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California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

bloomberg.com

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

#141

Post by merpnderp »

washingtub wrote: post #129
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 must…

Yeah, I have yet to see a side loading washing without the moldy ring on the side of the door. I'm unsure how this is in any way a net improvement, as whatever action people take to fix the mold problem is likely to more than make up for the energy saved processing the water.

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

#142

Post by SllX »

radicalbyte wrote: post #87
craftyguy wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and have changed my mind. > I hope not. Care to explain why you have changed your mind?

The alternatives are better. Nuclear is expensive even before you factor in the decommissioning costs. With those costs factored in it just doesn't make any sense. Invest that money in geothermal, hydro, solar, wind and eventually tidal power and you get far more bang-for-your-buck. Convert coal plants to burn biomass combined with carbon capture and geological storage and you get power which - whilst more expensive…

Geothrenal is limited geographically. Iceland has plenty but a tiny population. California has a lot but it’s largely tapped out and what we do have is sufficient only for the communities nearby to the plants.

Your hypothetical biomass burning coal plants are still that: hypothetical. If they work at scale, add that to the list.

Damming up rivers has its own problems, but this is largely moot: the majority of lakes in California are dam lakes and damn near every river with good capacity in the State is already dammed up.

Tidal power is likely to have other environmental concerns. If mitigating these concerns still makes it cheaper than nuclear plants, fine, but I’m not going to support the installation of any new tech that screws with coastal ecosystems the same way we screwed up prior river and lake ecosystems.

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

#143

Post by oftenwrong »

blang wrote: post #97
pastor_elm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Meanwhile, NYC's plan is a measly 80% reduction in carbon emissions in city run operations alone by 2050. We'll be going backwards once Indian Point is decommissioned.

Though to be fair the state of new york has lower per capita carbon emission than California, though I think that mostly has to do with the density of new york city. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_carbon_...

To be really fair, policy choices influence population density, and vice versa. California is fairly sprawling and favours sprawl over dense settlement.

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

#144

Post by _rpd »

SllX wrote: post #126
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.

There may be some imports of nuclear-sourced power from Arizona and Washington state.

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

#145

Post by merpnderp »

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 move is towards nearly as powerful, smaller, turbocharged engines that are getting close to 30mpg. Not bad for a 5,500 lb vehicle.

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

#146

Post by dahdum »

reaperducer wrote: post #124
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 n…

I'm more cynical about California than most, but these policies are a positive force for environmental change and history has shown they aren't empty promises.

Like all policy change, it will create winners and losers. While it's unfortunate Navajo Nation may be the latter, it shouldn't mean we stop moving forward.

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

#147

Post by dmode »

vondur wrote: post #48

I believe ever since we had the rolling blackouts in the early 2000's we've been purchasing more and more energy from power plants in Utah, as regulation in the state makes it difficult to build new ones.

I don't believe it is true. I believe CA generates more electricity than is needed and actually pays other states to take it off the grid

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

#148

Post by ThomPete »

I am still baffled by the focus on private housholds and private consumption when it comes to the discussion of clean energy and emissions.

The reality is that private households have very little to do with our problems and even less to do about them.

Stop eating cow sound great but it's not going to do anything of any impact.

Most emissions (70%) come from very few companies (around a 100 or some).

Instead of making life more expensive and difficult for normal citizens why not focus on those companies instead. That you can actually do something about.

http://fortune.com/2017/07/10/climate-change-green-house-gas...

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

#149

Post by tomnipotent »

llukas wrote: post #101
wang_li wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to Europe the US is doing better on carbon reduction seeing as the US went down and Europe went up. I'm not disagreeing that everyone should try to improve and the items you mentioned can be looked at, but comparing to Europe the US looks pretty good.

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location... Looks pretty good on what metric?

Misleading chart. It's showing the average across the EU and not the total.

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

#150

Post by strictnein »

acdha wrote: post #113
wang_li wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Compared to Europe the US is doing better on carbon reduction seeing as the US went down and Europe went up. I'm not disagreeing that everyone should try to improve and the items you mentioned can be looked at, but comparing to Europe the US looks pretty good.

Do you have a cite for that? It's common in lobbying circles but they studiously avoid mentioning that the US was starting from a substantially higher baseline so EU consumption was still considerably lower. See for example the chart through 2014 here: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/01/climate/us-bi...

One source:

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-carbon-iea/global-...

> "Most major economies saw an increase in carbon emissions, though Britain, the United States, Mexico and Japan experienced declines.

The biggest drop came from the United States, where they were down 0.5 percent"

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