6 ms·

For the cost of these solar panels, what else could we be doing to reduce carbon emissions? Here in SF or internationally? I do think that carbon reduction is

• Eric_WVGG 11y ago
  Reduce or eliminate subsidized parking. http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/11/18/the-parking-tax-benefit-a-7-3-billion-subsidy-for-traffic-congestion/ http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/11/18/the-parking-tax-benefi...
  • superuser2 11y ago
    You have to also build good public transit infrastructure, and time it so the parking spots go away when the new transit systems go online (i.e. several decades after they are planned), or you're just making the city less livable and creating more incentive to live in sprawl.
• thescriptkiddie 11y ago
  The solar panels are effectively free, because they will pay for themselves in energy savings long before the building owners have paid off their mortgage/recouped their investment. However, increasing the cost of streetside parking would be actually free (to those that don't own cars) and have a much greater impact on local air quality. Nothing is stopping the city from doing both.
  • geebee 11y ago
    Kind of odd, though - if the panels will so clearly pay for themselves, why did they have to be mandated? Just to be clear, it isn't a purely rhetorical question - I suppose there's a chance that the people who have to pay the upfront costs don't get to realize the savings (buyers don't always factor in the savings, so construction companies may be reluctant to pay for them). Alternatively, people will sometimes just stick with a very inefficient system for a long time, never really getting around to it until they're prompted (by a mandate or tax incentive). Sometimes this is because people are just unable or reluctant to eat large upfront costs, other times it's something they've intended to get around to for a long time but haven't taken the first step. That said, I do think that if the cost of carbon emissions were genuinely reflected in the price, all these specific technology mandates wouldn't be necessary. I do understand that a single municipality is in no position to make that happen, though.
    • jonknee 11y ago
      > Kind of odd, though - if the panels will so clearly pay for themselves, why did they have to be mandated? Whoever builds the building isn't usually the one paying the electric bill.
      • knd775 11y ago
        But can't a cheaper electric bill be a selling point?
    • Tyr42 11y ago
      Would be a problem with renting, where the renter pays the cost for the panels, and the rentee pays the utility bills.
  • sigzero 11y ago
    You still have to pay for it up front. So free down the line doesn't mean much.
  • DINKDINK 11y ago
    >The solar panels are effectively free, because they will pay for themselves in energy savings By that argument, anything with a return on investment is 'free'. The problem here is that you are forcing new homeowners to be forced into investment with a certain ROI that may not be where they want to spend their money. Maybe a family would have benefitted more by using that money to send one of their children to a better school.
• pj_costello 11y ago
  This bill is symbolic, unlikely to spur much development. Either way, I'm all for solar, but it typically isn't the most cost effective way to reduce carbon emissions or reliance on heavy polluting power. For now, much more effective to simply require more stringent energy efficiency measures. Cheaper. Faster. On a side note, solar PV production isn't as bad in SF as you might think with the fog. You can definitely hit a 15- 18% AC annual avg. capacity factor, orders of magnitude better than East Coast installs, and pretty cost effective sans govt. incentives given high cost of electricity out here. Lot of good performance estimate tools, out there, but NREL's PVWatts is pretty good for back of the envelope estimates: http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ http://pvwatts.nrel.gov/ As some context, I was an economist focused on solar for a number of years.
  • cbr 11y ago
    15- 18% AC annual avg. capacity factor, orders of magnitude better than East Coast installs Huh? It looks to me like the east coast is only ~30% worse than SF? http://www.c2es.org/docUploads/Solar-1.png http://www.c2es.org/docUploads/Solar-1.png
• detaro 11y ago
  The article text mentions that thermal solar collectors are also allowed. That might be the better choice in many situations.
  • cududa 11y ago
    Someone probably trying to make this a pillar of their career...
• tracker1 11y ago
  I'm uncertain how much solar panels will reduce emissions anyway... I mean it could encourage the use of more electric cars. However, how much of SF's electricity is generated from fossil fuels? Beyond this, how much fossil fuel is expending bringing up the materials used in composition of the solar panels, not to mention shipping them to SF. I would think that expanding BART, and/or requiring impact fees on new construction to expand public transit, and/or have walking distance access to grocery shopping would be a far greater impact.
• aplummer 11y ago
  I think becoming vegetarians is the highest yield but I don't have a reference. Note, I am not a vegetarian.