California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-08-29/california-moves-toward-requiring-100-clean-power-by-2045

by dsr12 • 8 years ago

407 378 8 years ago

bloomberg.com

ebikelaw5• 8 years ago

Why not 2025?

jdpedrie• 8 years ago

Why not next Wednesday?

edit: /s

briandear• 8 years ago

Physics. And arithmetic.

rhacker• 8 years ago

I would assume it would be better to use 30%-40% effecient panels that will come out in 10 years than forcing everyone on the current 23% tech.

ebikelaw5• 8 years ago

Efficiency is pretty much irrelevant when the land in question is worthless. You just cover more land. With current utility-scale equipment you need only 300000 acres of PV to generate all power demanded in California today.

tedsanders3• 8 years ago

It is extremely unlikely that commercial cells will be high-efficiency multijunction in 10 years.

Silicon has been dominant for decades, and its lead in cost-effectiveness has only grown.

kitsunesoba• 8 years ago

This was my thought. Fully clean power by any deadline is great, but I would’ve expected something more aggressive from CA. This seems rather tame.

jmcgough• 8 years ago

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.

ebikelaw5• 8 years ago

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.

Eire_Banshee• 8 years ago

Because not every engineering problem is a software problem.

You cant just pop some adderall and code all weekend to fix things like this.

true_tuna• 8 years ago

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

dublin4• 8 years ago

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...

Nasrudith• 8 years ago

Putting aside the lithium mining myths (it works via brine evaporation making it damn clean compared to most mining) less storage is needed than you think thanks to wind power. Actual voltage stabilization requires shockingly little of energy storage compared to the size of the grid as demonstrated by the Australian battery project generating millions per day via stabilization services and doing it so quickly it outran the instability detection.

Wind turbines actually produce more power at night - as to be expected with wind being caused by temperature differentials. Texas for one has a lot of wind power to grid export thanks to its geography.

sctb• 8 years ago

Could you please stop being so thorny? It doesn't make your point any clearer, it just makes the discussion worse.

jrockway2• 8 years ago

Big batteries are a solved problem. You use electricity to pump water uphill. When you want the electricity back, you let it run back downhill through a turbine.

This does not require mining lithium either, btw.

Tuxer2• 8 years ago

Once again, making me proud to pay CA taxes.

If they do not take large hydro into account when calculating this 100%, I wonder what we'll do with the dams. Destroy them to let the rivers free-flow again? Dams would have been a great store of energy for this project by pumping the water up during the day using solar/wind.

Tesla Energy must be salivating at all those batteries that will need to be constructed.

guelo2• 8 years ago

I think you misread. Hydro will be allowed under this bill.

Tuxer2• 8 years ago

oh I must have, I read this sentence "The state currently gets about 44 percent of its power from renewables and hydropower." as continuing with the current thought that hydro wasn't 100% clean.

Pump it up then.

pastor_elm• 8 years ago

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.

blang• 8 years ago

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_...

laurentMiguel2• 8 years ago

Are metal/chemical batteries “clean” though?

In the atmospheric climate context, possibly. But if we optimize only for that, is there not a potentially serious trade off in the likelihood of irresponsible disposal?

icebraining2• 8 years ago

You can greatly reduce the danger of improper disposal by implementing a https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deposit-refund_system

gregable• 8 years ago

Unfortunately, dams really don't represent that big of an energy store in practice.

snowwindwaves3• 8 years ago

If you ever see the level in the reservoir behind the dam go up then energy is being stored. If the level goes down then stored energy is being released.

The level of your favourite reservoir over time is probably available on line. Is there a massive annual pattern of high levels in spring and lowering level in fall and winter?

moneytide• 8 years ago

Maybe not as many batteries as we think.

Local generation (Photovoltaics or turbines) set up nearby the channel where water will move uphill could run the pumps directly, without much voltage drop because of close proximity. On cloudless days it "charges" the reservoir.

Batteries still necessary to smooth things out, but not to run pumps 24\7

village-idiot19• 8 years ago

As a fly fisherman, I sure hope we can eliminate some of those dams.

They can be useful, but we've also overdone it a bit.

aphextron• 8 years ago

As a fly fisherman, I sure hope we can eliminate some of those dams.

They're not all bad. Some of the best gold medal sections in the country are tailwaters. It's some of the most challenging, technical fishing you'll ever do as well. Landing a 10lb trout on size 24-28 nymphs and 8X tippet is an art itself.

corradio• 8 years ago

That's very interesting. Right now California seems to run about 40-60% renewable according to https://www.electricitymap.org/?page=country&solar=false&rem...

toomuchtodo5• 8 years ago

California is at a bit of a tipping point. It has so much renewable energy, it has to pay other states to export their excessive energy because they don't have enough storage [1]. So you have to decide if you're going to subsidize utility scale energy storage to help drive it below the cost of fossil and peaker generators (which, it appears, California is prepared to do). It also helps that renewables are quickly approaching 1-2 cents/kwh at utility scale, as more of your cost can be storage (as your generation is almost free). China is ending subsidies of their solar manufacturing industry [2], which is going to push down the cost of panels, increasing the rate of uptake. You will see California meet their 100% renewable mandate much sooner than they're targeting.

A side effect is this is going to cause extensive losses to investor owned fossil generators. C'est la vie.

[1] https://www.zmescience.com/science/california-renewable-ener...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-solar/chinas-solar-su...

village-idiot19• 8 years ago

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

internet_user• 8 years ago

Does aneutronic p-b11 fission count as clean in California?

phkahler• 8 years ago

p-b11 fusion. I'd count that anywhere someone can make it work for large scale energy production.

jzoch• 8 years ago

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?

ebikelaw5• 8 years ago

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

SllX5• 8 years ago

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.

sixdimensional2• 8 years ago

I'm with you. It's awesome that we're doing this and I think it will be good for future generations.

Long term infrastructure investments take a long time, and it's weird to me to think that we might not even be around to enjoy the benefit, but needing to be done is needing to be done. I think this is exactly the kind of change in thinking we need, that we should take on such efforts, even if they take a long time, now.

However, I also concur, I wish we could be even more aggressive. It would be interesting to know if there is a staggered approach and if those dates are sooner (didn't RTFA... to be honest, maybe it was in there). Maybe we'll be 65% electric by 2035 or something, that would still be pretty great, right?

radicalbyte3• 8 years ago

It would be nice if there were say goals of over 90% by 2030; that gives you 12 years to build and decommission or convert existing fossil-fuel plants to sustainable alternatives.

The hard problem is the storage and peak handling, hopefully with 90% you could cover that too.

A real space-race goal - the kind that I would really have expected from America - would be to be carbon neutral within a decade. That would initially spur investment in natural carbon sinks whilst massively rewarding innovation in that area (which we desperately need - we have two centuries of carbon that needs removing from the atmosphere).

Heck, it would also be wise to investigate geo-engineering - to understand in detail how our planet works, and develop methods for altering it. Could we develop technology which would allow us to, say, counter a massive volcano (or a super volcano?).

meowface• 8 years ago

Going to space probably would've taken a lot longer if there were a ton of legacy low quality low-Earth orbit spacecraft floating all over that we first had to upgrade or remove.

mygo• 8 years ago

would you be disappointed if you had 95% clean energy in 2035?

nostromo• 8 years ago

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% renewables by 2045."

close043• 8 years ago

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 scale at least) got there so it's hard to anticipate all the challenges. Germany, normally at 36% renewable energy, managed to reach that magic 100% figure on a winter early-morning this year. But nothing close to sustained generation. And they plan to get to 100% in 2060+. So California, currently at ~44% renewable energy, could be the first to hit the sustained 100%.

Another problem is that everyone defines "100% clean energy" in different ways, by leaving some sectors out of the count. Will this target cover electrical power or also aims at replacing all non-renewable sources of power for all applications?

anfedorov• 8 years ago

Also, what does "Clean Electricity" mean? I signed up for CleanPowerSF which only cost me 2¢/kWh more, if I remember right: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CleanPowerSF

mattygh3• 8 years ago

It's relatively easy for one person to source clean power themselves, just means that technically your payment goes to a wind farm instead of the grid as a whole, but really doesn't change much for the grid. It's much harder for everyone to get clean power, then you get very advanced issues balancing the variable nature of renewable generation.

In this case I believe it means carbon-free, so Nuclear is still technically viable though very unlikely any new Nuclear will be built. Will be mostly existing hydro, nuclear and geothermal with new solar & wind phasing out gas plants.

wyattk• 8 years ago

I appreciate your enthusiasm, but this is like comparing apples to pitbulls. Both of these goals are big milestones, but fundamentally different.

With space, everything that was created and invested was brand new. There was not too much worrying about existing infrasture. Often, there would be thousands of people working to make 1 individual mission happen. Energy in the US is a lot different. For instance, you have to keep the massive machine that is the electricity transmission and distribution grids running.

Here's a scope of the challenges of 100% renewables, for anyone without a background in this (one should view challenges as opportunities):

First, there's a lot of existing generation that would need to be sunsetted and even more that would need to be created. In fact, given the intermittency of renewables, there would need to be a multiple more of capacity than there is now given the capacity factor, usually divide 1/CapacityFactor (see more on that here: https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy13osti/57582.pdf). So, 4 GW of installed wind capacity is really only expected to output ~1 GW at any point in time, given the intermittencies.

Second, there will have to be a lot of upgrades made to the transmission grid (sending power long distances from large scale renewable generators to population centers), and the distribution grid (sends power to all the buildings and homes in a city). The distribution grid upgrades to be made will have to help it handle a lot more rooftop solar, home batteries, and electric vehicles.

Third, there will have to be a lot more storage installed. Electric vehicles can have a large impact here, but there will still be a need for in-home and grid-scale batteries. Batteries are also just getting to the point where they're economically-feasible in some uses. There is still a ways to go for batteries to be economical enough to be widespread, especially grid-scale. Physical storage of electricity will likely have to grow too (think: pump to a higher lake when prices are low, and let it flow back down and turn a turbine when it's needed).

Fourth, and this is definitely my opinion (and what I'm working on), is that we are going to have to make everything work together more. We can't have all these batteries, solar panels, and other connected appliances and thermostats do whatever they want at the distribution level. We will have to change to time-varying rate structures for end-consumers, but this won't be enough either. Communication and coordination will yield the best results.

I tried to be brief. If anyone has any more questions or thoughts about this, I would love to hear them!

reaperducer3• 8 years ago

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.

dahdum• 8 years ago

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.

08-15• 8 years ago

They knew how to go to the moon in 1961, at least in principle. It was "just" engineering. They don't know how to get to 100% renewables, not even in principle. (The 100% plans need a storage technology that doesn't exist, yet.)

jtchang• 8 years ago

I actually had no idea how much of CA's energy came from renewable sources. That is actually astounding. In many ways CA is ahead of the nation.

eikenberry• 8 years ago

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.

RobLach• 8 years ago

Whenever I ride around Berkeley, CA I see a sea of "nuclear-free zone" signs on roads filled with Prius traffic. It's not so easy to understand the real agendas here.

godzillabrennus• 8 years ago

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.

jaredhansen• 8 years ago

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.

mistrial9• 8 years ago

Berkeley is a long-standing home to nuclear physics practitioners, and there are nuclear-you-know-whats designed in the national labs.. its not a settled thing

urda• 8 years ago

California is actually in the middle of shutting down the last nuclear source they have.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_Canyon_Power_Plant#Clos...

gricardo992• 8 years ago

The sooner it shuts down the better, given the design and risks of the plant[1]

1 - https://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-power-accidents...

_rpd3• 8 years ago

60% has to be wind and solar, the remaining 40% may be hydro and nuclear.

radicalbyte3• 8 years ago

Until recently I was extremely pro nuclear, but in the past months I've been researching renewable energy and have changed my mind.

I hope not. For a similar cost you can actually turn coal power into massive carbon storage.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bio-energy_with_carbon_captu...

This is actually pretty ingenious, if it works at industrial scale then it's better than even wind and solar power.

craftyguy6• 8 years ago

and have changed my mind.
I hope not.

Care to explain why you have changed your mind?

SllX5• 8 years ago

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.

_rpd3• 8 years ago

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

garmaine6• 8 years ago

There is only one nuclear power plant in California (Diablo Canyon) and it is scheduled to be decommissioned without a replacement.

bsder• 8 years ago

It's sad, but no.

At this point, people have, apparently rightly, concluded that the need for profit is fundamentally incompatible with running a nuclear reactor.

San Onofre is a good example. It has been plagued by operational and mechanical problems over the years simply because nobody is willing to spend enough money to do it right. Given that, shutting it down is pretty much the only option.

justaaron• 8 years ago

excellent

ghouse3• 8 years ago

For those who think data is beautiful, here is real-time information regarding the majority of California's grid: http://www.caiso.com/TodaysOutlook/Pages/supply.aspx

knowaveragejoe• 8 years ago

Very cool, though I'm curious about the classification of large hydro(and maybe even nuclear) outside of renewables?

vondur3• 8 years ago

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.

dmode• 8 years ago

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

vondur3• 8 years ago

Looks like we buy a lot of power from Intermountain Power, who are in Utah: https://www.ipautah.com

jorblumesea4• 8 years ago

It's unfortunate the US response to climate change is completely localized and basically dependent on blue states. Not saying this is a bad thing but climate change is a huge global issue and requires at least a coordinated national response.

craftyguy6• 8 years ago

and requires at least a coordinated national response.

The federal government has proven for at least the past decade that they are incapable of delivering a coordinated national response.

jorblumesea4• 8 years ago

The government incompetence is intentional. There's a coordinated effort from the Right to make sure the government doesn't function in order to make the argument that the government doesn't function. The disfunction is largely manufactured in order to serve political purposes.

Then they can budget cut and privatize everything while talking about "clean coal" and how climate change is a Chinese hoax and "states rights" etc etc.

It is hardly a coincidence the biggest road blockers in Congress are also the ones arguing to privatize infrastructure for their rich friends.

tathougies3• 8 years ago

Many US states are comparable in size to typical nations, so its not clear to me why this localized response is worse

jorblumesea4• 8 years ago

Climate change is a national/global issue and requires a national/global response.

California going green while Virginia stays with coal while Florida floods is objectively bad for the nation. The carbon footprint of the nation isn't going to be balanced by only a few states taking serious measures.

We are a union under the federalist system and we're all in this together, despite what people seem to think.

tathougies3• 8 years ago

Currently, I buy all my electricity from renewables. The price I pay per kwh is lower than conventional generation. However, the state of California has given PG&E a monopoly on electricity distribution, and PG&E charges me the difference between the generation charge from renewables and its own generation charge as a 'distribution fee'. This fee is waived, if i used PG&E generation.

Until California kicks out PG&E's monopoly and lets me pay the actual fair market price for my renewable electricity, I find it hard to take these initiatives as anything more than virtue signalling.

A better method for my county would be for the state to get rid of PG&E's ability to selectively charge the distribution fee. Then, private market forces would basically make everyone switch to renewables. Of course, the legislature wouldn't get the chance to appear virtuous. In fact, they'd look like villains for allowing this ridiculous pricing structure to begin with (and they really do knowingly allow it -- after talking with my state senator and representative, they told me they know this is the case, but 'the PG&E lobby is strong'.. give me a break).

amluto• 8 years ago

I don’t really see how California could practically kick out PG&E’s monopoly. There won’t magically be a bunch of competitors that string is their own power lines. CA could potentially take over entirely and run its own system, which might not be totally crazy. Some cities (e.g. Palo Alto and Los Angeles) already do this.

tathougies3• 8 years ago

The legislature directly controls PG&E's pricing. They can legislate it out of the market, or at least legislate out this particular pricing snafu.

walrus012• 8 years ago

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 per day. There are a LOT of empty roofs out there.

There is also a lot of nearly useless, non arable desert land that is relatively low cost ($/acre) that can be covered in fixed ground mount photovoltaics. Go drive around out in the area around Twentynine Palms...

The problem is energy storage. Batteries need to get better and have much longer cycle lifetimes. Economies of scale driven by things like the Tesla gigafactory will help. But we will need other, new things like pumped storage hydroelectric and possibly vanadium flow batteries as well. The $/Wh stored ratio is still very high, and the cubic density for energy stored is very low (Wh per cubic meter).

dublin4• 8 years ago

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...

walrus012• 8 years ago

Natural gas is a possible short-term temporary solution. If PV continues to drop in price as it has historically, [1] at a point in the near future it will become economical to crack hydrogen from seawater. If your $/kWh cost is astronomically low it doesn't matter how electricity intensive it is.

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=photovoltaic+price+chart&num...

Dylan168074• 8 years ago

How do we use natural gas to store energy?

tedunangst3• 8 years ago

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?

ghouse3• 8 years ago

IANAL, but fairly certain that the solar must be powered by the sun. That said, the solution you propose would be much more expensive than using the free light coming from the sun.

overcast• 8 years ago

I mean technically coal is powered by the Sun. Also what an unfortunate acronym.

chrisseaton2• 8 years ago

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'.

EduardoBautista• 8 years ago

Are you sure? If that was the case, legal loopholes wouldn't be as effective as they are now. Laws are taken literally. You follow the letter of the law, not the spirit. At least that's the case in the USA.

tedunangst3• 8 years ago

"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,...

rcMgD2BwE72F• 8 years ago

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...

dublin4• 8 years ago

No but due to the horrendous grid instability this policy must induce, CAISO will have to bring in a lot of power from other regions at pretty premium prices if they don't want all CA customers to find out the hard way that the only thing worse than rolling blackouts is non-rolling blackouts....

tedunangst3• 8 years ago

I wonder how they will enforce that, but that was the answer I was looking for. Thanks.

johng• 8 years ago

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckdevore/2018/05/07/texas-pr...

jwr3• 8 years ago

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 were free.

coolspot• 8 years ago

+ heated ceiling instead of floor in many apartments.

wang_li3• 8 years ago

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.

llukas2• 8 years ago

https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.ATM.CO2E.PC?location...

Looks pretty good on what metric?

acdha3• 8 years ago

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...

adrianN2• 8 years ago

The US is producing crazy amounts of natural gas, that probably leads to some reduction in the use of coal. I don't see much policy driving towards sustainable technology.

mattygh3• 8 years ago

Compared to the rest of the USA (low bar), California is a saint. They started doing Energy Efficiency in the 70s, currently spend $1Bn / year on EE. Energy consumption as a whole in the state has flatlined since they started doing EE (1). All that to say, they're trying. It's crazy how much of a difference culture makes.

1: https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/california-is-p...

wlesieutre• 8 years ago

California's appliance efficiency regulations (Title 20) are much stricter than to anywhere else in the US, as far as I know. http://www.energy.ca.gov/appliances/

EDIT - for an example, their clothes washer energy/water requirements got stricter in 2015 and then again in 2018 https://govt.westlaw.com/calregs/Document/IC95DA848BDAD48929...

They also have the strictest building energy codes (Title 24). https://www.energy.ca.gov/title24/

fdr• 8 years ago

That may well happen. Keep in mind California doesn't have full control as a regulatory state: consider the special EPA waiver that came in, along with EPA itself, during the Nixon era. Many regulations one is accustomed to from the Federal government require such special permission to act. We might see a bevy of tax credits or the like over time to do the lifting.

phil248• 8 years ago

There is no doubt room for improvement, but California is already among the most energy efficient states.

https://database.aceee.org/state/california

nradov2• 8 years ago

Only because Californians have outsourced most of their manufacturing and other heavy industry to other states and countries. If we factor in the total energy or carbon emissions cost of stuff we import then California doesn't look nearly as good.

8bitsrule• 8 years ago

Yep. And I salute them for their results. According to the US EIA,

"California's total energy consumption ranks among the highest in the nation, but, in 2015, the state's per capita energy consumption ranked 49th, due in part to its mild climate and its energy efficiency programs."

That per-capita figure results from action. Instead of just talking the talk, they've been actively building green capacity for decades.

"In 2016, California ranked ... first as a producer of electricity from solar, geothermal, and biomass resources."

https://www.eia.gov/state/?sid=CA

Energy consumed per-capita across the US in 2016: https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/#/series/12

ancarda7• 8 years ago

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 be conscious of my carbon footprint and energy usage, I think I will end up buying the large car a few years later.

Is there anything at-all I can do to drive a large car while not being part of the problem? I’m looking into carbon offsetting, but that’s all I am aware of for the time being.

I wish Dodge would make an electric RAM 1500, that could make this much easier.

ams61103• 8 years ago

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.

pjc50• 8 years ago

Physics dictates that the larger, heavier car will consume more energy to move, even if it happens to be electric.

merpnderp2• 8 years ago

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

serpix• 8 years ago

get a van instead if you need to move things. Those pickups are ridiculous in their energy consumption and waste of resources.

war1025• 8 years ago

FYI, RAM got spun out of Dodge a few years ago. So now all the trucks are made by RAM, rather than Ram being the model name.

johnmsd• 8 years ago

Dodge is making strides towards that, releasing a mild-hybrid version of the ram for 2019

https://jalopnik.com/the-2019-ram-hybrid-could-hit-a-decent-...

davidwparker• 8 years ago

"I can imagine forcing people to replace A/C units won’t be so objectionable..."

I'd say quite the opposite. We paid 3.5k to have A/C changed in our house this year. Many people don't have that kind of money.

"...especially if it’s free to do so"

would be the only way IMO.

mac010212• 8 years ago

Why isn't a fee&dividend widely accepted as the solution here?

I don't mind if you buy and drive a dodge ram or a Sherman tank, as long as you reimburse me for the harm it does to me and my child.

stephengillie3• 8 years ago

Hybrid cars are a great answer - you can get a 3500lb car (like the Camry Hybrid) that gets 40 MPG highway, and often 50 MPG in city/country driving. This is because the car usually shuts the engine off below ~46 MPH. Until you've driven a hybrid, you won't realize how often the engine isn't needed, and just 40 horsepower is enough to propel the car. Often, the engine will run for just a few seconds as you accelerate, then will turn off for the next several minutes, as you coast or maintain speed to the next stop light on battery alone.

Another benefit of hybridization is that AC and other power-hungry accessories can be powered during heavy acceleration without putting any more strain on the engine. It's fun to go for a drive during a hot day, use AC the entire time, and still get (for example) 42.3 MPG.

Plus, you get the instant torque of an electric car. Maybe not quite as much as a Tesla, but you'll still beat an F-150 off the line.

almost_usual• 8 years ago

As long as the truck isn’t your daily driver I don’t think it’s a big deal.

martythemaniak• 8 years ago

Of all the major issues, this one is the simplest - EVs. In fact, the best EVs in the world are made right in California. It helps that EVs aren't just better for the environment, but better cars overall.

Of large cars, Tesla makes a 7 seat SUV and will make a giant truck in about 2 years. Other manufacturers will follow them 2-3 years after that.

st266• 8 years ago

What do you like about large cars? The ability to haul cargo? The style? Are you problematically tall?

washingtub• 8 years ago

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!

merpnderp2• 8 years ago

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.

ajross2• 8 years ago

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.

... yeah. Because it's in Santa Monica. Without even bothering to ask details about your personal temperature preference or the size or construction date of the homes, I can 100% guarantee you you're using less energy on climate control in SoCal than in "the midwest".

Trying to fix energy consumption by improving construction and code regulation in the major city least in need of climate control, like, worldwide is just a silly waste of resources.

LA is wasteful in many ways. But a city that sits at a 60-70F average basically year-round is just not in need of attention here.

danepowell• 8 years ago

I don't see what about front-loading washers would make them especially prone to standing water or mold. I would expect that vertical washers could just as easily have standing water. Worse, it's probably out of sight behind the drum where you can't clean it.

agumonkey4• 8 years ago

any articles about new ideas on this topic ? even if new means using old ways again

twtw• 8 years ago

This sort of thing is why I sort of hate energy star everything. Take dishwashers, for example. You can regulate the energy and water usage all you want, but it long ago got to the point where dishwashers that meet regulations basically fail to clean the dishes. Which is fine, it just causes the consumer to wash the dishes by hand either instead of or in addition to using the dishwasher. So now the dishwasher uses less energy/water, but the whole process uses net more water and takes more time.

village-idiot19• 8 years ago

As someone else who lives in Santa Monica, the extra detail here is that it's so freaking temperate year round that you don't need as much heat/AC.

We typically just ventilate our home during the day and don't run AC, we've never turned the heat on (I don't know if we have heat, actually).

Beldin2• 8 years ago

I was told that the washing machine should run at max temp about once a month - specifically to sanitise the machine. Can be an empty load (but not required).

If you didn't try that before, give it a shot. Hopefully it'll help.

adrr2• 8 years ago

They make high-efficiency top loader washing machines that use the same amount of power of frontloaders. I have one, it's much slower(45 to 90 minute wash times) than traditional top loader but is almost completely silent.

Fins• 8 years ago

Strange. I have yet to see a top-loader that washes anywhere near as well as a drum machine. Front-loaders are also much more gentle on the fabric.

verelo• 8 years ago

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

greglindahl• 8 years ago

Great suggestion! We've been working on that for decades already.

ajross2• 8 years ago

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,

Are you living in a particularly new region?

Every time I've seen this come up, the data actually says the opposite: the median US home is better insulated, more recently built and more efficiently climate-controlled. Which is unsurprising, because they're newer, basically. Home technology over the last half century has made huge improvements in energy consumption.

It's true that the median US home is much larger than what you probably see where you are. And obviously that goes to total consumption. But it's not an issue with housing technology at all.

stefan_• 8 years ago

I've pulled up a random "YouTube star" "building my dream house in california" video and that looks all the world like a single glazed window, in 2018:

https://youtu.be/OWglKkE-0a8?t=2m17s

It also seems to be a wooden construction.. so frankly I don't know what to think. I'm sorry if this seems like very unconventional evidence but then going from building codes to what people are actually building out there is a whole different story, and then you didn't actually provide any data, either.

Though you are spot on with the ridiculously oversized buildings, like a 3 door garage that is so intimately integrated into the structure you're climate controlling it year round.

myegorov• 8 years ago

What fraction of apartment buildings in California have double-pane windows? What fraction of commercial buildings in SF/East Bay have operable windows to take advantage of natural ventilation?

st266• 8 years ago

Right, so the key is California's housing stock is rather old on average, at least from what I can tell.

oceanplexian2• 8 years ago

I'm not against energy efficiency, however, conservation is fundamentally the wrong approach. What is the future going to look like?

- Earth will have another 10,20,30 Billion people living on it

- These people, if we don't screw up and start another war, will want a house, air conditioning, a car, air travel, lots of kids, and more

- Human will inhabit more parts of the Earth that are uninhabitable (Antarctica, Siberia, Canada, Australia), which will require an order of magnitude increase in energy for heating/cooling

- Industry and manufacturing will need to provide for the leisure spending of billions of additional humans (iPhones, Televisions, etc)

- New technologies will require orders of magnitude more energy, such as flying cars, space travel, etc.

The solution to these things isn't to crawl in a hole and try to shave a few % efficiencies out of a washing machine or a pickup truck. Energy isn't a limited resource. It's one of the most abundant things in the universe. With today's technology (Nuclear Fission and one day, Fusion) you could make energy more cheaply and abundantly than the air we breathe.

People should expect to behave as if energy is free. And energy should be free. The problem is that society at large (and NIMBYs and Anti-Nuclear activists) don't have any imagination and therefore set back our civilization and post-scarcity society 50-100 years.

michaelchisari• 8 years ago

Earth will have another 10,20,30 Billion people living on it

Luckily, we're looking at a very real possibility that we peak at 9 billion and then start to shrink from there. Which creates a whole host of other social issues, but at least gross overpopulation isn't one of them.

sofon• 8 years ago

- Earth will have another 10,20,30 Billion people living on it

Unlikely.

- These people, ... lots of kids, and more

Also unlikely.

- Human will inhabit more parts of the Earth that are uninhabitable

Unlikely

spending of billions of additional humans (iPhones, Televisions, etc)

Unlikely

- New technologies will require orders of magnitude more energy, such as flying cars, space travel, etc.

Yes, likely.

World population is set to decrease. Birth rates in the US, UK, Japan, South Korea, China are all below replacement. This seems to be a general trend that happens when countries reach a certain level of development.

I think most models should show world population peaking, and then declining.

I agree that nuclear is probably our best bet. The high profile screw ups (like Fukushima) are annoying and decrease public trust. But we need to get better at creating/regulating safe nuclear solutions.

st266• 8 years ago

You underestimate how much efficiency we've gained. Have you looked up what old fridges used to use? Or compared a 56% AFUE furnace against a 96% unit? Trucks used to get like 6-8mpg, now some get 30mpg.

jwr3• 8 years ago

Not sure if you realize it — using more energy means releasing more of it as heat into the environment. You are literally heating the planet. So even if your energy is produced cleanly (say, nuclear), you still don't want to use crazy amounts of it.

blake1• 8 years ago

This already happens in at least two ways.

First way is called demand response, and entails the operator asking some users “how much is the next MW worth to you?” If no one can supply that MW at that price or less, the customer can agree to not consume that MW. It is significant for some operators, but by design of the market, is only an option for industrial customers, really.

Some utilities also offer a limited form of this, where you can allow them to shut off your AC, receiving a discount on your bill, generally.

Both work, in their way. Would have a much larger effect if they were more universal, and of the price signal were felt more strongly by consumers. Which I think was your point.

rayiner• 8 years ago

What would be the numerical impact of those efficiency gains (accounting for the cost of manufacturing new units to replace less efficient ones that may work just fine)

village-idiot19• 8 years ago

As someone who lived in 3 Chicago apartments heated by radiator heat and had visible gaps in every single window, I'd be inclined to disagree with this assessment.

st266• 8 years ago

IMO California suffers from pride/nationalism on a state level. I grew up there, and everybody took it for granted we were the best at the environment. The most efficient, the most conservation minded, the works. But I left ten years ago and as I travel the states, I realize CA is not always the best. Not even most of the time. But due to this mindset, CA is never challenged to up their game by the good work other states do.

URSpider94• 8 years ago

Europe was built (re-built after WW II) to be energy-efficient. Cars have diesel motors that make half the power of the same model in the USA. Air conditioning in the home is almost unheard-of. Nobody I know there has a clothes dryer that roasts your clothes with gas or electricity - the unit I had when I lived there was a washer/dryer combo with a really powerful spin cycle and then a mild heater coupled with a condensing unit (basically a dehumidifier) - clothes come out damp, so you have to hang them up to get to final dry-ness. All light bulbs are fluorescent, if not LED, and all lights in public buildings are on motion sensors or timer switches.

California skates by because the big population centers need almost zero heating or cooling, relatively speaking. Other than that, our power use would make a German Green Party member see red.

cameldrv• 8 years ago

Homes are very poorly insulated here because it's not necessary. The climate is so nice, the heater only runs a month or two out of the year, and not even the whole day. It maybe brings up the inside temperature 5 degrees C. We could get by without air conditioning entirely, but I have it and it gets used perhaps for a total of two weeks in the summer.

Compare that to northern Europe where the outside temperature is below 0C for a lot of the winter, the payoff for properly insulating a house, installing new windows, etc, just isn't there. If you really wanted to save energy, move somewhere where you don't require so much energy to not freeze to death.

westurner• 8 years ago

1. Hawaii

2. California

ThomPete9• 8 years ago

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...

abtinf• 8 years ago

How will normal people be affected if you severely restrict the activities of those 100 companies?

ThomPete9• 8 years ago

That depends on how you do it.

How were normal people affected by putting in carburetors in cars so they didn't spit out lead into the air?

Edit: My bad I meant catalytic converter not carborators (katalysatorer in Danish)

tejtm• 8 years ago

Negligible. Large non corporal entities are structured such the vast majority of any benefit they provide is concentrated in a vanishingly small population and costs distributed over the largest population possible. That is the whole point.

agumonkey4• 8 years ago

We need to lay all these informations on a large map, so we don't have to speculate. That said, I'm sure most of the western world is in blind oppulence. So much shit is thrown out or spoiled for no reason it's crazy.

ruipgil• 8 years ago

But then again, from that report, most are fossil fuel producing companies. So one would imagine that less fossil fuel demand would reduce the impact of those companies and have an even more important effect on CO2 emissions

ThomPete9• 8 years ago

Sure, it still doesn't change that households really can't do much and it's very expensive (and IMO stupid) to put it on the consumer. Instead, make rules for the companies that are much easier concentrating efforts there.

guelo2• 8 years ago

That 70% stat is not helpful because that's just the energy source companies. They're not consuming the energy, they're selling it. When you put Exxon gas in your car you are the one emitting the CO2, not Exxon.

ThomPete9• 8 years ago

If you start there you would probably get way more success than asking mr. and mrs. Johnson to sort their waste and not eat cow.

Not sure why this is controversial.

philipkglass2• 8 years ago

This way lies a deep and futile chain of responsibility-diffusion. It's not the fault of the coal mining companies, it's the power plants that actually burn coal. It's not the fault of the power plants, it's the fault of the aluminum smelters that consume electricity produced with coal. It's not the fault of the smelters, it's the fault of the consumers who buy aluminum cans made with electricity produced from coal. (Never mind that aluminum-made-with-coal-electricity and aluminum-made-with-hydroelectricity are indistinguishable once they have reached the retail product level.)

You can regulate 100 big energy sector companies and drive big changes in consumption. You can't diffuse the responsibility to change across a hundred million consumers and expect anything like an equivalent rate of change.

BrandonMarc4• 8 years ago

Those companies donate to political campaigns. Or if they don't, after this threat, they will. Seeing as they are the major polluters, this in the end won't push the needle very much in terms of emissions. Typical.

ousta• 8 years ago

They should find how to create electricity from poo as it is their first renewable material

skookumchuck5• 8 years ago

"California would need to install more than 200 times as much energy-storage capacity than it has now to make up for the loss of gas plants,"

They wouldn't need near as much if they abandoned the silly fixed 24/7 consumer electric rates in favor of rates that vary based on the supply.

BrandonMarc4• 8 years ago

Politicians giving themselves a ~ 30-year runway is a farce. Promise you'll reduce it by 10% in 3 years, and I'll take you seriously.

This is garbage. Just like the return to the Moon promised by Regan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Trump ... always "15 to 20 years from now" ... and NEVER happens.

By the way - 10% in 3 years would be a perfect milestone to 100% in 30 years.

mmanfrin• 8 years ago

California generally has a good track record of hitting longer-term environmental goals. 2045 is a long way out, but it is a length that will allow for unclean plants to see through to their end-of-life, rather than kneecapping current plants/projects. I suspect the intent was to signal to energy producers that CA won't make their current investments worthless (otherwise it would drive away developers who have put investments in to our grid).

In other words, this was a "keep investing, but new plants need to be clean" move.

jorblumesea4• 8 years ago

I agree with the sentiment but this is probably a more realistic goal. Germany, which is far more organized than the US in many respects, is failing to hit its climate goals for 2020.

It's just harder than people think. Same with public projects going over budget. The budget was never realistic in the first place.

truculent2• 8 years ago

I think "realistic" kind of depends on your goal. If you want to make it under 2C, I don't believe this is particularly realistic (i.e. not soon enough). If you want to avoid controversial actions and major changes to people's loves, sure it maybe too soon.

saas_co_de• 8 years ago

Always be suspicious when politicians pass legislation that doesn't take effect until after they leave office.

Brakenshire• 8 years ago

The UK has a law requiring ongoing cuts towards an 80% cut from 1990 to 2050, and we’re about half way through, and about half way there. If the government doesn’t keep to the pathway it can be sued and required to take action by the courts.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/ccc-cut-uk-emissions-61-by-2030-...

kszxgz• 8 years ago

By the way - 10% in 3 years would be a perfect milestone to 100% in 30 years.

That would be a reduction to about 35% of the original after 30 years.

function_seven3• 8 years ago

Keep the basis level constant, and 10% every three years fine :)

tkel• 8 years ago

From the bill (sb100),

33 percent by December 31, 2020,

44 percent by December 31, 2024,

52 percent by December 31, 2027,

and 60 percent by December 31, 2030.

The commission shall establish appropriate three-year compliance periods for all subsequent years.

tankerdude• 8 years ago

The pace is already going to beat that legislation at it’s current rate.

This codifies that they don’t drag behind.

truculent2• 8 years ago

Not soon enough though, is it?

alexnewman• 8 years ago

I’d bet 10x harder than 99% and 100x harder than 95% and 1000x harder than 66%

California Moves to Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045

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