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."
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?
"This bill would state that it is the policy of the state that eligible renewable energy resources and zero-carbon resources supply 100% of retail sales of electricity to California end-use customers and 100% of electricity procured to serve all state agencies by December 31, 2045."
Source: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm...
From this I take they don't plan to necessarily eliminate all carbon emitting energy sources but rather just the ones used to produce electricity. This would make the goal a little more achievable but also makes it a moving target. As different industries move from burning carbon based fuel to electricity the demand also increases which will still affect the balance between clean and dirty energy.
There are plans to ban ICE engines and other fuel burning applications so the demand for electricity will see a sharp rise. It's more that achievable to be 100% green in 2045 assuming the energy consumption trend of the past. But the future will probably see that trend go from relatively linear to something exponential for at least a few decades until the switch is done. Covering that difference will be the real challenge.
As always, devil's in the details. In the meantime, the headline looks impressive, which is frankly all these critters care about.
Instead say, "we will drop it by 10% in 3 years." Now you're telling me some useful truth to which I can hold you accountable (ooh, politicians HATE that). Incidentally, 10% in 3 years would be a perfect milestone to 100% in 30 years, so if these politicians WERE being honest (they're not), then they should have no reason to refuse the 10% in 3 years idea.
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.
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?
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?).
I like your inspiration for setting such goals as carbon neutral in America. That's the kind of thinking we need.
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.
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.
I do, however, believe that green power policy should include assistance to the people and communities affected negatively by decarbonization, as the pain to those folks is much higher than it is to wealthy Californians who merely pay slightly higher taxes to get the new energy production and efficiency measures installed.
The utilities could just build the new power plants where the old ones were. Same result, without an overt handout.
https://tucson.com/business/tribally-owned-solar-power-plant...
http://ktar.com/story/2189238/navajo-nation-kayenta-solar-re...
https://www.bizjournals.com/phoenix/news/2018/01/26/navajos-...
You wouldn't be able to replace the annual energy output of the Navajo Generating Station just with solar farms built on former NGS land, of course, because coal can be turned into electricity in a much smaller area. But if you consider the 44,000 acre leased area of the Kayenta Mine that supplies NGS with coal, you could actually get more annual energy production from the same area by switching to solar.
Translation: It sucks to be poor. And an indian. Where did I park my Tesla?
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.
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!