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Here’s an idea: make solar mandatory, but require it to be funded in part by a property tax increase


That's extremely counter productive. The most bang from your buck for solar is for utilitity plants. So raising taxes just to put solar on SOME new homes which benifits only the new home purchasers (majority of whom are quite wealthy) with their electricity bill and house value is dumb. Basically you're taxing everyone rich and poor equally (landlords pay property tax too) just for a soundbyte headline which accomplishes literally nothing.

If you're taxing everyone, at least make it efficient and build utility plants but even that is dumb because it subsidizes solar and likely puts the money into the wrong person's pocket.

If you were taxing everyone and wanted to help the environment, building public infrastructure, transportation, roads, bridges, trains is the best option even if it doesn't look as catchy. It'll produce a hell of a lot more benifits than a few MW of super expensive solar.

If you still want a headline, build transmission lines. Texas in 6 years went from dead last in renewables to first with over double California because the governor invested $7B in transmission lines making renewable energy an economic decision not a subsidized one


How is the $7b invested in transmission lines not a subsidy?


The same reason why building a road isn't a subsidy. Is building a bridge from Oakland to a San Francisco a subsidy for Uber and Twitter?

You are expanding the infrastructure, without transmission lines there is no economic viability for most of our renewable energy.


I would argue that roads that are not paid for by tolls and/or gas taxes are subsidized by those who don’t drive.


Really? Do people who don't drive not benefit from roads? How does your grocery store gets its food?




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