It's not just the farm lobby, it's baked deep into the constitution and the political geography so that vast empty land stretches have hugely disproportional political power.

▲ iso1631 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The more acres you have, the more kWh you can generate each year

Why wouldn't land owners want to farm the sun?

▲ philipkglass 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Leasing land for solar installations is popular with rural land owners. Or at least popular enough that there's rarely an issue finding enough willing owners to develop a new project.

The problem is typically their neighbors agitating against allowing the actual land owners to sign leases. It's the rural equivalent of activists who fight apartment complex construction in the name of "preserving neighborhood character."

▲ karmelapple 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Farm the sun

Fantastic messaging! I could see this being a great way to market this, especially with something mentioned in the article:

> Farm the sun to make 3X more money

▲ jedberg 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Energy can't be moved as easily as food. If you generate electricity in Iowa you can't easily sell it to California.

▲ bryanlarsen 10 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The Eastern and Western grids are interconnected.

▲ jedberg 10 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, but you can't just inject 100s of megawatts into the middle and hope it magically gets to the coasts. There are a lot of losses on the transmission lines and each step has a max capacity.

▲ robocat 9 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Talking about losses is a sign of ignorance. Generally a comment making that point can be ignored. Losses are a point that people repeat: maybe because it "makes sense".

  operating at median loads, transmission losses over a distance of 1,000 miles generally range between 6% and 15%

Other constraints are what matter - especially if any links are close to their capacity.

IAAEE

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jedberg 8 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, that's why I mentioned the capacity issue as well. While losses aren't significant, they do matter. Especially when we are talking about a 1600 mile distance.

	▲	zeckalpha 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		No one electron goes the 1600 mile distance. An increase of cheap energy supply in one place lowers likelihood of production elsewhere, but it is more diffuse than selling Iowan energy in California.

▲ bryanlarsen 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Sure, it's not a trivial exercise, but neither is food transport. That's a much harder problem that's been solved because we had to. The main reason we don't have a continental grid is because we don't need one.

▲ jqpabc123 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Energy can't be moved as easily as food

It can be moved much easier. Electricity moves at the speed of light (through an ideal conductor).

If you generate electricity in Iowa you can't easily sell it to California.

Within the Eastern and Western grids, power generated anywhere can be easily sold anywhere else within the respective grids. For example, the Intermountain Power Project in Utah has historically supplied a significant portion of electricity to Southern California.

Moving power between these grids is a little more complicated --- only because the grids are not synchronized. But this too is technically possible and could be made easier if there was more demand to do so.

▲ pbhjpbhj 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

How do you think energy policy is baked into the Constitution?

People vote, so how does land have political power? Presumably you mean people in low population density get disproportionate representation in USA?

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pixl97 11 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The last point is what they mean. The Senate causes a number of problems with it's setup. But even the House and how small it is causes further problems. The number of reps there needs to go up by many many times.

	▲	kelseyfrog 11 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		To add, there are many proposals[1] for Senate[2] reform[3]. Even a cursory glance reveals[4] an abundance[5] of different[6] suggestions[7]. 1. https://dc.law.utah.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1378&con... 2. https://casten.house.gov/imo/media/doc/senate_constitutional... 3. https://democracybillofrights.org/how-and-why-to-reform-the-... 4. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09626... 5. https://casten.house.gov/media/press-releases/casten-introdu... 6. https://rooseveltinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/RI... 7. https://electoral-reform.org.uk/when-it-comes-to-fair-votes-...
	▲	danaris 10 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		And that's not baked into the Constitution—it was set by law in the early 1900s, and could be changed by law. If we were to uncap the size of the House of Representatives, and instead change so that each district contains 50k people (or close to it), we would have roughly 7k representatives in the House. That would effectively eliminate the disproportionate advantage small states have there. (It would not, of course, do anything about the Senate; that would have to be addressed separately.)

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drdec 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I believe the grandparent is referring to the US Senate, which was designed as the state's representation in the federal government, and where each state gets 2 senators.

This means that California gets 2 senators but so do Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, etc.

Now, the conclusion of the grandparent does not follow in my opinion.

Nothing in the constitution mandates the current state boundaries. California could break itself into multiple states (there is a population minimum) and gain more representation in the senate if it wanted.

But there are trade offs. California is a huge prize in the electoral college and has been a safe Democrat win for quite some time. Splitting into multiple states could jeopardize that. Being large also allows them to lead the way on regulation in a way that smaller states couldn't.

The US government is quite the game theory problem.

	▲	MostlyStable 11 hours ago \| parent [-]
		I have a different reason why the conclusion doesn't follow: while it's true that less populous states have outsized influence in the senate, the constitution doesn't require (and in fact, originally discourages) the federal government to engage in the kind of activities being discussed here. These activities should be the domain of the states. But a long history of expanding federal power (and various supreme court decisions affirming those expansions along, in my opinion, dubious interpretations of both the constitution and various statutes, especially the commerce clause) has led to this issue. The fact that North Dakota has a lot more influence in the US Senate than California on a per capita basis shouldn't be that big of a deal, because the US Senate should be doing a whole heck of a lot less than it is, and states should be picking up that slack. The more power and responsibility we have given the federal government, the more the issues appear....because it's doing things never intended or envisioned by the founders.

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buildsjets 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

People are represented by Representatives, real estate is represented by Senators.