Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's not so easy to understand the real agendas here. The real agenda has a lot more to do with impressing your neighbors with how eco-conscious you are (ideally via cheap signals like signs and bumper stickers) than it does with costly and difficult initiatives like figuring out how to meet the world's energy requirements in a sustainable way.
I have a prius and I don't care about my neighbor's opinions. It was just available cheap to em used and doesn't use as much gas. How have you decided you can speak for all prius owners? If people ARE trying to "keep up with the Joneses" by buying priuses instead of SUVs and Corvettes that would be a great agenda.
California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045
131–140 of 397 posts
Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045
#132Hypothetically, 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?
Nope >The bill would require the PUC and the Energy Commission, in consultation with the state board, to take steps to ensure that a transition to a zero-carbon electric system for the State of California does not cause or contribute to greenhouse gas emissions increases elsewhere in the western grid. https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml...
Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045
#133Earlier quoted context omitted.
Politicians generally tend to choose deadlines that are beyond their terms. They get the approval of their voting base today without actually having to do much of anything to reach the goal itself. I'm reminded of Bush calling for the US to return to the moon by 2020 -- a proposal Obama quietly nixed. I'd much rather we say, "We're going to increase renewables by X% every year, starting now, to reach the goal of 100%…
Even 2035 is still beyond most current politicians' terms. 100% clean energy will take a lot of work and more importantly determination. The closer you get to the goal, the more it takes to cover another percent. And you never know who comes next and decides to kick all the plans to the curb and subsidize coal (hypothetically speaking o_O). You need to add some buffers. Another problem is that nobody else (at this sc…
"This bill would state that it is the policy of the state that eligible renewable energy resources and zero-carbon resources supply 100% of retail sales of electricity to California end-use customers and 100% of electricity procured to serve all state agencies by December 31, 2045."
Source: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045
#134Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
What I’m trying to grapple with is this desire of mine while trying to be aware of my environmental impact.
If there’s no way to have my cake and eat it too, I won’t get one.
Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right now nuclear waste can and should be recycled which would reduce the amount of waste: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_waste Soon it will be possible to use most of the waste as fuel: "...Fast reactors can "burn" long lasting nuclear transuranic waste (TRU) waste components (actinides: reactor-grade plutonium and minor actinides), turning liabilities into assets. Another major waste component, fission p…
> can and should be recycled Well, it's not, and there doesn't seem to be much focus by the DoE to do so. Therefore storage of waste is still a major problem if you want to generate electricity with nuclear power plants in the US.
The politics around nuclear waste are preventing the construction of reactor designs which exist today which could take waste that exists today and use it with an output with a much more manageable half-life than the waste we have just sitting around right now.
Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045
#136Writing 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...
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=photovoltaic+price+chart&num...
Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
We probably need to make significant improvements to the grid in order to support this. Solar power doesn't feed into the grid at a consistent rate, so we need to be able to store large amounts of energy for off-hours.
Do we need a quarter century to make that happen? California built Shasta Dam in 8 years with a population 7 times smaller than today's and with early Industrial Age technology. How long could it possibly take to install some pumps at Whiskeytown to pump water back into Shasta during the daytime? The Pacific AC Intertie goes right over both lakes already.
The power plants i work on are 5-10 years for permitting.
Bc hydro has been studying the site C dam for 35 years and finally started construction but the project was nearly cancelled 2 years in due to changing political winds they were ready to abandon the project with 2 billion dollars already spent.
The engineering and construction is the easy part.
Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045
#138I 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…
Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045
#139Earlier quoted context omitted.
Funny enough, there is a solution for more safely disposing of nuclear waste that is coming out of Berkeley. http://www.deepisolation.com They are a company to pay attention to IMHO.
Nuclear waste is not an actual problem and the only reason there is no 'solution' is because it has turned into a political shit show. Worrying about nuclear waste at the beginning of the nuclear age when most of that waste is actually valuable fuel is downright idiotic.
There's a huge difference in nuclear going from a small chunk of our present day power generation to eras where some see it as being the primary generator for whatever exponential increases in energy we'll be using in the future. This change in scale really should affect how you look at things. Nuclear in particular has some pretty catastrophic fail scenarios, major decommissioning issues, and other problems. These can kind of be hand-waved away at current levels, but can't when you start talking about increasing operations on the order of magnitudes.
And when you start talking about things like this you're also implicitly alluding to breeder reactors, salt-water extraction, and other technologies that not only add substantial complexity (and side issues) but also greatly increase the costs relative to present day nuclear, which poses even more issues in terms of sustainability.
For all intents and purposes solar is pretty much a flawless method of energy production. The one issue is night time production, but there are countless ways to store energy even if we ignore more utopic scenarios like global high energy direct current lines constantly transiting energy to where it needs to go. Given the practically unlimited generation possibilities the loss of energy involved in either storage or transit are not really that big of a deal, and would not affect expected pricing the same way as dealing with nuclear's practical problems of scale will.
Re: California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045
#140I 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…