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Sacramento
California has set a goal of eliminating electricity generated from fossil fuels by 2045 under legislation signed on Monday by Governor Jerry Brown, who said the should serve as a model for other States and nations.
Governor Brown, who positioned California as a world leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, endorsed the move by hosting a summit of world leaders in climate change on Wednesday in San Francisco.
The new law, with an executive ordinance signed by California, requiring California to remove as much carbon dioxide as possible from the air, is the latest in a series of ambitious environmental initiatives. withdraw from the Paris climate agreement and its efforts to boost the coal industry.
"We want others to do the same, and if enough people often do what is necessary, we will limit global warming," Brown said. "But we are certainly at the beginning of what is going to be a long and difficult and controversial journey."
The state is working to rapidly expand the adoption of electric vehicles and has created a "cap and trade" program to impose a price on carbon emissions, creating incentives to reduce them. Its goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 40% over the next 12 years.
Efforts have been criticized by business groups worried about rising electricity bills. Some environmentalists say Brown is too confident with oil and gas interests and plans to disrupt the San Francisco summit.
The measure of renewable energy would require California utilities to produce 60% of their energy from wind, solar and other specific renewable sources by 2030. That's 10% more than the current mandate.
The goal would then be to use only carbon-free sources to generate electricity by 2045. It's just a goal, without a warrant or sanction for not being successful. California's renewable energy target is not as ambitious as Hawaii's, which has adopted a 100% renewable energy mandate.
The phasing out of fossil fuels would be a massive shift in the energy network. Utilities depend on natural gas power plants to meet demand when renewable energy is low, especially in the early evening when the sun goes down and people turn on their air conditioners when they return from work.
Utilities already face an abundance of solar energy during peak periods, which must be discharged to other states when local demand for electricity is insufficient.
Brown advocates a regional energy network that would make it easier for Western states to share their energy. An effort that he has pushed has died in the last two years in the legislature, with critics arguing that California should not be part of a grid with states that depend on coal. . But Brown said Monday that switching to a regional grid was critical to achieving California's new 100% clean energy target without electricity prices skyrocketing.
"Those who do not want it will pay very high prices on California, and I think there will be resistance," Brown said. "It may take a year or two, but we're going to get it, that makes too much sense."
He also stressed the need for better battery technology to store energy.
Renewable energy experts have been looking at batteries that can store the solar energy produced in the afternoons, but the technology is not ready for large-scale deployment. Another potential solution is pumped storage, in which water is pumped in the afternoon using solar energy and released by hydroelectric generators after sunset.
Brown has often been criticized for his leniency towards the oil industry, including environmental groups that push him to create a moratorium on new oil and gas wells in the state. He dismissed the criticism and said California's approach to climate change is based on reducing emissions from various sources, including oil.
California has nearly 54,000 active wells, some of them close to the urbanized areas of Southern California and the Central Valley, according to state data.
California ranked sixth in the state in crude oil production in May, the latest data available from the US Energy Information Administration. The state ranks 15th in the production of natural gas. California crude oil production has been steadily declining since the mid-1980s.
Business groups also opposed the measure because they feared raising the price of energy and, along with California's other environmental and labor compete with companies in other states.
"If we want to have these unpublished laws, we want to see unprecedented benefits," said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable.
The measure was written by Senator Kevin de Leon, a Democrat from Los Angeles who comes to the US Senate against Senator Dianne Feinstein (D) of California.
"Today, we are building a marker that future generations will remember," said Senator de Leon.
Brown's executive order directs the state to achieve "carbon neutrality" no later than 2045. After that, he says the state should emit negative net greenhouse gas emissions.
The ordinance directs several public bodies to set targets for artificially removing carbon dioxide from the air through a process called "sequestration".
This could involve restoring forests and wetlands in order to use plants to consume carbon dioxide or new technologies that capture carbon dioxide, compress it and inject it into the soil.
The Associated Press has reported this story, with additional reports from Kathleen Ronayne, Associated Press writer.
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