California Governor Says 100 Percent Clean Electricity Not Enough, State Must Go Carbon Neutral (arstechnica.com) 449
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: On Monday, California Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill mandating that the state's utilities move to 100-percent zero-emission electricity generation by 2045. Brown also issued an executive order today requiring the state to become carbon neutral by 2045, that is, mandating that the state remove as much greenhouse gas from the atmosphere as it puts into the atmosphere. One of the most interesting aspects of the zero-emissions bill signed today is that it also specifies that California can't increase the carbon emissions of another state to get cheap electricity. It appears that buying electricity from a coal plant in Nevada is fine if that electricity had been supplied prior to the bill's passing, but seeking out new out-of-state natural gas-fired plants to buy from would not be allowed. The bill's ambitiousness is compounded by the executive order that Gov. Brown signed today. The order requires California to become carbon neutral by 2045. "The achievement of carbon neutrality will require both significant reductions in carbon pollution and removal of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, including sequestration in forests, soils, and other natural landscapes," Brown's executive order states (PDF).
Carbon neutral not enough (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Carbon neutral not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
More seriously, carbon neutral is not enough and the state must go carbon negative. Everywhere will.
Re:Carbon neutral not enough (Score:5, Funny)
We choose to shit out more carbon than we use. We choose to shit out more carbon than we use in this decade and do the other things, not because they these shits will be easy, but because these shits will be hard, because those huge hardened turds will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too.
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We choose to shit out more carbon than we use.
I don't choose to, but I can only hold my breath for so long.
Re:Carbon neutral not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
We choose to shit out more carbon than we use. We choose to shit out more carbon than we use in this decade and do the other things, not because these shits will be hard, but because these shits will be easy, because laying turds will not require our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are not willing to accept, one we are willing to postpone, and one which we intend to leave for someone else to deal with, and the others, too.
FTFY... we shit out the carbon because it is easy. Not shitting it out is the hard part.
Re: Carbon neutral not enough (Score:2, Funny)
More seriously, California Governor Jerry Brown also signed a bill today mandating that the value of PI be made exactly 3 by 2047. Mathematicians are very excited.
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The fact that you consider CO2 to be "pollution" is just... I have no words to express how truly mind boggling that is. CO2 is what keeps the plants alive. No CO2 == dead plants and nothing for us to eat.
CO2 is an absolutely Necessary part of life on this planet. It is no more a "pollutant" than water or oxygen.
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Poison? The earth used to have 40% oxygen levels, and life survived just fine (and thrived). Vice-versa there was a point where CO2 was 5 times higher than current levels, and the poles were melted. It was called a "Tropic Age" and the dinosaurs absolutely loved it. (So did our ancenstors the proto-mammals.)
Please take a moment to learn the WHOLE history of this planet, not just this tiny 0.1% sliver in time.
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Even the carbon neutral goal has a lot of implications to land use, construction, food production and such. Fortunately low carbon concrete and other materials are already in the labs and maybe ready to be used on the wide scale by 2045.
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Nobody's talking about eliminating CO2 from the atmosphere, just reducing it to around pre-industrial levels which will leave plenty enough for plants This will be an enormous task, there's no risk of overshooting by accident.
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We say enough at or slightly above 280ppm, which is well above 180. We're at 400ppm right now.
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Because we fully understand the mechanisms, lead times, etc, required to manage the PPMs to within s few hundred PPMs in 1.4B cubic kilometers of gas.
That shit ain't a video game.
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It's not a system that reacts quickly or easily, getting a precise setting won't be too hard, it's the huge reduction from the current level that will be difficult.
Making the turnaround so that we're heading in generally the right direction would be a good start.
Re:Carbon neutral not enough (Score:5, Informative)
Slight correction: CO2 levels actually reached 410ppm last year.
Re: Carbon neutral not enough (Score:5, Informative)
That's not a random from-my-ass number, that's the level of CO2 that was in the atmosphere before the industrial revolution. The -correct- global average temperature is one that fits well with our established civilization and gives good crop yields, which is one that results from pre-industrial CO2 levels or slightly above.
Temperature itself is only part of the problem of global warming, higher CO2 levels alone are bad for ocean pH, human brain performance, and can even be bad for crop yields, just off the top of my head.
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That's not a random from-my-ass number, that's the level of CO2 that was in the atmosphere before the industrial revolution. The -correct- global average temperature is one that fits well with our established civilization and gives good crop yields, which is one that results from pre-industrial CO2 levels or slightly above.
Bullshit. No it isn't. In pre-industrial times, we had the Little Ice Age. Whole villages in the Swiss Alps were destroyed because of glacier growth. Famines caused by cold-induced crop failures in France in 1693-94, Norway in 1695-96, and Sweden in 1696-97 killed 10% of the populations of each country. In China the Ming dynasty fell because of the droughts and subsequent famines caused by the cold. The city of Timbuktu was flooded at least 13 times by the Niger river because of unusually high snowpac
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That's why I said "or slightly above," but not by much, certainly not close to what we're experiencing today or what's coming to us with current emissions.
But it's hilarious to suggest that we have to fear the kind of danger from cold people died from in the 1300s~1600s. Those people were almost hunter-gatherers compared to modern society, with its vastly greater ability to predict natural disasters and long-distance trade that make a local cold-induced crop failure little more than an inconvenience, if a f
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We're already at 400, getting to 380 would require eliminating all carbon use right now. The reason people concerned about climate change get so freaked out is the goal isn't even to hold it at 400, it's to stop growing at the rate we are, it's to hold the number to somewhere around 450ppm by gently slowing emissions to 1990 levels.
These people freak out because even holding the decrease down is considered to be too much by a large segment of the population even though the ability to do this is well within
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Indeed, if humanity makes it to the next ice age and the planet's CO2 is around pre-industrial levels, it will be necessary to actively prevent the ice age by releasing fossil CO2, perhaps from sequestered carbon stores and burning any easily accessed and relatively clean fossil fuels that might remain for energy.
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It has to happen or our civilization is doomed to a world of terrible weather, coastal flooding, and famines, triggering nonstop refugee crises which will lead to a proliferation of nazis which will lead to gratuitous crimes against humanity. So I really hope it happens.
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Re:Carbon neutral not enough (Score:5, Insightful)
State must go Paleo.
Perhaps, but Silicon Valley is more likely to go Neo.
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Carb-free isn't enough. State must go Atkins!
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Solar powered CO2 collectors (Score:2)
Re: Solar powered CO2 collectors (Score:5, Informative)
They're called "trees"
Re: Solar powered CO2 collectors (Score:4, Funny)
> They're called "trees"
I think they're hoping for a slightly less... flammable solution.
=Smidge=
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I think they're hoping for a slightly less... flammable solution.
Trees are fine if you plan [for] them correctly. The [Northern] Californian natives set back fires every year to clear out the understory. Any residences in the trees today need to be mobile, AKA trailers or RVs, and removed yearly to permit us to do the same, or be otherwise fireproof. (Earth bag homes with metal roofs and adequate clearings, subterranean dwellings with metal shutters on the skylights, etc.)
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Wait... that's not quite right...
Wanna know why? (Score:2)
Neighboring states are having a good laugh (Score:2)
https://www.eia.gov/todayinene... [eia.gov]
Seeing as they are already importing a quarter of their electricity.
Look on the bright side all you people that want solar, will finally have it. It will be the only power anyone can actually afford in California. Of course anyone that actually needs reliable power at reasonable prices is going to be out of there.
Re: Neighboring states are having a good laugh (Score:3, Interesting)
Why would neighboring states laugh? They begged California to help pay for the power plants in their communities and are desperate to avoid those utilities pulling out now that the contracts are expiring.
They've been deathly afraid ever since Enron that California will cut the wires.
Nuclear power plants. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nuclear power plants. (Score:5, Interesting)
Time to build more nuclear power plants, re-open San Onofre, and extend the life of Diablo Canyon. Nuclear energy is both clean and reliable, especially when combined with renewables.
That San Onofre heat generator is truly ruined beyond what current regulations will allow. It isn't economically viable to fix it.
Source: EPRI turbine generator conference presentation by San Onofre engineer
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Re:Nuclear power plants. (Score:4, Insightful)
Nuclear looks good
Then nuclear looks great when you stop letting smelly hippies use fear mongering to dictate policy. I just watched a documentary on the future of nuclear power. Research is starting to pick up on small design reactors, molten salt cooled reactors, and melt down proof reactors. Reactors that don't use water to cool them down. Reactors that use the laws of physics to stop a melt down before it even starts. Designs for self correcting reactors.
We would have had these designs in place and running 15 years ago if research hadn't ground to a halt thanks to hippie protesters. If the research could have continued Fukushima would never have happened. So thank you smelly hippie. Fukushima is another one you caused.
Re:Nuclear power plants. (Score:4, Informative)
We use water as a coolant for basically everything for many, many reasons.
Open a book hippie. We use water based coolant because it was what the navy came up with in the '50s to run their nuclear submarine program. The administration was in a hurry to beat the soviets to market with a working commercial nuclear power development system. Since the design was already off the drawing board and working it was simple to scale it up and take it to market. Which is exactly what happened.
There where better designs being worked on but those where mostly shut down because we had a system that worked, abet poorly. The along came the hippies and virtually all research was stopped leaving us with only one commercial system.
Now days that the hippies are dying off that caused this problem we are seeing more research projects started up with nuclear power. One design using molten salt as proven itself in testing and small scale use. It is ready for prime time, the only problem? Hippies and all the regulations and paper work they have put on bring the reactor to market. So the first one of these will be going online soon in China.
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Oh we got one with mod points. Better read quickly, they don't like it when someone points out things they don't want to hear.
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And you have proof of this? Please post links as I have never heard of this.
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Here you go.
http://www.world-nuclear.org/i... [world-nuclear.org]
Its quite the entertaining read. There is some comments in there that agree with the cost of clean up. From what I read these reactors are a bitch to clean up.
Re:Nuclear power plants. (Score:4)
The UK ones are gas cooled and ran for an average of about 40 years. So it seems other countries did and if you think a operating life an average of 40 years is a disaster then I see nothing more to talk to you about this issue. As you clearly have no clue what you are talking about.
An if you noticed I have not said one thing about thorium based reactors. All the reactors I have been discussing are uranium powered.
Again, educate yourself please.
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So they built over dozen of them and ran them for an average of 40 years each. An yes they did sell several of them. I'm sorry, just because you call something a disaster, doesn't make it one.
Anyway this new technology is not the same as the ones running in the UK.
Re:Humans are the flaw in nuclear power (Score:4)
Oh well then you must be an expert then. ;-)
Not an expert but I probably know more than 90% of the people on /. about the subject. IEven yourself. Just from a quick look I would say you are 10 years out of date.
I've read and watched a lot of material about the subject over the years. The new design that was on the latest documentary doesn't use any active cooling systems, water provided by pumps, to keep it from melting down. The system suspending the reactant material, nuclear fuel, in a salt solution. If the system get out of control it heats up. The heat causes the solution to expand increasing the distance between the atoms. At a point the system breaks critical mass by the distance between the atoms being to great to sustain fission. The whole process grounds stops as dictated by the laws of physics.
There is a second safe guard in the system. There is a plug in the bottom of the reactor. If the solution does get to hot, the plug melts and dumps the entire contents in a special chamber at the bottom of the containment building. The chamber is designed to store a runaway reaction.
As for one of your other comments. Yes, humans agreed decades on a place to store waste. Just the hippies started barking and not allowed us to move it their. Besides storing waste is wasteful. It would be fare better to reprocess it and reuse it. Except again, there are those smelly hippies causing problems.
By the way, incase you haven't figured it out, hippies is just a catch all name I use to designate any anti nuke kook.
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in all techs, there are many paper designs that are awesome, but then in real live tests they face a never ending material, process and implementation problems.
Yes, molten salt is probably the best solution for future nuclear fission reactors, but they are very hard to implement, to contain and need special material... some alloys are even referred on paper, but do not exist yet. There are many lab tests and test plans, but no real world working station exists yet. Even if the reactor itself is simpler, you
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Time to build more nuclear power plants, re-open San Onofre, and extend the life of Diablo Canyon. Nuclear energy is both clean and reliable, especially when combined with renewables.
You are correct on the logic and facts unfortunately for the people of California you are wrong about what is actually driving this. This isn't about clean power, lets face it Nuclear doesn't need renewables at all it's cheap especially when we are talking about existing installations that just need to be maintained and fueled. It also doesn't have the disadvantage of creating rolling blackouts.
What nuclear doesn't do, is put money in the pockets of people backing California politicians and because it has
Re:Nuclear power plants. (Score:5, Funny)
We cannot do this economically, just like we cannot operate nuclear reactors economically.
Irrelevant. Irrelevant political bullshit.
If the problem of global warming is driving people to expensive energy in the form of wind and sun then we can afford to use nuclear power. If you want to bring capitalism into this then let's do that. Make a true "all the above" energy policy that opens up development for wind, solar, nuclear, or whatever, and have them compete for money on the open market. If people want unreliable solar and wind then let them buy it. If people are willing to spend a bit more for reliable nuclear power then let them do it. Given time I can expect every one to get cheaper from more research and development.
Bringing up the costs of nuclear power is a bullshit excuse. It's as cheap as wind and solar but far more reliable. Add in the costs of storage needed for wind and solar to make them reliable and nuclear starts looking real cheap. No, cost is not an issue. That's a bullshit excuse if we can afford solar and wind.
Is global warming a problem or not? If it is then spend the money to solve it. I've seen engineers show the costs of building a nuclear power plant. The materials, labor, land, and all other costs are the same for nuclear as it is for coal, except one. That one overriding cost to prevent nuclear from owning the market is regulatory. Fix the political BULLSHIT and make nuclear economical. The costs for new nuclear power has been effectively infinite because the government refused to issue operating licenses. Issue licenses and the costs come down.
This is all bullshit. This is all politics. And I am simply tired of all the excuses. There is no excuse, only BULLSHIT!
The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo (Score:4, Insightful)
You have a state that is headed for fiscal bankruptcy, the cost of living is so high the middle class is leaving in droves and you have one of the worst K-12 education systems in the nation.
The bottom line is that California is on a path to duplicate the failures of Venezuela and they are working on energy emission plans for 2045.
Re:The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo (Score:5, Interesting)
Nah. California has a budget surplus. Their educational system isn't that bad once you take out some outlying mismanaged districts. Their public university system is decent to good.
Cost of living isn't actually that high, especially if you chose wisely when to buy a house (i.e. 2008-2012). Low property taxes, low energy costs in many areas (minimal need for heat and A/C). Fuel is expensive, but you can buy an efficient car or go electric -- no need for most people to commute to an office job in an F-250.
Re:The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo (Score:5, Funny)
Their educational system isn't that bad once you take out some outlying mismanaged districts.
It's not that bad as long as you don't count the bad parts?
Ah, you work in government, I see.
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Detroit is having a population and economic boom if we take out some of the under performing districts.
TBH, I am thinking about moving to Flint, MI because it is probably one of the last places in America that I can afford a house on what is essentially a pauper's salary. I don't necessarily care that there is high crime and poor schools. I just want to seek an end to the problem of renting and having my rents go up by exorbitant rates.
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Re:The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo (Score:5, Insightful)
Tax hikes on the rich are a good thing. Bring 'em on - not like the rich are leaving CA's nice climate any time soon.
K-12 is about middle of the road.
Sales/income tax are proportional to income and spending. State income tax isn't a big deal at middle income levels. Sales tax exempts food and clothing (necessities). Just buy more stuff like computers and furniture used, for cash, on Craigslist. Amazing how well you can live on others' leftovers.
Cars? Get an Insight Hybrid. Nice midsize sedan, well north of 50 mpg, not covered by the "zero emission" tax. What more do most people need.
Re:The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo (Score:5, Insightful)
You know, conservatives have been saying stuff like this since the 1970's. California still seems to keep ticking along,though.
Re:The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo (Score:5, Informative)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_GDP_per_capita
California 58,619
Texas 53,795
Are you iterate much? Also Texas only has that high a per capita due natural resource extraction. The people themselves have negligible contribution due to their failure of an education system.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_American_Human_Development_Index
gives an even clearer picture of the failure that is conservative economics.
TLDR in texas the land has value, the people do not.
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You know, conservatives have been saying stuff like this since the 1970's. California still seems to keep ticking along,though.
At some point it's no longer sustainable. That point would have been long ago were it not for Silicon Valley and some other industries that help prop up California by bringing in a lot of money. But those companies aren't there because of California's great government - they just happened to be there and are able to help support the overspending.
The problem is underfunded public pension funds, and California is in pretty deep. That check will bounce at some point.
It's easy to say that conservative states
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You have a state that is headed for fiscal bankruptcy,
Well you know, it's pretty hard for CA to prop up so many of the red states but they keep doing it. Maybe if those taker states actually contributed more than they use then CA wouldn't have such financial troubles.
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CA attracts fast-growing stuff because it is a beautiful state. These companies sell to the rest of the US and the world. This brings in tons of cash, which attracts those who develop political power by spending it.
Do not put the cart before the horse. The giant, plaguelike government didn't build that business.
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If people leave (Score:3)
Oh, as for CA turning into Venezuela, is the United States Federal Government going to lock them out of external banking systems and foreign aid via sanctions? No? Then I think they'll do just fine. And that's before we factor in that their economy is much, much stronger. Nice straw man though. You guys are really getting a lo
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The problem for Venezuela is a lack of freedom and a corrupt government that stands in the way of free people making their lives better.
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this is great news! (Score:2)
Agriculture is a huge source of carbon emissions in California (both directly and indirectly through transportation and processing), a major source of environmental destruction in California, a big strain on limited water resources, and a magnet for unskilled illegal migration. To go carbon neutral, California would have to shut down much of its agriculture, which would not just result in much lower carbon emissions from the state but also address all those other problems. What a win-win solution for Califo
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To go carbon neutral, California would have to shut down much of its agriculture
False. They're called offsets, and they work. Further, California is already instituting emissions controls on agricultural machines, so long as Cheeto Mussolini doesn't put the kibosh on our right to control our own emissions standards. That opens the door to require that they be zero-emissions vehicles in the future. Farm implements are ideal candidates for battery-swap technology, because they are so very simple in construction; thus battery access can also be simple. And of course, we can mandate zero-e
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> California is already instituting emissions controls on agricultural machines
Emissions controls like catalytic converters typically convert carbon monixide (CO) to CO2, so the machine's output of CO2 actually goes Up rather than down. (And therefore makes global warming worse.)
It'll be interesting to watch this go down (Score:2)
I have to give him credit for pushing an ambitious agenda, but how's he gonna get the world's fifth largest economy there? Maybe he'll ban out-of-state gas-powered cars from crossing over CA state lines? Ban most forms of manufacturing in the state?
The only way CA could possibly get there is a huge expansion of nuclear power, and they're an earthquake prone state full of anti-nuclear NIMBYs.
More importantly, IMO: He's missing the real problem on CO2 emissions. If he really wants to make a difference for CA
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never underestimate the amount of unicorns and flying monkeys between a California enviro-tards ears. They have no conception of engineering or science or how things work in the real world. Of course some of their power will come from fossil fuel then.
Now, if lawmakers actually used their brains, consulted with people who are experts, and laid out a detailed road map of transition to clean power with how they were going to fund and tax credit each step, that would be something useful. But instead we get
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I have to give him credit for pushing an ambitious agenda, but how's he gonna get the world's fifth largest economy there? Maybe he'll ban out-of-state gas-powered cars from crossing over CA state lines? Ban most forms of manufacturing in the state?
The only way CA could possibly get there is a huge expansion of nuclear power, and they're an earthquake prone state full of anti-nuclear NIMBYs.
More importantly, IMO: He's missing the real problem on CO2 emissions. If he really wants to make a difference for CA and the world in the long haul, he should get on the horn to China and get them to slow down their coal-fired plants. Maybe really go nuts and say that he's not going to allow any Chinese imports into CA ports? Setting a good example for the Chinese with arbitrary CO2 bans isn't going to get them to have a change of heart alone.
That is all California is; ambition without any follow through. Talk is cheap when nothing gets done.
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Maybe he'll ban out-of-state gas-powered cars from crossing over CA state lines?
Ban most forms of manufacturing in the state?
I suspect 1 would and I'm sure 2 would run up against the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution. Any kind of boarder crossing tax to control those things would also have that problem,
so you would be left with carbon sequestering, which no on can prove works and may require more energy then was generated by the original emission to work even if it can be made to work at
By 2045!? (Score:2)
Best of Luck (Score:2)
I mean this sincerely. Simply because you 'must' do something doesn't mean it is physically possible.
I do not know of any fully carbon neutral nation. You basically have to fake the inputs and outputs to even show that such a system is possible. Why sequestering carbon takes energy, where to you get that energy?
To be carbon neutral you would have to:
1 ) sequester carbon ( is there a way of sequestering Carbon that does not require more energy then the energy produced by creating the carbon emission in th
Double bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
I call this a case of double bullshit.
First, the governor is making a plan so far in the future that he will not be responsible for making it happen. No politician can make such a promise because their actions cannot dictate the actions of a future executive or legislature. A goal in 2045 is, by my math, 27 years in the future. Unless he plans on staying in office that long I don't believe him in having any intention to attain this goal. On top of that the guy is 80 years old, so even if he thought he could stay in office for 25+ years then he must also have a plan to live well beyond his 100th birthday.
Had he made an energy plan for the remainder of his term, or even to the end of being re-elected on more time, then I'd take him seriously.
Second, he's shutting down all the nuclear power plants. No other energy source we know of has a lower CO2 output per energy produced than nuclear power. By shutting down the last of the nuclear power plants, and having no plans to build more, makes this plan of 100% carbon neutral power a load of bullshit. If he was serious about this plan then he'd include in the plan nuclear power, as unpopular as it might be to do so. Saying he'll do everything in his power to lower CO2 but use nuclear power tells me that he sees nuclear power a greater threat to the state, nation, human species, or whatever, than nuclear power.
If nuclear power is a greater threat than CO2 then I have to wonder just how much of a threat CO2 is to anyone. Someone explain this to me. How much of a threat is CO2? How much of a threat is nuclear power? How can nuclear power be a greater threat? If we can't have nuclear power to solve the problem of our CO2 emissions then why should I take any threat of global warming from CO2 seriously?
This is bullshit for a politician to make any promise of government action beyond the end of their term. This is bullshit to make any plan of lowered CO2 from energy production that does not include nuclear power. This is double bullshit to make both promises at the same time.
Re: Not bullshit (Score:3)
Gov Brown is an excellent administrator; if not the best in the USA in the last 50 years. You may not agree with his opinions but he has an exceptionally good understanding of how government can work. He is politically way too far ahead of his voters and that is his biggest problem... proven by his 1st term as gov decades ahead of his voters who thought he was a bit nuts-- but now have caught up to him. He LISTENS to science and reason and applies them and does not get stuck down to a position like a norm
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No, that would just increase the methane emissions from all that bullshit.
Re:You first, Jerry... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's planned for long after he is out of office. This is one of those glory grabbing bills
Very cynical (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Very cynical (Score:5, Insightful)
Not necessarily, but probably.
If the Bill required that something specific be done NOW, as well as into the next three decades, then it would (or at least could) be fine.
That said, a new law automagically supersedes an older law. So, a Bill NOW that requires nothing be done for ten years is a Bill that has ten chances of being erased before anything in the Bill affects anything other than the CA's legislature....
Note that the Bill in question is more the latter than the former. It doesn't seem to require that anyone in CA do ANYTHING for a long time. Which means it's just grandstanding to look good come the next election....
Re:Very cynical (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Bill required that something specific be done NOW, as well as into the next three decades, then it would (or at least could) be fine.
Which it does. What does it require to be done now?
Fucking planning.
Do you honestly think that the utilities in CA can flip a switch and all of their fossil fuel plants will magically turn into solar plants with battery or molten salt storage? This is a huge project. One of the bigger ones that CA has ever engaged in.
Of course it doesn't require anyone to do anything for a bit. It's going to take a few years to even figure out what to do, let alone how to do it.
Re:Very cynical (Score:5, Insightful)
Which it does. What does it require to be done now?
Fucking planning.
Then write a law that requires the utilities in the state to produce those plans. Perhaps require plans be submitted to the governor, or whatever executive agency that might be appropriate, and have some means to hold the utilities to those plans. Punishing the utilities with fines for not meeting goals is likely to simply provide them an excuse for not meeting future plans, they simply say they couldn't do it because of a lack of funds. So creating this will not be easy.
This is a law with no requirement to produce those plans. There's no enforcement of the goal. At least none that I could see. I can set a personal goal of eliminating the CO2 output of the state of California by 2045. That means about as much as this promise from the governor. Given that he's likely to be out of office by then, and given his age likely dead, this means nothing.
I'll repeat that, this means nothing.
This is nothing more than a goal for which some future governor and future members of the legislature will have to put into motion. The people in government today did nothing, made no promise to do anything themselves towards this goal. It's just a request to their replacements in the the government to meet some arbitrary goal. They are under no obligation to respond to this request and even if the law had some kind of enforcement mechanism then the next people in office can simply negate it.
This isn't a plan, and does not even require a plan be produced. They made some happy mouth noises to make people in the state feel better about themselves. Or rather, those that don't bother to think this through can feel better about themselves. The people with the intellectual and emotional maturity to actually realize what this means will simply roll their eyes and move on. Nothing has changed and the California government did nothing of any value.
This is a fine example of how government works today. They waste time on this bullshit so they can pretend they are important. If they took their jobs seriously then this law would never have even been proposed. This is an ineffective law from ineffective people.
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The California legislature cannot legislate the laws of physics or economics. There is no way for the utilities to provide enough power through wind, water, and sun, and provide it cheaper than could be done with nuclear, natural gas, and coal. Not with current technology. The California government can't legislate new technology into being either.
They can require a plan all they want, and make it a crime to fail to do so. If the utilities tell the legislature that they will have to get nuclear power, ra
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When it changes a bunch of services to have to be provided for free and climates any choice by requiring everyone to have insurance, of course the price is going to hike.
Re: Actually, it takes 100% lossless cycles! (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't want to live forever with a fixed set of resources. I want to live a reasonably long time with an ever growing pool of resources.
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Filthy casual!
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I don't want to live forever with a fixed set of resources. I want to live a reasonably long time with an ever growing pool of resources.
Then you have to do it in space. We could have been there mining asteroids by now but we petered out right after the space race. Russians embarrassed, mission accomplished! Now let's go back to scorching the earth!
If you try to stay here on earth and have an ever-growing pool of resources, you will fail. We already are using more than we can renew every year, by quite some margin.
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False dichotomies are fun!
Re:Imports should count against carbon neutrality (Score:5, Interesting)
Imports represent ~29% of total electrical energy for 2017. Only about 20 GWh of what was imported was carbon (coal + gas) sources. This represents just 7% of all their electrical energy for that year.
http://www.energy.ca.gov/alman... [ca.gov]
Cleaning this up is relatively easy; since electricity is fungible, you can specifically pay for renewable energy to make sure your money goes towards those sources. Nobody is forcing anyone to burn coal (except the coal industry and the Trump administration) and if everyone insists on buying renewable energy, then that's what providers will invest in and develop.
=Smidge=
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Re:Imports should count against carbon neutrality (Score:5, Interesting)
My evidence is observable reality. In a bid to save coal and nuclear power plants - which are unable to stay in business against cheaper alternatives - Trump has asked the DOE to force utilities to buy a certain amount of their power from these sources.
https://www.powermag.com/repor... [powermag.com]
The DOE thankfully seems to be dragging their feet a little, and to my knowledge has yet to actually issue a formal order to enforce this. There is no active directive, but there is probably a draft one (the DOE's website for browsing draft directives is not working at the moment so I can't check). I suspect that the draft directive includes the 24-month investigation and temporary purchasing requirements mentioned in the articles.
=Smidge=
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My evidence is observable reality. In a bid to save coal and nuclear power plants - which are unable to stay in business against cheaper alternatives
This isn't a 100% lobbyist-driven bailout. The free market isn't perfect when it comes to power generation. Some reasons to keep these plants-
1. The Northeast US has a shortage of pipeline capacity for natural gas in the winter. As a result, oil-fired generators are used during very cold weather. The majority of new power plant builds in the Northeast are natural gas burning.
2. Natural gas is cheap, for now. While some say that natural gas reserves are enormous, it seems foolish to put so many eggs in
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That's all fine and good, but in this context it's not about natural gas; It's about renewable energy. When it comes to securing our energy sources from attack and diversifying, you'd think we'd be all about renewable energy!
> 6. Again using the Northeast as an example, a large winter storm would temporarily wipe out most renewables. Utility-scale solar panels would be covered by snow and wind turbines may need to be shut down and blades feathered due to excessive wind.
I live in the northeast. I was with
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> Technological change cannot happen in a vacuum. It takes years of planning, research, development, and funding to implement the change.
Which is why the target date is 2045.
A requirement like this is more or less the kind of pressure that is required to drive the investment of time and resources to make it happen. It should not be the legislator's job to dictate "the plan" - they set the requirement, and it's up to those who actually generate and distribute the power to figure out how to meet that requi
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