No, California Is Not Going to Take Your Generator Away | Hacker News Reader

No, California Is Not Going to Take Your Generator Away

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>No, California Is Not Going to Take Your Generator Away

>If these rules are adopted as proposed, emissions standards for SOREs will be raised to technically infeasible levels from 2024 onwards, effectively prohibiting production of SOREs for the California market. Generators are included in this, although they will not be completely restricted until 2028

I'm really hate the framing/title of this article. It almost reads like the "clinton 'acid washed' her email server" fact check[1]. It sets up a strawman premise, proceeds to fact check/debunk it on some minor technicality, and begrudgingly admits the general point is true in the middle of the article.

I mean, who seriously thinks the state of calfiornia is literally going to go around and seize everyone's gas generators? I searched for "california generator bill" and the top 5 results all mention the ban was limited to the sale of gas generators in either the title or google's snippet.

[1] https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/785299709342654465

> I mean, who seriously thinks the state of calfiornia is literally going to go around and seize everyone's gas generators?

Not really anyone. It's a straw man/motte and bailey.

The alternatives offered in the article don't seem well thought out.

My parents house, in a somewhat rural (but not THAT rural) part of California had a power outage that lasted from Christmas into this year (and the power is still going out sporadically).

The straightforward solution is to buy a generator for $1-$2k and use it sparingly to keep the heat running and maybe the lights and a computer.

The solution offered here is to get solar panels (which cost maybe $20-30k after the tax credit) and a Tesla Powerwall for another $10k. But if it snows hard enough to take out their power lines, I can't imagine that the solar panels will perform well. So they'd be spending 20-40 times more money on a solution that won't work as well (and that's before going into location specific problems, like the giant trees that would block the panels, some of which are on other people's property)

Keep in mind that the solar panels work year round. Not sure how long that battery week last in an outage, but you can recoup a lot of the investment the rest of the year.

Also it's disingenuous of them to say "the law in fact does not ban generators" based on the reasoning that existing units will still exist and you could still buy one from another state.

If it’s law, someone will enforce it at some point.

> What the bill does do, is to give legal force to new rules currently being made by CARB. If these rules are adopted as proposed, emissions standards for SOREs will be raised to technically infeasible levels from 2024 onwards, effectively prohibiting production of SOREs for the California market. Generators are included in this, although they will not be completely restricted until 2028.

Ah so 2028.

Funny, a friend of mine runs a tree clearing business. As of right now there’s only maybe one decent (electric) chainsaw that would meet the requirements, that would enable you to clear trees. And it’s 5x the prices of gas powered chainsaws.

What does this mean? More fires, less forest management.

I’m sure there’s other machines and vehicles needed for forest management, so this problem will compound.

people aren't going to stop clearing trees because of this law, that's complete nonsense... trees need to be felled all the time for a myriad of reasons, the state isn't just going to say "welp, too bad... that tree is permanently on your house now"

Are you unfamiliar with California?

yeah it's not some bureaucratic hellscape as some commenters would lead you to believe, it's quite a nice place to live

> people aren't going to stop clearing trees because of this law

You won’t be able to buy it in state. Why would a store take that risk?

I agree, people will smuggle chainsaws in. But welcome to an insane world.

> the state isn't just going to say "welp, too bad... that tree is permanently on your house now"

This is a pretty common thing for the government to enforce on you, though generally not at the state level.

No, they won’t “take your (existing) generator away”, but they will make buying (new) generators increasingly expensive and difficult to buy.

…in California. People will be able to drive to Arizona, Nevada, or Oregon and buy generators.

1. Does that make it ok? "Oh just drive x hours west and you can buy one there." So you can still buy a generator, unless you're poor or do shift work.

2. How does forcing someone to drive their car several hours one way to buy something legal in 49 states and the majority of the world help curb emissions?

Where are you planing to drive west to from California?

Reno Nevada is west of Los Angeles California…

Even Fresno is "east" of Reno.

Los Angeles is closer than Chicago than San Francisco is.

That's a real rich-person mentality.

Most people don't have the money or the time to drive for a couple days to get a generator if they need one.

If you want to get a whole-home, automatically kicked in generator, you need to get it installed professionally. I expect it's going to be hard to go buy one from another state, transport it home (they're not small), and then find a company willing to install it (and risk something going wrong and being held accountable).

That is essentially the same thing as “taking away”. Well worth being outraged about.

Any time I see a headline of the form "No, X isn't going to Y", X does Y within six months.

In this particular case I think the article's argument that the police aren't going to stroll up and confiscate your generator is a pretty reasonable one. Why would enforcement funds be wasted doing something like that? Limitations on sale of new product achieve the desired goals and are easy to enforce.

Yes, it's a common journalistic trope to dig up the weakest, least defensible alarmist take and debunk it. Dismantling the strawman allows you to take a general pro-policy stance without explicitly defending the policy. Simultaneously, you discredit opponents by implied association with the weak argument. It boils down to a form of motte-and-bailey fallacy.

> Why would enforcement funds be wasted doing something like that?

For the same reasons they get wasted on open container laws and whatnot. It's a handy weapon to wield in neighborhoods you don't like.

It's not even necessary to be too strict on new product sales. With some gentle nudging the Invisible Hand will get the job done.

For example, if you must buy one of those old 60W (actual power draw!) incandescent light bulbs, my local hardware store will sell you one, labelled "For industrial use", for only a little more than it cost ten years ago.

However the superstore you're actually going to buy lamps in doesn't carry them any more, it just doesn't make economic sense. They have several different 8-10W LED lamps producing similar light output, often trading purchase cost versus efficiency (if you use more LEDs and balance them carefully they'll run longer and use less power to make the same light, but that costs money) but the only incandescents the big stores carry are specialist products for appliances like ovens.

In my country it's hard to buy bathroom fittings (e.g. a shower or bath taps) that don't have thermostatic behaviour†. In applications where vulnerable people are expected to use them, thermostatic limits are mandatory, so if you're a plumbing trade outlet the products that don't have this are sometimes useless to your customers, "Nah, I need TMVs or it won't pass inspection" and then it makes sense, except perhaps for some budget lines, to only carry the version which is thermostatic.

† A bimetallic thermostatic design is used, the "hot" supply is narrowed and eventually shuts altogether as water output temperature rises, so even though domestic hot water must be stored at e.g. 60°C the thermostatic valve can ensure the user never gets water above a set maximum temperature and thus they can't scald themselves or others (e.g. babies or old people)

Sounds like you haven't seen many headlines like that, then.

Please give examples

Vaccine passports?

Simply search headlines from 2020 about them, compare them to today.

For better or worse, I have to point out that two people (at the time of writing) gave examples in response to this prompt and got flagged. Consider turning on showdead if you don't see them.

Not within six months, but I do remember Trump positing a future where rioters would be coming for Jefferson and Washington statues, and the "experts", "historians" and the media laughed at him [0].

"Here's why [Trump's] wrong."

Not even three years later, Jefferson statues were defaced and torn down [1].

[0] https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/white-house/statues-washing...

[1] https://youtube.com/watch?v=h00PbujTqqQ

Pretty accurate assessment

This law in question does not go into effect until _2028_

I’ve become quite a Ryobi fanboy after several years with many of their 18V and 40V battery-powered tools. They always have quite enough power to do the job, and are exceptionally easy to maintain. I had one of my batteries go bad once and Home Depot simply swapped it out for a new one.

I see this law as a nudge in that direction, and I think that is generally viable as these devices are well into mainstream adoption.

I agree with the article that the generator point is mostly scaremongering. Having survived a collective month worth of days without power in northwest winters without a generator I’m skeptical of the average Californian’s need for one. I’m certain there are good use cases for them and as the article and comments here are clear: they aren’t being taken away. In fact, they are commonplace, and likely to be hoarded by people who won’t use them for years at a time, then wonder how to plug them into their house when they need to use them lol. Commercial backup power generation aren't considered SORES and aren’t even that dirty since they need to be efficient.

I can’t help but hear faint echos of outage about seatbelt mandates in these diatribes.

No, they're not going to "take away", but they will prevent you from purchasing.

There are arguably practical alternatives for leaf blowers and some uses of small gasoline motors, but replacing generators seems much more expensive (solar + batteries), impractical (solar won't help you when it's dark for long periods of time), or impossible (in the case of portable generators).

Depends on expected annual run time. Batteries paired with your solar receive a 26% federal tax credit (if primarily charged from rooftop solar [1]), and any state and utility incentives [2]. They can charge from the grid if not full before a volatility event is expected to occur (Tesla's term for this is "storm watch mode" for Powerwalls [3]), and if you have solar, they’ll replenish each day (is it dark for long periods in California?) depending on rooftop system size.

It's very much not a silver bullet, but if you've already installed solar, or plan to install solar, the battery is a natural fit in California considering time of use metering, upcoming net metering changes, power grid quality, lack of fuel costs, and it can be financed as part of the solar or your mortgage.

[1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/201809003.pdf

[2] https://www.energysage.com/local-data/storage-rebates-incent... (not comprehensive)

[3] https://www.tesla.com/support/energy/powerwall/mobile-app/st...

I've priced them all out. It's orders of magnitude difference in cost.

12kw gasoline generator: $5k

12kw solar: $25k + $20k in batteries

Passing regulations that are technically infeasible for generators to hit, (after 2028[0]) is most definitely something worth being upset about[1].

[0]By admission in linked article

[1]Unlike leaf blowers, there aren't viable alternatives for small engine-powered generators.

The California laws only direct CARB to make regulations. CARB has to find that replacements are feasible before regulating sales. It's in the laws.

Do these requirements apply to backup generators (usually portable diesel devices) for ensuring business continuity in case of power-failure? That is a use case that has a strong business need for ensuring IT functionality, a strong social need for ensuring key services (e.g. medical facilities) work after/during various natural disasters, and has a minor environmental impact, since those generators are run only rarely.

It would be ridiculous if businesses wanting to ensure backup power in 2028 would have to resort to "used generators, and new generators bought directly from other states" as the article suggests.

The small off-road engine regs specifically apply only to spark ignition engines.

So diesel lawnmowers will still be allowed?

Lawnmowers under 24hp are explicitly covered by the regs [1, page 8]

[1] https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/barcu/regact/2021...

e: correction, cut "I couldn't find anything about "only spark ignition engines"." My pdf search feature failed me.

Thanks!

> Do these requirements apply to backup generators... for ensuring IT functionality... medical facilities

The regulation covers small off-road engines, i.e. less than 25 horsepower [1, page 8]. Hospitals and data centers generally use much larger diesel generators for backup power.

Allowances are made for emergency response [1, page 18].

[1] https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/sites/default/files/barcu/regact/2021...

The headline is misleading. It's not going to take your generator away, but it will make it illegal to make and sell new generators in California.

Correct, you'll just have to go to another state to get one, or build your own from a small motor kit.

If you have any experience with US gun laws, you know exactly how this works.

I didn't want to be the first one to bring it up so thank you. I was also surprised by the parallels with gun laws in California, even to the sophistry about "it's not a ban, we're just introducing requirements that are impossible to comply with"

e.g. new generators won't literally be banned, but there's a de facto ban because "emissions standards for SOREs will be raised to technically infeasible levels". Similarly, the CA handgun roster isn't literally a ban on new handguns, it's just a de facto ban because in order for a new handgun to be legal it needs to incorporate technology that doesn't exist.

>If you have any experience with US gun laws, you know exactly how this works.

Not in California. It is illegal for California residents to import firearms from other states. They must be imported through a licensed California gun dealer (FFL), and the specific make/model must be California legal.

First they came for your gas cans. Now they are coming for your generators. I will say, gas powered leaf blowers and edgers are so polluting it's horrible. Electric battery powered is so much better but I feel for the landscape people. That is such a huge burden for them. You need to have so many batteries and chargers to make it a full day.

Did they come for your gas cans? What do you mean?

The EPA banned normal gas cans in 2009, it's why you spill gas everywhere trying to use the new ones with the ventless design.

https://fee.org/articles/the-epic-failure-of-the-government-...

I'm sure the comment meant "cars", not "cans". However, my old gas can from more than 20 years ago worked perfectly fine. But as for any one I've acquired over the last couple decade, I can't use them fill my lawn mower (or my car gas tank) without spilling gas all over the place. The valves built into the spout can only open when you tip the can upside down and put pressure from the spout onto the tank, and for whatever reason it ends up spilling all over. And I'm not the only one who has complained about this. Big improvement in safety there, when gas ends up all over the ground instead of in the designated tank.

Gas can sold in California have this insane mechanism on the nozzle to ostensibly prevent vapor escaping and spillage. Except when trying to use the damn things for their purpose, the nozzle ends up dribbling gas if you don't do it just right. (To be fair, I think these are improving though.)

They're complex and, in my opinion, counterproductive to their goal.

That's not very smart because batteries are terrible!

Most of my electric portable appliances had their battery die on me or decline significantly at some point and since many were either:

1) not replaceable or

2) replaceable with an impossible to find spare,

I had to dump whole perfectly working items (except the dead battery). This could be mitigated if there is a standard battery format but for many reasons it will oppose good engineering for each item.

Which is also addressed in this article, though as a note at the end.

As a Californian having to live with power cuts lasting 3 to 4 days at a time, 5 to 6 times a year due to public safety power shutdowns or just old and faulty equipment, I think the legislators might want to fix the monopoly of the incompetent PG&E before turning to greenwashing everything they see on their way.

The interesting part is when CARB does do heavy-handed regulation as they struggle to get to 0% emission.

To this, I would say “good luck with that”.

I just bought a back pack blower this winter.

Thinking about putting both a CA state flag sticker on it and a Hacker News one just for kicks.

Folks, as you know the planet is getting warmer. Eventually we will need to shift to alternative means of providing backup electricity, means that don't have a huge negative externality for everyone else. Libertarian policies aren't going to make that happen.

Unlike leaf blowers, backup electricity doesn't have a huge negative externality for everyone else unless the power grid collapses (like, if you only have a few hours of grid power per day, or none), just because the total consumption is so low. But Chinese "libertarian" policies have removed even that externality in many cases by dropping the price of solar panels to well below the price of fossil-fuel energy, which means that more and more energy (backup and otherwise) will be generated from sunlight instead of fossil fuels.

Apparently generators are a huge negative externality? Compared to what? Gasoline cars? Air travel?

It pairs oddly with the NEM 3.0 proposal to de facto tax solar panels at $8 per kilowatt per month going forward because that seems like the only clean alternative that could charge a large battery to replace that generator.

https://solarbuildermag.com/residential-solar/californias-ne...

Inevitably there will be a disaster of some kind and generators will be required to help people but whoops all the generators are gone. And the officials will say "well there's no link between our dumb law and the lack of generators! people should have bought batteries!"

If this sounds unlikely to you consider their response to the shortage of trucks and cargo bins piling up at the ports.

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