100% Renewable Energy Bill Passes In Washington, DC - Polidicks

City lawmakers in the District of Columbia voted unanimously Tuesday to pass legislation mandating 100 percent renewable electricity in the capital by 2032. The Clean Energy D.C. Omnibus Act of 2018 doubles Washington’s current policy, which says that by 14 years from now, the nation’s capital must be getting half its electricity from zero-emissions sources like solar and wind. The legislation, which is expected to become law, increases fees on electricity from coal and gas and establishes a task force to set some of the nation’s most aggressive energy-efficiency standards for existing buildings. It also goes beyond the utility sector, requiring that all public transportation and privately owned fleet vehicles emit zero carbon dioxide by 2045, putting it in line with California’s newly adopted auto emissions target. The provision applies to fleets with more than 50 passengers, according to Utility Dive, meaning the ride-hailing services Uber and Lyft are included. ... Just as the city council was voting on the bill, the District of Columbia announced plans to join nine northeastern states ― Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia ― to form a regional cap-and-trade market to limit vehicle emissions early next year. https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/dc-historic-climate-bill-renewable-power_us_5c195218e4b08db990587aea

the District of Columbia announced plans to join nine northeastern states ― Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia ― to form a regional cap-and-trade market to limit vehicle emissions early next year. Heyyyy this sounds pretty significant

I must be misreading this, the article title states 100% renewable power by 2032, yet in the first sentence says "half its electricity from zero-emissions sources like solar and wind"

Not all renewable sources are zero emission, e.g. biomass.

Yeah you right. Renewable =/= zero-emission

This combined with California's own stricter vehicle emission targets might be enough to just force car markers to just follow the stricter standards nationwide, maybe it will be more hassle than it's worth not to do so for the other states.

This is what I'm hoping, that we are able to reach a critical mass of states/countries passing regulations that is enough to drag the whole world along. Like the ICE car phaseout dates that various countries are setting will hopefully force car manufacturers globally to sort their lives out

After the 2018 governor elections this is what the US Climate Alliance will probably look like, they're staying in the Paris agreement https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/134246/662a1c4a-6439-44ab-9fb2-abf5d02f93e4/s.PNG

I hope these bills take into account the aspect of making the grid cleaner that is nuclear- that is, that renewables often may not be enough to support electrical grid baseload power, and buildout of nuclear may be necessary in order to help transition away from fossil fuel power and stay off of it.

Hydro comes to mind. When flooding areas to store water for dams, any trapped vegetations will start rotting and release greenhouse gasses.

No energy production method is currently zero-emission. Even nuclear outputs a certain amount of CO2 during construction and operation. Wind and solar aren't better in that regard either. Wonder what they define as being "zero-emission" sources.

At least 6% from solar, and the rest from the following sources: “Tier one renewable source” means one or more of the following types of energy sources: (A) Solar energy; (B) Wind; (C) Qualifying biomass; (D) Methane from the anaerobic decomposition of organic materials in a landfill or wastewater treatment plant; (E) Geothermal; (F) Ocean, including energy from waves, tides, currents, and thermal differences; and (G) Fuel cells producing electricity from a tier one renewable source under subparagraph (C) or (D) of this paraagraph.

That's renewable though, not "zero-emission". Unless they define both the same way?

The bill only seems to define a minimum requirement for tier one renewable sources (100% by 2032), and solar.

Honestly, people nit-picking modern renewables as "they're not truly zero-emissions because X" kinda bugs me. It'd be like arguing that early automobiles, which required resources that were likely hauled by a horse at some point given the time-frame, weren't truly "horseless" carriages.

I feel like it's something that's overblown quite a bit, and something drummed up by those opposed to renewables and EVs. It's a factor sure, but most of those "emissions" come down to using energy from the grid now, so it's a bit like hey don't clean up the grid because it takes energy to clean up the grid. For EVs it tends to be "yeah EVs are great but what about that lithium mine??".

PA should be in the list, Wolf vowed to stay.

I prefer to use correct wording when so much is at stake. "Zero emissions" deceptively implies that there's no environmental downside whatsoever to using up energy from those sources, which further fuels the mindset of "saving energy doesn't matter, we don't need to change our way of life at all, technology will solve every issue for us" which is toxic and a huge factor behind our current downwards ecological trends. Renewable energy is nice, even if I don't really see the point in using them for base load when you could have nuclear. But they still have a negative, albeit smaller, environmental impact, they generate CO2 and technically aren't really "renewable" since we don't know how to recycle the stuff at this point. Notice that I never said anything close to "don't clean up the grid". I support developing renewable solutions. What I don't support is perpetrating the belief that they are a panacea, the only thing we'll need to solve environmental issues. That's a naive viewpoint, and I'd rather people thought about it critically and thus made efforts to fight climate change on all fronts. Ditto for EVs.

I wasn't specifically referring to you, just more of a general view point. A lot of uninformed people don't support a switch to EVs because of Facebook memes showing a mine. It's funny because Lithium isn't even used in huge quantities in EV batteries, it just gets flagged up because it's in the name. There's a carbon impact for pretty much anything man made, but it is manageable if we get it production down low enough. Would be interested in looking at the fundamentals for each power source and seeing what exactly introduces those carbon emissions and if it could be removed in theory. Most of solar PVs emissions are down to the energy usage when producing the silicon, but if you was to power that entirely from other solar panels would it actually have anything else introducing emissions? Similar setup for wind and the steel production.