California Moves To Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045 (bloomberg.com)

California's assembly has voted to move the state's electricity completely off fossil fuels. The state assembly this week passed S.B. 100, a proposal to transition California to 100 percent emissions-free electricity sources by 2045. A report adds: The Assembly voted 43-32 in favor of the legislation Tuesday. It would eliminate the reliance on fossil fuels to power homes, businesses and factories in the world's fifth-largest economy, accelerating a shift already under way. The state currently gets about 44 percent of its power from renewables and hydropower. California has positioned itself to lead the battle against climate change by cutting emissions even as the Trump administration has worked to roll back the state's stringent auto pollution standards and prop up ailing coal-fired power plants. Earlier this year, California became the first U.S. state to mandate solar rooftop panels on almost all new homes. It would be the second state to require 100 percent carbon-free power after Hawaii.

Comments

States = Incubators for testing stuff

[Scroatzilla]

In terms of states' rights and energy independence and the environment, this is a good thing. Whether or not this works out, we will learn a lot about the feasibility of eliminating our reliance on fossil fuels from California's effort; other states could then model their own clean energy programs based on the positives and negatives of California's experiment.

(I'm not sure what the anti-Trump rhetoric adds to the article summary other than virtual signaling... ??)

Re:States = Incubators for testing stuff

[MachineShedFred]

In your cost of fossil fuels, please consider the externalized cost of waste product disposal into the lungs of those downwind, and the cost of deleting entire mountains in the Appalachians so we can load them into furnaces, and the costs of doing all that (slurry ponds, destroyed ecosystems, etc.)

The grid operators may see what goes up the stack as zero cost, but there is definitely a cost to society in elevated asthma rates, lung disease, increased chances of low and very-low birth weights, cancers, cardiovascular disease, and death. It's estimated that coal contributes in up to 50,000 deaths every year in the US alone - more than all the deaths from car wrecks in the US in a year.

Let's factor that into the fossil fuel energy costs, completely disregarding sea level rise and how much that's going to cost in lost real estate and property, as well as increased severity and frequency of storms from climate change because some people still argue about if those are real things.

I think we can all agree that breathing coal-fired particulate and sulfur dioxide is bad for you, and anyone 30+ miles downwind from each and every coal plant is doing exactly that.

What does that fossil fuel energy cost now?

Re:What if the feds say no?

[IcyWolfy]

The Hospital ER cannot turn you away for not having health insurance, and having no means to pay.
A non-trivial amount of operational costs for a hospital is covering ER visits for people with colds, flus, and non-insured; who all default on payment, with no means of covering their visit.
Many of the complications could have been dealt with for pennies on the dollar should the individual have had insurance, and simply seen the doctor before the illness progressed.

One cannot opt out of the health system.
One should not be able to opt out of paying for it.

Re:What if the feds say no?

[PopeRatzo]

The ACA mandate is (was) just that.

Are you still upset about having to get health insurance? You know it was a plan concocted by the conservative Heritage Foundation and first signed into law by a Republican, right?

But don't worry, if you're really that opposed, you can help us fight for universal, single-payer health care. The line forms right behind me. There are no other options that don't bankrupt the country.

Re:Failed state

[jeff4747]

Doesn't matter how much you make if you can't control your spending... funny how the state is so wealthy yet on the verge of bankruptcy

California's running a budget surplus, and has for the last few years.

You're thinking of Kansas, the state that went so broke following supply-side economics that they violated their Constitution.