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California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

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Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

#121

Post by toomuchtodo »

dublin wrote: post #116
village-idiot wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I won't shed many tears for the death of fossil fuel power plants.

Your face may be dry, but it will be in the dark. There is quite simply NO KNOWN TECHNOLOGY that can cost effectively meet peak demands other than fossil fuel plants. The people that build the natural gas peaker plants that California will MUST have for grid stability will make a fortune, and be painted as the "bad brown energy guys" even though they'll actually be saving the entire grid from collapse.

PG&E is replacing peakers with batteries: https://electrek.co/2018/06/29/tesla-pge-giant-1-gwh-powerpa... (Tesla and PG&E are working on a massive ‘up to 1.1 GWh’ Powerpack battery system)

Lazard’s Levelized Cost of Storage Analysis backing up the financial viability: https://www.lazard.com/media/450338/lazard-levelized-cost-of...

Citation of how much quicker utility battery storage can react to frequency response needs: https://electrek.co/2018/04/09/tesla-giant-battery-system-pr... (Tesla’s giant battery system gets praised by energy market operator: ‘rapid, accurate, and valuable’)

Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

#122

Post by dublin »

true_tuna wrote: post #5

We are going to need some more big batteries. Don’t we pay our neighbors to take our excess during peak times?

Get a clue and do the math. (Seriously, this is a one-to-two hour google for info and apply third-grade arithmetic back-of-an-envelope project.) Batteries are NOT the answer - the quantity of batteries required is astronomically beyond the world's battery production capacity, even in Musk's most fevered dreams. Seriously - the mining impact of REALLY trying to build enough batteries to stabilize an area the size of CA would increase mining pollution worldwide by an order of magnitude or more...

Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

#123

Post by ams6110 »

ancarda wrote: post #120
jwr wrote: post #88

I think another great move would be to start dealing with excessive energy consumption. Compared to what I'm used to in Europe, California is wasting crazy amounts of energy. Poorly insulated homes, old and inefficient AC/heating units, vertical-drum washing machines (!!!), poorly designed gas stoves, oversized cars, monstrous gas-guzzling trucks, energy waste is all over the place. People behave just as if energy we…

On the topic of large cars, what is the solution here? I can imagine forcing people to replace A/C units won’t be so objectionable, especially if it’s free to do so, but there may be some real opposition to requiring people to drive different cars. Nobody gets attached to an A/C. I don’t drive right now - I take public transport everywhere - but I’d love a large car (a Dodge RAM). If I try to buy something small to b…

The way Europe deals with cars is they tax the bejezus out of them, and gasoline also.

In some countries, half the price of a new car is tax.

That is why people drive little toy cars there. Everyone would like a nice big comfortable car but they are unaffordable for most.

Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

#124

Post by reaperducer »

jzoch wrote: post #16

I understand this is amazing and totally love my state for doing it, but man seeing 2045 is always a little dismaying as I wish we could be even more aggressive. 2035 for example. I realize I am being too ambitious, but we went to space in a decade why not 100% clean energy in 1.5?

These sorts of transitions take a lot of time. There's a lot of infrastructure to build and a lot of infrastructure to decommission.

In addition to the political problems, extensively noted by others here, there are also the social problems.

Power plants and the associated industries are full of low-skill/education workers. Some can be re-trained into other industries, but some cannot.

An example is happening right now in Arizona. With so many coal plants being shut down, the Navajo Nation and other nearby tribes are being devastated.

These are already people who were dirt poor, living in a place that few want to go. There's few opportunities for employment. The one industry they had was supplying coal to utilities as far away as California. They even built a pipeline to flush coal clear across the state to Nevada.

Now all those jobs are going away, and there's zero industry left.

They're trying to build solar farms, but companies like Southern California Edison aren't interested in buying the power because solar plants can be built closer to home, and don't need new transmission lines to be built.

So a bunch of left coast technocrats get to pat themselves on the backs for saving the environment, while further marginalizing the people who saved the environment for them for a thousand years.

Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

#125

Post by SllX »

ebikelaw wrote: post #23
jzoch wrote: post #16

I understand this is amazing and totally love my state for doing it, but man seeing 2045 is always a little dismaying as I wish we could be even more aggressive. 2035 for example. I realize I am being too ambitious, but we went to space in a decade why not 100% clean energy in 1.5?

I feel the same way about nearly everything in California. For example the first phase of the HSR project, which will serve pretty much no purpose whatsoever, is planned for 2029 which means realistically 2035, which might not even be in my lifetime. Meanwhile, in China, https://twitter.com/CarlZha/status/1034348241402265601

Authoritarian governments don’t have to answer to individual communities so long as the overall population has their basic needs covered and only minorities are dissatisfied.

California is one of the more democratic (small “d” is the relevant one here) of the States, and that generally means compromise, transparency (making horse trading more difficult), accountability and compensation for the dissatisfied, no matter how small of a minority they might be.

If San Francisco and Los Angeles could just dictate terms and agreed that it is better that the 4 or so largest population centers in the State have a direct high speed rail line with each other, you could eschew all of that and get it done in a few years.

Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

#126

Post by SllX »

eikenberry wrote: post #18

Is nuclear part of the bill? It is clean but I don't see any mention of it either way in the article other than in the graph of current sources.

New construction of nuclear plants is constitutionally limited in California and has been since well before I was born. Existing capacity is just leftover from before that era.

Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

#127

Post by tedunangst »

chrisseaton wrote: post #77
tedunangst wrote: post #68

Hypothetically, if I build a big coal power plant across the border to power a giant light array shining on solar cells on the CA side, does that count?

These kind of 'I'm technically correct' arguments don't work with the law as they do in programming - Judges just say 'that's obviously not what is intended'.

"Technically correct" is actually an issue with alternative energy. A lot of tax credits out there for stuff that meets some legal standard but doesn't accomplish anything.

Somewhat older link: http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,493241,...

Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

#128

Post by dublin »

walrus01 wrote: post #66

Writing as a person that's recently built some PV: The problem of building enough photovoltaics to meet demand is solved . High quality 60 and 72-cell PV modules at sub $0.50/watt and massive scale cheap ground mount and roof mount systems are not rocket science. With sufficient zoning and regulatory incentives it's possible for roof mount PV in California to entirely meet the state's energy needs in megawatt-hours p…

Or you could realize that natural gas is a far superior energy storage mechanism, and the cleanest fuel available. Fracking, and the consequent reduction in natural gas prices, is directly responsible for the US dropping its CO2 production faster than any other major country...

Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

#129

Post by washingtub »

jwr wrote: post #88

I think another great move would be to start dealing with excessive energy consumption. Compared to what I'm used to in Europe, California is wasting crazy amounts of energy. Poorly insulated homes, old and inefficient AC/heating units, vertical-drum washing machines (!!!), poorly designed gas stoves, oversized cars, monstrous gas-guzzling trucks, energy waste is all over the place. People behave just as if energy we…

> vertical-drum washing machines (!!!)

There are a number of issues with front-loading washers. While they use less water, they are also worse at cleaning clothes and much worse at sanitizing them. There was a recent post here on HN where a biologist did several experiments in her own washer to show how poorly they sanitized things compared to her older one. They also tend to trap water in the bottom and it gets musty and moldy, which with my spouses allergies is a non-starter.

But I whole-heartedly agree with your other issues. Moving from the Midwest, I can't believe how poorly insulated things are in CA. Our first apartment in Santa Monica had windows that didn't even seal properly when closed. You could very easily stick a sheet of paper through the gap between the window and the frame when it was supposedly closed. Some people even have glass louvres instead of windows in their bathrooms here!

Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

#130

Post by verelo »

jwr wrote: post #88

I think another great move would be to start dealing with excessive energy consumption. Compared to what I'm used to in Europe, California is wasting crazy amounts of energy. Poorly insulated homes, old and inefficient AC/heating units, vertical-drum washing machines (!!!), poorly designed gas stoves, oversized cars, monstrous gas-guzzling trucks, energy waste is all over the place. People behave just as if energy we…

Hopefully "market forces" will cause this to occur as a by-product of this legislation.
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