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California Governor Says 100 Percent Clean Electricity Not Enough, State Must Go Carbon Neutral (arstechnica.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the aggressively-decarbonizing dept.

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).

6 of 449 comments (clear)

  1. Carbon neutral not enough by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    State must go Paleo.

    1. Re:Carbon neutral not enough by GameboyRMH · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    2. Re:Carbon neutral not enough by elrous0 · · 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.

      --
      SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
  2. Re: Solar powered CO2 collectors by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

    They're called "trees"

  3. Very cynical by aepervius · · Score: 5, Insightful

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

    --
    C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
    http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
    visit randi.org
  4. Re:Imports should count against carbon neutrality by Smidge204 · · 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...

    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=