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posted by martyb on Thursday June 08 2017, @10:45PM   Printer-friendly
from the defeating-lobbyists-for-non-renewable-energy dept.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports

Gov. Brian Sandoval said [June 5] he intends to sign a bill that supporters expect will bring the rooftop solar industry back to Nevada.

During a ceremony to sign the major bills implementing the two-year, $8.2 billion general fund budget, Sandoval said he will be signing Assembly Bill 405, a bill making it worthwhile for homeowners to invest in rooftop solar and participate in net metering. Net metering is where people with rooftop systems get a credit for the excess energy they return to the grid.

[...] The passage of AB405 has been praised by the solar industry.

A statement from Tesla said the bill will not only bring back solar energy to Nevada and enable the industry to innovate and grow sustainably, it will create thousands of jobs and bring millions of dollars in economic benefits to the state.

"Tesla will begin selling rooftop solar and residential storage products in Nevada, and we look forward to bringing even more jobs to the state in the years ahead to help provide residents with affordable rooftop solar and energy storage choices", the statement said.

GlobeNewswire adds Sunrun Announces Plans to Re-Enter Nevada Solar Market

"The near unanimous bipartisan support for legislation to reinstate net metering and establish a bill of rights for solar customers is a reflection of overwhelming public demand for affordable, clean energy options", said Lynn Jurich, Chief Executive Officer and Co-Founder of Sunrun. "Thanks to the hard work of Governor Sandoval and Nevada State Legislators, we can now say with confidence that Sunrun is coming back to Nevada."

Nevada's solar industry came to a halt in late 2015 when new rules limited the credit rooftop solar customers would receive for the clean energy they provide to the grid. The abrupt shift in regulations forced Sunrun to cease operations in the state, leading to the elimination of hundreds of local jobs.

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Nevada Regulators Reject Request to Halt New Rooftop Solar Rules


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  • (Score: 2) by urza9814 on Friday June 09 2017, @01:26PM (1 child)

    by urza9814 (3954) on Friday June 09 2017, @01:26PM (#523036) Journal

    The reality is paying subsidies to coal generation plants is nothing less than a wealth transfer from poor taxpayers to rich CEOs running utilities so they can #MakeBank. The utility can produce electricity at really low rates, but the executives still search for ways to dump those costs onto the rest of us so they can funnel the profits into their own bank accounts. Notice you can read the whole story as subtext just from the bills: coal might be dead without the government meddling and subsidy, but instead it has blossomed. Sure you can look at the economic activity and jobs created, but if you ignore the destruction of the environment and mis-allocation of tax dollars you are only seeing half the picture. The ignorance of externalities fallacy is one of the oldest in economics and people still fall for it almost daily.

    Coal gets a full order of magnitude more in federal subsidies than solar. So if the need for subsidies indicates a dead industry as you have asserted, then coal has been a fuckin zombie for decades:
    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Federal_coal_subsidies [sourcewatch.org]

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  • (Score: 2) by jmorris on Friday June 09 2017, @05:32PM

    by jmorris (4844) on Friday June 09 2017, @05:32PM (#523165)

    Here is a useful hint: actually read the Prog drivel you post links to.

    Coal gets no subsidies in the U.S., they try to count standard deductions offered to all mining industries as 'taxes otherwise not collected, thus a subsidy' but even then can only scam up half a B. Some other money they count as 'goes to evil coal' is R&D money related to Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle, which is GREEN TECH.

    Then they observe that a lot of coal goes over railroads so lets try to count most of the money that flows in that whole industry! And they are right, I see a lot of coal cars go by, heading down to a nice big coal fired power plant down that track fifty miles or so. We typically pay less than $0.11/KWH thanks to that and a medium size hydro plant near us on the grid. And guess what? The skies are not black with soot, we are more likely to smell the paper mill much closer to us, but it ain't that bad. Smells like #Winning since it is an anchor employer in the area.

    And I'm really sick and damned tired of the "lost revenue" concept. I reject and abhor the premise, that all money and wealth is the State's and thus anything they leave us is 'lost revenue' or a 'tax expenditure.' Why do you guys think we keep pushing for a flat tax? It ends this whole perverted argument once and for all. It draws a bright red line, the State can have this much of what we produce and no more and the tax code is to used to fund the government instead of backdoor legislating every aspect of the economy. Instead we have this sick system where the base rate is clearly insane, but nobody actually pays it, instead buying lobbyists and grassroots political groups to carve out deductions, rebates, exemptions, credits, etc. until the effective rate is low enough to survive but the price is government deeply involved in every business decision. But Progs made this system so STFU about the side effects.