California to become first U.S. state mandating solar on new homes
I'm certainly a big fan of solar power, but rooftop solar is a little silly. Rooftop solar would make sense if we had some shortage of land and couldn't just fill up empty fields with panels, but that's not the case. It's much cheaper for utility companies to buy up big plots of land than it is to try to figure out how to outfit odd shaped surfaces with panels.California is really missing the forrest for the trees here. There's so much low hanging fruit (things that could kill two birds with one stone) that they're ignoring. If the state would focus on higher density living and public transportation over imposing regulations that will drive more people away and lower the standard of living for those who remain, then we would see a much bigger global impact on reducing climate change. Because of this, more people will decide to live in Texas instead of California, where they'll run their air conditioners 10 months out of the year in their huge, inefficient houses which draw power from coal plants.