
California to become first U.S. state mandating solar on new homes - baron816
https://www.ocregister.com/2018/05/04/california-to-become-first-u-s-state-mandating-solar-on-new-homes/
======
bradlys
This is one of those things that sounds nice at first - especially as a
soundbite. But, it's clearly a NIMBY move to protect existing home owners
financial asset. It's a clever trick to protect existing home owners even more
by making new development even more difficult and expensive while making it
look like it's an environmental move. Tack on $30k in expense to any new home
development and (probably) some lovely legislation about how it has to be
installed. On top of this, now they're "encouraging" all-electric homes. What
does that mean?! No gas range?! Please, god, no. Why not enforce this
legislation on existing home owners, raising the property tax to fund solar
farms, enforce better building standards on existing homes, or /something/
that would actually have a substantial effect on the environment? Cause, that
ain't helping existing home owners or helping push their home prices even
higher.

As a renter who wishes to have a home /somewhere/ in the bay area, this is
killing me inside. The existing home owner lobby is so ridiculously strong
here. California has the Superman of home owner lobbies. Each day, it's nailed
into me that Prop 13 will never go away and home prices are just gonna keep
climbing so that non-1% income outsiders cannot get them. Meanwhile, estates
will be passed down generation by generation tax free and with no
reassessment.

~~~
jhpriestley
Adding $30k to your mortgage would cost like $150 a month extra or so. It will
produce about 15,000 kWh per month, which is about $150 off your electric
bill.

~~~
pishpash
Why isn't everyone installing then? There is a net cost somewhere.

~~~
jhpriestley
A ton of people are installing them! Only on hacker news is rooftop solar some
kind of horrible socialist boondoggle.

edit: to answer your question more directly: many people just won't be
bothered to install them or don't think of it, or can't get the financing
easily. For some people the numbers don't work out, because their roof is old
or they don't get enough sun or their electric bill is already low.

~~~
killjoywashere
On the flip side, if you bought a house from an old engineer who converted the
entire house to electric appliances, and you bring your own electric dryer,
and you have a family of 4, and a/c, in California, rooftop solar is dead
obvious.

------
baron816
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.

~~~
programbreeding
>If the state would focus on higher density living...

>...where they'll run their air conditioners 10 months out of the year in
their huge, inefficient houses

The type of people that live in huge inefficient homes are generally also the
same type of people that don't want to live in high density areas. California
could turn open fields in to solar farms like you mentioned, but that requires
that someone foot the bill and also build the infrastructure for it. "Forcing"
people to put solar panels on their own home solves both of those problems. It
also makes you more immune to losing power in a natural disaster, of which
California has plenty.

I'm not saying I'm even for this issue, I don't live in California. But your
view is extremely negative and ignores the negatives of your way while also
ignoring the positives of the way mentioned in the article.

~~~
secabeen
> It also makes you more immune to losing power in a natural disaster, of
> which California has plenty.

Unfortunately, this is generally not the case. Most grid-tie solar inverters
do not support disconnected operation. They all have anti-islanding features
that disconnect the solar panels when the grid goes down (to prevent back-flow
into the grid that could injure linemen working to repair outages). There are
a few inverters that include an emergency-outlet on the inverter that works
when the power is out, but you have to run an extension cord from the inverter
to the devices you want to power.

It is possible to buy a hybird off-grid inverter, but they are much more
expensive than either plain grid-tie or off-grid, and the power company is
going to scrutinize their installation a lot more closely.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>(to prevent back-flow into the grid that could injure linemen working to
repair outages)

Back-flows from generators, solar and other home power sources are not really
an issue. It takes a specific set of circumstances where there's both
equipment failure and the utility worker fails to check if lines are live.

Basically, the resistance of the entire neighborhood is indistinguishable to a
short from the perspective of the breakers on your power generation equipment.

Still, you shouldn't back feed because we live in a society where everyone
must play by the rules of idiots regardless of whether or not they can prove
themselves to be otherwise. Therefore you cannot be trusted to flip switches
properly yourself and I must advise you to use a proper transfer switch.

~~~
mulmen
Aren't shorts very _low_ resistance? I'm not an electrician so maybe I
misunderstand here.

What would be the benefit of me "properly flipping switches" in the context of
a natural disaster? What if I am not home?

~~~
hunter2_
Yes, and so is a neighborhood. A dim lightbulb has a high resistance. A bright
lightbulb has a lower resistance. Multiple bright lightbulbs in parallel,
measured together as one, have an even lower resistance.

~~~
mulmen
I don't follow. How does a neighborhood become both high and low resistance?

~~~
posterboy
Where did anyone imply that?

------
beagle3
Israel mandated roof top solar water heaters for a while (since 1980 according
to [0], but essentially every building built since 1960 or so has one). It's
relatively cheap, pays for itself in 3-5 years, and is carbon neutral. This
stores energy as hot water, not using PV panels (such as those discussed in
the article). A relatively small panel per apartment is sufficient.

I do not claim that the California directive is sensible, but it is worth
comparing to a somewhat similar directive that has been in place for 40 years
with great effect - reducing grid energy production by 8%, saving everyone
money (if the article is to be trusted), and only being a minor eye sore ....

[0]
[https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS311612153620110318](https://www.reuters.com/article/idUS311612153620110318)

~~~
ebikelaw
Residential solar thermal no longer makes any kind of economic sense. These
existing mandates only show how government regulations can serve to ossify bad
practices and harm innovation.

~~~
llukas
> Residential solar thermal no longer makes any kind of economic sense.

[citation needed]

~~~
jws
Not a citation, but when I last looked at it for a cabin, the plumbing costs,
pumps, and extra stuff required in addition to the normal heater drove the
cost so high that it was just cheaper to add more PV panels, which have been
coming down because they are made in great volume.

Someplace without freezing weather, or someone who might just say “too cloudy
too long, no warm shower today” might have a different calculus.

------
spitfire
This is a deeply flawed idea. As bad as LEED.

Specifying HOW to go about being energy efficient is the entirely wrong
approach. Instead specify a minimum energy efficiency per square meter and let
home builders sort it out.

By specifying minimum efficiencies builders are free to adopt new
technologies, new methods as they come along or use alternate means which are
more suitable for a specific project.

For example I live near a river and intend to use micro-hydro for my
electricity. Do I still need to have solar panels? Or will the legislators
need to add in a thousand exceptions to the rules?

~~~
jerkstate
I agree, this is ridiculous California virtue-signaling at its finest and will
result in a heck of a lot of unintended consequences (just like prop 13 has) -
meanwhile many of the houses in my city were built in the 30s and 40s and have
plaster walls, no insulation, no heat return, single pane glass etc which
results in easily 10x more energy use for heating than modern construction
would, but can't be rebuilt with modern materials because of the expense and
difficulty of building new homes thanks to wrongheaded legislation like this.

~~~
pkaye
Not really. You can blow in insulation into walls and attic. Air seal the
house. Replace the windows with better ones. These regulations do not drive up
the cost to upgrade existing houses.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
When the regulation requires that modifications bring things up to the new
code and you've got decades of regulations like that piled up the most
reasonable options are touch nothing or rebuild the entire house

~~~
pkaye
In most places you are not forced to upgrade everything to code just because
you added insulation or new windows.

------
tzs
Many people have expressed concern that this will make houses less affordable.
That's not clear to me, at least in the case of people who borrow most of the
money for their house (which is the vast majority).

The solar part of this adds about $15k to the cost of the house. That's about
$75/month on a 30 year fixed mortgage at current rates.

Much of that, if not all or more, comes back in savings on the electric bill.

Doesn't that mean that for most single family home buyers the difference will
mostly just be a slightly higher down payment?

~~~
paulddraper
Yes...$15k on a house is a non-trivial amount.

------
ardit33
It is a great idea, as there are two other benefits:

1\. Transportation of over large distances has efficiency loss on electricity
and requires more cumbersome infrastructure.

2\. Less heat on the neighborhood as some of that energy is absorbed into
electricity instead of being bounced off to the surrounding. Having normal
tiles that just absorb heat will increase the temperature of both the building
and the surrounding environment. (requiring even more energy to cool off).

During the summer, NYC, especially manhattan, is famous to have 2F higher
temperatures that it normally should have just because of the heat radiation
from the building, pavement, and air conditioners.

Requiring a rooftop garden on large buildings is another interesting idea.

~~~
weberc2
> Transportation of over large distances has efficiency loss on electricity
> and requires more cumbersome infrastructure.

On a rooftop, you have the more significant inefficiencies of trees and
suboptimal angles. In a field, you can optimize for efficient collection, and
you can even install pivoting panels (much more cheaply than on a house,
anyway) which can optimize collection throughout the day.

Even if the transmission loss is larger than the gain from optimal positioning
(and I doubt it is), it's all marginal compared to the maintenance difference
(having a technician walk out to a panel in a field vs setting up appointments
with home residents, driving out to their homes, climbing on their roofs,
additional risk of injury for the technician from falls, risk of damaging
homes, etc).

~~~
bob_theslob646
No affiliation with this project, but you do know that it is possible to tilt
the panels. ([http://www.heliowatcher.com](http://www.heliowatcher.com)) >We
designed and built a system to automatically orient a solar panel for maximum
efficiency, record data, and safely charge batteries. Using a GPS module and
magnetometer, the HelioWatcher allows the user to place the system anywhere in
the world without any calibration. The HelioWatcher then calculates what the
sun’s current location is and orients the panel to the appropriate angle

~~~
weberc2
Yes, I am aware. I mentioned it in the second sentence of my post:

> ... you can even install pivoting panels ...

And like I said in my post, installing these is _cheaper and easier_ in a
field than on every home. For one, you only need one "tilt computer" module
that can determine the optimal angle for all of the panels in the field. More
importantly though, moving parts will wear and break eventually, and it's a
lot easier (and safer!) to walk out into the field and service them than
scheduling appointments, driving to customers' property, climbing on roofs,
etc.

Just for fun, I've built these. You don't even need a GPS module nor
magnetometer, you just need a few light sensors, one or two small motors
(depending on whether you tilt in one dimension or two), and a couple dollars'
worth of standard electronic components.

------
rdl
California is too big to do state-level regulation. For Bay Area homes this is
pretty insignificant and possibly positive (sometimes regulation might be more
efficient), but adding $20-30k to houses in less-expensive parts of the state
is crazy.

This should have been done at the local or regional level, if at all.
California should remain one state, probably, but add regional regulatory
entities between counties and the state.

~~~
jdavis703
> California should remain one state, probably, but add regional regulatory
> entities between counties and the state.

We could accomplish this by giving regional government authorities like the
Association of Bay Area Governments more authority. Essentially the
metropolitan areas become like city states. The state could set certain goals
(reduce carbon by this much, increase housing by that much), but it would be
up to regional government to specify implementation details.

~~~
rdl
The question I'd have would be should there be: 1) direct democratic
participation in those authorities (elected by the residents of the area), or
2) should they be selected by the subsidiary jurisdictions (counties/cities),
3) or by the state (legislature or governor).

The state government seems dysfunctional in a lot of ways, so while maybe
goals could come down from the state, the actual authorities should be 1) or
2). Maybe some combination.

------
jedberg
This is interesting to me, because I've been advocating for a similar law for
a while now, with a few crucial differences:

I propose we make a law that says any home that sells for greater than the
Freddie Mac super conforming loan limit (currently $679,650) must be
retrofitted to have a net energy draw of zero or less from the grid (with
rules about exceptions for shade and roof angles and whatnot).

This would solve a lot of problems with this bill: It would exempt all the
folks who are selling cheap homes throughout the state, it would apply to both
old and new homes, and it allows for new technologies that don't exist yet or
are cost prohibitive, instead of require solar panels.

It wouldn't really affect prices much, because there is already a flattening
at the Freddie Mac limits, and when you get to the super conforming level, a
solar install only represents 5% or less today (but I imagine the prices would
fall with economies of scale).

------
gumby
I think this is quite interesting, but despite being a strong fan of solar
power, I don't think this is a great idea. There are plenty of homes in areas
of low insolation (under trees, facing the wrong way) and this becomes simply
a pointless tax for them.

A specific solar _incentive_ (payable only on new construction if you'd like)
based on yield would make more sense.

------
grizzles
This is how you build wealth as a society. Californians should be proud. The
housing crisis is a separate issue. This policy decreases the TCO (cost) of
housing by planting a money tree on the roof. Rooftop solar is great for
consumers because it avoids the ~30% efficiency loss to heat that you
otherwise pay using transmission lines. Mandating BIPV at the design/build
stage improves aesthetics & resale value.

------
thetruthseeker1
My view is also that it would be better policy if the california government
taxed all homes and generated a certain amount of revenue which they could use
to generate certain percentage GW of solar power( A goal they should set for
themselves). That way it is fair to all, the problem is also solved at scale
which is important as opposed to mandating new home owners only which I am not
sure is that efficient

------
YaxelPerez
Isn't this going to just exacerbate California's housing crisis by making
homes more expensive by default?

~~~
freeone3000
Look at the price of residential-zoned lots versus the price of a finished
home. The cost of a house isn't in the building.

~~~
jjeaff
This will add $20k to $30k. Even in the Bay area, that's substantial.
Especially when you are already on the edge of affordability.

~~~
mortehu
The cost of the solar panels doesn't necessarily come out of the buyer's
pocket. Instead, the cost could come out of the previous landowner's profits,
if prices are mostly determined by what buyers can afford. In other words, the
land drops in value by the cost of the solar panels that will have to be
installed on it.

------
ryankupyn
I'm really interested in seeing how this will play out if solar continues to
get cheaper.

I'd imagine that at a certain point, the panels themselves will be cheap(er)
compared to the installation cost (so that the cost structure changes to favor
the most efficient installation/maintenance regime), and that residential-
scale solar will be uneconomical compared to large-scale installations in the
desert, where you can get a couple of hundred megawatts all in one place
getting the advantages of optimal weather, easily-installable sun-tracking,
and more regular maintenance than what you'd get on a 1,500 sqf roof in SF.

It's entirely possible that, 10-15 years from now, this ends up being a "tax"
paid by all homeowners to the residential-solar-installation industry so that
they can put solar panels on roofs that will never earn their money back, just
so that the homeowner can displace what might be equally clean energy
generated elsewhere.

------
xupybd
Is roof top solar going to help anything? It's my understanding that roof top
solar does little to reduce peak loads when the sun is not out. But decreases
demand during the day. Meaning you need coal plants standing at the ready to
catch the peak.

~~~
esmi
The article addresses this question.

"While net-zero remains an admirable goal, getting there is not yet cost-
effective, state officials and experts said. And it fails to address the
state’s ultimate goal of curbing global warming.

Because electric utilities now rely on renewable energy for much of their
power, daytime energy already is quite clean, said McAllister, the lead state
commissioner on energy efficiency.

At night when there’s no solar power, people come home, turn on the lights,
the TV and possibly the air conditioning and start pulling power from the
grid, he said. Some gas-powered generating plants then are fired up to help
meet that additional load, boosting carbon emissions.

“That additional (home-generated) solar kilowatt-hour isn’t worth very much
because it’s displacing what is already clean energy,” McAllister said. “That
net-zero home is not a net-carbon-zero home.”"

------
jjeaff
This will go down as one of the most successful special interest industry
lobbying win of all time. And one of the industry lobby representatives quoted
in this article has the gall to say this isn't enough. But just a
"compromise".

~~~
cobbzilla
Funny, but it's not gall -- that lobbyist is paid well to be constantly
pushing the Overton Window of acceptable policy towards ever more crony
capitalism. Why stop now? Why stop ever?

------
whataretensors
Typical politics. Increase the costs of building homes in a housing poor area
while claiming to help the environment. The increased new development costs is
likely the entire motivation(i.e. market manipulation).

------
cs702
If this passes, Tesla is going to make a _killing_ on solar roofs:

[https://www.tesla.com/solarroof](https://www.tesla.com/solarroof)

~~~
altano
Not really as their roofs are extremely expensive when compared to traditional
roofing material and solar panels.

------
exabrial
Did we examine the full ewaste impact when the cells need to bring disposed
of? Are we sure that the net CO2 in the manufacturing process is carbon
negative? Does the manufacturing, shipping, installation, and disposal process
release heavy metals or organic solvents into the environment?

I want clean and efficient energy, but I want it to be good for the
environment, not worse, and it appears none of this was studied nor confirmed.

And also once again, California is ensuring that low income families cannot
afford to buy a home as an investment to exit the poverty cycle. From
requiring new homes to have an EV jack in the garage, to solar cells on the
roofs, the continually make sure that equality is out of the poor's reach by
force of the law.

------
anonoholic
Tangentially - how about mandatory rainwater storage? A sink for rain to
reduce flooding, and a source for grey-water (non-potable water, although
residential purification is entirely possible) to alleviate pressure on
reserves in times of drought.

~~~
jjeaff
It's actually the opposite. In some parts of California, it's illegal to
capture rainwater. Because it affects groundwater runoff and the surrounding
ecosystem.

~~~
anonoholic
A typical failure to understand the law of unintended consequences.

The total volume of water consumed remains the same, but the water lost to
evaporation & distribution leakage (collectively akin to the transmission
losses for electricity mentioned elsewhere in this thread) means that not
collecting rainwater is less efficient.

Then there's the flood damage caused when the increasing expanses of paved
ground fail to absorb heavy rain that rainwater collection can help alleviate.

------
aagha
What's being missed in this conversation is that California is at "peak
solar", meaning that having more solar is NOT good for the state.

We can't yet effectively store solar, so in the summer when everyone comes
home, they turn on their AC's (in SoCal) and in order to be able to provide
enough energy as the sun starts to set, Cal ISO
([http://www.caiso.com](http://www.caiso.com)) needs to tell gas fired plants
to turn on (quickly) to have enough capacity in the grid. This causes--you
guessed it--pollution.

Source: Worked 7 years for an ISO.

------
anonuser123456
Maybe we should do what 99% of economists suggest and just tax carbon instead?

------
kchoudhu
Way to make it even harder to construct new housing in California.

------
Karishma1234
Housing is already very expensive and you are going to make it even more
expensive by ridiculous regulations like these ? What if I want a roof that is
not ugly ?

~~~
Reedx
Telsa's solar roof looks nice, though it's even more expensive...

------
wdn
With the mandate, it will take even longer for the homeowner to breakeven on
the solar panel. Another reason why it paid to invest in politicians.

------
GhostVII
That seems like a pretty significant government overreach. Forcing solar
panels on every house just doesn't make sense, and I think people should have
the freedom to chose whether or not they want them. Its fine to add
incentives, but forcing them seems extremely especially when there are houses
in very shady areas that will not benefit much from solar panels.

------
hindsightbias
Subsidize corporate profits, socialize losses, deinsentivize distributed local
power, destroy the environment.

For an alternative view:[http://www.mojavedesertblog.com/2009/11/solar-energy-
develop...](http://www.mojavedesertblog.com/2009/11/solar-energy-development-
in-mojave.html?m=1)

------
dghughes
I wonder if a device could be built to generate power from earthquakes.
Apparently southern California has 27 earthquakes every day. If a device could
be built to harness that it could be useful. I know they're not all in the
same place each day but 27 per day in such a small area may be enough.

~~~
nerfhammer
issue is storage: you would get one stupendous burst of energy and then you
would need to store it and trickle it out more slowly.

------
cpeterso
Google has a tool called "Sunroof" that uses Google Maps satellite data to
identify the best location to install solar panels on your roof:

[https://www.google.com/get/sunroof#p=0](https://www.google.com/get/sunroof#p=0)

------
BurningFrog
So in the middle of an epic housing crisis, California adds "about $25,000 to
$30,000 to the construction costs" of a new home.

When in a hole, keep digging!

~~~
paulcole
Even more than that once solar panel companies all realize they should
increase prices since homeowners are obligated to buy from one of them.

~~~
alanh
I’m not sure why you are being downvoted. your prediction is hardly guaranteed
but not entirely absurd either. it’s nice to have a guaranteed market

~~~
rmk
See Pharma companies for an example of what happens when you have a guaranteed
market that capitalises on research funded by the public. Solar is very
similar.

------
resalisbury
What's another $30k in home costs. That's less thank 1% of my $3.2 million
home in Palo Alto ;)

Whatever you do just make sure the neighborhood is zoned single family. Multi
family just doesn't have enough roof space.

------
bellt0wn98121
Anyone here using solar on their home? What did the initial investment cost?

~~~
rhacker
Non-grid-tie set up here. 4 100 Watt Panels on mine, powers everything except
for the propane. Generator for cloudy days. Total Cost: $2000 (wiring, kinda
expensive MPPT charge, kinda expensive swing-capable brackets, kinda expensive
inverter) already had the propane generator. After learning how to do this on
an RV I've decided to never buy a stick home again since most states will
require a grid-tie (which is the dumbest thing you can do)... So living in a
trailer is the best way to live now.

~~~
toasterlovin
Curious: what’s wrong with being connected to the grid (assuming that’s what
you meant by “grid-tie”)?

------
ryao
It would have been better to adopt the passivhaus standard as part of the
building code.

------
citrus1330
Why does the state with the best weather and scenery have such a retarded
government

------
wollstonecraft
Do you want housing shortage? Because that's how you get housing shortage

------
acef
Doesn’t mean much as long as they don’t build enough new housing. Most
important cities in CA are failing to add affordable housing.

------
jeremyt
There’s a genius way to lower housing prices. Why didn’t anyone think of this
before?

------
jjeaff
Only new homes. In other words, NIMBY.

~~~
jessaustin
Which will be the first neighborhood to forbid solar panels, thereby
forbidding new home construction completely?

------
dang
Url changed from [https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/06/california-to-require-
so...](https://www.engadget.com/2018/05/06/california-to-require-solar-panels-
on-most-new-homes/), which points to this.

Submitters: since the HN guidelines call for original sources, we'd appreciate
it if you'd scan an article for a link to one before posting. It's one step of
manual web crawling in exchange for better content on the site—plus it's
fairer to give credit to the original instead of a cribbed knockoff.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
crunchlibrarian
I don't understand your complaint, especially since the OC register article
you seem to like for whatever reason is not the first to publish and is itself
just a cribbed knockoff.

Are we expected to research every URL and find the first to report on it no
matter what? Even if it's obscure, out of date, or wrong?

~~~
dang
Scanning an article for a link to a more original source is one manual step.
That's not hard, since one presumably reads an article before submitting it
and the link to the other source is usually prominent, like it was above.
Another recent case is
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17007441](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17007441).

If the earlier article is out of date or wrong, then presumably the new link
includes significant new information, in which case it's not a knockoff.

The OCR article looked to me like original reporting, but if you know of
another piece that it's copying, we can change the URL again.

By "cribbed knockoff" I mean the thing that media properties do where they
lift material from somewhere, make a fig leaf's worth of modification, and
publish it themselves. Some people call this blogspam, but that's a contested
word. There are plenty of these sites. If knockoffs are all they do, we ban
them, but some also publish original articles, and we don't want to exclude
those.

------
banned1
If you are fabulously wealthy that you can [have a latte each morning], let
alone [buy it at Starbucks], you can afford [an additional tax on your latte
for the peasant that got the coffee beans.]

~~~
closeparen
A house in California costs ~4 orders of magnitude more than a Starbucks
coffee every morning. Wildly different values of “fabulously wealthy” here.

~~~
banned1
A latte is $3.65. If you made your own cup at home, you would spend $0.05.
Starbucks is 73x. I believe you need to stop buying lattes from Starbucks and
start making your own coffee at home like I do. Stop being such an elitist.
Get to work.

~~~
peapicker
I make my coffee at home. Sustainable shade grown fair trade coffee in my
parts costs $15.50 a pound. 17g of coffee for a cup is $0.58 per cup. So for
sustainable coffee you are off by an order of magnitude.

~~~
banned1
My coffee is not for pretentious people.

[https://onlinestore.smucker.com/display_product.cfm?prod_id=...](https://onlinestore.smucker.com/display_product.cfm?prod_id=2234&cat_id=183)

$8.99 180 cups $0.04994 per cup

~~~
jdavis703
What is pretentious about buying products that attempt to be better for the
earth, and better for your body? It's fine if "coffee is coffee" for you
(heck, I've been known to skip coffee altogether in favor of caffeine pills),
but there's nothing pretentious about being conscious of one's consumer
choices.

------
fiatjaf
With big governments come big mistakes.

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Karishma1234
Just how much more bullshit do we have to take from California's politicians ?

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nickik
California the liberal pro envoirmentalists.

The effects of their policy. High carbon output. High cost of living. High
cost of energy. And as little bonus, water shortages.

Bad in every possible way for poor people living in California. Its truly sad
state, specifically because all of these problems have extremly simple
solutions.

\- Don't only force renewables, but rather allow all forms of new energy that
are better then the current (don't close nuclear plants for example). This is
also better for prices.

\- Allow more house building. No brainer.

\- Make a proper water market with block pricing so poor people have basically
free water and water is directed where it is sensable. Farmers SHOULD consider
water cost when making a choice of crops. People should pay to have a green
garden and/or clean their car every day.

