Calif. mandating all cars sold by 2035 are zero-emission

[saiko21]

I would simply say this CO2 emissions will continue to grow. The food processing industry alone produces 25% in the world.

Sponsored

 

[charleswrivers]

A couple of things:
1. (from CarbonEngineering)

"Removal of Emissions: Direct Air Capture can create permanent carbon removal, or negative emissions, when the captured atmospheric CO2 is permanently and safely stored deep underground."​

​

"We are engineering the world’s largest Direct Air Capture facility, where industrial volumes of atmospheric CO2 will be safely and permanently stored underground."​

Even if CO2 did leak out, that would be a good thing.
It would be directly going into the soil that Trees, Plants, Flowers, etc. all have roots in, & they consume CO2 to live.
It is just like the roots of these naturally navigate toward water as they grow, since they also need water. It's why you will see roots sprawling in different directions for each plant. They don't all go just straight down.

2. Smaller Footprint:

"Our Direct Air Capture technology does this by pulling in atmospheric air, then through a series of chemical reactions, extracts the carbon dioxide (CO2) from it while returning the rest of the air to the environment. This is what plants and trees do every day as they photosynthesize, except Direct Air Capture technology does it much faster, with a smaller land footprint, and delivers the carbon dioxide in a pure, compressed form that can then be stored underground or reused."​

These Direct Air Capture plants are vastly smaller than the solar panels, wind farms, & even some Bio-Diesel producers.

We can have multiple of these & still take up less space than one Solar/Wind Farm.

Also: "DAC has the added advantage of being able to use non-arable land, and so our facilities avoid competing for lands needed to grow food."

Check out these links:
https://carbonengineering.com

For the following link, scroll down near the bottom to "Key features of CE’s DAC technology" for more info:
https://carbonengineering.com/our-technology

I know you’re really into this CO2 capture thing... but it’s still a method to try and capture CO2 that we could rather invest in methods over the next few centuries to produce energy that uses less fossil fuel. I looked up the tech and the cost is $600 a ton of removal currently. Yeah... they’re looking at making it much cheaper... and the link you provided discusses a $100 goal. They also require energy to use, and since over 1/2 the energy we produce is CO2 emitting, unless you’re sticking them right at the CO2 emission point of a CO2 emitting plant, they’re not going to be that great. At present costs, $600 per ton of removal and with around each kWh producing a pound of CO2, and well just use quick dirty math... an average home used 1000 kWh/ month... works out to 12,000 year... that’s 6 tons as 1 kWh produces right at 1 pound of CO2. So that’s a current cost of $3600 a year to clean up a single household. That’s crazy. It’s costing more the clean up after than to power it in the first place... and to build 10s of thousands of these things seems crazy to me. Even if they get down to $100/ton realm... we’re still spending 1/2 again the cost of the power itself to clean up after what we’re using. I’m not sure if this $100 is just a short term operating cost or also incorporates lifetime costs (construction, maintenance, etc).

I would never suggest one should not be energy diverse for energy security, but to power the entire US with solar panels, you’d have to give up 1/2% of its surface area. This estimate is doomed to failure as you’d have to have massive tank batteries or something else to cover down when you’re not producing. That’s an inelegant and dangerous solution as you’re an atmospheric issue away (i.e. major eruption) from taking the whole thing down to its knees. But that’s what it’d take land-wise. I only think solar is very good for addressing peak power usage mid-day personally, when A/Cs are running heavily and businesses are humming along. Solar is already growing exponentially better than 30% annually as it’s cost/watt have dropped under $3 now from when I started looking into it ~15 years ago and it was prohibitively expensive... covering down a mere ~2% energy production right now but that number is set to easily double or more by decades end. Nuclear is good (I’ve been in naval nuclear power most of my life, so I’m going to bias towards it honestly... but it’s a tool that works). We’ve have enough material on hand to power the country for longer than we’ve had electricity up to this point given the correct reactor designs that would also deplete existing spent fuel inventories. GE/Hitachi has the PRISM and there are others. The nuclear industry is as bad as the fossil fuel industry in some ways thought... they’re a business and it’s all about money. Investments have been made to pay for the existing plants and its more desirable (cheaper) to keep what you have than than build something new/better... which could consume all fissile material and not be subject to past failures. NuScale just got approved though and while it may not be a fast fission design... it still may change the economics of the industry into SMR designs where things like PRISM get picked up.

Hydros good... established. Expanding on it is always an ecological concern if you dam and flood out an area... but the existing infrastructure should be maintained and upgraded as feasible for as long as we can.

I don’t know a huge amount about wind but I haven’t been wild about what I’ve seen except maybe use in very limited regions.

I’ve taken the time to try and learn more about this CO2 packing tech as you’re obviously passionate about it. The more I’ve read about it, the less inclined I am to think it’s a good idea. If we’re worried about eating up land with unsightly solar panels... do we want to also pay to build 10s of thousands of these... power them... maintain them...? I sure don’t. I’d rather invest all that money and resource into cleaner energy sources and let them slowly replace older sources than start building these things all over.

I’m sorry... but it seems like a poor investment other than maybe using them at the direct outlet of high CO2 emitting industrial centers. I’m interesting in investing our finite resources smartly. Investing to try and clean up things and living with existing sources seems wasteful. Slowly eliminating the source with better sources as the old ones go offline seems like the smarter money to me.

 

[frontlinegeek]

I know you’re really into this CO2 capture thing... but it’s still a method to try and capture CO2 that we could rather invest in methods over the next few centuries to produce energy that uses less fossil fuel.

I think the best two pronged approach is to make more efficient energy and to also make the use of it more efficient. Negawatts, as it is sometimes referred to, are far cheaper than anything else.

Where everyone is getting distracted, is thinking that ground transportation is the primary source of pollution, regardless of how you feel about CO2. The reality is that it is a VERY small source. Heavy industry, agriculture and ocean transport are all larger sources by FAR.

Additionally, as I noted earlier, a lot of the smog issues in certain regions, although added to by emissions, are fundamentally caused by geography and weather patterns that dictate what happens. If focus on the root REAL issue is appropriate, then the solutions would also be more appropriate and likely more cost effective and actually sustainable (God I hate that word most times).

 

[charleswrivers]

Where everyone is getting distracted, is thinking that ground transportation is the primary source of pollution, regardless of how you feel about CO2. The reality is that it is a VERY small source. Heavy industry, agriculture and ocean transport are all larger sources by FAR.

Agreed. One of the reason I got off cars and went more into the power generation industry... and industry I know a bit more about.

The whole idea of kicking ICE cars and going to EVs is foolhardy when you’re just trading CO2 production from a tailpipe to a stack at a gas/coal plant. In the end... you did nothing... I guess other than feeling good about yourself. EVs don’t solve anything when your energy production is largely fossil fuel based. You just are relying on a 3rd party to burn it for you rather than burning it yourself.

Mandating EVs is over the top to me. Shutting down natural gas plants, a CO2 emitter sure, but cheap plants to build and run and causing these energy shortages is damn near criminal in my mind. Cali-bosses needs to think about the long game and chill out with how hard their pushing because their citizens are suffering from their lack of planning... IMO. Incremental changes to infrastructure is good. Throwing your hands up and saying it’s bad and get rid of it is screwing its citizens.

I haven’t really looked into ocean transport... but will read up. Honestly... I don’t know how you’d push a huge cargo ship around at any kind of speed w/o fossil or nuke... and nuke isn’t going to happen on new civilian cargo... at least I doubt in my lifetime. I know they made the Savannah in the ‘50s right after they developed naval nuclear power but it flopped. The technology was stupidly immature at the time and the design was poor. I just don’t see nuke gaining enough of a foothold and public trust. I’ve seen some of the wind and solar ideas awhile back... but as cargo movers, they seemed pretty compromised. You’ve got to push’s 10,000s of shaft horsepower and... well... I don’t know. Maybe.

 

[frontlinegeek]

I haven’t really looked into ocean transport... but will read up.

Well, like diesel, it is the fuel that is used. And as you note, you aren't moving those massive ships with unicorn tears. The sheer volume of fuel oil needed to move these ships is staggering. So not only is there the end point burn, but all the production and transportation of the fuel to the point of use.

And ya, given that the only nuke non military are the Russian icebreakers, I don't see that as a solution either.

Solar, although better than wind, is still pathetic and no real solution for ocean freight. Unless some kind of TEC breakthrough happens that then allows for some other kind of conversion of thermal energy to electricity happens, the powerplants on ships will be fuel oil for a long time to come.

The one outlier is if they can actually get hydrogen into a metallic form. If that happens, then everything changes and a lot. Metallic hydrogen is almost as revolutionary and disruptive as fusion power being made commercially viable.

 

[charleswrivers]

According to CarbonEngineering, they have already achieve $100 per ton of CO2.

Their input power is from either Natural Gas or Solar & can switch between them to get the lowest cost.

I believe they have already achieved the $100 per ton of CO2 & can make the fuel cost-effectively.

One of the earlier investors in CarbonEngineering is Bill Gates. I don't believe he would invest in & continue to support technologies that have not been proven.

Many other companies around the world have been teaming up with CarbonEngineering recently.

A year ago, "Government of Canada invests $25m in Carbon Engineering" because it has proven its technology.
https://carbonengineering.com/news-updates/canada-invests-25m

As CarbonEngineering says at the bottom of this article:
"CE has been removing CO2 from the atmosphere since 2015 and converting it into fuels since 2017. CE is privately owned and is funded by investment or commitments from private investors and government agencies. CE’s investors include Bill Gates, Murray Edwards, Oxy Low Carbon Ventures, LLC, Chevron Technology Ventures, and BHP." (as of the time of the article: 2019)

Also a year ago, CarbonEngineering was 1 of 4 finalist in creating Green Jet Fuel in the competition called "Government of Canada’s The Sky’s the Limit Challenge".

"Carbon Engineering a finalist in green jet fuel competition"
https://carbonengineering.com/news-updates/finalist-skys-the-limit

"At CE, we’ve developed a home-grown Canadian solution for jet fuel that is scalable, green, cost competitive, and feasible, and we are very much looking forward to presenting this solution in the Sky’s the Limit Challenge."

While alone, they won't be able to produce a full 100% of the liquid fuels used & needed, it can be blended with other Green Gasoline Fuels, just like today, we use a 10% Ethanol blend.

Neste (a Finnish company) is the world leader in Renewable Diesel. The California Government has been incresing its use (even in 2020) because of its Superior Performance & being Ultra-Clean. Vehicles run on Neste's Renewable Diesel have had drastically lower maintenance cost also.

All of these have strong backings from a lot of people, institutions, governments, etc.

I believe these Fossil-Free Fuels have a lot more promising future with a lot of room to grow vs EVs that have inherent drawbacks & are quickly running into the max potential of all of their technologies combined.

Maybe so. I’d argue EVs are no where near max potential... but concede EVs still solve nothing when you’re powering them from a fossil fuel plant. They’re one little piece of a solution that requires a different energy infrastructure that we have now and reasonably will continue to have through our lifetime... though we can start moving away from it now as well and let it gracefully decline.

I appreciate you sharing. I did take the time to read up on what you linked earlier. I do think it may have some good application directly in the discharge stream of high CO2 concentration. I’m not sure if the economic feasibility of it large-scale... or the idea of spending $100 (possibly less) to turn 2000 lbs of CO2 back to a burnable fuel... as 1 gallon of gasoline makes just shy of 20 lbs of CO2. So 100 gallons of gas at a cost of say $200-$250 is a ton of CO2 floating around. You put $100 back into the CO2 and come up with... some volume material that can be converted into usable fuel. The cost piece on the final conversion is a little wishy-washy. I did find one article that claimed conversion could achieved for “less than $4/gallon” (after the initial capture cost)... which honestly, is outstanding compared to what I figured it’d be though still not currently economically competitive. If there was a time that investment to capture CO2 to make fuel is less/the same cost vs the cost to extract, transport and refine virgin fuel... I can see it’s viability. There has to be an energy investment to do the capture and conversion process though... and w/o carbon neutral power sources... you’d still be falling behind. I don’t know the infrastructure cost to build each plant either as I still think the $100 is operating and does not include construction or maintenance necessarily. If there is medium replacement (i.e. amine) then that also would be a long term operating cost... and I’m not sure if it’s also reflected well in the claimed costs.

One good thing I guess with the technology is it’s shown to work and we’re well on the way to adding another 100 ppm/CO2 to the current PPM we’ve already got by century’s end: The higher your concentration... the better they’ll work. If the technology matures, it may come into its own at a higher CO2 level and allow us to reach an equilibrium higher than we have now... but low enough to get us into too much trouble. I’m somewhat familiar with some CO2 capture tech. We use it to not-die underway... but never to store or convert. It definitely works.

It may well be a blending of a little bit of everything that’s going to take us through this century and into the next. I’ll keep and eye out for it and if the pre ignition systems for ICE make a comeback in the near future. I certainly have my own biases as to what I think the best decisions are. In the end... I think whatever it is has to be as good or better than we already have and in a consumer driven markets... breakthroughs and improvements follow the money. In my opinion, the fatal flaw of this is, to me, would be best described by this analogy:

You have a leaky boat. The boat is huge and isn’t going to sink anytime soon and could essentially be ignored. But the more water that gets in... the worse things can get. You can buy buckets to pail out the water as it comes in... but you’ll need thousands of them to even keep up... or work to fix the leaks in the boat so the water stops coming in. The leaks are inconvenient to fix... but every time you fix one... a little less water comes into the boat.

CO2 capture, to me, seems like it may be doomed to spending more money and energy to making a closed loop CO2 cycle for fuel reuse vice transitioning alternative energy sources. But hey... that’s just how I see it.

I’ll let you have the last word on anything if you care to add. I’ve gone round-the-world far beyond the initial scope of the thread at this point and I’m going to retire. Best wishes to you.

 

[Gruber]

We’d just have to settle for higher temps, droughts, worse weather and rising sea levels. I’d just prefer better for my kids and theirs. The 400 ppm will be 600 by century’s end at the rate we’re going.

Can you entertain the thought that all this may be totally made up? Everyone by now should be familiar with the quasi-religious fanaticism of the politicians who push these ideas, and the "scientists" are no better: they have already been caught more than once fudging the data and lying to promote global warming. Frankly, fabricating data for career development and for funding is a common everyday thing in almost all "not so hard" science, like the "climate science," and it happens even in real science, like physics.

Predictions issued in the 90's on the "global warming" effects by 2020 were all false. The glaciers that were supposed to melt completely by now actually grew. The ocean levels did not rise. Their explanations become more and more hand-waving, and they use the words: "it's complicated" followed by "you won't understand" more and more. How can anyone believe their words after they lied already, without looking critically at their fake science?

The name change from "global warming" to "climate change" and the recent removal of the "Gone by 2020" signs from the Glacier National Park should be the tombstones of this plot. That was a massive lie. They still kept the signs in 2019, apparently hoping the glaciers will disappear suddenly.... as predicted by the "scientists." But just as in any "end of the world" scheme, when the day comes, the false prophets just issue more hand waving and another end of the world date to the faithful, and the Cool Aid keeps flowing.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/07/glacier-national-park-quietly-removes-its-gone-by-2020-signs/

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/one-part-of-greenland-ice-growing/

 

[charleswrivers]

Can you entertain the thought that all this may be totally made up? Everyone by now should be familiar with the quasi-religious fanaticism of the politicians who push these ideas, and the "scientists" are no better: they have already been caught more than once fudging the data and lying to promote global warming. Frankly, fabricating data for career development and for funding is a common everyday thing in almost all "not so hard" science, like the "climate science," and it happens even in real science, like physics.

Predictions issued in the 90's on the "global warming" effects by 2020 were all false. The glaciers that were supposed to melt completely by now actually grew. The ocean levels did not rise. Their explanations become more and more hand-waving, and they use the words: "it's complicated" followed by "you won't understand" more and more. How can anyone believe their words after they lied already, without looking critically at their fake science?

The name change from "global warming" to "climate change" and the recent removal of the "Gone by 2020" signs from the Glacier National Park should be the tombstones of this plot. That was a massive lie. They still kept the signs in 2019, apparently hoping the glaciers will disappear suddenly.... as predicted by the "scientists." But just as in any "end of the world" scheme, when the day comes, the false prophets just issue more hand waving and another end of the world date to the faithful, and the Cool Aid keeps flowing.

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/06/07/glacier-national-park-quietly-removes-its-gone-by-2020-signs/

https://cei.org/blog/wrong-again-50-years-failed-eco-pocalyptic-predictions

https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/03/one-part-of-greenland-ice-growing/

Respectfully... I’m done with the thread. I like talking science and tech. I’m not interested in politicians suck (they do) and science is bad (and there is plenty of bad science). In the end, we see what information is out there and have to decide for ourselves how to interpret it and whether the data is good or a small, uncorroborated piece with an agenda. I can entertain the idea and don’t get into doom and gloom... but don’t think things we do are necessarily the best was and that investing in doing things differently will pay dividends that we won’t see but our ancestors will appreciate. Like “planting a tree who’s shade you’ll never enjoy” ways of thinking.

This world is going to be spinning with folks alive long after we’re both dust and everyone who knew us will be dust and we’re long forgotten. I just hope we leave it all in as least as good of shape as how we found it. If you want the last word, it’s yours.

 

[frontlinegeek]

Well, this thread looks like it is devolving so I will leave my last thoughts...

AGW is a scare tactic no different than all the other Malthusian predictions that have been going on, well, since Thomas Malthus. NONE of them have come true. Not the food shortages, not the peak oil and no matter how bad people want to believe in AGW, not one single solitary model or prediction has happened. NONE.

That being said, there is a massive problem with chasing this elusive dragon. REAL pollution is not being addressed. NOX and particulates increased in ALL the major cities in Europe and the UK because people (Politicians were sold a line from the diesel industry). Now the reality has set in and they are banning it all over the place. Acid rain issues still abound. Ship breaking practices are beyond vile and polluting. Recycling of electronics is STILL not being handled even remotely properly for the scale of material that needs processing. Actual dangerous plastics to wildlife are not being removed from use and I don't mean straws. 6-pack retainers are deadly to wildlife and there are many other things that are just as bad.

As I noted earlier, there is a need for some 12 million megawatts of new generation (Across a whole year) needed in California BEFORE 2035 JUST to deal with ONE year of all battery car sales. That is at LEAST 1369 megawatts of nameplate generation. So no less than two new nukes that run non stop. Added every year. For the next 15 years. To cover the following 15 years of only selling battery cars at 2 million a year. To say nothing of also abandoning natural gas and propane. It would take over 150 square miles of space in solar panels to match two nukes per year so by the end of it, you would need some 2200 to 2300 square miles of solar farm if the sun was ALWAYS out. This is not the case and the average insolation in SoCal is only 6.5 hours. This means that you ACTUALLY have to install 4 times that to get the same total possible generation. That means 9000 square miles of panels. But wait! You ALSO have to accommodate for bad weather and degradation! Degradation alone means you have to plan in another 15% capacity. Then another 10% for losses that happen to most panels immediately after they start getting used! So that is now WELL past 11,000 square miles of land to handle all of the cars in California being replaced with battery electrics. So a swath of land or a total of land at least 110 x 110 miles. Flattened, denuded of all vegetation and likely wildlife, desertified by the laminar winds that solar farms have been shown to cause and all that, replaced every 15 to 25 years depending on failure rates, efficiency losses and damage from weather and other incidentals.

NO. THIS is not environmentally sound. Make a truly better mousetrap and it will be bought. Forcing things on people like this is as communist and central planning as it gets. Ask the Ukrainians in the 1930s how that went. Or the Chinese in the PRC during the great leap forward or the cultural revolution.

Or you build 30 new nuke generators with 1000MW capacities over a 15 year period and you just simply start switching off the crappy hydrocarbon facilities and converting people from NG to electrics in their houses. Extra power then can be used by industry for things that were previously done with combustion and if the auto industry starts switching to EVs, then great. At least, by the point #30 nuke is online, you are now so well positioned to just build these damned things that if you need to just keep building, you can as you have an economy of scale with them.

But hey, I used math.

(On a side note, all us Canadians and northern border region Americans are looking at people wondering when they demand us to freeze in the winter... Sorry folks in the south, it is damned cold up here. Not gonna work where insolation drops to 2.9 hours/day in the bulk of the winter.)

 

[Gruber]

Well, the title itself of this thread is about a political decision of a controversial politician, so no wonder there would be some politics in it.

Still, the very heart of the matter is hopefully not just politics but science, technology and economy. This has a huge impact on the auto industry, not even in 15 years but already now. It's now that decisions are made and money for the future years are allocated (and what's more important, cut) to different areas of R&D and design. Honda and others try to make plans for 20 years or so ahead.

"Let's prepare for the worst case scenario" is not acceptable, because the damages coming from switching big streams of money from one pot to another are not acceptable. Funding something always means denying or cutting the funding of something else.

So my point is that that actually this discussion is much better than could be expected at the start.

 

[tacthecat]

Darn; now back to the Oil Thread!

 

[BarracksSi]

https://www.usnews.com/news/technol...ces-fundamental-questions-after-honda-pullout

(emphasis added)

Honda's shock announcement on Friday that it will depart at the end of 2021 leaves the pinnacle of motorsport as a series with only three engine manufacturers and no sign of any newcomers.
Car companies have come and gone throughout the 70 year history of the sport, Honda most recently selling its team and pulling out as a constructor in 2008 after a global financial crash.
This time, however, the justification -- to focus on zero-emission technology such as fuel cells and batteries -- feels more significant.
It is a question of perception as well as cost, and that can be hard to change.
"Formula One is now at risk of becoming slightly irrelevant to car manufacturers, and particularly car manufacturers who are not yet vested in the sport, because the world of vehicles is changing much faster than even five years ago people thought would be the case," former Cosworth F1 engine head Mark Gallagher told Reuters.

 

[charleswrivers]

I remembered chatting about carbon capture awhile back. I guess I read about it so much at the time this popped up in my news feed today. It’s limited in scope to its usage for a coal plant in TX but I guess it didn’t work out very well... between the economics of the venture and the power needed to drive the thing necessitating a supplementary natural gas plant which had its own emissions which it didn’t do anything for.

https://earther.gizmodo.com/the-only-carbon-capture-plant-in-the-u-s-just-closed-1846177778/amp

 

[frontlinegeek]

It’s limited in scope to its usage for a coal plant in TX but I guess it didn’t work out very well... between the economics of the venture and the power needed to drive the thing necessitating a supplementary natural gas plant which had its own emissions which it didn’t do anything for.

Honestly, I am quite sure that the biggest issue at play is that people think that we are back in the alchemist times or some such nonsense and that we actually have to build everything to see if it fails or not. We have more than sufficient knowledge and computational resources to calculate out these processes. Solar, for instance, There was, of all things, an "experiment" paid for in the city near where I live to see how much power could be made. Really? ALL the math for that is available and required literally 20 minutes (Or less) in a spreadsheet to see if it will pay off or not.

Needless to say, so many things can be calculated out this way. I just wish that more people had proper critical thinking skills and the ability to apply them to process analysis.

 

[ComradeCivic1312]

Well, this thread looks like it is devolving so I will leave my last thoughts...

AGW is a scare tactic no different than all the other Malthusian predictions that have been going on, well, since Thomas Malthus. NONE of them have come true. Not the food shortages, not the peak oil and no matter how bad people want to believe in AGW, not one single solitary model or prediction has happened. NONE.

That being said, there is a massive problem with chasing this elusive dragon. REAL pollution is not being addressed. NOX and particulates increased in ALL the major cities in Europe and the UK because people (Politicians were sold a line from the diesel industry). Now the reality has set in and they are banning it all over the place. Acid rain issues still abound. Ship breaking practices are beyond vile and polluting. Recycling of electronics is STILL not being handled even remotely properly for the scale of material that needs processing. Actual dangerous plastics to wildlife are not being removed from use and I don't mean straws. 6-pack retainers are deadly to wildlife and there are many other things that are just as bad.

As I noted earlier, there is a need for some 12 million megawatts of new generation (Across a whole year) needed in California BEFORE 2035 JUST to deal with ONE year of all battery car sales. That is at LEAST 1369 megawatts of nameplate generation. So no less than two new nukes that run non stop. Added every year. For the next 15 years. To cover the following 15 years of only selling battery cars at 2 million a year. To say nothing of also abandoning natural gas and propane. It would take over 150 square miles of space in solar panels to match two nukes per year so by the end of it, you would need some 2200 to 2300 square miles of solar farm if the sun was ALWAYS out. This is not the case and the average insolation in SoCal is only 6.5 hours. This means that you ACTUALLY have to install 4 times that to get the same total possible generation. That means 9000 square miles of panels. But wait! You ALSO have to accommodate for bad weather and degradation! Degradation alone means you have to plan in another 15% capacity. Then another 10% for losses that happen to most panels immediately after they start getting used! So that is now WELL past 11,000 square miles of land to handle all of the cars in California being replaced with battery electrics. So a swath of land or a total of land at least 110 x 110 miles. Flattened, denuded of all vegetation and likely wildlife, desertified by the laminar winds that solar farms have been shown to cause and all that, replaced every 15 to 25 years depending on failure rates, efficiency losses and damage from weather and other incidentals.

NO. THIS is not environmentally sound. Make a truly better mousetrap and it will be bought. Forcing things on people like this is as communist and central planning as it gets. Ask the Ukrainians in the 1930s how that went. Or the Chinese in the PRC during the great leap forward or the cultural revolution.

Or you build 30 new nuke generators with 1000MW capacities over a 15 year period and you just simply start switching off the crappy hydrocarbon facilities and converting people from NG to electrics in their houses. Extra power then can be used by industry for things that were previously done with combustion and if the auto industry starts switching to EVs, then great. At least, by the point #30 nuke is online, you are now so well positioned to just build these damned things that if you need to just keep building, you can as you have an economy of scale with them.

But hey, I used math.

(On a side note, all us Canadians and northern border region Americans are looking at people wondering when they demand us to freeze in the winter... Sorry folks in the south, it is damned cold up here. Not gonna work where insolation drops to 2.9 hours/day in the bulk of the winter.)

Your math seems sound, and I'm not gonna check lmfao Your take is also very accurate. I dont know the real statistics, but my biggest guess would be that making all new cars being sold EVs is only a FRACTION of what should be done to reduce harm to the atmosphere. The issue really isn't "communism" , or authoritarianism (which is what youre describing). The issue is that real, evidence-based , and proactive strategies is not something any U.S. governing body does. This decision is idealistic at best, but there is quite literally more that CA can do to reduce carbon emissions than fucking mandating all new cars to be EVs. Neo-liberalism is ass backwards thinking.

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