[ad_1]
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) – California has set a goal of eliminating electricity produced from fossil fuels by 2045 under legislation signed by Governor Jerry on Monday. Brown, who said that this policy should serve as a model for other states and nations.
Brown, who has positioned California as a global leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions, has approved the move as it prepares to hold a San Francisco summit of climate change leaders starting Wednesday. .
The new law, with an executive decree ordering California to remove as much carbon dioxide from the air it emits, is the latest in a series of ambitious environmental initiatives as California seeks to fill the void left by President Donald Trump's decision. 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 in an interview with The Associated Press. "But we are certainly at the beginning of what is going to be a long and difficult and controversial journey."
The state is striving to rapidly develop 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.
Measuring renewable energy would require California utilities to produce 60% of their energy from wind, solar and other specific renewable sources by 2030. This is 10% more than the current mandate.
The goal would then be to use only carbon-free sources to produce electricity by 2045. It is simply an objective, without a mandate or sanction for not having succeeded. 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 he has made has died in the last two years in the legislature, 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 impose very high prices on California, and I think there will be resistance to that," Brown said. "It may take a year or two, but we will get there. It's too logical. "
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 being lenient with the oil industry, including environmental groups pushing him to create a moratorium on the state's new oil and gas wells. He dismissed criticism and said California's approach to climate change was based on reducing emissions from a variety of 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 steadily declined since the mid-1980s.
Business groups also opposed the measure, fearing that it would raise the price of energy and, along with California's other environmental and labor protection measures, complicate competition from companies in other states.
"If we want to pass these unpublished laws, we want unprecedented benefits," said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable.
The measure was drafted by state senator Kevin de Leon, a Democrat from Los Angeles who comes to the US Senate against his US Democratic counterpart Dianne Feinstein.
"Today we are building a marker that future generations will remember," said de Leon.
The executive order that Brown signed ordered the state to achieve "carbon neutrality" no later than 2045. After that, he said the state should issue net emissions of negative greenhouse gases.
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.
___
Kathleen Ronayne, Associated Press writer, contributed.
Source link
