Or are the Roman roads of 2000 years ago totally serviceable in 2014?
Our needs change. Technology changes.
Cable is great because its faster then DSL. But that's only a relative improvement. Fiber optic cable would be better. But then there is the question of how much bandwidth you get over it.
And there will be something that comes out after fiber optic that is even better.
As to our power grid... it is also dynamic. It changes all the time.
We've been wiring the system recently to accept power FROM homes in addition to them. That allows for homes with solar panels to feed power to the grid.
These changes.
You see them in every so called utility.
As to putting a pole up where ever I want. Why not?
If the property owners approve then who are you to say I can't run cable there? And if my cable must cross certain public easements are you going to stop my cable for some reason? If I need to run my cable under a street and am willing to pay for all expenses why do you care?
And let us not forget, business already does this for itself. Think the investment houses in NYC use every one else's wires? No. They have their own independent wiring running under the streets.
THEY get choices. We don't.
And your attitude merely perpetuates that situation. We could run our own cable and we could have dozens of ISPs in every city with their own wiring. There is plenty of room for it under the streets.
Protestations to the contrary are ignorance or corruption. No offense.
Your examples were only possible with government support.
There are two types of monopolies.
A government monopoly and a natural monopoly.
The first arises from the government putting a gun against everyone's head and saying "do not do this or I will blow your brains out."
The second arises from an individual or corporation doing something better then anyone else and thus naturally dominating the market because no one wants the competitor's product.
The first type of monopoly is very stable and can persist for thousands of years. So long as that gun stays planted on everyone's temple with the government's finger on the trigger... the monopoly holds. There is no need for innovation. No need for quality service. No need for reasonable prices. Just the steady pressure of that gun against everyone's head.
The second type of monopoly is very unstable tends to only last a decade or so. It lasts only so long as one organization does something better then any of their competitors. Those competitors will be copying them. And trying to leapfrog their innovations. So the only way to maintain this type of monopoly is to continuously improve your product and do so faster then your competitors. Generally speaking, you must be much better then your competitor to have a total monopoly. If you are even reasonably acceptable then most monopolies of this nature break down.
I have no fear of the second type of monopoly. That would be in everyone's interest.
It is the first type that I will not support. And your notion does just that one way or another.
You feel you have a right to put a gun against my head and say "dance"... For that you righteously deserve my venom.
Though, I wouldn't give them the choice. I'd just take the government sanction out of it.
Let them fight it out tooth and nail. I highly doubt one company will dominate the whole country with our diverse conditions if that is done. And furthermore, I'm pretty sure built up areas will have multiple providers.
One thing which we do need to look into is the rental costs that cities are charging to run cable on poles or under the street. There have been some indications that those prices are unreasonable.
Of course not. And neither is the current situation my ideal.
And furthermore, how can you presume that your idea would lead to anything better?
The tired call of "just put the government in charge of it and everything will be fine" is something you're supposed to grow out of after awhile.
Haven't seen enough examples recently of how badly government can f' up existing infrastructure and institutions by inserting itself into processes it neither understands nor cares about?
Do you honestly think the government CARES if the internet has a problem? No. Because you have ONE way to express your displeasure. Vote a politician out of power.
But what if that same politician is doing something else you like... or what if the alternative politician is someone you like even less?
Then that politician can continue to do the bad thing because he knows you won't vote against him.
That is one of the central flaws of your idea. You cannot hold them to account. But people can cancel their cable subscription. And if they have alternatives then its no hard ship.
You might counter that we could have a specific elected official that is in charge of just this one thing.
We've also tried that. We elect Police Chiefs, Comptrollers, and other various bureaucrats to run our government. But the only positions that ever really get any attention are Mayors, Governors, and Presidents. Congressmen and Senators get some attention but no where near the same scrutiny. As to the various bureaucrats and sometimes judges... no one pays any attention at all.
So how do they get elected? Either people just randomly vote for one or another. Or you get some select committee that says "vote for X" and people vote for X without understanding why.
All told, it isn't a good way to run a government.
Which is why you don't want government officials to have that many responsibilities. Because you can only punish them one way. If they are responsible for everything then what are you going to do if they screw one thing up? Nothing. Heck, they can screw LOTS of things up. But if the majority of things aren't screwed up or the alternative candidate is seen as worse... you will tolerate a high degree of screwed up things under that system.
Under my system you don't have to do that. My system is superior... it has less corruption, is more transparent, has more innovative, and requires very little government entanglement.
Doubtless you want to rebut my point. Stop. For just a moment and actually consider my point first. Because I don't think you're seeing it.
My only problem with public projects is that they tend to concentrate money and power into the hands of people that use it to amass more money and power. There is a snow ball effect that eventually consumes everything.
I live In California where the public unions control the state. This is not a prediction. It is a reality and a warning.
Same thing has also happened in France.
The voters do not control the state anymore. Its the unions. We have no voice. They took it from us.
Clearly Imon wanted to do that and they have successfully established themselves as a viable alternative.
I'm actually very surprised this exists.
I'd assume that if it could happen where you live it might be more common in big cities. Even if only a couple blocks around a trunk line. You just branch out around that point for a couple blocks in every direction. Why not.
And who maintains the stupid thing? Some giant government union?
I live in California. We deal with CalTrans all the time. They are responsible for building and maintaining our roads.
They do a piss poor job (as in work has to be redone because it wasn't done properly the first time), cost in some cases 10 to 20 times what competitive bids would cost, are slow, and of course have the extreme pleasure of dealing with their political manipulation of state politics.
Yay.
The only way I'd even consider your idea is if the cable were maintained by contract with various companies. Ideally many of them in competition. And the hiring and tasking system should be open to bid to prevent backroom deals.
Short of that your idea just leads to corruption and inefficiency.
I don't want a system maintained by the government. That would mean every upgrade would have to be approved by some government committee. Fuck that.
They want 8 dollars a customer? For what? The use of their poles?
Fuck that. I'll bury the line. Doubtless they still want the money because it isn't about collecting a fee for using a service. Its a toll collected because they can.
That is bullshit. If this were more widely publicized I think these fees might go away.
1. I am not suggesting anyone be required to set up multiple companies. I am merely saying they should be permitted to do so if they choose.
2. The rental fees for running cable... are they reasonable or idiotic like the NYC taxi licenses? It's NYC so I'm assuming its rapacious and pathetic... but that's just a guess.
Then make them a government agency, comrade. It makes no sense to have a company that isn't in competition with other companies.
2. As to the costs of installing all this cable and maintaining it. Other countries have multiple ISPs operating in the same area. Explain that.
3. As to what comcast pays to maintain things, what you're forgetting is that comcast might be a run by asshats that mismanage their company and thus things cost more. A different company managing the exact same area and serving the same customers might pay a completely different price to build and maintain its network.
That's also competition.
4. As to competition increasing what a company has to clawback from its customers... So... why stop at telecommunications companies? Why not have one shoe company? Why not one sandwich shop? Why not one cheese company?
You do realize that if you were at all correct, then communism would be vastly more efficient then our market system.
Which as we know... it isn't. So you're wrong.
Furthermore, other countries do have what I'm talking about and they pay less for more bandwidth then we get in the US.
So again... you're wrong.
5. As to regulation fixing everything, you do realize that the feds f' up about half the time at least right? Remember how the SEC caught the housing bubble or Bernie Maddof? Remember how the FAA banned any electronic device on airplanes for DECADES after it was known to be safe?... Shall I go on? You seem to think passing a law is some kind of panacea to the world's problems. Government is at best a necessary evil. It is to be used sparingly when there are no other alternatives. Going beyond that leads to mediocrity, corruption, and tyranny.
6. I want infrastructure redundancy. Especially in any area where an ISP might be inclined to price gouge.
Look, I don't want to force anyone to do anything. What I do want is to ALLOW companies to run their own cable IF they want to do it.
So if you are right then nothing will change because these companies won't want to compete with each other that way. However, if I am right, then their networks will bleed over each other's territories and some customers will have an option for entirely distinct providers.
Again. I am not suggesting anyone be forced to do anything. Rather, I am merely advocating for people and companies to have a CHOICE. To suggest otherwise is to say that you should forcibly forbid them to compete with each other. That is unsupportable.
How many cable companies do you have in your area?
How many land line phone companies do you have?
One
This is by law. Its a stupid law. Change it, and then those companies can do whatever they want with their pricing. If they offer inflated prices people will jump to the other company.
And for the record, the fiber is usually only allowed by that land line phone company. If YOU try to lay fiber you will get arrested. You can't do it. you can't get a permit. And even if you do, a court will invalidate it.
1. In regards to what makes this better, because this way you're doing several superior things.
A). You're not screwing up the existing grid with unreliable power.
B). You are more efficiently using renewable energy by using it locally.
C). You are ACTUALLY enabling people to install solar on their homes at a very low cost. You can find panels on Amazon or ebay that retail for a couple hundred dollars. You'd need lots of them to power a whole house but all we want is to lower in the introductory cost of solar.
D). Local use suits solar better then municipal use because the unreliable nature of it is easier to mitigate if the local user is backed up with the grid. Rather then plugging these things into the grid and forcing the power company to try and make sense of it.
2. As to the panels, they're plenty cheap enough if you're only buying a couple of them. Its less then a thousand dollars. And as to the AC/DC equipment its no worse at the residential level then it is at the municipal level. So that's a zero sum game.
As to the cost of installing it... there are a lot of ways to bring that cost down. Area wide contracts for one could lower the per house installation cost. We find ways to pay for far more extravagant things all the time. I don't see why this is uniquely unaffordable.
3. Your answer is no solar or renewable energy at all. Which is a point that has merit until you understand that there is huge political support for doing something with renewable energy. As such, your "none of the above" answer is dead on arrival.
You don't have that choice.
Your choices are as follows:
Option 1: You can spend tens of billions building various green energy complexes that will be abandoned and defunct in 10 years.
Option 2: You can spend tens of billions letting average americans manage their own energy use and possibly give people some freedom from the grid.
Those are your choices.
Your option of none of the above simply won't happen. Be realistic.
1. They have at no point tried GIVING people the box that lets you wire solar panels into a house for free as well as subsidize the installation 100 percent. That has NEVER been done.
Instead what they do is build tens of billions of dollars in boondoggle solar power plants in the desert that ultimately shut down after anywhere from five to ten years.
Have you ever seen the deserts of California? The ruins of abandoned green energy projects going back to the 60s are littered across the sand for hundreds of miles. We have them all over the country and likely the world. Google abandoned solar plant... you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
2. The current distribution system works well for nuclear, coal, geothermal, hydroelectric, natural gas, and other ALWAYS on generators.
It is however piss poor terrible for renewable that almost without exception product power unreliably and require vastly more land.
Look at all those empty roofs. Nothing on them. That is unused land in the middle of developed land. It has better access to the sun the anything else on most properties and it is a prime place to "A" panel.
You don't have to get crazy with the panels. Just providing a couple hundred watts at EACH home would be a major contribution.
And we don't need to trickle the excess power into the grid. For one thing the power companies hate that because it makes everything a lot more complicated. And for another the idea is to use 100 percent of locally generated power so there would be nothing to send anyway.
Using this system the grid would supply UNUSUAL power or power when your system wasn't generating anything. But the rest of the time your home could be self sufficient for power. That's a big deal.
And that would also spur people to use energy efficient technology more so then jacking up the price of electricity because people could potentially pay ZERO to the utilities if they manage their power carefully.
Or we can just pretend like its 1950 and run the power distribution system much as we did then... and then get upset when that system doesn't work well with defuse unreliable power sources like solar or wind.
The germans are finding this out in spades. There has been an explosion in coal power plants in germany because for every green wind mill power plant you need a coal power plant back up. Why? because the damn wind isn't reliable. It sometimes isn't windy. So if you want to avoid brownouts, you need to have coal power plants to take over.
Well what exactly does that accomplish? You now have lots of coal power plants taking over for nuclear power plants. YAY for the green revolution!!! Fucking morons.
For grid power, you need reliable power. Only reliable sources should even be hooked up to the grid. Which means, solar and wind shouldn't be on the grid at all unless you have a reliable means of storing power that so a constant rate of power can be produced. How practical is that? Not at all.
However, you can put solar and wind and even geothermal at people's homes and it works because what it really does is lower their energy consumption. And as a penny saved is a penny earned those are watts the grid doesn't have to provide.
Whatever though... you want to do things the stupid way... lets do it. Let just cover ourselves in honey and go wrestle bears!... RAWR!
Except for they're building the solar power plants so your zero sum game argument isn't taking that into account.
Would I prefer if the government didn't try to social engineer everyone all the time?
Yes.
But if they're going to do it... and they are... then I want it to do it in a way that is more healthy.
Putting the units at everyone's home means people can install panels there without having to install anything else. All the electronics etc to wire into the home electrical grid would be there. So all an installer or a home owner has to do is buy a couple panels, screw them into the roof, and run a cable to the unit. DONE.
If everyone just had ONE solar panel at their house it would have a big impact of power consumption. It would mean most of the power used by homes during the day would be nullified.
And places with a lot of sun and probably a lot of heat... people would have an extra incentive to put more panels on the house to cancel out the AC.
Guilt free air conditioning.
Now, obviously your argument is that if this were practical people would do on their own.
Yes and no. Sometimes you need a catalyst to get things going. And simply having the electronics installed to handle panels in all homes would get people over that hump.
A simple array can be bought for about a dollar a watt. Does that make it competitive with the grid? Again... you don't need to replace all power use. Just take care of the power that homes eat during the day when no one is there. That alone will be a big step in the right direction.
Slashdot Mirror
Infrastructure can be dynamic.
Or are the Roman roads of 2000 years ago totally serviceable in 2014?
Our needs change. Technology changes.
Cable is great because its faster then DSL. But that's only a relative improvement. Fiber optic cable would be better. But then there is the question of how much bandwidth you get over it.
And there will be something that comes out after fiber optic that is even better.
As to our power grid... it is also dynamic. It changes all the time.
We've been wiring the system recently to accept power FROM homes in addition to them. That allows for homes with solar panels to feed power to the grid.
These changes.
You see them in every so called utility.
As to putting a pole up where ever I want. Why not?
If the property owners approve then who are you to say I can't run cable there? And if my cable must cross certain public easements are you going to stop my cable for some reason? If I need to run my cable under a street and am willing to pay for all expenses why do you care?
And let us not forget, business already does this for itself. Think the investment houses in NYC use every one else's wires? No. They have their own independent wiring running under the streets.
THEY get choices. We don't.
And your attitude merely perpetuates that situation. We could run our own cable and we could have dozens of ISPs in every city with their own wiring. There is plenty of room for it under the streets.
Protestations to the contrary are ignorance or corruption. No offense.
Your examples were only possible with government support.
There are two types of monopolies.
A government monopoly and a natural monopoly.
The first arises from the government putting a gun against everyone's head and saying "do not do this or I will blow your brains out."
The second arises from an individual or corporation doing something better then anyone else and thus naturally dominating the market because no one wants the competitor's product.
The first type of monopoly is very stable and can persist for thousands of years. So long as that gun stays planted on everyone's temple with the government's finger on the trigger... the monopoly holds. There is no need for innovation. No need for quality service. No need for reasonable prices. Just the steady pressure of that gun against everyone's head.
The second type of monopoly is very unstable tends to only last a decade or so. It lasts only so long as one organization does something better then any of their competitors. Those competitors will be copying them. And trying to leapfrog their innovations. So the only way to maintain this type of monopoly is to continuously improve your product and do so faster then your competitors. Generally speaking, you must be much better then your competitor to have a total monopoly. If you are even reasonably acceptable then most monopolies of this nature break down.
I have no fear of the second type of monopoly. That would be in everyone's interest.
It is the first type that I will not support. And your notion does just that one way or another.
You feel you have a right to put a gun against my head and say "dance"... For that you righteously deserve my venom.
Good day, sir.
Exactly.
Though, I wouldn't give them the choice. I'd just take the government sanction out of it.
Let them fight it out tooth and nail. I highly doubt one company will dominate the whole country with our diverse conditions if that is done. And furthermore, I'm pretty sure built up areas will have multiple providers.
One thing which we do need to look into is the rental costs that cities are charging to run cable on poles or under the street. There have been some indications that those prices are unreasonable.
Of course not. And neither is the current situation my ideal.
And furthermore, how can you presume that your idea would lead to anything better?
The tired call of "just put the government in charge of it and everything will be fine" is something you're supposed to grow out of after awhile.
Haven't seen enough examples recently of how badly government can f' up existing infrastructure and institutions by inserting itself into processes it neither understands nor cares about?
Do you honestly think the government CARES if the internet has a problem? No. Because you have ONE way to express your displeasure. Vote a politician out of power.
But what if that same politician is doing something else you like... or what if the alternative politician is someone you like even less?
Then that politician can continue to do the bad thing because he knows you won't vote against him.
That is one of the central flaws of your idea. You cannot hold them to account. But people can cancel their cable subscription. And if they have alternatives then its no hard ship.
You might counter that we could have a specific elected official that is in charge of just this one thing.
We've also tried that. We elect Police Chiefs, Comptrollers, and other various bureaucrats to run our government. But the only positions that ever really get any attention are Mayors, Governors, and Presidents. Congressmen and Senators get some attention but no where near the same scrutiny. As to the various bureaucrats and sometimes judges... no one pays any attention at all.
So how do they get elected? Either people just randomly vote for one or another. Or you get some select committee that says "vote for X" and people vote for X without understanding why.
All told, it isn't a good way to run a government.
Which is why you don't want government officials to have that many responsibilities. Because you can only punish them one way. If they are responsible for everything then what are you going to do if they screw one thing up? Nothing. Heck, they can screw LOTS of things up. But if the majority of things aren't screwed up or the alternative candidate is seen as worse... you will tolerate a high degree of screwed up things under that system.
Under my system you don't have to do that. My system is superior... it has less corruption, is more transparent, has more innovative, and requires very little government entanglement.
Doubtless you want to rebut my point. Stop. For just a moment and actually consider my point first. Because I don't think you're seeing it.
would you mind telling me the three companies that compete? I'd be very curious to see what their prices are etc.
My only problem with public projects is that they tend to concentrate money and power into the hands of people that use it to amass more money and power. There is a snow ball effect that eventually consumes everything.
I live In California where the public unions control the state. This is not a prediction. It is a reality and a warning.
Same thing has also happened in France.
The voters do not control the state anymore. Its the unions. We have no voice. They took it from us.
They're apparently getting these rental fees.
So more accurately, the cable company is a customer of the city.
Clearly Imon wanted to do that and they have successfully established themselves as a viable alternative.
I'm actually very surprised this exists.
I'd assume that if it could happen where you live it might be more common in big cities. Even if only a couple blocks around a trunk line. You just branch out around that point for a couple blocks in every direction. Why not.
A customer uses their money to buy something for themselves.
The cities/towns do neither and so are not customers.
And who maintains the stupid thing? Some giant government union?
I live in California. We deal with CalTrans all the time. They are responsible for building and maintaining our roads.
They do a piss poor job (as in work has to be redone because it wasn't done properly the first time), cost in some cases 10 to 20 times what competitive bids would cost, are slow, and of course have the extreme pleasure of dealing with their political manipulation of state politics.
Yay.
The only way I'd even consider your idea is if the cable were maintained by contract with various companies. Ideally many of them in competition. And the hiring and tasking system should be open to bid to prevent backroom deals.
Short of that your idea just leads to corruption and inefficiency.
I don't want a system maintained by the government. That would mean every upgrade would have to be approved by some government committee. Fuck that.
They want 8 dollars a customer? For what? The use of their poles?
Fuck that. I'll bury the line. Doubtless they still want the money because it isn't about collecting a fee for using a service. Its a toll collected because they can.
That is bullshit. If this were more widely publicized I think these fees might go away.
That's another great example of what I'm talking about. Those deals are anti-competitive.
Open it up so consumers can choose what they like and companies can freely compete with each other.
That's a network produced show. There are examples of equally high quality shows produced on a much more modest budget.
Furthermore, if you want to get really cheap you can just pull a blair witch project...
1. I am not suggesting anyone be required to set up multiple companies. I am merely saying they should be permitted to do so if they choose.
2. The rental fees for running cable... are they reasonable or idiotic like the NYC taxi licenses? It's NYC so I'm assuming its rapacious and pathetic... but that's just a guess.
1. As to no competition but total regulation.
Then make them a government agency, comrade. It makes no sense to have a company that isn't in competition with other companies.
2. As to the costs of installing all this cable and maintaining it. Other countries have multiple ISPs operating in the same area. Explain that.
3. As to what comcast pays to maintain things, what you're forgetting is that comcast might be a run by asshats that mismanage their company and thus things cost more. A different company managing the exact same area and serving the same customers might pay a completely different price to build and maintain its network.
That's also competition.
4. As to competition increasing what a company has to clawback from its customers... So... why stop at telecommunications companies? Why not have one shoe company? Why not one sandwich shop? Why not one cheese company?
You do realize that if you were at all correct, then communism would be vastly more efficient then our market system.
Which as we know... it isn't. So you're wrong.
Furthermore, other countries do have what I'm talking about and they pay less for more bandwidth then we get in the US.
So again... you're wrong.
5. As to regulation fixing everything, you do realize that the feds f' up about half the time at least right? Remember how the SEC caught the housing bubble or Bernie Maddof? Remember how the FAA banned any electronic device on airplanes for DECADES after it was known to be safe?... Shall I go on? You seem to think passing a law is some kind of panacea to the world's problems. Government is at best a necessary evil. It is to be used sparingly when there are no other alternatives. Going beyond that leads to mediocrity, corruption, and tyranny.
6. I want infrastructure redundancy. Especially in any area where an ISP might be inclined to price gouge.
Look, I don't want to force anyone to do anything. What I do want is to ALLOW companies to run their own cable IF they want to do it.
So if you are right then nothing will change because these companies won't want to compete with each other that way. However, if I am right, then their networks will bleed over each other's territories and some customers will have an option for entirely distinct providers.
Again. I am not suggesting anyone be forced to do anything. Rather, I am merely advocating for people and companies to have a CHOICE. To suggest otherwise is to say that you should forcibly forbid them to compete with each other. That is unsupportable.
Then why are towns that set up their own ISP getting it shut down?
How many cable companies do you have in your area?
How many land line phone companies do you have?
One
This is by law. Its a stupid law. Change it, and then those companies can do whatever they want with their pricing. If they offer inflated prices people will jump to the other company.
And for the record, the fiber is usually only allowed by that land line phone company. If YOU try to lay fiber you will get arrested. You can't do it. you can't get a permit. And even if you do, a court will invalidate it.
Totally fine with that if allow anyone to lay cable.
Right now, only ONE cable company is allowed to operate in any one area. Which means they cannot compete with each other.
make it so that they can compete and they can try any program they want. Non-competitive ideas will get priced out of the market.
I think there was a study not long ago that showed that men like breasts. Not kidding. This troll study appears to be along the same lines.
Study something we already know the answer to and then find the obvious result.
Thank you science... *yawn*
There are a lot of people making music in their garages. And yes... most of it is terrible. But some of it isn't.
Social network it... and sign people that are decent. Then as part of the deal your site would promote those singers.
Add on to that, music coaches, sound studio time, and finding concert venues for top singers.
1. In regards to what makes this better, because this way you're doing several superior things.
A). You're not screwing up the existing grid with unreliable power.
B). You are more efficiently using renewable energy by using it locally.
C). You are ACTUALLY enabling people to install solar on their homes at a very low cost. You can find panels on Amazon or ebay that retail for a couple hundred dollars. You'd need lots of them to power a whole house but all we want is to lower in the introductory cost of solar.
D). Local use suits solar better then municipal use because the unreliable nature of it is easier to mitigate if the local user is backed up with the grid. Rather then plugging these things into the grid and forcing the power company to try and make sense of it.
2. As to the panels, they're plenty cheap enough if you're only buying a couple of them. Its less then a thousand dollars. And as to the AC/DC equipment its no worse at the residential level then it is at the municipal level. So that's a zero sum game.
As to the cost of installing it... there are a lot of ways to bring that cost down. Area wide contracts for one could lower the per house installation cost. We find ways to pay for far more extravagant things all the time. I don't see why this is uniquely unaffordable.
3. Your answer is no solar or renewable energy at all. Which is a point that has merit until you understand that there is huge political support for doing something with renewable energy. As such, your "none of the above" answer is dead on arrival.
You don't have that choice.
Your choices are as follows:
Option 1: You can spend tens of billions building various green energy complexes that will be abandoned and defunct in 10 years.
Option 2: You can spend tens of billions letting average americans manage their own energy use and possibly give people some freedom from the grid.
Those are your choices.
Your option of none of the above simply won't happen. Be realistic.
If someone handed me one of those... I'd try a run with and without and compare the times.
If the times were better or the same then I'd allow the suit. If it slowed me at all then obviously it isn't acceptable.
If you wanted to be especially scientific about it then you'd do a series of trials so you could average them.
Regardless... this is a huge black eye for team USA. Kindly test something before implementing it, asshats.
1. They have at no point tried GIVING people the box that lets you wire solar panels into a house for free as well as subsidize the installation 100 percent. That has NEVER been done.
Instead what they do is build tens of billions of dollars in boondoggle solar power plants in the desert that ultimately shut down after anywhere from five to ten years.
Have you ever seen the deserts of California? The ruins of abandoned green energy projects going back to the 60s are littered across the sand for hundreds of miles. We have them all over the country and likely the world. Google abandoned solar plant... you'll see exactly what I'm talking about.
2. The current distribution system works well for nuclear, coal, geothermal, hydroelectric, natural gas, and other ALWAYS on generators.
It is however piss poor terrible for renewable that almost without exception product power unreliably and require vastly more land.
Look at all those empty roofs. Nothing on them. That is unused land in the middle of developed land. It has better access to the sun the anything else on most properties and it is a prime place to "A" panel.
You don't have to get crazy with the panels. Just providing a couple hundred watts at EACH home would be a major contribution.
And we don't need to trickle the excess power into the grid. For one thing the power companies hate that because it makes everything a lot more complicated. And for another the idea is to use 100 percent of locally generated power so there would be nothing to send anyway.
Using this system the grid would supply UNUSUAL power or power when your system wasn't generating anything. But the rest of the time your home could be self sufficient for power. That's a big deal.
And that would also spur people to use energy efficient technology more so then jacking up the price of electricity because people could potentially pay ZERO to the utilities if they manage their power carefully.
Or we can just pretend like its 1950 and run the power distribution system much as we did then... and then get upset when that system doesn't work well with defuse unreliable power sources like solar or wind.
The germans are finding this out in spades. There has been an explosion in coal power plants in germany because for every green wind mill power plant you need a coal power plant back up. Why? because the damn wind isn't reliable. It sometimes isn't windy. So if you want to avoid brownouts, you need to have coal power plants to take over.
Well what exactly does that accomplish? You now have lots of coal power plants taking over for nuclear power plants. YAY for the green revolution!!! Fucking morons.
For grid power, you need reliable power. Only reliable sources should even be hooked up to the grid. Which means, solar and wind shouldn't be on the grid at all unless you have a reliable means of storing power that so a constant rate of power can be produced. How practical is that? Not at all.
However, you can put solar and wind and even geothermal at people's homes and it works because what it really does is lower their energy consumption. And as a penny saved is a penny earned those are watts the grid doesn't have to provide.
Whatever though... you want to do things the stupid way... lets do it. Let just cover ourselves in honey and go wrestle bears!... RAWR!
fucktards.
Except for they're building the solar power plants so your zero sum game argument isn't taking that into account.
Would I prefer if the government didn't try to social engineer everyone all the time?
Yes.
But if they're going to do it... and they are... then I want it to do it in a way that is more healthy.
Putting the units at everyone's home means people can install panels there without having to install anything else. All the electronics etc to wire into the home electrical grid would be there. So all an installer or a home owner has to do is buy a couple panels, screw them into the roof, and run a cable to the unit. DONE.
If everyone just had ONE solar panel at their house it would have a big impact of power consumption. It would mean most of the power used by homes during the day would be nullified.
And places with a lot of sun and probably a lot of heat... people would have an extra incentive to put more panels on the house to cancel out the AC.
Guilt free air conditioning.
Now, obviously your argument is that if this were practical people would do on their own.
Yes and no. Sometimes you need a catalyst to get things going. And simply having the electronics installed to handle panels in all homes would get people over that hump.
A simple array can be bought for about a dollar a watt. Does that make it competitive with the grid? Again... you don't need to replace all power use. Just take care of the power that homes eat during the day when no one is there. That alone will be a big step in the right direction.
Which is not an argument for us to support the move.