Requirement+in+California+for+solar+panels+on+ALL+NEW+HOMES,+Is+this+necessarily+a+good+thin

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 * California will require solar panels on all new homes. That’s not necessarily a good thing. **
 * 05/15/18 **

The article talks about the CEC (California Energy Commission), adding provisions to the state building code, that requires all new houses, apartment buildings of 3 levels or higher and major renovated sites to include solar panels. Since there are more than 100,000 new houses being built, this new addition results in a boom in the solar power industry (fun fact, i learned about this from my dad who is a professor at UNCC, and one of his grad students is working on solar panels that charge during the day, and then at night they continue to charge and create power through an inverter.... or something like that...) the end goal of this addition is so that new homes are net-zero energy, meaning that they produce the same amount of energy as they consume. The issue that the article pulls from this are that basically, this is not a well developed idea and has not been well studied, will not actually reduce emissions to achieve net-zero society, and houses are expensive (i dont know if you can tell but I don't think Vox has the best downsides for this situation)
 * Summary**

__**How it** **relates**__ This is related to Environmental Science, because as we run out of fossil fuels to burn, a new way to produce power is needed and this seems like the best way since sunlight is plentiful in California and since it's renewable energy, it is a step towards society relying solely on renewable energy. On page 408-409 of our APES textbook, they talk about more uses of solar energy besides for just electricity such as for heating water and houses. So not only does this new addition have the potential to let new houses reach that net-zero energy, but maybe even save energy, in negawatts.

__**My** **Opinion**__ I think that this addition is a great idea, because not only is it an environmentally sound decision, but also an economically sound decision, since there is no real infrastructure for the mass production of solar panels to satisfy the needs of these to-be built homes, there will probably a large amount of jobs created, not only for production but also for, selling as there will definitely be more than one company trying to corner this market, and in installation, maintenance. It seems skewed towards these businesses but in the end the consumer is getting direct heating and energy, from their own house.

Environmental Laws regarding solar energy and renewable energy as a whole include, statutes enacted in California and Texas that allow for the private production of energy, up to a certain output. Because this has been enacted this addition could be made without it, peoples power may have had to come from a solar farm, type of place. Further more the DOE (Department of Energy) reports that solar is now cheaper than ever (which doesn't mean a whole lot, because it will continue to get cheaper until those houses are made, than prices will probably shoot up... kinda like RAM and GPU's right now.....)
 * __Environmental__ __Law__**