/distributed solar is a hedge against utility shenanigans, and with how quickly rooftop solar pays itself back (under 10 years in over half the US states while rolling the cost into a long term fixed rate loan product, ie your mortgage), it's insane we don't mandate its installation in more places on new/retrofit construction [1].
Disclosure: I own a 10kw solar install on my roof. I’m biased and opinionated.
[1] https://i.imgur.com/ug2R3Jl.jpg (NREL US Solar Potential Map)
[+] https://i.imgur.com/c86gWxh.jpg (Rate of return on cash invested by state)
[1] https://www.lazard.com/perspective/levelized-cost-of-storage... (Lazard Levelized Cost of Storage 2017)
[2] https://www.pv-magazine.com/2017/08/03/lithium-ion-batteries... (Lithium-ion batteries below $200/kWh by 2019 will drive rapid storage uptake, finds IHS Markit)
[3] https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/confronting-duck-curve-...
With storage you need less supply and you can supplement your supply when rates are lowest.
You can be "off grid" by throwing a switch.
You can however get expensive inverters than do work of the grid, but they are, as mentioned, expensive compared to a simple grid-tie inverter.
Why why just new homes. Instead tax all electricity consumers on their bills to pay for the solar farms.
I'm not saying it's right or wrong, but it is very clearly what California voters want. The idea is that we have these massive boom/bust cycles (that seem to trend upwards) and we want to ensure that those who are already here benefit from the boom times, even at the cost of making things rather harder for the newcomers.
The interesting thing is that... a lot of the older service people I've talked to, barbers, uber drivers, etc... own homes around here that they bought when it was cheap. because of these rules, sure, they can't eat out everyday, but they can continue to live around here, should they so choose, on very small wages. I think that our rent control and our prop 13 and other favoring of existing residents does in part subsidize our service industry; in some ways, I think it's why services around here just aren't as expensive as you would expect, when you consider how much more expensive rent is here (and programers are here) vs. the rest of the country.
I personally think that the economy would be better overall if we just built a lot and then raised the costs of the output of locally produced services in line with rent, e.g. raised service wages in line with programmer wages. But, I do think it's important to understand the majority California view.
...wait, what?
Just my opinion, of course, and I understand it's an unpopular one.
TLDR; the proportion of programmers matters.
Corporations using a lot of electricity get the same sized tax dividend check the pensioner gets, so it's a net loss for them. The wealthy subsidize the poor under this system.
It functions alot like ubi actually.
Given that large corporations who consume huge amounts of electricity are in the pool, it's almost impossible that the pensioner could consume more than the average.
Unfortunately, this is generally not the case. Most grid-tie solar inverters do not support disconnected operation. They all have anti-islanding features that disconnect the solar panels when the grid goes down (to prevent back-flow into the grid that could injure linemen working to repair outages). There are a few inverters that include an emergency-outlet on the inverter that works when the power is out, but you have to run an extension cord from the inverter to the devices you want to power.
It is possible to buy a hybird off-grid inverter, but they are much more expensive than either plain grid-tie or off-grid, and the power company is going to scrutinize their installation a lot more closely.
Surely they can't entirely rely on this for safety?
Back-flows from generators, solar and other home power sources are not really an issue. It takes a specific set of circumstances where there's both equipment failure and the utility worker fails to check if lines are live.
Basically, the resistance of the entire neighborhood is indistinguishable to a short from the perspective of the breakers on your power generation equipment.
Still, you shouldn't back feed because we live in a society where everyone must play by the rules of idiots regardless of whether or not they can prove themselves to be otherwise. Therefore you cannot be trusted to flip switches properly yourself and I must advise you to use a proper transfer switch.
What would be the benefit of me "properly flipping switches" in the context of a natural disaster? What if I am not home?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Powerwall
If solar is profitable why is some private company not doing it already ?
https://www.eia.gov/renewable/monthly/solar_photo/pdf/pv_tab...
https://twitter.com/LSValue/status/992429019680378880
You may be referencing old sources. For example, even though the UK's solar potential is reasonably low, the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) shows that levelized cost of solar-generated power IS cheaper than MOST other forms of energy.[1]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...
California has higher energy prices and the poor people who tend to live in inner parts are suffering a lot.
When you look at profitability you need to deduct the government subsidies and assume that it comes from our taxes. Is it really sensible idea to tax a farmer in yolo county to pay more for his energy usage because the rich people in bay area have decides that solar is more important ?
This leads to more inequality, resentment and a divided society.
Is this true? IIRC the shortage of urban-style denser housing is so severe that pretty much everyone who prefers that type of housing has to buy a sprawly McMansion anyways, since that's what on the market at prices people can afford.
"Huge" and "inefficient" is in the eye of the beholder, and in most countries your standard-sized American house would fall under both of those categories.
[0] https://www.zillow.com/ca/home-values/
I think constraining this discussion to California might be more appropriate, since this is CA legislation.
The regulatory environment currently has its thumb on the scales in favor of single-family homes. Shifting the pendulum the other way, even a little bit, is a good thing. We shouldn’t be building anything less than 4 stories tall, and if we do, costs like this can and should be spread across several tenants.
I disagree strongly. I think the most valuable thing about silicon valley is that I can walk to tens of small employers, from my house, and at least two big employers who could reasonably hire me.
In bicycling or uber distance, there are thousands of small places and hundreds of large employers.
Because I live in the silicon valley, I can switch jobs almost on a whim; I don't have to move, I don't have to upset my social circles, etc...
I think this is actually a big part of why Silicon Valley is valuable both to the workers and to the employers; there's a huge pool of people and a huge pool of jobs that we can match up without inconveniencing anyone. You don't have to settle for the job that is nearby or for the employee who is willing to move.
The only reason I think is that owners of these companeis don't give shit.
Riding crowded mass transit and living in apartments with your neighbors 4" away should be a choice and there should exist reasonably priced alternatives. The target is a society so wealthy that the median person can own a home where they want and commute in their luxury car if that's what they want to do.
(And before everyone complains about pollution I would like to point out that achieving that level of wealth is so far off that home heating/cooling and transportation are likely to be basically all electric and the grid will be what determines the environmental impact of that)
It’s relatively straightforward to alleviate transit crowding, and to sound-isolate apartments, with money. But no practical amount of road expansion fixes congestion, and we’re not likely to remove the mountains or fill in the Bay for more tract housing.
I'll take baby steps.
That's a pretty silly take. Less expensive houses have large areas of simple roof (in areas with variable climate, about ½ of the areas even face south).
The economics are worse than utility solar, but its not a puzzle how to attach them to a rooftop.
The space is free if you’re already building a house anyway. Installation seems fairly straightforward. Is it really that much cheaper to install separate panels that it offsets the cost of buying dedicated land for it?
Flat, but virtually always angled. (Sometimes good, sometimes not.)
Easier to survive a war or natural disasters if everyone has their own way to generate power from the sun. It would be a shame if solar power, which allows for that, wouldn't be used that way, and instead everyone just kept getting their power from a centralized source, just as before.
There's certainly efficiency to be gained from pooling our resources into a centralized power grid, but I think redundancy and protection from grid failures are also perfectly valid goals.
On the flip side, not everyone wants to live in high-density housing. Why not also require single-family homes to have solar?
Well, if it's mandatory, then we may see roofs being developed/built that are more friendly for installing panels on. Most homes with panels had them installed years after the home was built, in many cases before "installing solar panels on your roof" was a thing people could even do on their homes.
I think the parts of Texas and California with tech jobs are... not substitutable for a large part of the tech workforce on political/social grounds.
I do agree that higher density and public transit would help make California better by my standards more than requiring rooftop solar... but at least in the higher density parts of California where I am? I don't think requiring rooftop solar will make much difference. If you have a large multi story complex, adding rooftop solar won't do a lot, but it also isn't going to add significantly to the cost of the building, just 'cause there isn't much roof compared to the rest of the building.
In the high density parts of California that I want to live in, single family homes are already the domain of the rich. Personally, that's okay with me; I don't need a single family home, and I think we should be focusing on building more condos in the high density parts of the state, and as I said, requiring the roofs to be covered with solar isn't going to significantly change the cost of building those higher density buildings.
It's also a pretty intense flashpoint though, when those same communists exercise their Texas mandated long gun open carry rights, while wearing hammer and sickle armbands and shit.
I dunno man. You won't be hard pressed to find fellow liberals in Austin, but you're still in Texas. Ford f150s will still aggressively run your bicycle off the road, your Bernie stickers will still get you vandalized if there happens to be some sort of Republican event at the capital. It's constant idealogical warfare between the young people and the rest of the state, and not even all the young people because uta is the biggest university so all sorts end up there, including people that probably would have found more like minded colleagues at a&m.
It can be exhausting, speaking from experience.
But that's the thing, and what made silicon valley so much more attractive than my (rural california) hometown... nobody tries to run anyone off the road. Sure, sure, we disagree and puff and stuff, but people leave their guns at home, and the taboo against vehicular manslaughter is maintained, even if the victim is on a bicycle. We socialize in groups that cross ethnic and political boundaries.
But then, I'm one of those people for whom Texas is not a substitutable place for Silicon Valley. (New York might be. Texas is not.) I'm completely aware that there are people who prefer Texas in the same way I prefer Silicon Valley. (I'm also aware that I haven't spent a lot of time in Texas, and I'm mostly comparing rural California to Silicon Valley... but rural California has a lot of the problems Texas is perceived to have, re: big trucks aggressively running bicycles off the road and other acts of everyday terror )
In any case, the bay area being a liberal hub isn't exactly a strike against it, considering most cities are liberal hubs, and the existence of conservative hubs means that one can't necessarily judge a place for having a cultural zeitgeist.
https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/12/mapping-how-americas-...
Also, I'm not sure what you mean by "little tolerance," are you saying people are being run over by cars for being conservatives? Are houses being spray painted? Are wedding cakes not being baked for Republican couples?
The bay area is the most liberal area. Comparing to other cities that happened to have liberal majorities is pointless. It's like calling a community with 3% minorities just as diverse as a community with 45% minorities.
>are you saying people are being run over by cars
If you think it requires violence to be intolerant, you need to expand your views.
>Are houses being spray painted?
Cars with Trump stickers vandalized, yes.
>Are wedding cakes not being baked for Republican couples?
I'm not sure. It would be a little hard to tell since political parties rarely show up on the cake request forms.
My point is just that Texas and California are not exactly substitutable goods, as it were. just like how there are people who would be much happier in Texas than California for non-monitary reasons, there are people who would be much happier in California than in Texas for non-monetary reasons.
My argument is just that saying that lining up Texas with California as competitors for talent is... probably not as correct as, say, lining up California and NYC.
>My argument is just that saying that lining up Texas with California as competitors for talent is... probably not as correct as
More preconceived notion crap. I suggest you lookup the city that most bay area residents moved to last year.
For some part of the workforce. 15% of software developers in the US work in California. For comparison, CA has 12% of the US population.
Many folks that work in CA are from out of state and do it for career/financial reasons, not for political/social reasons. And they'd be fine with living in a suburb of Austin if it were materially more appealing than some suburb of San Francisco.
[1] https://dqydj.com/number-of-developers-in-america-and-per-st...
The fact that most folks in CA are from out of state doesn't imply that they would be just as happy in Texas. Something like 40% of our STEM workforce is from outside the country. Do you think an immigrant would be treated as well in Texas as in California? (maybe this is my prejudice showing, but everything I've seen and heard is that they would not.) add to that the developers who aren't heterosexual (or who are but who don't look it) or who aren't white, and I think you have a lot of people who... probably have good reason to stay on this side of the mason-dixon line.
(I feel the need to add a disclaimer; I've not spent a huge amount of time in Texas, and perhaps it isn't so bad, but... this perception is common, and it does mean some people won't take jobs in Texas, just like the perception that California is a nanny state where you will get fired for not being politically correct will keep many Texans out of California.)
Yes. I would expect an immigrant living in one of Texas' cities to be treated just as well as an immigrant living in one of California's cities and same for the rural areas.
16% of Texas residents are immigrants. Non-hispanic whites are a minority in the state.
Texas is different politically than California, but it is just as good a place to live for anyone coming to the Melting Pot. And in the end, both states face many of the same problems, the major cities are very similar, and the rural areas are also very similar.
Disclaimer: I live in Texas, and have lived in many other less cowboyish states, as well as living several places internationally.
The only difference is the sense of superiority in California echoed in your comment indicating that California is the only place with enlightened people.
If I could be paid what I make in San Francisco in almost any other metropolitan city in the US I would move. The weather that people rave about sucks and the politics are rage inducing.
Here in AZ with rooftop solar, the shade difference is quite noticeable.
Besides that, big open plots of solar panels are an eye sore, and don't make sense when land is so expensive.
Contrary to popular belief, the Los Angeles metro area has a very high population density. It's 2nd in the US, and the SF Bay Area is 7th. Both are on par with European metros.
The Bay Area is basically a series of valleys where everybody lives and works, mountain ranges that are barely developed, and a large body of water right in the middle.
0: https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/urdef.txt
Total built area is, very roughly, equivalent to solar PV insolation requirements, and at least a portion of that space (or area) is low-hanging fruit.
Undeveloped land has other potential uses, including rec, ag, and ecological ones.
I think a ton more people generating their own power and being shown the data of how much power they're generating and using in real time is a great thing. People I know with solar panels are excited to try and run net zero and know stuff like their energy peak usage during heat waves. I don't know anyone without solar panels that monitors their energy use like that.
Submitters: since the HN guidelines call for original sources, we'd appreciate it if you'd scan an article for a link to one before posting. It's one step of manual web crawling in exchange for better content on the site—plus it's fairer to give credit to the original instead of a cribbed knockoff.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Are we expected to research every URL and find the first to report on it no matter what? Even if it's obscure, out of date, or wrong?
If the earlier article is out of date or wrong, then presumably the new link includes significant new information, in which case it's not a knockoff.
The OCR article looked to me like original reporting, but if you know of another piece that it's copying, we can change the URL again.
By "cribbed knockoff" I mean the thing that media properties do where they lift material from somewhere, make a fig leaf's worth of modification, and publish it themselves. Some people call this blogspam, but that's a contested word. There are plenty of these sites. If knockoffs are all they do, we ban them, but some also publish original articles, and we don't want to exclude those.
Not always but primary sources are definitely preferred. If it's a science paper split the difference, eg an explainer article may provide valuable context missing from a highly technical paper, but then it's nice to link the paper in the comments.
1. Transportation of over large distances has efficiency loss on electricity and requires more cumbersome infrastructure.
2. Less heat on the neighborhood as some of that energy is absorbed into electricity instead of being bounced off to the surrounding. Having normal tiles that just absorb heat will increase the temperature of both the building and the surrounding environment. (requiring even more energy to cool off).
During the summer, NYC, especially manhattan, is famous to have 2F higher temperatures that it normally should have just because of the heat radiation from the building, pavement, and air conditioners.
Requiring a rooftop garden on large buildings is another interesting idea.
On a rooftop, you have the more significant inefficiencies of trees and suboptimal angles. In a field, you can optimize for efficient collection, and you can even install pivoting panels (much more cheaply than on a house, anyway) which can optimize collection throughout the day.
Even if the transmission loss is larger than the gain from optimal positioning (and I doubt it is), it's all marginal compared to the maintenance difference (having a technician walk out to a panel in a field vs setting up appointments with home residents, driving out to their homes, climbing on their roofs, additional risk of injury for the technician from falls, risk of damaging homes, etc).
> ... you can even install pivoting panels ...
And like I said in my post, installing these is cheaper and easier in a field than on every home. For one, you only need one "tilt computer" module that can determine the optimal angle for all of the panels in the field. More importantly though, moving parts will wear and break eventually, and it's a lot easier (and safer!) to walk out into the field and service them than scheduling appointments, driving to customers' property, climbing on roofs, etc.
Just for fun, I've built these. You don't even need a GPS module nor magnetometer, you just need a few light sensors, one or two small motors (depending on whether you tilt in one dimension or two), and a couple dollars' worth of standard electronic components.
What's the 'dumb' thing about a grid tie?
I have also noticed that I pay attention more to my consumption. I've debated on buying an energy consumption device like sense, but it seems like a toy...
> I will be able to run the AC this summer at 70 for a reasonable bill.
Does this imply that the -20 is after somewhat intentionally raising power usage?
A specific solar incentive (payable only on new construction if you'd like) based on yield would make more sense.
Step 2: Virtual signal with a supposed solution.
Step 3: Mock anybody who criticizes that solution (but who also worries about the serious problem).
Specifying HOW to go about being energy efficient is the entirely wrong approach. Instead specify a minimum energy efficiency per square meter and let home builders sort it out.
By specifying minimum efficiencies builders are free to adopt new technologies, new methods as they come along or use alternate means which are more suitable for a specific project.
For example I live near a river and intend to use micro-hydro for my electricity. Do I still need to have solar panels? Or will the legislators need to add in a thousand exceptions to the rules?
In Indiana, for example, you don't have to upgrade the electrical system if you are adding insulation, replacing windows, or replacing the roof.
You may or may not need to upgrade your electric to replace a plug, mostly because some older systems aren't grounded. It is possible to rewire a single room without upgrading the entire house.
You don't need to upgrade the plumbing while you upgrade the electrical, just like you don't need to upgrade the electrical if you are treating the asbestos (a problem my parents had with an old house built in 1918). Most times, whatever you are fixing needs to be up to code but not everything. If it weren't reasonable, it wouldn't be prudent to buy an old house without detailed upkeep and upgrade records.
Siding or brick, four to six inches of rigid foam overlapping insulation, a fully sealed waterproof, windproof membrane, structural sheathing, 2x4 or 2x6 framing, internal wallboard, latex paint.
Consider the existing state of most of those houses:
Painted sheathing or siding, 2x4 framing, fiberglass batt insulation with kraft paper vapor barrier inside the framing, wall board, latex paint.
Essentially the only piece you get to keep is the 2x4s, assuming you come at it from the inside. If you come at it from the outside, you can do marginally better by keeping the interior walls, but you also have to brace the structure while you replace the exterior sheathing since it's almost always structurally loaded.
Ideally the target metric would be expressed as energy efficiency per resident occupant, but that would be significantly more challenging to enforce.
Part of the LEED "energy" criterion is labeling the building as LEED. Which is absurd on its face.
It's also important not to forget the economies of scale here. It can be a blessing to know you and all your competitors will need to create solar roofs, the one who builds the best standardised product at scale wins.
I'd prefer to see builders be able to choose from a set of proven standardised technologies (e.g. not just panels but also say solar water heaters) and allow an exception procedure for people like you, which allows you to showcase efficiency-equivalence... rather than for all builders to do their own thing and government having to evaluate each system individually.
Require that a home has a source of electricity, water, sewage and meeds some efficiency standards but do NOT specify how those are to be met. You can issue guidelines separately, but they shouldn't be legislated.
[0]: https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=WA
- Cali residents flee state to other more sane states that don't have these rules / situations
- Cali residents then vote for the same types of rules / situations in their new home state
When in a hole, keep digging!
I do not claim that the California directive is sensible, but it is worth comparing to a somewhat similar directive that has been in place for 40 years with great effect - reducing grid energy production by 8%, saving everyone money (if the article is to be trusted), and only being a minor eye sore ....
[0] https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS311612153620110318
[citation needed]
Someplace without freezing weather, or someone who might just say “too cloudy too long, no warm shower today” might have a different calculus.
To me that does make economic sense, both at the state level and at the individual level; why do you call it a "bad practice"?.
AFAIK, the laws do allow PV panels instead of solar thermal. I'm not aware of any innovation harmed by such a mandate in either Israel or Portugal. Do you?
The total volume of water consumed remains the same, but the water lost to evaporation & distribution leakage (collectively akin to the transmission losses for electricity mentioned elsewhere in this thread) means that not collecting rainwater is less efficient.
Then there's the flood damage caused when the increasing expanses of paved ground fail to absorb heavy rain that rainwater collection can help alleviate.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
https://onlinestore.smucker.com/display_product.cfm?prod_id=...
$8.99 180 cups $0.04994 per cup
https://www.tesla.com/solarroof
This should have been done at the local or regional level, if at all. California should remain one state, probably, but add regional regulatory entities between counties and the state.
We could accomplish this by giving regional government authorities like the Association of Bay Area Governments more authority. Essentially the metropolitan areas become like city states. The state could set certain goals (reduce carbon by this much, increase housing by that much), but it would be up to regional government to specify implementation details.
The state government seems dysfunctional in a lot of ways, so while maybe goals could come down from the state, the actual authorities should be 1) or 2). Maybe some combination.
The effects of their policy. High carbon output. High cost of living. High cost of energy. And as little bonus, water shortages.
Bad in every possible way for poor people living in California. Its truly sad state, specifically because all of these problems have extremly simple solutions.
- Don't only force renewables, but rather allow all forms of new energy that are better then the current (don't close nuclear plants for example). This is also better for prices.
- Allow more house building. No brainer.
- Make a proper water market with block pricing so poor people have basically free water and water is directed where it is sensable. Farmers SHOULD consider water cost when making a choice of crops. People should pay to have a green garden and/or clean their car every day.
The solar part of this adds about $15k to the cost of the house. That's about $75/month on a 30 year fixed mortgage at current rates.
Much of that, if not all or more, comes back in savings on the electric bill.
Doesn't that mean that for most single family home buyers the difference will mostly just be a slightly higher down payment?