California Moves To Require 100% Clean Electricity by 2045 (bloomberg.com) 282
California's assembly has voted to move the state's electricity completely off fossil fuels. The state assembly this week passed S.B. 100, a proposal to transition California to 100 percent emissions-free electricity sources by 2045. A report adds: The Assembly voted 43-32 in favor of the legislation Tuesday. It would eliminate the reliance on fossil fuels to power homes, businesses and factories in the world's fifth-largest economy, accelerating a shift already under way. The state currently gets about 44 percent of its power from renewables and hydropower. California has positioned itself to lead the battle against climate change by cutting emissions even as the Trump administration has worked to roll back the state's stringent auto pollution standards and prop up ailing coal-fired power plants. Earlier this year, California became the first U.S. state to mandate solar rooftop panels on almost all new homes. It would be the second state to require 100 percent carbon-free power after Hawaii.
California mandates (Score:3, Funny)
Thanks to CA mandates all CA cars went zero emissions 18 years ago.
Doubtless this mandate will be equally effective.
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You're quite amusing, but it's worth reflecting on how effective California's emissions regulations actually have been. We literally discovered that automobiles caused smog [ca.gov], and California's relentless push for stricter emissions standards can be credited with the bulk of the progress we have made as a nation.
Behold the power of... (Score:3)
t would eliminate the reliance...
behold the power of... words on paper. Words written on paper by politicians, even.
Re:Behold the power of... (Score:4, Insightful)
Words written on paper by politicians who will be out of office by the time the words are to have any meaning.
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In other countries doing this kind of thing they enact laws to encourage it. Incentives for clean energy, disincentives for dirty energy.
It then becomes quite difficult for their successors to retract them. Businesses and jobs build up around them, people object to things that make their quality of life worse etc.
Plus it's California, can't see that state swinging hard right.
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Low cost power is the key to attracting and keeping businesses.
Businesses pay more and more for power and then move to another state.
Re: Behold the power of... (Score:2)
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No, getting batteries will be insufficient. Look at the costs of the different energy sources.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Coal and natural gas are still exceedingly cheap. Nuclear may cost 2x, 3x, or even 4x, of some wind and solar right now but it has the "storage" built into it. Fuel is storage. Remember that...
Fuel is storage.
Hydroelectric dams have an inherent storage ability in the water held up behind it. This water though is not unlimited, even with pumped storage, if that water is used for
Re: Behold the power of... (Score:2)
States = Incubators for testing stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
In terms of states' rights and energy independence and the environment, this is a good thing. Whether or not this works out, we will learn a lot about the feasibility of eliminating our reliance on fossil fuels from California's effort; other states could then model their own clean energy programs based on the positives and negatives of California's experiment.
(I'm not sure what the anti-Trump rhetoric adds to the article summary other than virtual signaling... ??)
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I don't think their success would prove it's feasible for all the states. I am thinking it only works because the other states are not competing to purchase solar/wind/hydro too heavily while they have access to coal/natural gas. Otherwise the price of clean energy would go much higher. It's still a good goal if they're willing to do it.
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In terms of states' rights and energy independence and the environment, this is a good thing. Whether or not this works out, we will learn a lot about the feasibility of eliminating our reliance on fossil fuels from California's effort; other states could then model their own clean energy programs based on the positives and negatives of California's experiment.
(I'm not sure what the anti-Trump rhetoric adds to the article summary other than virtual signaling... ??)
This isn't going to work out. California will simply be importing power from states where fossil fuels are used, suffering blackouts and paying a LOT more for power.
Electrical power grids require that the energy going in must be exactly the energy being used at every instant. To be safe, one must provide an "operating margin" that can handle the loss of generation capacity and power any variations in load. Grid managers must maintain this balance, by planning generation capacity hours in advance of actua
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The thing about California power demand is that it is typically higher when the sun is shining. In other words, supply and demand tend towards a natural balance.
Yes, some storage will be necessary, in combination with things like hydro power, which provides on-demand green energy.
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You do realize that Hydro requires water and right now that's in very short supply out west...
Also your "some storage" is in the range of 50,000 Megawatt hours or more, just to even out the solar peak at noon to the usage peak at 5 PM (based on today's usage curve in Texas on an average summer day). This is HUGE amounts of power to store, which currently is made up by fossil fueled power generators and sucking power from the grid from places outside the state.
ONE Tesla Power Wall 2 stores 13 Kwh and cost
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Electric bills for Californians will go high enough that those who own their own properties will buy their own generators. There might even be a market for a loophole: natural gas generators hooked up to your main gas line. Instead of one centralized ng power plant how about a couple million?
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The good news is that Tesla also makes higher capacity grid-scale energy storage products [electrek.co] than the PowerWall.
Yes, that install isn't on the scale of what you say is needed (don't know the math) but it seems to be doing pretty damn good for the Aussies - good enough that Southern California Edison wants one too. [latimes.com]
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Batteries.
Several large ones already installed in California... and other places. Very cost effective.
Importing fossil fuel electricity is not an option... not permitted.
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The hell batteries are not expensive. And how you keep California on the nation's power grid, but regulate how the power you receive from it is generated is beyond me. Sure, you can *claim* it's green energy, but is it really when that coal plant in MO is pumping out power into the same grid? I'd call it load shifting to fossil fuels by "proxy" if nothing else. So let's say California wants to go it alone...
Industrial level power storage is HUGELY expensive and dangerous operations. We are talking about
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First, California has its own grid so it's easy to keep out fossil fuel electricity.
Batteries are proven. Australia is a good example.
(Lithium batteries are very easy to recycle into safe non-toxic components and even new batteries.)
There is also geothermal, hydro and pumped storage which can easily be controlled to fill in gaps.
Renewable electricity is cheaper than fossil fuel electricity (the "fuel" for renewables is free) and it just keeps getting cheaper. States which rely on fossil fuel electricity wil
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Batteries are proven. Australia is a good example.
The population of the entire country/continent of Australia is less than 2/3rds the population of California. A lot more space per person for green energy.
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The fossil fuel industry put out a hit piece a week ago saying tha California didn't have enough land for renewables. (Published in the LA Times which as usual, didn't do any real journalism, just printed the hit piece.) The usual garbage stats. Quickly debunked.
Re:States = Incubators for testing stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
In your cost of fossil fuels, please consider the externalized cost of waste product disposal into the lungs of those downwind, and the cost of deleting entire mountains in the Appalachians so we can load them into furnaces, and the costs of doing all that (slurry ponds, destroyed ecosystems, etc.)
The grid operators may see what goes up the stack as zero cost, but there is definitely a cost to society in elevated asthma rates, lung disease, increased chances of low and very-low birth weights, cancers, cardiovascular disease, and death. [scientificamerican.com] It's estimated that coal contributes in up to 50,000 deaths every year in the US alone - more than all the deaths from car wrecks in the US in a year.
Let's factor that into the fossil fuel energy costs, completely disregarding sea level rise and how much that's going to cost in lost real estate and property, as well as increased severity and frequency of storms from climate change because some people still argue about if those are real things.
I think we can all agree that breathing coal-fired particulate and sulfur dioxide is bad for you, and anyone 30+ miles downwind from each and every coal plant is doing exactly that.
What does that fossil fuel energy cost now?
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Energy that may have helped plants grow where you now have fields of solar panels
What.
A.
Load.
Of.
Horseshit.
Yeah, that field of solar panels is definitely worse than all the fucking asphalt parking lots that are god damn everywhere and also prevent plants from growing. Yet I'll bet you don't complain if someone was to build more parking somewhere you frequent.
That might be the single stupidest point of FUD I've ever seen about solar. Congratulations!
Re: States = Incubators for testing stuff (Score:2)
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California has little snow, relatively few clouds (or inclement weather of any kind, for that matter), massive amounts of hydropower, and very little manufacturing or other heavy industry (which is power intensive). It's basically an ideal environment for 100% renewable energy usage, which is not true for 90% or so of the US. In the Midwest, for example, there's little hydro, and solar barely works at all in the winter when you need power or you'll freeze to death. The Southwest has at least good solar pote
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very little manufacturing or other heavy industry
Why do people keep saying this? Articles from 2015:
https://www.cmtc.com/blog/how-... [cmtc.com]
Although California has lost close to 40 percent (842,180) of its manufacturing jobs between 1990 and 2012, it still holds the largest manufacturing market share of any other state. California controls 11.4 percent of the nation's manufacturing output. Texas produces 10 percent, followed far behind by Illinois, North Carolina, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan.
https://www.epi.org/publicatio... [epi.org]
The top 10 states ranked by total manufacturing employment in 2013 are California (1,251,400 jobs), Texas (871,700 jobs), Ohio (662,100 jobs), Illinois (579,600 jobs), Pennsylvania (563,500 jobs), Michigan (555,300 jobs), Indiana (491,900 jobs), Wisconsin (458,400 jobs), New York (455,100 jobs), and North Carolina (442,500 jobs).
That's almost enough time (Score:2, Funny)
to build a nuclear plant.
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to build a nuclear plant.
Is it also enough time to make it price competitive without subsidies?
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I did see this article linked from a popular technology blog about Bill Gates wanting to bring a new molten salt fast neutron reactor to market by 2030. I believe the website was called "Slashdot", perhaps you've heard of it?
The claim is that the reactor will use a high temperature molten salt for heat transfer and storage. That way it can use efficient Brayton cycle turbines, follow changing loads, and not need water cooling. It's the same technology they use for solar thermal energy storage, so it must
I'll freeze in the winter (Score:2)
And what of my gas stove?
I sure hope this only applies to new construction and not existing homes
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I'm not sure they'll be able to (Score:2)
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Let me mad-lib this up for you:
Party A: Some stereotypical group
Noun/Verb: Pick any noun or verb you like
[Party A] only favor states rights when the states want to do something [Party A] agree with that federal government wants to do. When the federal government wants to do something [Party A] agree with the states don't want to do (like make [Noun/Verb] illegal), they are very much against states rights!
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>"Republicans only favor states rights when the states want to do something they agree with that federal government wants to do."
Sorry, you just described what EITHER of the two main parties (D & R) do; this is not the sole domain of Republicans. Although conservatives (not necessarily Republicans, but also Constitution party, Libertarians, Classic Liberals, and others) absolutely support the Constitution and the rights of states to govern their people with the few exceptions laid out for the Fed..
Re:I'm not sure they'll be able to (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, you just described what EITHER of the two main parties (D & R) do; this is not the sole domain of Republicans
What you missed is only the Republican party has attempted to make an issue out of "States Rights". The point is the hypocrisy. Just like passing a massive unfunded tax cut means you should be laughed at if you complain about the deficit.
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>"What you missed is only the Republican party has attempted to make an issue out of "States Rights". The point is the hypocrisy. Just like passing a massive unfunded tax cut means you should be laughed at if you complain about the deficit."
That is, indeed, a good point. Neither party really cares about the deficit or debt, ultimately. They just continue to spend like there is no tomorrow. This is a result of a government that is far too large, far too remote, far too powerful, far too corrupt, and ha
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What was happening is car manufacturers had to make their entire fleets meet California standards
And there's a lie.
Car manufacturers had a separate "California Emissions" package that they added to cars sold in California. Much to the dismay of car enthusiasts in California, since it reduced the horsepower and torque of their cars. It also means cars in California are more expensive.
it's the federal government saying that California cannot dictate policy upon other states. States with no representation in California.
Hey look! It's another lie.
No state was forced to follow California's emissions laws. They could get cars that did not have the California emissions package.
Some states passed laws to follow California's emissions stand
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the nationally ruling party has already signaled they're going to block CA on their higher car emissions.
They can signal all they want. They don't have a constitutional leg to stand on.
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A de facto standard is just that. That's based more on economies of scale and practical consideration than actual requirements. Although if we get to start treating de facto ISP monopolies as actual monopolies when they carve up regions, then maybe it's not all bad.
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Yeah, fuck those other states and their cleaner air they're getting without the paperwork and legislative detritus!
God damn California and their regulations making life better outside of California too! How dare they!
Just one problem (Score:2)
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From what I understand, wind and solar are among the cheapest sources of power today.
Then you understand incorrectly.
I just saw a US government projection that there will be 20 GW of new natural gas electrical generation built his year. How much wind and solar? Well, there's been installs of solar of as much as 50 GW per year, and 12 GW of wind. Wind and solar are also highly subsidized. Does natural gas get subsidies? I'm sure they do. There's no mistaking though that solar and wind installations depend highly on the rate they get their disproportionate subsidies. If wind and solar
I learned something today (Score:2)
Apparently Facebook has figured out how to power a data center just using people's personal information.
Good to know (Score:2)
But what's their target for the next 4 years. Or should I say before the next election. Because none of the actual politicians are going to be there in 2045 even if the target is met.
Quit your whining (Score:2)
100% Clean Everything (Score:2)
We should have 100% clean municipal water in Michigan. And 100% clean government in D.C.
And 100% Clean coal, except if it's not actually clean we have the dump the soot into the ventilation at Mar-a-Lago.
100% clean what (Score:2)
Title is wrong: 100% clean electricity is not 100% clean energy. Fuel will still be allowed for cars and planes, which are huge greenhouse gas emitters.
This is a step in the right direction, but not toward 100% of problem solved.
Bad news for Russia (Score:2)
Clean power, bad news for Russia. End of the petroleum age. End of petroleum economy. The Russian mafia has a plan of course.
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They intend to sell coal, oil, and natural gas cheaper than wind and solar energy.
Good luck with that. Hint: sun rays are free. The wind is free. In case you didn't get the memo, solar and wind power are already cheaper than fossil fuel.
This REALLY needs to be sooner (Score:2)
Add to that, they should require all vehicles be BEV, or series hybrid for certain ones (off-roads including Ag and Construction, EMS, etc). There should also be exceptions for antique cars.
California willl only get 100% clean with nuclear (Score:3)
I went into considerable detail on this a couple days ago here:
https://slashdot.org/comments.... [slashdot.org]
If any state in the USA wants energy that is cheap, clean, safe, reliable, feasible in the short term, and with promise to stay that way in the long term, then they must invest heavily in wind, hydro, and nuclear. Oh, almost forgot, with a little bit of natural gas to speed things along on cleaning things up until something better comes along.
California has been going backwards with their unreasonable hating on nuclear power. Maybe some of this is justified with seismic activity in the state but there are means to address this.
What is exceedingly frustrating is that the politicians that made this promise will not be in office to see it through. This is no different than Obama signing a pledge to have the USA reduce it's carbon footprint only days before he left office. He didn't even bother to make it binding in any way by sending it to Congress.
If these politicians were smart then they'd be doing wind, hydro, and nuclear right now. If they were honest on following through then the pledges on making this happen would be within their terms in office.
I'd like to see a politician make a JFK style promise, "in this decade", once in a while. Anything longer beyond 10 years is outside the power of any politician to promise anything. A promise on the scale of 10 years is having a working plan in 2 years, 2 more for breaking ground, 2 for building something tangible, 2 for testing, and 2 for making it happen. On this scale we can see it happen and call them on it if the milestones haven't been reached.
The video on that Bloomberg article spent a lot of time explaining the "experience curve" and how it can improve performance and bring down costs on renewable energy. That same thing applies to nuclear power. Nuclear power costs keep rising because it is rare for anyone to build more than a handful of any one kind of reactor. If the US federal government would just allow people to get this experience, and keep it, by issuing licenses for new reactors more than once in a decade then nuclear power could experience the benefits of this experience curve too.
Solar power was once far too expensive until people decided to make long term investments in bringing down costs. If the politicians in California made this kind of investment then they could enjoy this from nuclear power just as they could from solar. By betting everything in solar plus batteries they set themselves on a path with no competition, and therefore only a bunch of people in industry working to maximize on tax credits against other companies in the solar market instead of making something that can thrive outside California mandates. Pit solar, nuclear, wind, and hydro against each other in a free market means near assurance of reaching their goal. Betting everything on solar and storage is just setting themselves up to fail.
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The ACA mandate is (was) just that.
Same argument as the ACA mandate, for the betterment of society, you old "get off my lawn" timers can, how did you say it, "move".
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And states require you to buy liability insurance to obtain a drivers license and to legally drive on public roads. Even in the state of Texas whose AG was one of the biggest whiners about the ACA mandate.
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But driving on roads is a CHOICE. If you don't own a car, no insurance needed.
Plus, even insurance is not technically necessary. If you are very wealthy then you can choose to "self-insure." That just means that you have enough money set aside to cover damages in case you cause an accident.
ACA was not a choice. If you make over a certain income, health insurance is mandatory for every citize
Re:What if the feds say no? (Score:5, Insightful)
The Hospital ER cannot turn you away for not having health insurance, and having no means to pay.
A non-trivial amount of operational costs for a hospital is covering ER visits for people with colds, flus, and non-insured; who all default on payment, with no means of covering their visit.
Many of the complications could have been dealt with for pennies on the dollar should the individual have had insurance, and simply seen the doctor before the illness progressed.
One cannot opt out of the health system.
One should not be able to opt out of paying for it.
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The government says that they'll make you pay a fee, but the reality is that the only way for them to collect it is to take it out of your tax refund. However, there's nothing to stop you from setting up your taxes such that nothing is withheld for you and that you always need to pay in rather than paying too much in initially and getting a refund later. As stated on the U.S. government site for the ACA: "There are no liens, levies, or cri
Re:What if the feds say no? (Score:5, Informative)
Are you still upset about having to get health insurance? You know it was a plan concocted by the conservative Heritage Foundation and first signed into law by a Republican, right?
But don't worry, if you're really that opposed, you can help us fight for universal, single-payer health care. The line forms right behind me. There are no other options that don't bankrupt the country.
Re:What if the feds say no? (Score:4, Informative)
Mitt Romney signed the Massachusetts bill on April 12, 2006. He tried to veto certain provisions of it using his line-item veto, but go overridden on those. But the actual bill itself was not vetoed by Mitt Romney. He signed it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Before you call someone a liar, get your facts straight.
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No, that's not true. Yes, it's the law, but there is a practice called, "patient dumping" that is very common. Hospitals use it if they conduct an exploratory procedure on your wallet and find that you can't afford to be saved.
If you are poor and you show up at a hospital and the only thing that will save your life is chemo, you will be sent away.
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Bullshit, My uncle died last year to cancer. Sorry to say eh was a leech on society, but he was treated all the way to hospice by the tax payer dollar. He even bought a house(I swear on my life, was a foreclosure for 150k) with his SSDI and "other means"..
Re:What if the feds say no? (Score:4, Insightful)
Hence why we vote in Federal elections. And if the majority of State representatives agree to such a provision, I guess we'll all just have to accept it.
It's almost like we live in a governed Federation instead of a do-anything-you-want clusterfuck of rogue nation-states.
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California has a long and rich history of telling the federal government where to stick their intrusive laws. We call ourselves the "People's Republic of California", and that's just how we like it.
Our laws are more likely to be enforced in other states than federal laws are to be enforced here.
You want our weed, vapes and edibles? Come and take them.
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The Republicans you find inland are decent people. They mean well. Here in California, we have some affection for them, the way you would for the kids that come to school on the short bus. We don't make fun of them or bully them. We just don't let them get behind the wheel.
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Not exactly the same. You don't have to have a driver's license. There is no similar way to opt out of healthcare (unless being unemployed actually exempts you - but that's a little more severe).
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It's not a fine, it's a tax. As much as they wanted to say otherwise, it's a tax. A tax that did try to force you to "engage in commerce" which was exactly my argument on the ACA.
You do if you have to get to your job and there are no publc transportation options.
True, but it still more closely fits the definition of optional compared to the ACA example. Having a job is optional even if life is terrible without one.
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All states with trade deficit to CA should impose 50% tariff to all CA products and services.
They would need the federal government to do that - as that constitutes interstate commerce.
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The Feds cannot do that:
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They can certainly pass a constitutional amendment, with enough effort. The states can't.
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They can always do what Germany does in Europe: grandstand about renewables and use imports from other countries to keep the grid stable.
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I'm curious why you think renewables are more susceptible to blackouts than say, a large natural gas or coal plant...
If Tesla's battery in Australia demonstrates anything, it's that batteries + solar is far more versatile and reliable compared to a burner.
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Sorry don't know why it posted as AC. I mean to add that the finances around the whole Tesla battery are murky and I would not be surprised if the eventual cost turns out to be very high - not to mention that these batteries have a finite life which is much, much less than a traditional power plant.
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Grid battery storage and pumped hydro will have come a long way by then. Too early to say.
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From a strict economical perspective, that might be the case.
However, Californians, and Americans in general, still have to eat.
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Keep the lights on? How 19th century. In California 2046 all humans will sleep 10-14 hours a night like God intended when she failed to give us multiple suns.
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Given the state of grid scale batteries today, what do you think they will be like in 2046?
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Given the rate of development of new nuclear power technology I expect by 2046 that grid batteries will be considered an idea best left in the 2030s.
Some suggestions (Score:2)
-Compressed air storage
-Pumped hydro
-Molten salt heat storage
-Central hydrogen storage and fuel cell facility + 2x wind farms and PV to compensate for energy inefficiency
-High voltage DC transmission north-south and east west from offshore and onshore windfarms and from PV in the central desert states for pre-dawn power
-Geothermal
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offshore and onshore windfarms
Just a note - offshore wind farms are probably not going to happen off California. The continental shelf is very narrow on the West coast of North America, so there isn't all that much room to put wind farms out where they are particularly good for generating power.
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Regarding paying:
Because of people and leadership that did not take action on this 40 years ago when the need was known, you're probably going to be paying a lot more for drought-ravaged food, water, and for fire damage year over year. Just lump it into a massive carbon fee and be done with it.
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Without a massive bank of batteries, what are we supposed to do for electricity after dark?
If only you had proposed a solution in your question.....
(one of several solutions, btw. Which will probably result in a "all of the above" implementation)
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California is in a perpetual competition with itself to come up with the most freedom infringing, pointless legislation possible... if it wastes money, achieves nothing, and oppresses people, Moonbeam Brown will get behind it.
Yet they are the 5th largest economy.
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Yet they are the 5th largest economy.
Yet, still lead the nation in poverty and homelessness.
https://www.ocregister.com/201... [ocregister.com]
Re:Failed state (Score:4, Informative)
Indeed, states like Arizona and Alaska have their own natural solutions to homelessness. And remember when Nevada was caught shipping their homeless to California [motherjones.com]?
And despite that, California and other blue states continue to subsidize the red states [redstatesocialism.org]. If that stopped, blue states would be awash in cash and red states (except Texas) would have some very difficult choices to make, like when Kansas nearly bankrupted [forbes.com] itself under conservative tax policy. And then the new federal caps on mortage interest and state tax deductions will only increase the flow of money from blue states to red states, by design.
Of course none of this excuses California's rate of poverty and homelessness. There's plenty of money in the state, it just isn't distributed very well. And that's self-defeating for Democrats because poor people tend vote less than wealthier people and when they do, they tend to vote Democrat.
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Which they did not achieve under the current governor/legislature.
Fortunately for the current governor/legislature, this new law requires that they do absolutely nothing. It imposes limits on future governments of CA, which they may abide by, or n
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Actually, California's running a budget surplus. And has for the last few years.
Re:Failed state (Score:5, Informative)
Doesn't matter how much you make if you can't control your spending... funny how the state is so wealthy yet on the verge of bankruptcy
California's running a budget surplus, and has for the last few years.
You're thinking of Kansas, the state that went so broke following supply-side economics that they violated their Constitution.
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sounds good to me. I vote for disconnecting them from the internet as well. It is powered by a lot of unclean electricity.
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You just count (A) the motivated electrons generated in the state and being exported,
and (B) those generated out of state coming in, using, you know, math, and if (A) >= (B), you're good.
It's slightly more complicated than that, but that's the essence of it.
That's how Google etc. claim to be running on 100% emissions-free electricity.
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Global warming due to CO2 emissions is a major causal factor in the excess fires.
Should have listened to the environmentalists 40 years ago when they started warning about this, instead of going with the log it, burn it, pave it crew.