To the editor: The {photograph} with Sammy Roth’s column, “How I realized to cease worrying and love rooftop photo voltaic,” displaying a employee putting in photo voltaic panels on prime of a clay tile roof, ought to make readers query why there.
The writer lays out the battle between residential rooftop photo voltaic and the destruction of desert landscapes with big photo voltaic farms. However there are higher choices for combating local weather change.
Research present that cities with fewer timber and shade have gotten warmth islands, and having acres of asphalt parking tons in every single place simply makes issues worse. Some colleges and companies have began to combine photo voltaic panels with parking zone shade constructions that each produce power and cut back warmth absorption. Business buildings have big roofs the place photo voltaic panels can simply be put in.
Photo voltaic set up corporations have used subsidies to generate income by engaging residential shoppers to threat the integrity of their very own roofs in alternate for non permanent power value financial savings. There are extra environment friendly methods to make use of photo voltaic panels and higher places to place them than on prime of homes.
Les Corridor, Santa Ana
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To the editor: Proper now, rooftop photo voltaic is in a precarious state.
The current choices by the California Public Utilities Fee haven’t solely dealt extreme blows to renewable power but additionally put the state’s local weather targets in jeopardy. It’s evident that the CPUC prioritizes the pursuits of personal utilities and traders over these of Californians, particularly deprived communities, colleges and farmers. The digital web metering choice is a stark instance of this bias.
These choices by the CPUC have brought on a drastic decline in photo voltaic gross sales and an exodus of jobs. Gov. Gavin Newsom should take decisive motion and step in to champion local weather motion, environmental justice and fairness.
It’s time to recalibrate the CPUC’s focus towards a sustainable future that advantages all Californians. Allow us to not compromise our local weather targets, jeopardize the well-being of Californians and witness the additional deterioration of our state’s once-promising rooftop photo voltaic panorama.
Andrea León-Grossmann, Los Angeles
The author is deputy program director within the West for Vote Photo voltaic.
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To the editor: In his somewhat lukewarm endorsement of rooftop solar energy, Roth states that placing panels over parking tons, canals and warehouses received’t be adequate to keep away from the necessity for large photo voltaic farms.
In line with an op-ed piece by Pitzer Faculty professor Susan A. Phillips in the identical subject, the Inland Empire has 1.6 billion sq. toes of warehouse area. That might help an terrible lot of rooftop photo voltaic panels — sufficient, I’d think about, to fully energy the warehouses with clear power, together with charging stations for a fleet of electrical supply vehicles — and cut back the necessity for habitat-destroying photo voltaic farms.
Any extra power produced could possibly be given without spending a dime to the encircling residents, thus offsetting a few of the environmental harms cited by Phillips. A win-win for everybody — together with desert tortoises.
Kathy Barreto, Culver Metropolis
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To the editor: The issue of world warming requires greater than the motion taken up to now. Fast discount in greenhouse fuel emissions calls for initiatives that may be constructed rapidly and supply the most important bang for our buck.
I agree that within the quick time period, the development of large-scale photo voltaic and wind farms ought to take priority over residential photo voltaic methods with battery storage. Nevertheless, to incentivize property homeowners to transform to wash power, federal and state residential and industrial constructing tax credit should be elevated.
Moreover, lower-income residents who can not afford the price of residential photo voltaic mustn’t should pay greater energy payments to offset decrease utility revenues.
In the long run, our nationwide objective ought to embody superior, safer nuclear reactors much like the prototype underneath development in Wyoming, funded by Invoice Gates.
Larry Naritomi, Monterey Park
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To the editor: Kudos to Sammy Roth for his complete, erudite and balanced article on rooftop photo voltaic. He made the complexities of this subject very clear and subsequently drew his conclusions, with which I heartily agree.
I look ahead to extra articles on the setting from this very superb thinker.
Tamra Nelson, Los Angeles
