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).

Comments

Carbon neutral not enough

[Anonymous Coward]

State must go Paleo.

Re:Carbon neutral not enough

[GameboyRMH]

More seriously, carbon neutral is not enough and the state must go carbon negative. Everywhere will.

Re:Carbon neutral not enough

[K. S. Kyosuke]

State must go Paleo.

Perhaps, but Silicon Valley is more likely to go Neo.

Re:Carbon neutral not enough

[elrous0]

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.

Re:Carbon neutral not enough

[werepants]

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

[GameboyRMH]

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.

Re:Carbon neutral not enough

[GameboyRMH]

Slight correction: CO2 levels actually reached 410ppm last year.

Re:You first, Jerry...

[JackieBrown]

It's planned for long after he is out of office. This is one of those glory grabbing bills

Re: Solar powered CO2 collectors

[Anonymous Coward]

They're called "trees"

Nuclear power plants.

[b0s0z0ku]

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.

Re:Nuclear power plants.

[dj245]

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

Re:Nuclear power plants.

[jwhyche]

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.

[blindseer]

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!

Re:Nuclear power plants.

[jwhyche]

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.

Re:Nuclear power plants.

[jwhyche]

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.

The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo

[schwit1]

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

[b0s0z0ku]

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

[frank_adrian314159]

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

[plague911]

Meanwhile the conservative states are insolvent and living off of State scale welfare. It really is funny/ironic that the group who champions that they are the economically informed tribe have 3rd world levels of GDP per population.

Re:The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo

[plague911]

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.

Re:The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo

[cascadingstylesheet]

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.

Re:The latest 5 year plan from the Cali politburo

[b0s0z0ku]

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: Actually, it takes 100% lossless cycles!

[c6gunner]

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.

Very cynical

[aepervius]

With such cynical thought, nobody need to try to do any long term planning because it is automagically "glory grabbing bills".

Re:Very cynical

[CrimsonAvenger]

With such cynical thought, nobody need to try to do any long term planning because it is automagically "glory grabbing bills".

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

[apoc.famine]

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

[blindseer]

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.

Re: Solar powered CO2 collectors

[Smidge204]

> They're called "trees"

I think they're hoping for a slightly less... flammable solution.
=Smidge=

Re:Imports should count against carbon neutrality

[Smidge204]

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=

Re: Neighboring states are having a good laugh

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Double bullshit

[blindseer]

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:Imports should count against carbon neutrality

[Smidge204]

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=

Re:Humans are the flaw in nuclear power

[jwhyche]

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.