Guest essay by Eric Worrall
According to Governor Newsom, “we no longer need to drill things or extract things to advance our economic goals”.
Gavin Newsom signs order banning sales of gas-powered cars in California by 2035
BY LARA KORTE SEPTEMBER 23, 2020 10:32 AM
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday issued an executive order requiring the sale of all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035, a move the governor says would achieve a significant reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, improve air quality, and move the state further away from relying on climate change-causing fossil fuels.
“This is the most impactful step our state can take to fight climate change,” Newsom said. “For too many decades, we have allowed cars to pollute the air that our children and families breathe. You deserve to have a car that doesn’t give your kids asthma. Our cars shouldn’t make wildfires worse – and create more days filled with smoky air. Cars shouldn’t melt glaciers or raise sea levels threatening our cherished beaches and coastlines.”
His announcement comes on the heels of one of the most disastrous climate events in California’s history. The state is still battling wildfires, which have burned a record 3.6 million acres.
Newsom for weeks has cited climate change as a major contributing factor, and has called on federal officials, including President Donald Trump, to take more aggressive action on clean energy.
…
Read more: https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-government/capitol-alert/article245948120.html
The following is a tweet from Governor Newsom. The announcement starts at 4:45.
Newsom hopes everyone will follow California’s lead, but why would anyone else want to copy California’s slow moving energy disaster? The more engineering literate amongst us might have noticed that, thanks to renewables, California can barely keep their lights on. More unreliable renewables will just make this situation worse.
Adding millions of energy hungry electric vehicles, many of whose owners would want to charge at night, would be unlikely to improve California’s unstable renewable energy grid.
Governor Newsom in his interview said “we no longer need to drill things or extract things to advance our economic goals” (see the Twitter video above).
Every study I have seen about renewables suggests that any serious attempt to go 100% renewable would require far more drilling and extracting than a fossil fuel powered economy, like a 2700% increase in lithium extraction. Even carbon intensive cement production would have to increase substantially – all those wind turbines and solar panels need cement bases.
Manufacturing cement largely consists of heating limestone or other Calcium Carbonates to 825C (1517F) degrees, to separate the limestone into Calcium Oxide and CO2. There is a lot of CO2 in limestone. Current cement manufacture accounts for 8% of global annual CO2 emissions. Cement does not last forever. A substantial permanent increase in global cement production would pretty much cancel any CO2 savings from going renewable.
Between clearing wilderness areas for wind turbines and solar arrays, and turning what is left of the state into a vast open pit mine to feed the mineral hungry renewables industry, going renewable would devastate California’s environment.
I guess there would be one small silver lining to the Newsom push to turn the State of California into a Renewable Energy extractive wasteland. The few scraps of forest and wilderness which would survive the push for renewables would no longer pose much of a forest fire hazard.
Of course it is possible Governor Newsom is aware of all this (h/t Charles the Moderator).
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Everyone. Please calm down. Why are you obsessing about an utterance on social media from a pure politician about something supposed to happen 15 years in the future? As Scott Adams has aptly observed, he wants to gain your attention and focus and it appears from all of the comments presented that he is succeeding smashingly. Technical and scientific facts and arguments are irrelevant to him (and probably barely comprehensible as well). He wants to persuade a certain cohort of people (Dems and Greens) that he is worthy of their present and future support. That’s it, IMHO.
You are correct. Executive orders are the equivalent of a Letter to Santa Claus.
No one really has to do anything about it because there is no penalty for failing to observe the order.
‘like a 2700% increase in lithium extraction’
https://cleantechnica.com/2020/09/23/tesla-officially-enters-the-mining-business/
‘On the topic of lithium, Elon Musk said that there was enough lithium in Nevada alone to electrify the entire US. He also said that Tesla recycles 100% of is vehicle batteries today and hopes to cut cobalt out of batteries entirely. If he can do this, use more nickel, and make several other improvements throughout the full battery production process, this could cut the costs of EV batteries in half.’
Problem solved!
“On the topic of lithium, Elon Musk said that there was enough lithium in Nevada alone to electrify the entire US.”
In contrast:
“Broadly speaking, electrification was the build-out of the electricity generation and electric power distribution systems that occurred in Britain, the United States, and other now-developed countries from the mid-1880s until around 1950 and is still in progress in rural areas in some developing countries . . . The electrification of households in Europe and North America began in the early 20th century in major cities and in areas served by electric railways and increased rapidly until about 1930 when 70% of households were electrified in the U.S.”—source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrification#:~:text=of%20their%20operations.-,Household%20electrification,were%20electrified%20in%20the%20U.S.
Thanks, Elon, but the US has done just fine doing electrification without the need now for the toxic lithium you will be mining.
Griff,
California has neither the power infrastructure, nor the power production to go fully electric. To day California imports over 30% of its electricity, and as we found during the recent heatwave there was not enough power to be bought from neighboring States to keep the lights on. If you purchase an electric vehicle, you will find that you need to upgrade the electricity for the charger. Standard chargers need to 220 V 3 phase. If I however you wish to have a Tesla Supercharger, then you will need 480 vokt 3 phase. This will mean not only upgrading the power panels and wiring in your house, but also upgrading the entire upstream electrical grid.
Once California shuts down Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, the state would need to import 40% of its power. Now bear in mind this is at to day’s consumption rates which are not based on 100% electrical homes and 100% EVs. Where is California going to get that power?
‘
On the topic of lithium,Elon Musk saidthat there was enough lithium in Nevada alone to electrify the entire US. He also said that Tesla recycles 100% of is vehicle batteries today andhopesto cut cobalt out of batteries entirely. If he can do this,use more nickel, and make several other improvements throughout the full battery production process,this couldcut the costs of EV batteries in half.’The only thing missing was prayer
Problem solved!
Still preaching the gospel according to the Prophet Musk
Elon Musk said that there was enough lithium in Nevada alone to electrify the entire US.
He’s about a century and a half behind the times. the US electrification began back in the mid/late 1800s and the process was pretty much finished by the mid-1900s. lithium wasn’t required. at all.
If you haven’t read this it’s worth the time:
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/great-conservative-migration-and-what-it-means-future
Where does Ravin’ Gavin think the electricity will come from to power all those electric cars?
A typical internal combustion engine converts about 30% of the heat energy in the fuel to power to turn the wheels of a vehicle.
A typical electric motor converts about 80% of the input electrical energy to power, so that whatever process produces the electricity must be at least 37.5% efficient for the overall system to generate less CO2 than using gasoline.
A combined-cycle natural-gas-fired power plant can get up to 60% efficiency (power produced / heating value of natural gas), but this is only for a combined-cycle plant, where hot flue gases at low pressure are used to generate steam, which is used to run a steam turbine. A simple-cycle power plant, without a steam turbine, is usually about 35% efficient, so that using simple-cycle power plants to charge electric cars would simply transfer the CO2 emissions from the car’s tailpipe to the power plant.
The problem in California is that many of the natural-gas-fired power plants are simple-cycle “peakers”, which can be fired up quickly for high-demand periods (hot summer afternoons with high air-conditioning demand), while the steam turbines of combined-cycle plants need to run continuously to be cost-effective. This may become cost-effective if lots of people are charging their electric cars at night, which is otherwise low-demand at night.
As for other sources of electricity, hydroelectric power can work in the winter and early spring (the wet season in the Sierras), except that too many dams have been taken down by Greenies worried about the survival of the delta smelt. But hydro can’t keep up with demand in the summer, with peak air-conditioning demand and very little water flowing over the dams.
Nuclear power would definitely work and reduce emissions, but they must be built far away from any seismic faults, to avoid a California version of Fukushima. But could anyone get a nuclear power plant permitted in California?
Newsom: “You deserve to have a car that doesn’t give your kids asthma.”
Where is the scientific or medical evidence that high CO2 levels cause asthma in children? Some of the other pollutants from untreated car exhaust (unburned hydrocarbons, CO, NOx) are toxic, but that’s why the EPA has been requiring catalytic converters since the 1970’s, and most states require yearly emission tests on older cars.
Don’t forget that depending on how far away the generator is, as much as 10 to 15% can be lost during transmission. The best battery chargers are only around 95% efficient. Battery charge and discharge losses can be well over 10%, especially if you fast charge and have a lead foot while driving. Finally the power regulator is also around 95% efficient.
As a result as much as 30% of the energy can be lost between the generator and the electric motor.
I can just see millions of California residents in their gasoline cars and pickups crowding onto the freeways and heading out of California – for good. One can only hope that the courts overrule this nonsense or that the next governor has enough common sense to reverse this executive order of stupidity.
You’ll have better luck with the former, as the voters in commiefornia don’t seem to know how to vote in governors that have any common sense anymore. Reagan was probably the last Governor they voted in that had common sense, and that was half a century ago.
“We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.” Ayn Rand
Dan,
But are those consequences reality or not?
Recursion, in text as well as in mathematics, has this funny habit of tending to explode or implode.
Consequences are by definition real.
Then, by Ayn Rand’s statement we can ignore them.
You can try, but just like reality, as much as you may want to ignore it, it has a tendency to bit you in the butt anyway.
Promising is harder than delivering…..
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/bp-drops-25-low-week-172458895.html
Gavin gruesome Newsom just eliminated any need for car manufacturer’s, worldwide, to care about meeting California standards.
I think that is wonderful!
According to gruesome’s wording, he just banned the sale of all cars; since there are zero cars that are truly zero-emission. Every car, including electric cars, cause emissions.
since there are zero cars that are truly zero-emission. Every car, including electric cars, cause emissions.
Shared/shifted responsibility. Also, the “out-of-sight and out-of-mind” sociopoliticoscientific model. Perhaps just a plausible mischaracterization, and assertions/assumptions infilled with brown matter.
Gov. Newson isn’t going far enough. All materials to produce these batteries have to be mined in the beautiful state of California. Make it a true ‘Made in CA battery’.
We must stop importing car batteries…..
No, no, no. Didn’t you read at the very top of the article “According to Governor Newsom, ‘we no longer need to drill things or extract things to advance our economic goals’ “.
So, no drilling for petroleum or extracting lithium from mining in California (sorry, Elon). I expect Newsom’s executive order stating this next week.
P.S. The knucklehead is obviously unaware that Tesla’s (as well as all other EV’s) use petroleum-derived lubricating oils and greases on vehicle shafts and wheel bearings. Guess how long they would operate without these “drilled things”. And, yes, I know about “synthetics”.
What he real means is “we no longer need to drill things or extract things in California to advance our economic goals” just like they don’t need to generate electricity (from fossil fuels) in state. They’ll just push that stuff off to other places. It’s NIMBY at a grand scale.
The dirty little secret of “synthetics” is that it uses ordinary petroleum as the main feedstock. So even “synthetics” require “drill things or extract things”.
50% of California’s in-state electricity is generated by burning natural gas. 32% of its electricity is imported from out of state, including large amount of it from burning fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas, in addition to NW generated hydro powered electricity. Wind and solar powered electricity is but a small percentage, and wind farms and solar farms are hated by most coastal Californians due to their killing of bird populations, destruction of fragile desert ecosystems and huge footprints.
Maybe Jay Leno should ditch the current political party in charge and run for governor on the “Motorhead” ticket.
No room for hybrids, I guess. All-electric, or nothing.
Look at all the insanity the Climategate Charlatans have caused. Somebody ought to go to jail over this Human-caused Climate Change scam.
That’s because Hybrids still use Fossil Fuels thus still requiring their extraction drilling
Does California impose gasoline taxes? How does the governor propose to overcome that revenue shortfall?