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Floridian (and Southern) Governmental Regulations Are Unfriendly To Solar Power
An anonymous reader writes with a link to a story in the LA Times: "Few places in the country are so warm and bright as Mary Wilkerson's property on the beach near St. Petersburg, Fla., a city once noted in the Guinness Book of World Records for a 768-day stretch of sunny days. But while Florida advertises itself as the Sunshine State, power company executives and regulators have worked successfully to keep most Floridians from using that sunshine to generate their own power. Wilkerson discovered the paradox when she set out to harness sunlight into electricity for the vintage cottages she rents out at Indian Rocks Beach. She would have had an easier time installing solar panels, she found, if she had put the homes on a flatbed and transported them to chilly Massachusetts. While the precise rules vary from state to state, one explanation is the same: opposition from utilities grown nervous by the rapid encroachment of solar firms on their business."
Not all states offer subsidies as generous as the solar industry thinks they deserve.
This isn't news, it's politics by other means.
Dog is my co-pilot.
In no place is crony capitalism so entrenched as in the former states of the Old Confederacy, and Florida is one of the worst. (And, note, I say that as a native of the South.)
Not all states offer subsidies as generous as the solar industry thinks they deserve.
Its about long term thinking.
The fossil fuel industry has so many tax and environmental subsidies and costs that go ignored by most people. Duke power dumps a shit load of coal ash into a river and WE the taxpayer pays for it in more ways than money. And there''s the economic consequences - that cost Duke nothing.
Fossil fuels are old, polluting - MUCH more than the manufacture of solar cells and other green energy, and cause health problems that are paid down the line in increased healthcare costs and deaths.
When fossil fuels are drilled or mined is has environmental and health costs. When it transported and burned it has environmental and health costs.
When a solar cell is made, that's the end - all the environmental and health costs are over with. And nuclear? Pfft. The used fuel is nothing compared to the shit: mercury and other crop being spewed by fossil fuels.
Why we can't progress beyond 19th century energy sources?
...as long as their corporate/special interests "freedoms" take priority from the public's interests, everything will be peachy.
Also see: Tesla vs. State auto dealership associations.
Corporations have "captured" the government. They have discovered that by "investing" a relatively small amount of money in politicians, they can gain a high return in getting laws and regulations passed with protect their monopolies, enabling them to charge high rent.
This takes place in most (?all) governments but the dollar amount of this return on investment in the US is probably the highest or any country in the world.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
I've been shouting this from the mountaintops on /. for years. Few people understand the concept and benefit of limited government. If government didn't have the power to regulate this or that, corporations wouldn't be buying it off. People seem to assume that political motivations are somehow natively nobler than that of business, but fail to realize they are often one and the same. Sadly I fear, even this clear example would not cure liberals of their stubbornness.
If government didn't have the power to regulate this or that, corporations wouldn't be buying it off.
Or as P. J. O'Rourke put it When buying and selling are controlled by legislation, the first things to be bought and sold are legislators.
Voters. The elected official are put there by voters, every time.(Not it some rare, and temporary situations)
Educate the voters. Let them know what's going on.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
> 2) The electricity companies are not under any obligation that I know of to take your electricity.
They are in locations where the utility regulators require "net metering". In a fair situation, the homeowner still pays a line charge, to cover line maintenance and provisions for current flowing backwards through transformers, and not overloading the lines in times of high output. Then they pay and earn fair per kWh rates (which may be different and vary by time of day) for power used and generated.
> 4) The cost of taking your crappy, varying pittance of power
Is nothing like the way you describe it. Unless surplus solar is a majority of the power on a distribution line (the line that goes from the substation to houses), it will simply go from your house to some other house on the line. The utility then pushes the difference through their substation to meet the remainder of the demand. They already have to handle varying demand on the distribution line, since demand varies all the time in normal use. Only if solar were more than what is needed to power the solar houses *and* everyone else on the distribution line, would the utility need to make provisions at the substation for running power to other substations.
No. Some politicians. not all. There are plenty of states that are citizen friendly regarding solar, and that's because the politician did what there voters, BaL, wanted.
Are you sure the friendliness is towards the voters and not the solar companies? Just curious?
Note: I'm just playing devil's advocate on perceptions. While normally I'm against government subsides, I personally think solar/alternative energy is a great thing for the governments to subsidize; especially when you consider that the "loser" (if there truly is one) is another government sponsored monopoly.