From The National Post
China will also likely order an end to sales of all polluting vehicles by 2030, the chairman of electric-carmaker BYD Co. said Thursday
The internal combustion engine’s days may be numbered in California, where officials are mulling whether a ban on sales of polluting autos is needed to achieve long-term targets for cleaner air.
Governor Jerry Brown has expressed an interest in barring the sale of vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines, Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, said in an interview Friday at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. The earliest such a ban is at least a decade away, she said.
Brown, one of the most outspoken elected official in the U.S. about the need for policies to combat climate change, would be replicating similar moves by China, France and the U.K.
“I’ve gotten messages from the governor asking, ‘Why haven’t we done something already?’” Nichols said, referring to China’s planned phase-out of fossil-fuel vehicle sales. “The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California.”
Embracing such a policy would send shockwaves through the global car industry due to the heft of California’s auto market. More than 2 million new passenger vehicles were registered in the state last year, topping France, Italy or Spain. If a ban were implemented, automakers from General Motors Co. to Toyota Motor Corp. would be under new pressure to make electric vehicles the standard for personal transportation in the most populous U.S. state, casting fresh doubts on the future of gasoline- and diesel-powered autos elsewhere.
The Association of Global Automakers said consumers must be able to afford the cleaner cars that California says are needed to meet its climate goals. The trade association represents Toyota, Honda Motor Co. and other overseas carmakers in the U.S.
“We have been working with California on intelligent, market-based approaches to emissions reductions beyond 2025, and we hope that this doesn’t signal an abandonment of that position,” Global Automakers Chief Executive Officer John Bozzella said in a statement.
California has set a goal to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80 per cent from 1990 levels by 2050. Rising emissions from on-road transportation has undercut the state’s efforts to reduce pollution, according to Next 10, San Francisco-based non-profit.
“To reach the ambitious levels of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, we have to pretty much replace all combustion with some form of renewable energy by 2040 or 2050,” Nichols said. “We’re looking at that as a method of moving this discussion forward.”
California has the authority to write its own pollution rules, which dates back to the 1970 Clean Air Act. Those rules are underpinned by waivers granted by the Environmental Protection Agency.
Nichols said the state would likely take a different legal route to enable a possible ban rather than use an EPA waiver, since the Trump administration would be unlikely to approve one. For example, California could use vehicle registration rules or control the vehicles that can access state highways, she said.
Read the rest of the story here.
HT | Earthling2
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Y’know when it boils down to it, where science really scores is being able to make predictions.
Science means not having to do the experiment over and over again.
Its possible to use science that no one disagrees with to calculate exactly how many extra nuclear power stations and how much lithium neodymium cobalt sand copper all this will take.
This seems not to have been done by the legislature. Or if it has the science has been ignored.
Today’s ‘progress’ is all marked by a significant change of policy. No longer is it to seek out cost effective practical solutions to real problems, no it’s all about tossing billions into projects that won’t solve problems, to see if they will.
The only saving grace is that the problems don’t exist, either.
‘ave not read all the comments here but aren’t we all rather missing something?
It goes…
There are a plethora of battery powered electric tools we can now buy. Besides obviously long life torches (esp using LEDs) but drills, cutters & grinders for professionals and amateurs alike but also sweepers, cleaners and endless things for around the garden.
Lets thank lithium battery technology for making them a semblance of useful.
But anything along those lines of respectable quality (usually) comes with two batteries. The general idea being that one can be recharging while you use the other.
The alert amongst us will immediately see The Problem here – where are the EVs with spare batteries?
Are these cars not things (tools) of ‘quality’ ‘reliability’ and ‘usefulness’
There is the elephant – what would an EV with a spare battery cost – even before the cronies move in and create an (imagined) shortage of something important. Like lithium or neodymium for example.
Is that not what the Chinese are doing here – pre-empting a lithium shortage (or esp neodymium to go in the motors of these vehicles)
The precedent is there already.
Big windmills have ‘problems’ with gearboxes so some windmill makers are experimenting with (and using) permanent magnets, allowing the generator within the windmill to run at very low speed instead of being synchronous (3000rpm for the UK) negating the need for a gearbox.
As soon as they started using neodymium, the price of the stuff rose by a factor of ten. Way up there with gold and platinum.
Government mandates such as these always create a price fixing hell (for consumers) and a price fixing heaven for suppliers.
Will they ever learn – its not looking good is it?
These folks seem oblivious to the coming revolution in energy generation that molten salt modular nuclear reactors wil bring. When you are driven by irrational fears – nuclear energy in this case,
you pay, and you pay, and you pay. Brown may just be the most evil SOB around : this clown put a tax on e-cigarettes , as a response to the many who were switching from tobacco to vaping, always to avoid cancer, costing California lost tax revenue. Brown contradicted the world’s leading respiratory doctors, who have made videos recommending vaping to smokers – Brown claims inhaling flavored water vapor is “dangerous.” So, Gov Brown, how many people did you give lung cancer to today? Brown is one SOB who deserves all the worst.
Whatever technology bring us, molten salt nuclear reactor or whatever, it will take decades to appear in the picture, and even more to make a difference, so it makes sense to plan BAU
Exactly.
the most optimistic assessment I’ve seen of the chances for a thorium reactor gives the early 2030s for a prototype…
@paqyfelc & Griff: If MSR’s are still a decade or two away, it is because the Nixon Administration pulled the plug on development of them back in the early 1970’s in favor of other nuclear programs. Oak Ridge was working on the technology back in the 1960’s already and wanted to continue it. So the MSR lost decades of development time because of Nixon’s decision until it was rediscovered (in 2008 I think).
I’m not claiming here that MSR’s will find their way to commercial reality someday. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. But Griff, the solar panel has been around since 1954. According to recent figures from the Energy Information Agency here in the U.S., solar still doesn’t even provide 2% of our electricity needs after 63 years. Compared to nuclear power, that sounds like a pretty awful record now, doesn’t it?
You should be the one to boast Griffy-poo.
Yep and it would take 20 years to build enough wells to drill us out of $120 a barrel oil and even then it won’t work, sept it took 4 years and that’s fighting the government. If the money and will are there the technical problems can be overcome much more quickly.
And E-cigs are a better quitting aid than any kind of nicotine gum/lozenge/patch because the chemical dependancy is only half the story. The repeated habit of bringing the cigarette up to the mouth for a drag has its own pleasurable feedback loop independent of the drug.
If they truly want to lower tobacco use, they should be promoting vaping, not treating it like normal smoking (which its not). But then they wouldn’t be getting as much money from those onerous tobacco taxes, would they?
I am a fan of EVs for reasons unconnected with CO2 (I’ve not seen any sound evidence to connect CO2 with global temperatures), but I am even more of a fan of small government. Let the market decide. By 2040 the electric motor will have kicked the ICE engine into the weeds on grounds of driveability, quietness, comfort and cost. You Americans need to watch your backs though, or the your domestic automakers will fail to make the change and go to the wall like Kodak. Look at stats on lithium ion battery production in 2020 in US and in China
It’s not the drive train that’s the problem.
The engine in your ICE vehicle will last a lot longer than the battery pack in an electric, and cost less to replace when it does finally wear out.
EVs have a lot of hurdles to overcome, so that seems doubtful even by 2040. I wouldn’t worry so much about American automakers, or about “watching our backs”. At this point, they remain subsidized toys for the wealthy, useful only for short trips and thus needing a backup vehicle, not unlike wind and solar power.
The American consumer will, if left alone by grubbing government, will by the highest quality needed at the lowest prices, as always, John. Nobody cares the race or nationality of the fat cat providing for that need.
I like electric vehicles because of the simplicity of the drive train – due to the excellent torque-speed characteristic of the electric motor vs the internal combustion engine. But the battery is the weak point – and there is no Moore’s Law for batteries.
Nevertheless, there are technology breakthroughs from time to time, and we cannot rule them out. For example, fracking of shales, first for natural gas and later for oil, was not foreseen by many energy professionals, and yet it has revolutionized the industry. Maybe someone will make a quantum breakthrough in battery technology – we will see.
A second weak point of electric vehicles is the electric grid, which is apparently incapable of handling the increased burden of many electric vehicles. Furthermore, the grid is being degraded by imbecilic green energy policies that simply do not work, primarily due to the intermittency of wind and solar power. Exorbitant costs for electrical transmission, distribution and overheads are also causing electricity costs to be overpriced. Perhaps one solution is for households to get off the grid entirely, and generate their own electricity from natural gas or propane. With suitable backup systems, this could greatly reduce costs and still provide adequate reliability.
It IS frustrating to see politicians make really foolish decisions about energy. Most politicians are far too uneducated to even opine on the subject, let alone formulate energy policy. For example, it was obvious from the start that hydrogen-as-fuel was a dead end, because of very low energy density. Corn ethanol is also a poor and destructive idea, as are most food-to-fuel schemes, which have contributed to excessive drawdown of the Ogalalla Aquifer in the USA and widespread rainforest clearcutting in the tropics. It was also obvious that grid-connected wind and solar power schemes were costly and ineffective, primarily due to intermittency.
In general, green energy policies have been a costly disaster for society, causing great environmental damage, increasing energy cost and reducing grid reliability. This damage has been high in the developed world but even higher in the developing world, where green energy nonsense has denied struggling populations access to cheap, abundant energy systems.
Fossil fuels comprise about 85% of global primary energy, whereas green energy provides less than 2%, despite trillions of dollars in squandered subsidies. Imagine how much better the world’s poor would be if these vast sums had been spent intelligently on clean water, sanitation and efficient energy systems.
Cheap, abundant reliable energy is the lifeblood of society – it IS that simple. When politicians fool with energy policy, real people suffer and die. That is the tragic legacy of global warming alarmism.
Regards, Allan MacRae
In the long run (in which we all will be dead) distributed and individual generation will be the norm.
If there is one thing you can be sure of, its that distributed and individual generation will never be viable.
Leo, today’s truths will be the future’s jokes.
Really Leo – and on what special knowledge do you base that conclusion?
Jerry Brown is so dumb he probably thinks that getting rid of pylons and burying cables is reducing overheads to zero
V. good!
Well, banning ICE on cars, is only half of the story. People will find way to get around (like : putting some engine-generator somewhere in the trunk to provided needed electricity for the car). Meaning you have to ban ICE not just in cars, but everywhere, imbue the police extensive searching right inside cars and home to look for the banned ICE. etc. Casualties and human rights abuse will ensue, like for every ban on useful things.
Unless turbine cars come back which may be. Or electro-turbined cars (turbine running an electrical generator. Or whatever. Who knows what technology will prevail. If politicians don’t mess things up, that is.
How can I put it to you Guv? I think it’s called Catch22-
http://www.weeklytimesnow.com.au/agribusiness/dairy/dairy-farmers-go-offgrid-as-power-prices-surge/news-story/3f3b42124b2adef064da266255d03af7
What is sad is that Griff is thick enough to think this is all good and positive. I don’t think he has ever opened an economics text book or considered any cost benefit analysis …. if your glasses have enough rose coloured tint the green schemo-dreamos all make sense.
If political announcements can over turn the laws of physics, surely a law can over turn the laws of economics?
They keep referring to CO2 as “pollution”. The stupid, it burns.
If you’ve ever wondered how the Hitler rose to power look no further than the global warming propaganda filed under “if told often enough”. Only a return of world wide glaciation may, just may, end this one propaganda campaign. Even then, CA will likely still be combating the return of the warming.
Ever seen a non-fossil fuel vehicle? Want to close airports and ports? Ban on exhaust vehicles in urban areas would reduce soot emissions and be beneficial especially for asthma and other lung disease patients which are numerous.
So much for the claim that electric vehicles are the obvious car of the future.
The only way they can get people to buy them is to ban all alternatives.
Eliminating the alternatives is what is happening in electricity production as well. The only way to succeed is eliminat4e the competition. And I wouldn’t call the result success.
This is one time where you really need to let the stupidity grenade go off.
Pointing out the bugs in the system hasn’t dissuaded the state fear-based re-ordering of society. That just looks at technical problems to be solved. Or put another way, how do so many sheep keep jumping off a cliff on the advice of this nut ball? Because it may be possible to jump off the cliff.
Awesome. Governor moonbeam is the best. Give him 10 more terms California you morons.
I wonder how much money Elon is sending to Jerry?
The only reason that a state or a sovereign nation would ban petroleum based transportation is to immobilize the citizens, and force them into the rat warrens we call cities and to use so called “public transportation.” The short range of the electric car dooms it to nearby use only, no long trips. The low power density of the battery dooms it as well since you can’t sit in a traffic jam for an hour and maintain any sense of comfort. SO, if you can’t go anywhere, you won’t know anything “first hand” about any place beyond the 50 to 100 mile radius you can trust your electric to go and return. It falls right in with the UN plan to set aside most of the world for anything but humans with the exception, of course, the wealthy exceptionals. Nice big spacious parks for them to go to without having to deal with “common folk.”
Virtually all public transportation in California involves the use of fossil fuels so all transportation in the state would come to a hault. California already has laws forbiding the use of livestock because of methane polution.
“To reach the ambitious levels of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, we have to pretty much replace all combustion with some form of renewable energy by 2040 or 2050,”
Complete BS and clearly illustrates why politicians must have no role in science. All we need to do is properly quantify the climate sensitivity and the Paris goals will be met with lots of margin, at least relative to any temperature change caused by CO2 emissions …
What happens to the millions of gas-powered cars now on the road? Everyone in CA would take a huge financial hit. What about the environmental hit from junking them or transporting them?
Sounds good – always wanted to buy a nice Ferrari California for $1000.
:-).
https://www.google.ca/search?q=Ferrari+california&hl=en-GB&rlz=1T4GGHP_en-GBCA431CA431&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiz6vnt6srWAhVY12MKHY8iCYcQ_AUICigB&biw=1067&bih=465#imgrc=3-rrRAFMIIQUZM:&spf=1506703362207
I think Governor Moonbeam is in the pay of “Big Legos”.
https://youtu.be/_ObE4_nMCjE
Heh, “2030”. No one should bother with things that politicians say will or should happen well outside their terms.
I just went through Irma (eye went over me). Power went out for 36 hours where I stayed and 5 days where I live. Many decided to take to the highways and get out of Florida as the predicted track ran up the Gulf coast or slightly inland from it. The highways were at a crawl on motels available all spoken for in the state. From my home it is 370 miles from the state line. No electric car could have made it to safety. And there are no jerry cans for electrons to extend your range. And when the grid drops out all mobility is lost.
…and places in east naples are still without power
I could never trust a governor who always reminds me of the father in “Arrested Development”.
I see a couple of comments in this thread, about California losing gas tax revenue, because electric cars will not be buying gasoline.
Here’s a copy and paste from
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/09/01/la-times-what-would-it-take-to-persuade-you-to-buy-an-electric-car/comment-page-1/#comment-2598524
All the governments along the west coast of North America (California Oregon Washington and British Columbia) have been thinking about a mileage tax / toll for electric cars. As more and more fuel efficient and electric cars come on to the roads, governments will be collecting less money in gas taxes. That shortfall in revenue has to come from somewhere.
Example:
Washington Road Usage Charge Pilot Project
Test Drive the Road Ahead
GAS TAX WON’T MEET FUTURE NEEDS
https://waroadusagecharge.org/