The California legislature just passed Assembly Bill 100 (AB100), which according to the inset calls for “100% clean energy by 2045”. The brief review presented in this post shows that AB100, which targets electricity, not energy, will cut California’s greenhouse gas emissions by only about 16% even in the unlikely event its target is met. Its main impact will be to add to the regulatory overload from which California’s electricity providers already suffer. The fact that the bill was passed at all indicates that California legislators, as well as being unable to tell the difference between megawatts and megawatt-hours, are also unable to tell the difference between electricity and energy.
AB100 (Senate version SB100) is California’s latest attempt to convert its dream of a 100% clean, renewable and sustainable energy future into reality. Media outlets were near-unanimous in concluding that it finally commits California to 100% renewable energy:
Los Angeles Times: The bill …. would require California to obtain 100% of its power from clean sources by 2045
Forbes: California has approved a measure requiring all energy used in the sunshine state to be from renewable sources by 2045
ZME Science: Last week, California’s legislators passed Senate Bill 100, a bill to power the state exclusively on clean energy
Even Senator Kevin de León, who introduced the bill, claims on his website that AB100 will power the state on “100% clean, renewable energy”. California Senate President pro Tempore Kevin de León (D-Los Angeles) on Tuesday introduced Senate Bill 100, The California Clean Energy Act of 2017, which puts the state on the path to 100 percent clean, renewable energy by 2045. If the politician responsible for drafting AB100 believes this we can assume that the 42 other California legislators who voted for it don’t understand the difference between electricity and energy either.
Here is what AB100 actually says. The text from which the following extracts are taken is here:
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
