A charitable interpretation of the OPs suggestion is that this regulation would make the most sense in high to mid density areas, where land is at a premium. And any practical implementation of this measure would almost assuredly come with financing assistance and some sort of assurance that the electricity produced has an offtaker agreement that would eventually result in the project breaking even.
Arguing for more solar instead of CO2 capture has nothing to do with trying to force an agenda and lifestyle on everybody. It is merely recognizing that of the options that are currently available to us or will be available to us in time to mitigate the worst aspects of climate change, solar, wind and storage are currently our best bets. Wishful thinking and breathless press releases aren't going to change that. This is about first principles, not agendas. Feel free to counter argue with something other than wishful thinking and grievance politics.
I got solar recently because the payback time was around 5 years taking rebates into account. We often talk about how negative externalities of things like coal are not priced appropriately, however it goes the other way and renewable rebates exist due to the positive benefits.
I wonder if in the situation you mentioned, whether it would be profitable for a third party to handle the roofing and capture any value while covering the costs. The ROI might be a little too low for a traditional business but it seems fairly low risk and effort and would scale nicely if they get installation discounts. It would still be a lot of friction starting a business if you have to wait for them to do it, so many laws like this often only activate for businesses over a certain size (such as GST in Australia based on revenue, or WorkChoices based on head count).
Then they'll have a 200kW system that will pay their power bill and pay itself off after 7 years. No reason to force them to pay for it, just let anyone who wants to build it.
> This is the kind of scheme you come up with if your real objective is to force an urbanized carless own-nothing-and-be-happy lifestyle on everybody. Which knowing the popular attitudes of this website, is probably the case...
What the hell makes you think car dependence supports owning things in a land of monthly heated seat subscriptions and EVs witb proprietary charging networks? One person with a lathe, some brass, some wire and some pipes can make a bicycle from raw materials sans tyres, and a walkable area (which works even better in a small rural town than a city) requires only feet. You're not even allowed to know what code is running in your car or turn the modem off or replace some parts yourself. You barely own a new car any more than you own a bus.
