It’s already expensive, and the state of the People’s Republik Of California is requiring more and more be used to replace all the reliable, dependable, low cost oil, gas, and nuclear. So, let’s make it more expensive
Tesla Fights California Law That Could Make Solar Energy Costs Soar
In an announcement issued in late December, and reported by CNBC last Friday, electric vehicle and solar roof manufacturer Tesla has asked employees to fight a new California proposal that could make residential rooftop solar energy more expensive for many homeowners.
Under the legislation, residents using solar power would have to pay grid-connection charges based on the size of their system. The legislation would also reduce payments solar customers in California receive for selling their excess power back to the grid.
In addition to free electricity and a more sustainable lifestyle, the capability to sell excess power back to the grid is one of the primary attractions to solar electricity for many consumers. By selling excess power back, consumers can achieve net-zero electric bills or even receive money back from utility companies.
In a tweet from Dec. 13, 2021, @WholeMarsBlog pointed out that if the new tax rate was set at $8 per kilowatt-hour, as proposed, it could cost some Tesla Solar Roof owners as much as $80 a month for a 10 kW system. Elon Musk replied on Twitter, “Penalizing sustainable energy is insane.”
Let’s not forget that California code now requires all new home construction, single and multi-family, to have solar installed. Which, of course, raises the cost of new homes in California in a state which is already at the top end of cost. And this new proposal would penalize those very same people, along with those who want to put solar on their roofs. Shouldn’t California be doing something to reduce costs and incent people to put panels on their roofs?
And then there’s this
Activists say solar farm in Florida will harm Black community
“This is not a facility that’s compatible with the residential community,” said community member and activist Michelle Rutledge
Black residents in Archer — a majority Black town in Florida with a rich history — thought they prevented a solar power farm from being built in their historical community back in 2020.
Michelle Rutledge, a resident who lives across from the proposed site, said that she rallied the community together to object the construction, persuading their county commissioner to vote down the project.
However, in the summer of 2021, the state legislature voted to pass a law preventing municipal governments from blocking new energy infrastructure. Now, the power farm could be erected in Archer in the foreseeable future.
Isn’t this what Democratic Party voters want? The plan is to build it on a vacant 650 acre farm
“Our families have ties to those types of experiences since the Civil War, Jim Crow, and having to escape,” said Gerrie Crawford, another resident who lives across from the proposed site.
She explained that many families, including hers, have worked and purchased land there since the 1800s.
Crawford also said that many residents in the town are descendants of African Americans driven out of Rosewood, a town 30 miles away, during the 1923 Rosewood Massacre — a racially-motivated massacre where white locals burned down the Black town killing at least six Black residents.
Huh? They’re saying it’s in the wrong location, so, sounds rather like a NIMBY situation to the extreme
“We asked the county government to consider cumulative factors such as compatibility, community impact, cultural significance, systemic racism in land use, zoning, and urban planning, and environmental racism while making a decision,” she said.
Many also pointed to the issue of environmental injustice and racism. Communities of color have often been situated near waste sites, landfills and power plants that can cause irreversible brain and lung damage.
“We support renewable energy. But we feel it has to be a just transition to break the cycle of past injustices in the name of progress,” added Crawford.
Double huh.
Read: Surprise: California Rules Will Make Solar More Expensive »
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Single-layer cloth masks may not provide adequate protection against the very infectious omicron variant of COVID-19, according to a recent Wall Street Journal 
Consider Boston, Massachusetts, the unofficial capital of New England (for our international readers, New England consists of six states in the US Northeast, namely Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Vermont). Given its northern latitude, the citizens of Boston experience cold and sometimes brutal winters, but more reasonable summers. Globally, far more people die from exposure to cold than to heat, and this makes winter energy policy especially consequential. In the chart below, we’ve plotted the daily average high and low temperatures for the city and overlaid the thermal comfort zone for easy reference. Not surprisingly, the coldest months of the year are December, January, and February. During these months, an enormous amount of energy is consumed as the population seeks to achieve thermal comfort, and the amount of energy needed to do this is bounded by the laws of physics – it scales with the delta from the thermal comfort zone – and, as a practical matter, the tactics deployed at the extremes are highly inefficient.
At the moment, the two major parties in the U.S. are polarized on the role of the federal government. Democrats, as has generally been the case since the civil rights era, favor federal activism to establish certain rights and living conditions nationally. Republicans have more and more uniformly adopted the states rights posture the GOP was initially founded to oppose in the mid-19th century.
Mask mandates. Remote classes. Outdoor dining.
Conservationists and tribal leaders are suing the U.S. government to try to block construction of two geothermal plants in northern Nevada’s high desert that they say will destroy a sacred hot springs and could push a rare toad to the brink of extinction.
