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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why not require all commercial building to have solar power?
 
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ma i married a tuna
Apr 24, 2005

Numbers add up to nothing
Pillbug
I'm not quite sure why no one is offering anything useful in this thread yet, but this idea seems viable. The notion that solar panels require more energy to produce than they deliver over the course of their lifetime is no longer true, and their purchase cost is no longer prohibitive. Obviously, location is a factor, but you could legislate for that - factor in yearly sun-hours, and environment obstruction. I can't imagine why this would not be cost- and energy effective all over the southwest, for example.

You would need to put into place a maintenance program, since solar panels lose efficiency with partial obstruction (bird poo poo etc) but that hardly seems prohibitive.

* # ¿ Sep 17, 2014 16:51
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# ¿ May 17, 2024 19:51
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ma i married a tuna
Apr 24, 2005

Numbers add up to nothing
Pillbug

LeftistMuslimObama posted:

Solar panels won't work everywhere, but more places could implement it. My company is pushing near to 10k employees in a single campus of 20 buildings and the entire campus now runs 100% off grid between our solar farm, windmills, and geothermal heat. Different areas are more feasible for different types of renewables and companies could definitely be encouraged to do more to select technologies that are suitable for their area.

Offer like a fixed %off tax credit or something for percentage of power going to your building from renewables. That'll get companies putting it in much faster than trying to push some sort of rigid building code. Plus, governments love handing out tax credits to corporations so it's something that could feasibly be done.

That's really the sort of thing I meant earlier too. Do you have any information on cost, specifically, investment vs savings?

Of course, location is a huge factor, but I would venture a guess and say that every Wal-Mart in Arizona, for example, could do this and save money.

* # ¿ Sep 19, 2014 20:27
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The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Why not require all commercial building to have solar power?