181–190 of 329 posts
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> require a total net power draw for the home Not good either. Just let people pay for what they use. Each person can decide how to optimize for his or her needs.
Yeah a tax on electricity would make the most sense.
Most people don't realize that if you tax the externalities, that is basically a regressive tax on the poor.
Good night. Once upon a time in 1983, my grandparents bought a mobile home and put it out on rural property. They paid $300 for the water company to install a water meter and about $1500 for a septic tank install. Now I'm trying to do the same thing (and on the same property). The water meter is $5,000 (cash only in full), and the septic tank is $15,000. If I was also required to have solar, I'd really be screwed...…
> We don't have big government lobbyists making rules to make software more complicated 'just because' every year Yes, we do, they just focus on specific large software markets (in the last couple decades, health IT has been a huge area for this.)
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Won't this new law actually disincentivize more affordable housing?
If the cost of the PV is now baked into the mortgage, then depending on payback periods, interest rates, etc., the reductions in utility costs may meet or exceed the increase in your typical monthly home payment. This could effectively make housing more affordable via lower electrical bills. Without knowing the numbers, I'm really just speculating, though; my point is just that it's not a given that this will increas…
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A tax on carbon fuel would make more sense still. Polluters should pay for their pollution rather than foisting their externalities on others.
Except, how do you get to choose what type of power you buy? What if I live back east and would happily pay for wind or solar but my only option is coal or natural gas?
Another way to do it is to tax it when the utility buys it. This moves the math around for where they source power from.
An energy economist on why it's a bad idea: http://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/borenste/cecweisenmiller180... . Basically, rooftop solar is less capital-efficient than large solar or wind farms, so we can save more carbon/$ by doing grid-scale generation.
I propose we make a law that says any home that sells for greater than the Freddie Mac super conforming loan limit (currently $679,650) must be retrofitted to have a net energy draw of zero or less from the grid (with rules about exceptions for shade and roof angles and whatnot).
This would solve a lot of problems with this bill: It would exempt all the folks who are selling cheap homes throughout the state, it would apply to both old and new homes, and it allows for new technologies that don't exist yet or are cost prohibitive, instead of require solar panels.
It wouldn't really affect prices much, because there is already a flattening at the Freddie Mac limits, and when you get to the super conforming level, a solar install only represents 5% or less today (but I imagine the prices would fall with economies of scale).
Everyone who’s long CA real estate can bank it because the government is doing its best to ensure that no new housing gets built. Gg “environmentalist” Sierra Club. FTA specifically larger housing developers have been preparing for this for years—along with the solar lobby. So dumb, CA deserves to go bankrupt and be overrun by homelessness.
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Likewise the perfect is the enemy of the good. Having an idea of what a perfect regulation would be means that you end up arguing against helpful regulations because they don't meet your standards for "good idea". Your point isn't incorrect, but it's at best misplaced and mistimed. You should have been yelling about this when the law was being written, not now that it's passed. To those of us who care about the subje…
Most people only hear about terrible laws until after they have passed. If a bad law is bad, we should definitely continue to criticize it, if only for the purpose of influencing FUTURE laws.
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If the cost of the PV is now baked into the mortgage, then depending on payback periods, interest rates, etc., the reductions in utility costs may meet or exceed the increase in your typical monthly home payment. This could effectively make housing more affordable via lower electrical bills. Without knowing the numbers, I'm really just speculating, though; my point is just that it's not a given that this will increas…
Your point is that regulation is needed for people to make decisions that will save them more money. Basic econ/finance will tell you this isn't how the world works.
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That's basically what we do now, but the trouble is cheap power sources with undesirable externalities win the energy market because consumers want more energy for less money.
Who wants less energy for more money?