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by epistasis3 hours ago |
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upvoteby jandrese3 hours ago|
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What is even more amazing is how many of Australia's politicians have been in the pocket of coal barons and yet they put up barely any struggle against solar adoption. Compare that to places like California where they've been fighting tooth and nail against green power.
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upvoteby ceejayoz3 hours ago|
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> they put up barely any struggle against solar adoption

They put up plenty.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S22146...

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/commentisfree/2024/o...

As with climate change, there comes a point where the propaganda just stops working becuase it's impossible to contest.

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upvoteby epistasis3 hours ago|
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What's funny is that Australian-born Rupert Murdoch has been far more effective in the US than in Australia on this front.

The propaganda is still going really strong in the US. Talk to the population and 1/3 to 1/2 will happily tell you that EVs have fully failed and are being abandoned and will never gain traction in the future. And solar? Lol. Even the people who are saving money with it tend to refuse to talk about it due to the cognitive dissonance.

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upvoteby wffurr1 hours ago|
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I thought it was the opposite; it's blindingly obvious that everyone should be getting rooftop solar. The only thing holding me back is the need to work with the condo association on a new roof first.
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upvoteby jandrese19 minutes ago|
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In the US there are certainly cases where the install costs are just too high and the local utility too hostile to solar for the system to make sense.
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upvoteby actionfromafar2 hours ago|
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Isn't it because the US has a more entrenched "clean beuatiful coal" class of people?
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upvoteby fishpen052 minutes ago|
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Its also electrician unions fighting things like balcony solar (SB 868) and maintaining regulatory capture over licensing and certification to bottleneck how many people can enter the industry by forcing antiquated models like 4-6 year apprenticeships into a career path that could be 2-4 semesters of vocational courses and bi-annual relicensing exams. This keeps installation rates sky high.
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upvoteby epistasis2 hours ago|
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On the particulars of residential solar deployment, it's the utilities. (And to a degree, the US's completely backwards permitting system which varies by municipality and mostly exists to drive up costs for everything and maintain stasis.)

Utility leadership is highly tech-averse, change averse, and rooting for the "clean beautiful coal" sports team. But also they can't imagine a future where there's massive electrification, with people switching from gas to getting their car energy from the grid, and being able to profit from it. It's somewhat shocking, but just like US car manufacturers, utility leadership is from a different era and are rentiers, rather than innovators.

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