Posted by Jack
Nobody knows the costs or the impact on California taxpayers and businesses, but never mind that, the goal is to produce more clean air than dirty air so its worth it.
Senate Bill 100, signed yesterday by Governor Edmund Brown, increases the amount of electricity to be supplied by renewables to 60% by 2030 – up from the current target of 50% by 2030 – with all of its retail electricity supply to come from renewable energy and zero-carbon resources 
by 2045.
The bill also requires the state’s Public Utilities Commission and its Energy Resources Conservation and Development Commission to take steps to ensure that a transition to a zero-carbon electric system for California does not cause or contribute to greenhouse gas emission increases elsewhere in the western grid.
The executive order reaches beyond the electricity sector, which represents 16% of California’s GHG emissions, directing the state to achieve carbon neutrality by 2045 and net negative GHG emissions after that. This will require large investments across all sectors – energy, transportation, industrial, commercial and residential buildings, agriculture, and various forms of sequestration including natural and working lands, Brown said.
“This bill and the executive order put California on a path to meet the goals of Paris and beyond. It will not be easy. It will not be immediate. But it must be done,” Brown said. He did not mention costs or who was going to pay for it and what its overall impact would be on the State’s economy.
It’s a good thing our environmentalists weren’t around to prevent climate change a few thousand years ago. A big part of North America would still be under a few hundred feet of ice, and we’d have to watch for saber-tooth tigers while barbecuing in the back yard.
Isn’t it great that we’ve evolved to the point that we can now control the natural processes of change?
http://knuckledraggin.com/2018/09/the-big-picture/#comments
A perfect picture of the idiocy…Democrats never think things through. The fantasies in their lives take up all of their meager brain cells.
Added to the energy costs noted in the poster are ongoing maintenance and repair fees, which are too costly…the investment becomes a money sink.
An article in Forbes from 2010, before the latest insanity, includes expert opinions that apply, “Green Power Gridlock: Why Renewable Energy Is No Alternative”
If the insanity stands expect your energy costs to skyrocket and taxes too. There will be people who cannot afford to remain in their homes anymore. there will be elderly people that die because they can’t afford to pay heating and cooling costs.
My family has already begun the exit process.
Jerry Brown and his friends in the gated communities that can afford fantasy living can have it.
If your family is considering the DFW area, let me know. I can help avoid some of the land mines.
I appreciate the offer RHT447 but we’re headed in a different direction.
I swear, I don’t know how we ever made it to the moon! And, let’s be real … as an objective, that was one frivolous enterprise. However, the Teflon and Velcro and other stuff that was developed in consequence have been very useful … haven’t they?
The only reason you can’t take the same attitude toward this endeavor is plain paranoid partisanism.
Pitiful.
Not true Libby. This isn’t the same as Kennedy saying we would get to the moon in ten years and we didn’t know how. This is like the Brown bullet train fantasy. Brown and company are willing to spend big money on technology that would be sustaining…as long as we all went back to living in grass huts and hunting for food. They will invest in wind and solar projects that aren’t reliable 24/7/365 and can’t possibly fuel the grid or fill the demand. In the meantime our energy costs will begin to go through the roof.
It’s good to dream big but at some point you also have to tell the truth about what is actually possible. We have some control when developing new plastics or Velcro. We can’t control sunlight or the wind according to demand.
It isn’t politics; it’s science and business sense.
The second reality, as opposed to fantasy, is that the hype about the dangers we face is very high and based on politics, not science.
“This isn’t the same as Kennedy saying we would get to the moon in ten years and we didn’t know how ….”
It is too. We have know idea how we are going to get willful ignoramuses like yourself to recognize the threat to humanity in global warming and mend your selfish and wasteful lifestyles. But we will figure it out.
I’m not even going to address your bullet train delusions. They’re nonsense.
“We can’t control sunlight or the wind according to demand.”
Wrong again. There’s been something invented some time ago, and being improved upon as we speak: the battery. Now tell me what the difference is between innovative battery tech and the development of Velcro? There is no difference … except of course for the partisan political one tearing around in your head.
“We have know (sic) idea how we are going to get willful ignoramuses like yourself to recognize the threat…”
Because you can’t overcome the mounds of scientific evidence that refutes the lies, much less the willful ignorance that refuses to get the scam perpetrated by the greedy opportunists that continue to sell it.
“…mend your selfish and wasteful lifestyles…”
Spare me the arrogant judgemental accusations. Conservatives are conservationists…and lovers of accuracy and truthfulness.
Take ye to thy goddess and repent your slandrous ways.
“There’s been something invented some time ago, and being improved upon as we speak: the battery.”
Oh…you love the new batteries! They are useful in some applications but will not alter the reality about windmills and solar.
March 2013, Stanford, “Stanford scientists calculate the carbon footprint of grid-scale battery technologies”
We’ve been working on a solution for a longer life batteries since the late seventies…40 years! My father-in-law worked on it. We have yet to produce battery arrays with the capacity to store enough energy to meet your unrealistic goals.
And you’ll love this:
Wired Magazine, “The spiralling environmental cost of our lithium battery addiction – As the world scrambles to replace fossil fuels with clean energy, the environmental impact of finding all the lithium required could become a major issue in its own right”
That’s right, CA will likely depend on dirty Chinese producers for their batteries, thus hiding the actual environmental impact and placing it in someone else’s backyard.
Climate Central addresses the issue in terms of what it would take to reach 80% renewable energy, at the national level:
Land use restrictions are also considerations. Thousands of acres will be required to reach Brown’s lofty goals…windy acres…sunny acres.
SD Union Tribune, “Wind energy in California: The good news and bad news”
April 2014, Forbes:
We already have technology to produce clean coal, it’s just a matter of implementation, which will happen since the industry wants to compete.
Solar and wind projects also require large government subsidies to make them cost effective. That’s an ongoing expense that will require higher tax rates for consumers in addition to the higher costs they’ll have to pay for personal energy use.
These are realities that ignorant lawmakers refuse to consider when they pass such laws. The best hope for improvement is technology but not by force.
You zealots on the left have no faith in those who actually create solutions or the companies that compete to produce them. We all want a clean world. Politicians are hardly in a place to determine how and when improvements can happen. The government has no business creating law, with deadlines and penalties for noncompliance, when we are not even as yet in the ballpark per their expectations.
Those folks still in Taxifornia are taking another look at leaving the Demwit-run “paradise.”
The sooner the better for your wallet – and peace of mind!
Say goodbye to retail in small town California!
Have you noticed that large stores in small towns like Chico are closing? If they aren’t closing they have turned off so many lights it’s hard to see the products.
Two years ago PG&E converted all commercial electrical accounts to time of day use. I went to one of the information meetings that PG&E held to try and understand what was going on. PG&E was doing this to decrease power usage so they could comply with the regulations that had been passed in Sacramento at that time. We were told that we could expect a 10% to 20% increase in the cost of power if we held our usage constant. So basically they just jacked the price up.
The room was full of business people from the community. The farmers said their biggest cost was pumping water. They would just convert to pumping at night. The manufacturers in the room said they could switch to swing and grave shift so they were out of the high cost time. The retail people in the room were just shaking their heads. What do we do, tell the customers to come back at 9:00 pm.
This is insanity!
The nuts and flakes that are making the rules never met a payroll and never had to worry about the bottom line. Their overpaid cushy jobs with benefits give them zero ability to know what they are doing to those who create the wealth and make the whole thing possible.
I feel for the retailers and not all manufacturers can work night shifts either. We didn’t have enough employees to make that work for us. The burden of taxes, compliance, and high energy costs are enough without asking people to work odd hours.
There’s absolutely no good reason that Californians have to pay more for their energy that other people across the nation. We have the technology and know how to produce clean energy at lower costs. The only reason we pay more is because the big government lefties invest so much in useless regulation, stupid costly ideas, and pie in the sky dreams. They are very poor managers of the people’s money.