California regulators reject governor’s pitch for carbon neutrality by 2035 | Hacker News Reader

California regulators reject governor’s pitch for carbon neutrality by 2035

grist.org

16 pointsBrajeshwar8 comments

Newsom is best friends with marathon’s biggest lobbyist. They were caught dining at the French laundry, in what should be seen as a case of illegal lobbying. This immediately after imposing a statewide lockdown. Nobody cared.

In California, climate and the environment is a giant non-issue because the voter will vote the same, no matter what. Therefore everything boils down to behind the scenes horse-trading amongst the various lobbies. There is no viable Green Party in the state. Why?

> Nobody cared.

People cared. We had a recall election. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_California_gubernatorial_...

> In California, climate and the environment is a giant non-issue

That's ludicrous. CA has been on the forefront of environmentalism since it was a thing. Yosemite, John Muir, eh?

> There is no viable Green Party in the state. Why?

Because they're weirdos. Most of the state is represented by one of the big two. The cities are "blue" but most of the countryside is "red". Ronald Reagan, eh?

And because environmental concerns are being addressed by Newsom well enough. That's part of why he survived the recall election:

> Newsom has outlined ambitious commitments for the state in his electoral platform, espousing 100% renewable energy within the state, expanding public transit efficiency, and zero diesel pollution by 2030, with overarching goals of equity and accountability.

~ https://bpr.berkeley.edu/2018/03/07/turning-the-golden-state... (2018)

The recall election was an attempt to put in somebody overwhelmingly worse.

So, we care, but the opposition is no plausible alternative.

> It categorically rejected Newsom’s 2035 carbon neutrality goal as too expensive, arguing that sticking to 2045 was more reasonable.

"more reasonable"

Money spent on the bullet train to nowhere could have built out a hell of a lot of renewables.

A 100B public works program to install solar would have been an infinitely better use of that money. Done right, that could have equaled 20-30GW of peak capacity.

That would cover roughly half of California's summer generating capacity.

https://www.eia.gov/electricity/state/

https://www.energy.gov/sites/prod/files/2015/05/f22/CA-Energ...

That much solar would supply 10-14% of California's total electricity consumption.

At current cost, $100B gets you a 100GW solar PV, peak. Cost is still falling fast.

That much money would better be split with wind.

It's like they're negotiating with the planet and the sun.

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