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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

Even dumber is the practice of banning things. For example, California is banning gas powered leaf blowers and chain saws. This is going to cause a problem for people who need to clear downed trees during a power outage after a storm.

The usual solution is to carve out a bunch of exceptions. These exceptions tend to be incomplete and don't evolved with the times.

A far better solution is to just tax the ICEs that drive these things. Make it so that for most mundane uses, the electric ones will be cheaper. But the people who really need them can get them without mounting a lobbying campaign at the politicians.

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> A far better solution is to just tax the ICEs that drive these things.

Even simpler and more effective is raising fossil fuel taxes. If the goal is to reduce usage of fossil fuels.

If the goal is to look like you are doing something about fossil fuel consumption, but do not really want to give up your SUV/pickup trucks, extraneous driving, life in large houses in spread out cities, and frivolous flights, then selectively targeting certain products is the way to go.

> Even simpler and more effective is raising fossil fuel taxes.

In general I agree with you, and that ought to be done for cars. But those small engines tend to be very dirty polluters, and it would be impractical to put an extra tax on gasoline meant for those engines.

A reasonable tax would be $50 to $100. The state is good at taxing in this manner, and the revenue could be used to subsidize some green project (though we both know the tax revenue will just be wasted, sigh).

Wait till all of your neighbors start wielding battery powered blowers. The high pitched whine will leave you wishing for the the old 2 cycle motors.

It would be trivial to tax blowers in a pollution basis - they either use a 50:1 premixed fuel or you add oil to regular gas. Just tax the oil.

No, it won't. My street has voluntarily already done this. It's very quiet now.

My electric lawn mower is so much more reliable and quieter than my old 2 stroke gas mower. I don't live in California, but either way, I'd refuse to go back to using a 2 stroke.

Mowers aren’t 2-stroke engines, and don’t pollute as much. (2 strokes combust the lubricant)

There exists 4 stroke leaf blowers that do not require oil in the fuel, though.

Yeah, they are great but usually for commercial use — usually big, expensive and heavy. If you have a big yard, there’s a gap between a battery powered blower or weed whacker and gas.

Personally, i think battery powered lawn gear is winning the consumer market as it is, banning stuff is just forcing people to accept inferior solutions for their needs.

Yes, I guess if the problem is specifically these machines, then a sufficiently high tax to bring their usage down would work better.

The issue with these small machines like lawn mowers and chainsaw is not really they CO2 the pump out, which is minuscule compared to all the other sources of CO2, but rather that they have zero pollution controls and put out a lot of particulates, unburned hydrocarbons and whatnot. It's a question of local pollution, not global climate.

And further, since your average homeowner doesn't use his chainsaw or lawn mower that much, they are relatively insensitive to the price of gas. Or IOW, if you were to raise the price of gas enough to reduce usage of these machines that way, it'd grind the whole economy to a halt.

> California is banning gas powered leaf blowers and chain saws.

The state is doing no such thing, it is however

> California is banning [the sales of new] gas powered leaf blowers and chain saws [after 2024]

There is a significant difference.

I know. People will be buying them from out of state, until other states ban sales, too.

The engines in those wear out after a time. A home owner can use the same saw for years, but a pro using it for a full workday will replace it every few years.

battery powered versions work fine, and tend to be quieter as a bonus

I agree in general, and my own chainsaw is battery powered. However this is about a major storm/outage. My batteries (if I can find them all and they are charged) give me about an hour of cutting before they are dead. That is not enough to clear out a storm. I know pros sometimes have battery backbacks that will run all day, but they still need a way to get that battery charged overnight so they can run again the next day. I know people who have been without power for several weeks after a major storm, so one day isn't enough for crews to clean up.

Is the extra backpack harder to store than the extra gallon tank of gas in the trailer? It's not like they can refill the gas tanks without pumps working at the gas station. If they do have access to gasoline, with modern trucks they should be able to charge from the IC engine.

Each backpack is $1000. A gas can is $20. Both are sometimes stolen from the back of trucks, but one is worth enough that it a big deal.

Interesting, I didn't realize the backpacks are so expensive.

Perhaps one of the effects of a ban on sale will be the development of more practical and accessible, from a price perspective, power sources?

You didn't know that batteries were more expensive than tanks?

I didn't know the battery packs were so expensive that having them in a landscaping work truck was a substantial liability.

You've never bought batteries? Or, did you think that light weight and small yet powerful batteries were somehow inexpensive?

Whenever there's a discussion of using batteries for anything, the three issues that come up are cost, weight, and size. You can take a hit on one or two to get some improvement on the remainder, but...

Batteries for portable equipment must be good on weight and size given the power required, so cost is what goes up.

Perhaps for leaf blowers that it's all upside - but for good size chainsaws say something that can drive a 24" bar, electric just isn't available.

I love my electric 18"er, but most all of the ponderosas I have to fell on my property require my 24" gas Husquavarna. And if you look for electric alternatives you find nothing for actually for sale.

What is significant? The outcome is the same.

People that just bought a leaf blower can still use it. Banning sales is therefore much better economically, and enforcement is also much simpler.

The lack of nuance in a ban is a bad fit for reality.

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