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Banned in California

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631–640 of 749 posts

Re: Banned in California

#631

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on the usage. According to news, there were water shortages in the past in California. Though, we are not talking just about California here.

Municipal water usage in California is only 20% of all water usage. The rest is almost entirely agriculture, and all that agriculture uses a strange system of water rights where you do not have to reduce consumption during a drought, and the last person in line instead absorbs all the drought problems. This creates an insane political environment where the rich as fuck agribusiness which owns that final water right i…

Most municipalities get their water out of the same system, it's just they need so much less so they get by. Also, of the 20% that used by urban water systems, 50% is for outdoor irrigation.

The definitive book on the subject is "Cadillac Desert"

Re: Banned in California

#632
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

“Yes you can” misses the point. But you’ll incur heavy taxes, huge COB increases, tightening regulatory scrutiny and all for nothing compared to being just one or two states over. It’s has been one economically and morally disadvantageous to do manufacturing in California due to hypernanny regulation. What’s worse is that generational and heritage firms that have lived in California for 50+ years are effectively put…

> No one is voting for more superfund sites. We can agree on that.

Why would you think that? Lots of people vote for that every other year.

Re: Banned in California

#633
post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for confirming my suspicion! When I read phrases like "Battery cells require electrode coating with toxic solvents (NMP), electrolyte handling, and formation cycling. This is exactly why Tesla's Gigafactory went to Reno." I (as someone not very familiar with the subject) thought it's strange that California should regulate what kind of chemicals can be used in an industrial process. Of course, they don't - but…

...because dumping stuff into the middle of what is already a barren wasteland isn't actually a problem.

The desert is not a "barren wasteland." It is a valuable, vibrant ecosystem no different than any other.

Re: Banned in California

#634

When I was a kid growing up in Texas, our ocean visits were to the Gulf of Mexico, off the Texas coast, and you would grab little alcohol wipes for when you got out of the ocean, to wipe the oil off. Years later, swimming in Hawaii, I found myself looking for wipes. I mentioned it to a snorkel-outfit operator, and she looked at me like I was insane. They didn't even put damaging sunscreen in the water, and there was…

Crude oil floating in the ocean used to be a big nuisance in parts of California. It is a natural phenomenon, created by oil deposits on the ocean floor leaking into the environment. Santa Barbara was particularly famous for it. Extraction of that oil via commercial wells greatly reduced the natural seepage, which is why there is so little crude oil floating in that ocean water today. Oil drilling actually made the w…

To me this "drilling is good for the environment narrative" sounded a bit misleading.

And not far down the rabbit whole one finds: The author of the study often cited by oil companies for above narrative, felt impelled to publish a clarifying statement: https://luyendyk.faculty.geol.ucsb.edu/Seeps%20pubs/Luyendyk...

Maybe stricter guidelines against operational "routine" spills led to a reduction of the sticky spots, plausible?

Re: Banned in California

#635
post #624

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to know if this is really the case. States have a lot of power to regulate commerce, interstate commerce and the products their citizens have access too. If indeed they can't, then perhaps its one subject dems and r's could get together on. Instead of blanket tarrifs, tarriffs on products made with slave labor or without strong consideration for environment impact.

States can't impose tariffs: https://constitution.congress.gov/browse/essay/artI-S10-C2-1...

Apologies, I meant federally.

Since D's control California, no need to work with R's there.

I also think they could get creative. Eg., without an attestation validated by products can't be sold.

For example, this is already done with controlled substances and food.

Re: Banned in California

#636
post #457

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious to know if this is really the case. States have a lot of power to regulate commerce, interstate commerce and the products their citizens have access too. If indeed they can't, then perhaps its one subject dems and r's could get together on. Instead of blanket tarrifs, tarriffs on products made with slave labor or without strong consideration for environment impact.

I don't think it's unreasonable for indirect impacts like this to be regulated by the federal government.

I completely agree. I'd vote that person regardless of party.

Re: Banned in California

#637
post #404

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point wasn't about fairness towards oil refinery companies, it was that supporting a ban on refineries in your local area while still benefiting from the downstream outputs of oil refineries is hypocritical nimbyism. If oil refineries are bad in California, they're bad everywhere, and if they're bad everywhere, we ought to stop using them altogether, which will make for some unwelcome lifestyle changes.

> If oil refineries are bad in California, they're bad everywhere That doesn't follow. It only follows that they are bad everywhere with circumstances similar to California. A place differing in distribution of population, distribution of agricultural land, weather patterns, and/or water flows might be able to have refineries without causing the harms that makes them difficult to place in California.

I agree with your reasoning in principle, but I think it doesn't hold up for California specifically. According to Gemini, 90% of California's population lives in 5% of its land area, and 45-50% of the land is government-owned, much of it being unpopulated wild areas including large parts of the Mojave and Colorado deserts.

The state is large, diverse and already contains vast chunks of unpopulated land. Almost everywhere that isn't near the poles is similar to some part of California.

Re: Banned in California

#638

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My point wasn't about fairness towards oil refinery companies, it was that supporting a ban on refineries in your local area while still benefiting from the downstream outputs of oil refineries is hypocritical nimbyism. If oil refineries are bad in California, they're bad everywhere, and if they're bad everywhere, we ought to stop using them altogether, which will make for some unwelcome lifestyle changes.

Would it be hypocritical nimbyism if I wanted to use semiconductors containing arsenic, but didn't want my living room to be an arsenic warehouse? Or how far away does the arsenic warehouse have to be before it starts being hypocritical nimbyism for me to not like it there?

IMO it would be hypocritical nimbyism if the arsenic warehouse would need to be in someone's living room for those semiconductors to get manufactured.

Re: Banned in California

#639

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it’s the solvents used for cleaning the chambers and parts. Very nasty stuff, and it’s probably the biggest concern for this type of facility anywhere, not just in California.

The stuff my dad used for cleaning down beryllium copper sheets that then had silicon, gold, and nichrome deposited onto them to make tiny medical pressure sensors was generally various stages of xylene, amyl acetate, freon, and - on one notable occasion when a shipment of the sheet stock came heavily contaminated with tractor oil - plain ordinary petrol. This was back in the 80s. You are very much Not Allowed To Do…

I was trying to follow a piece of older equipment's cleaning procedures to the letter, but once I hit "flush with freon" I decided to go off-book.

Re: Banned in California

#640

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...because dumping stuff into the middle of what is already a barren wasteland isn't actually a problem.

The Gigafactory is less than 20 miles from a drinking water reservoir (and recreation area) in one direction, and the city of Reno in the other. ~30 miles to Lake Tahoe. And according to https://www.reno.gov/home/showpublishedimage/4088/6351980817... , it's about two miles from the watershed that feeds it.

20 miles is a very long way away
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