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California Governor Says 100 Percent Clean Electricity Not Enough, State Must Go Carbon Neutral (arstechnica.com)
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).
State must go Paleo.
Then stop burning all your forests.
No, that would just increase the methane emissions from all that bullshit.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
It's planned for long after he is out of office. This is one of those glory grabbing bills
They're called "trees"
https://www.eia.gov/todayinene...
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.
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 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.
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.
With such cynical thought, nobody need to try to do any long term planning because it is automagically "glory grabbing bills".
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> They're called "trees"
I think they're hoping for a slightly less... flammable solution.
=Smidge=
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...
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=
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 ass-pulls.
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.)
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
won't supply and demand solve the cost of living thing all by itself? I mean, assuming there aren't external forces working against supply and demand. But that never happens, right?
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 lot of mileage out of Venezuela's misery. Plus the US got to seize all their overseas assets when they defaulted on the loans. Kind of a win-win for those sanctions and it didn't even cost all that much.
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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.
I am armed because I am free. I am free because I am armed.
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...
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=
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 normal person.
As far as long term planning, that is done often; it might be news to YOU. It is not done enough with most politicians not thinking past an election cycle and many US administrators also not thinking even shorter term.
As far as tying them to policies and laws; they go forever unless stated otherwise - which is just fine because the system has ways to repeal them if necessary (otherwise lacking peaceful change violent change does it. ) FYI, the constitution allows for amendments. If you are SERIOUS about making something important CHANGE you entrench it as much as possible so future people have to deal with it.
Global Warming is physical reality no matter what you name it or believe; doesn't matter, it WILL happen. Using LAW to make the crisis real in the near future is artificial but a great administrator works AHEAD of a disaster instead of merely reacting to disasters which were foreseen. This such common sense that most administrators are amazingly good at BS excuses of about them being unprepared or unaware of disasters.
It's going to be much harder if you wait. Necessity is the mother of invention. Hell, look at all the progress major wars produce. This is bigger than WW1, WW2... but it's slow moving and subtle with decades long attacks.
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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 this basket.
3. You can't stockpile natural gas easily, especially at the point of use.
4. Transmission capacity in some parts of the country. Building new lines to alleviate this takes time. Some cities, such as El Paso, are nearly an electrical "island" with limited capacity to other regions.
5. Some areas of the country near Canada import large amounts of hydro power. A drought or a large tarriff would cause a major problem due to transmission and pipeline capacity.
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.
The proposed subsidy for standby generators that can stockpile fuel is the grid-equivalent to requiring hospitals and phone companies to have emergency diesel generators. The only difference is that nobody owns the national grid, so there is no incentive to keep them online in your local/regional district. Everyone planning to purchase power from their neighbors in a crisis is not a comprehensive emergency plan.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
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 without power for three weeks following Sandy. I can tell you point #6 is bullshit 'cause the only places that had power were places that had island-capable renewable power, such as wind turbines and solar panels with batteries. Spreading the generating capacity over a larger area and incorporating it into the neighborhoods that it serves *increases* robustness.
(Aside) Fun fact: Natural gas is liquefied during the summer and stored for use during the winter. Aside from the massive storage tanks and very impressive fire detection/suppression systems it's a fairly mundane operation.
=Smidge=
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.
I read at +2. If your post doesn't reach that level I will not see or respond to it.
> 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.)
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
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 still need a chemical plant next to it to process and cleanup the molten salt. Everyone is also testing different materials to sustain the salt and neutron flux without breaking up. All this is slow, each test take years, that is why we listen about molten salt reactors for years and no real working design is here yet. Basically, it will take a long time to get a working design, that will then be refined to reduce costs.
Adding more safeguards to nuclear reactors is always a good idea, but that also adds costs. Lab tests have less safeguards and look "cheap", but then real world and size, those costs quickly scale up. But most of the accidents where caused by humans, either by errors or cutting corners to cut costs and we still didn't had a terrorist attack on a nuclear central. Nuclear accidents are always a huge problem.
Finally, you may blame hippies, or whatever, but there are huge problems in storing nuclear waste. Just because someone accepts money to store nuclear waste, do not make it a good place to store it. Remember that it will have to store all nuclear waste without leaking for several thousand of years... it is easy to dump it somewhere, but even only after 40 years the current containers are already leaking.
Recycling nuclear waste!? everyone agrees, but that is hard, cost a fortune and you still have a very dangerous waste, that either store it - dump it in a good mine - or again try to recycle it - another huge amount of money. Basically all this need lot of waste refining and a nuclear reactor (that eats lots energy) to try to destroy those waste.
Even with lot of money, there still no tech to recycle everything
Finally, all this and wind and solar is already cheaper than nuclear... gas is also cheaper, but also have the CO2 waste, yet MUCH better than coal
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