Hacker News Reader

Comment by baron816 | Hacker News Reader

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.

View on HN

>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.

[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)

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].

[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-...

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.

Just because you may need to supplement your supply doesn’t mean “storage doesn’t matter.”

With storage you need less supply and you can supplement your supply when rates are lowest.

>Only if you are off grid are you insulated from the power companies.

You can be "off grid" by throwing a switch.

Very few inverters will do this.

Most meter boxes have such a switch?

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?

Not so obvious. Prop 13 puts a cap on property taxes.

> You're missing the obvious alternative, which is that Cali could instead tax new homes the amount required to install...

Why why just new homes. Instead tax all electricity consumers on their bills to pay for the solar farms.

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.

"e.g. raised service wages in line with programmer wages."

...wait, what?

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).

TLDR; the proportion of programmers matters.

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.

So rich people hardly notice the difference, and pensioners die of heat stroke because they can't afford air conditioning?

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.

It functions alot like ubi actually.

Pensioners tend to use more power than younger residents which is why inflation in power costs hurts them proportionally more.

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.

Pensioners in general are on a fixed income which is where your idea breaks down.

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.

"If" they wont! as they dont go out to work and also fell the cold more. You seem to be missing the point here

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.

> to prevent back-flow into the grid that could injure linemen working to repair outages

Surely they can't entirely rely on this for safety?

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.

Aren't shorts very low resistance? I'm not an electrician so maybe I misunderstand here.

What would be the benefit of me "properly flipping switches" in the context of a natural disaster? What if I am not home?

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.

I don't follow. How does a neighborhood become both high and low resistance?

Where did anyone imply that?

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.

Or use a Powerwall

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Powerwall

This seems like a simple problem to solve, by putting the inverter at the periphery of the domestic system.

Why does California need Solar farms in first place ? Why not ask nevada to build it and buy electricity from them ?

If solar is profitable why is some private company not doing it already ?

Who told you it was profitable? It isn’t in most areas.

It is in many places, and increasingly so will be almost everywhere:

https://www.eia.gov/renewable/monthly/solar_photo/pdf/pv_tab...

https://twitter.com/LSValue/status/992429019680378880

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]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source#...

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.

Yeah. This is going to raise the cost of new housing even further; one wishes that it were combined with something like SB 827: https://www.vox.com/cities-and-urbanism/2018/2/23/17011154/s... (which failed in committee).

An extra $15-20k of added value is not what stands in the way of California home building.

$15k here, $20k there, pretty soon you're talking about a lot of money.

Prices rise by at least that much every few months. It’s a rounding error.

1.5% of a million dollars is a rounding error. You and many other people in this thread are extremely disconnected from reality.

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.

[0] https://www.zillow.com/ca/home-values/

And how many such regulations that only add on "rounding errors" to the cost of creating housing exist?

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.

> In many places in America

I think constraining this discussion to California might be more appropriate, since this is CA legislation.

Still true of many places in California.

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 are many good reasons (i.e. traffic, preserving nature) why the Bay Area should not sprawl any further than it already has.

>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.

This.

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.

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.

I agree with you. This seems like low-hanging fruit in ripe need of plucking.

> Roofs tend to be flat rectangles or triangles.

Flat, but virtually always angled. (Sometimes good, sometimes not.)

With a typical design, half are angled well, and nothing says you have to put any panels on the other half.

>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.

It can be exhausting, speaking from experience.

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 )

I suggest you look at the recent election results so see how "diverse" the bay is politically.

Not everyone votes.

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.

The bay area doesn't compare to "most cities" though. There is little tolerance for anyone who seriously expresses support for non-dem candidates.

https://www.citylab.com/equity/2016/12/mapping-how-americas-...

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.

That is great fucking writing.

> 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.

[1] https://dqydj.com/number-of-developers-in-america-and-per-st...

>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.

I hardly think immigrants avoid Texas. In fact, just the opposite.

16% of Texas residents are immigrants. Non-hispanic whites are a minority in the state.

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.)

> 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.

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.

"empty fields" are nexessary ecosystems, however. Why not leave them alone?

On the flip side, not everyone wants to live in high-density housing. Why not also require single-family homes to have solar?

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.

What about turning, unused fields back into forests? We not only need electricity but also to cut on CO2 and have more oxygen.

What about decentralization of power sources?

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.

You're optimizing for the wrong thing.

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.

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.

> 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.

0: https://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/urdef.txt

Better to put it on houses where the demand is than to pollute the land with solar panels all over it.

> 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.

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.

I'll take baby steps.

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.

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.

Holy mixed metaphors.

> There's so much low hanging fruit (things that could kill two birds with one stone

Stonefruit, you might say.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com