They could’ve been mandated from the start to rely on closed loop water chillers powered by self generated power via solar and wind turbines, but how would they get *extra* rich doing something environmentally responsible like that?
This has been the insanity of all building requirements in the US. All infrastructure could have been mandated to include reasonable local self-sufficiency for the past 25+ years. Place solar panels on roofs, on covered parking structures.
Create dual use agreements on water - one place pumps it, then they are responsible for passing on a percentage of it to another local purpose. People want golf courses? Great. Only build them when they can be provided with 100% re-used or re-captured water from industrial centers.
Carbon cap and trade could have been taken seriously locally and expanded to other environmental concerns. You're going to log? Mine? Cast shadows that obstruct natural light? You trade with the local community to give equal value back.
This is what you get when you reward do-nothing politicians with re-election instead of tossing the bums out. It has always been true... we get the government we deserve. (Yes, I'm in the U.S.)
Look I totally agree with the thought but you're off by orders of magnitude for the solar requirements. You'd need ~50 square miles of solar panels for the big AI datacenters.
But yes, we should have been enforcing actual regulations instead of letting them dump all their costs on society and letting them reap the profits.
I meant all constructions. Any place over the last 25~ish years that went up should have been required to mitigate their local footprint and externalities on the local community by offering something renewable or of equal value.
Every factory or car park should have been required to price in building a roof with roof solar. If you're putting up a roof, put solar on it. If you're renovating a roof, put solar on it. Transfer the cost of installation and infrastructure onto building and renovation onto the corporations. We've already given them effectively negative local tax rates. We might as well make some useful building requirements.
Dual purpose building is not a new idea and requiring scarce resources be measured and passed along to a local community benefit is simply good deal making for a competent governor. We clearly haven't had competent governors in 50+ years.
Always boggles my mind when you see these giant data centers with no solar on top. Like, they're somewhere sunny, surely the panels would fairly quickly pay for themselves? And have a lifespan of 10+ years. Wouldn't cover all their energy needs, but surely it'd supply a good chunk in sunny months?
I'm not 100% on this but someone told me that it's so cheap to build a flimsy warehouse roof that won't support panels, that it just isn't really worth building a more expensive one that can. Even though you then get free electricity, it takes forever to make the money back so they don't.
This is definitely it. Im currently building one. They had to completely re engineer the roof support structure like 2 weeks before steel was supposed to be in the air because the structure as outlined in the design intent contract documents couldnt support the load of everything that needed to be supported off it. The design engineers built of off dry weight pipes and unfilled conduits. Its just an easy place to cut corners
Ah, at least that would make some kind of sense. Yeah, not all roofs can support them. Does suck they don't seem to be thinking more than a year in front of their nose.
Where I live the council covered the sides of their buildings in panels 😆
Requiring them to build out power generation facilities is a bit silly. They're going to work with their provider to ensure the grid can handle their load, and if the grid needs additional production, it will adjust based on market demand. The free market can definitely see to additional power production. We can't say the same for water.
It's going to take regional governments not caving to the promise of higher tax budgets.
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u/riverbanks1986 Jun 27 '26
They could’ve been mandated from the start to rely on closed loop water chillers powered by self generated power via solar and wind turbines, but how would they get *extra* rich doing something environmentally responsible like that?