Climate activists are happy to see the California Assembly voted unanimously in favor of proposition C, which requires California to obtain all of its energy from clean, carbon-free electricity by the year 2045. The state of California is the world’s fifth largest economy, and it frequently sets progressive environmental targets.
California has the most rigorous laws related to super pollutants such as methane and black carbon, and the it became a star of the American energy economy by setting minimum greenhouse gas emissions goals to lower emissions at least 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2030.
California will be called the wealthiest and most populous region to finance the transformation of its electrical power grids into greenhouse gas-free energy. As Senator Francis de León informed his fellow Senators before Wednesday’s vote, that’s only the beginning of the energizing process. The state still has a lot of work covering automobile emissions and buildings emissions.
California’s wealthy and most populous state, committed to energy in its entirety by carbon-free electricity, will signal a significant energy shift across the country.
“It’s a real monumental time in California history, and maybe this will mark a turning point for the country,” said Dan Jacobson, state director for Environment California and a supporter of the bill.
“Setting such a bold and aspirational goal for California, the world’s fifth-largest economy, would catalyze the research and investment needed to achieve a clean, carbon-free electricity system and help create a blueprint for others to follow,” they wrote. As the Wall Street Journal noted, the state also imported about 30 percent of its electricity generation last year.
As the response to serious grid issues, California and other states, in addition to Tesla, designed and implemented a large-scale, 165-gigawatt battery system for shorter durations of backup power grids.
California is the second state to move to zero-emissions electricity in the United States. In 2015, Hawai?i passed a bill to transition the state to 100% renewable energy by 2045. A bill has been recently being considered in Massachusetts by legislators that would call for the state’s power to be fully powered by renewable sources by 2047.
“After another summer of record-breaking wildfires driven by extreme heat, Californians know that the calamitous consequences of climate change are upon us—and that it would be folly not to do whatever we can to keep those consequences from becoming worse,” wrote Democratic Assemblyman Evan Low and Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group, which is among the supporters of the California 100% Clean Energy Coalition, were at the San Jose Mercury News on Tuesday.
The impact would be felt beyond state boundaries, as the number of renowned scientists and researchers who had backed the measure recently was noted.
The cost of generating adequate storage in order to preserve the zero-emissions energy system hasn’t been determined. Recent batteries are capable of delivering a four-hour duration of energy input, but more prolonged or lasting storage remains a challenge for the industry.
“Moving to a clean energy economy will bring on a new era of prosperity that leaves no workers behind, protects our health and our communities, and creates new jobs and opportunities for people across the country.” —Michael Brune, Sierra Club
California previously decided to abolish its nuclear energy resources. Diablo Canyon, which single-handedly supplies 9 percent of the state’s power, must be closed down by 2025. The previous week, a bill mandated that 2 gigawatts of plant capacity be replaced by electrical generation’s renewable source, so the effort involved in that effort will not diminish thereafter.
Gasification might be identified as a low-carbon technology, but it could nevertheless encounter opposition as California establishes an environment for sustainable energy. Such technologies presently operate in a few locations, but aren’t yet widely used.
“Ongoing wildfires fueled by record-high temperatures and drier conditions exacerbated by climate change have shown us that we can’t wait any longer to tackle the climate crisis and move to clean energy,” added Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club. “Moving to a clean energy economy will bring on a new era of prosperity that leaves no workers behind, protects our health and our communities, and creates new jobs and opportunities for people across the country.”
Already boasting nearly 500,000 clean energy industry and the largest manufacturing corridor in the United States, California has shown that it runs on sustainable energy.
Sources: smithsonianmag.com
greentechmedia.com
earthjustice.org
sierraclub.org
commondreams.org
