Californians out of electricity cant get gasoline to generators!

[Mr. Scram]

You can't have a forest in the desert, and the US is BIG. There is no way you could control all of it.

Just California is as big as: Cameroon, France, Iraq, Morocco, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Spain, Sweden, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Yemen

It's also wealthier than most of those. Size is a non issue.

[tom66]

Am I misremembering things or did the CO2 emission composition in studies change

A while back I was sure that passenger vehicles were a tiny contributor to greenhouse emissions, but current statistics show around 60% of all transport related emissions (so about 10% of all emissions) to be from light duty passenger transport.

Is my brain playing tricks or was it always this way?

It's always been this way? Passenger cars & trucks contribute about 20% of emissions in the EU for instance (transport contributes 30% of which private cars are ~55% of this, light+heavy trucks ~30%, public transit ~5% and aircraft the balance.)

Hence the push towards electrification of vehicles - only way to stop them killing the planet we all live on.

[SiliconWizard]

According to this: https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/EN.CO2.TRAN.ZS

The % of global CO2 emissions from transport is about 20%, only a fraction of this being from private transportation (the fraction depends on the region of the world obviously, and I don't have the world average, if someone does... but I remember figures like maybe 10% to 20% of the overall transport, which would mean that private transportation would account for only 4% of the total at worst...)

Interestingly, note that this % hasn't increased significantly since the 60's. Only a little bit. The overall tendency seems to be on the rise, but it's still not that spectacular.

Take a look at the other contributors. The only one that has increased A LOT in proportion is the CO2 emissions "from electricity and heat production". Which, if we speak of CO2 only, would (at least until there is a major change in electricity production worldwide), would make the switch to electric vehicles on a global scale a non-sense.

[Mr. Scram]

Am I misremembering things or did the CO2 emission composition in studies change

A while back I was sure that passenger vehicles were a tiny contributor to greenhouse emissions, but current statistics show around 60% of all transport related emissions (so about 10% of all emissions) to be from light duty passenger transport.

Is my brain playing tricks or was it always this way?

I have the same feeling. Various sources seem to list quite different numbers.

[soldar]

But most of these countries don't have the financial resources that California has and yet they don't have huge raging wild fires (or need to shut down electricity because the wires cause sparks).

You are misinformed. All southern European countries have tremendous wildfires every year and they are getting worse, it seems. The news keep talking about how it is all due to global warming.  Just search for "Portugal wildfires" and you will find plenty. Same thing with Spain, Italy or Greece.

Now, I do not know if any are caused by electric distribution lines but it is difficult to compare these things as there are many variables. European countries are generally more densely populated than America which means lower km of line per customer so the lines can be maintained better. Spain has very high cost of electric power which means they should be able to maintain the infrastructure better (if there is anything left over after all the graft and corruption).

Anyone who proposes burying all lines is talking out of their ass. In no country in the world are all lines buried (maybe excepting the Vatican and the private republic I have in my bathroom). The cost would be prohibitive and it would make no sense. Only in urban and suburban areas does it make sense to bury lines.

Different cultures have different attitudes. In Spain we build houses with stone, brick and concrete, built to withstand whatever the weather can throw at them. In America they prefer to build cheaper, lumber and drywall, that the first wind will carry away. Then they just claim the insurance and rebuild. They prefer to have a bigger but less sturdy house. Or a cheaper house so they can have money for other things.  Same thing with electric distribution wires. Yes, you see wires on poles that you would not see in Spain but that is a choice. Probably many Spanish people would prefer to pay less for electricity in exchange for seeing wires in front of their homes. You can't please everybody.

[nctnico]

Am I misremembering things or did the CO2 emission composition in studies change

A while back I was sure that passenger vehicles were a tiny contributor to greenhouse emissions, but current statistics show around 60% of all transport related emissions (so about 10% of all emissions) to be from light duty passenger transport.

Is my brain playing tricks or was it always this way?

It's always been this way? Passenger cars & trucks contribute about 20% of emissions in the EU for instance (transport contributes 30% of which private cars are ~55% of this, light+heavy trucks ~30%, public transit ~5% and aircraft the balance.)

Hence the push towards electrification of vehicles - only way to stop them killing the planet we all live on.

I'd like to see a source for those numbers because I can't find anything to back up your claim of 30% of emissions for transport. The numbers I can find point towards 25% for the entire transport sector including aviation https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/pdfscache/1180.pdf . I don't want to derail this into another EV thread but electrification of automotive transport is a dead end. In the end it needs more resources (primarily to manufacture batteries but also for the infrastructure) which cause more CO2 output. Industry and energy production together already account for 62% of the greenhouse gas emissions so creating a car which needs more industry and energy to built is not a good idea. A recent study from Germany based on VW Golf class cars showed that on the German electricity mix an EV breaks even after 135k km compared to gas, hardly break even compared to diesel and doesn't win from a car on CNG: https://www.adac.de/verkehr/tanken-kraftstoff-antrieb/alternative-antriebe/co2-treibhausgasbilanz-studie/ . In order to reduce emissions we need cars which need less CO2 to built, produce less CO2 while driving, don't need massively costly infrastructure updates for infrastructure which is already outdated / overloaded and last but not least remain affordable for the masses. Current technology has only one answer for that: hybrids and a continuing increase of the use of bio-fuels. A simple tax on inefficient cars already goes a long way to get a significant CO2 reduction. Just make people think twice about buying a gas guzzler.

[nctnico]

But most of these countries don't have the financial resources that California has and yet they don't have huge raging wild fires (or need to shut down electricity because the wires cause sparks).

You are misinformed. All southern European countries have tremendous wildfires every year and they are getting worse, it seems. The news keep talking about how it is all due to global warming.  Just search for "Portugal wildfires" and you will find plenty. Same thing with Spain, Italy or Greece.

I know but AFAIK it is not like these wild fires get completely out of control.

Anyone who proposes burying all lines is talking out of their ass. In no country in the world are all lines buried (maybe excepting the Vatican and the private republic I have in my bathroom). The cost would be prohibitive and it would make no sense. Only in urban and suburban areas does it make sense to bury lines.

I think it will be difficult to find a place in the NL where they have electricity on poles. But even if it exists then the wires are likely insulated (at least that is what I see in Germany and France) so there isn't a problem when wires touch due to the wind. Actually it seems the wires are twisted together in most cases.

[soldar]

I know but AFAIK it is not like these wild fires get completely out of control.

They don't? What would you call "out of control"? Here's a couple examples.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/June_2017_Portugal_wildfires

A series of four initial deadly wildfires erupted across central Portugal in the afternoon of 17 June 2017 within minutes of each other, resulting in at least 66 deaths and 204 injured people.

The majority of deaths took place in the Pedrógão Grande municipality, when a fire swept across a road filled with evacuees escaping in their cars. Portuguese officials dispatched more than 1,700 firefighters nationwide to combat the blazes and Prime Minister António Costa declared three days of national mourning. Spain, France, Morocco and Italy deployed firefighters and Water Bombers Canadairs to help extinguish the fires. Although most early official reports pointed to a dry thunderstorm as the cause of the tragedy, the President of the Portuguese Firefighters League expressed his conviction the fire was sparked by arsonists.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_2017_Iberian_wildfires

October 2017 Iberian wildfires was a series of more than 7,900 forest fires affecting Northern Portugal and Northwestern Spain between 13 and 18 October. The wildfires claimed the lives of at least 49 individuals, including 45 in Portugal and four in Spain, and dozens more were injured.

Would you call that "out of control"? Huge areas burnt, farms and homesteads burnt to the ground, huge loss of life and property. 2017 was a particularly bad year but these things happen every single year. I guess you don't follow the news much.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Canary_Islands_wildfires

During August 2019, a number of forest fires broke out in the Canary Islands of Gran Canaria, Tenerife and Lanzarote. The fires on the island of Gran Canaria were the most severe, resulting in the loss of large areas of the island's forests and leading to the evacuation of thousands of residents from a number of towns and villages. The intense heat brought by a heat wave and the presence of strong winds, combined with the island's mountainous terrain, made extinguishing activities exceptionally difficult.

[nctnico]

Those didn't make the news here. The ones in California seem to be larger and have a much bigger impact.

[soldar]

Those didn't make the news here. The ones in California seem to be larger and have a much bigger impact.

Larger? Bigger impact? Over 100 people died here. How many have died in California? How do you know they are "bigger"?  Bigger in what way?

The "impact" is in how the news is controlled. A car accident in America where one died is deemed more newsworthy than an event in the third world where hundreds died. Electric blackout in California! Big news! Thousands inconvenienced! People can't use the microwave to prepare a TV dinner! In the meanwhile hundreds or thousands of refugees are drowning in the sea, or dying or suffering abuse and misery, but that is not newsworthy. That says a lot about us.

[nctnico]

Those didn't make the news here. The ones in California seem to be larger and have a much bigger impact.

Larger? Bigger impact? Over 100 people died here. How many have died in California? How do you know they are "bigger"?  Bigger in what way?

Don't shoot the messenger. I don't select what is on the news.

[Halcyon]

Regardless of which side of the debate your opinion lies, let's not turn this into an irrelevant discussion about climate change. Lack of controlled burning and clearing around power lines seems to be the culprit here. Fires are a natural part of the environment and have been since before humans roamed the Earth.

[Rick Law]

If I lived there I'd have an off grid solar setup given how much sun there is.  It only makes sense.  That said it's way too hot so I would not want to live there in first place.

You're right- logically.  It isn't nearly that easy here, though, for reasons outside of logic.  There are several unfortunate obstacles, but two main ones.   

1.  Part of the agreement with the state and utility monopolies includes the inability for a customer to get out of the utility agreement, even if it was from a previous owner.  ...
Then just go solar on-grid, right?! There are also issues with that here now.  The subsidies that we were told would eventually be perpetual (because of the environment) are probably going to be stopped sooner than later (because of electric companies, politics, and greed).  Another big one is the mandatory change to "smart meters."  That's just a big F-U to solar owners.  With this new setup the times you will be producing power give you far less money, but as a double-whammy, you get charged more when you are using instead of producing.  For solar it all boils down to meaning that you will have to produce 4x or more power than you consume just to break even.

The above is a short synopsis.
...

But what if you install a solar for portions of your house off-grid.  Basically, you have two power zones in the house.  Let the old-agreement solar or gas-powered generator run (say for example) just your living room lighting, install a parallel power panel and supply most of the house via that?

[Red Squirrel]

If I lived there I'd have an off grid solar setup given how much sun there is.  It only makes sense.  That said it's way too hot so I would not want to live there in first place.

You're right- logically.  It isn't nearly that easy here, though, for reasons outside of logic.  There are several unfortunate obstacles, but two main ones.   

1.  Part of the agreement with the state and utility monopolies includes the inability for a customer to get out of the utility agreement, even if it was from a previous owner.  ...
Then just go solar on-grid, right?! There are also issues with that here now.  The subsidies that we were told would eventually be perpetual (because of the environment) are probably going to be stopped sooner than later (because of electric companies, politics, and greed).  Another big one is the mandatory change to "smart meters."  That's just a big F-U to solar owners.  With this new setup the times you will be producing power give you far less money, but as a double-whammy, you get charged more when you are using instead of producing.  For solar it all boils down to meaning that you will have to produce 4x or more power than you consume just to break even.

The above is a short synopsis.
...

But what if you install a solar for portions of your house off-grid.  Basically, you have two power zones in the house.  Let the old-agreement solar or gas-powered generator run (say for example) just your living room lighting, install a parallel power panel and supply most of the house via that?

Yeah that's probably what I would do, or I would just install a transfer switch to transfer the DC power over to a charge controller and battery bank and inverter.  Not surprised they would have tons of politics making this stuff hard though.   Heard horror stories of people trying to go off grid in some places (don't recall where) and the city basically condemns their house saying it's illegal to be off grid.   The trick is to be good at hiding it I guess.  If you're forced to be on grid you still get hydro service and just hardly use it and run off your solar setup.  Though they might be able to tell based on your lack of usage that something fishy is up.

I fear the day that governments start to tax green energy and EVs.  Once it starts hurting utilities and oil industry pockets, they most likely will.

[nctnico]

Regardless of which side of the debate your opinion lies, let's not turn this into an irrelevant discussion about climate change. Lack of controlled burning and clearing around power lines seems to be the culprit here. Fires are a natural part of the environment and have been since before humans roamed the Earth.

Exactly!

[rstofer]

You are misinformed. All southern European countries have tremendous wildfires every year and they are getting worse, it seems. The news keep talking about how it is all due to global warming.  Just search for "Portugal wildfires" and you will find plenty. Same thing with Spain, Italy or Greece.

So, are wildfires getting more numerous and larger or is the media more in need of something to talk about?  This California thing was no big deal.  They talk about medicine spoiling due to lack of refrigeration.  Well, why didn't the patient simply put the meds in an ice chest with a bit of ice?  Even in 100 deg F heat, my beer stays cold for a couple of days in the ice chest on the patio.  And I mean REALLY cold!

One fellow died 10 minutes after the power was shut down when his ventilator stopped working while he was sleeping.  Well, sorry, but were it me, I would have been somewhere else, ventilator and all.  People need to accept some responsibility.

When you live in a forest, you have to expect forest fires.  Or, as a substitute, you have to expect power outages.  What really happens is you have the outage and then lightning starts the fires.

The outages were on the order of two days.  This is not a significant event, it is only newsworthy because it is kind of rare for a utility to shut down power and, of course, the need to fill space on the web or time on the nightly news.  Then the fact that it is PG&E and you have a feeding frenzy.

It's not like to residents didn't know the outages were coming, it was on the news for a week ahead of time.  They could have just taken a drive to a large town and camped out in a Costco parking lot.  Or Walmart... Or Cabela's  Or Cracker Barrel...  Seriously, you would think people who lived in these areas would have a plan.  There is a possibility of fire every year and now they can add power outages which were probably already unplanned events in the mountains.  My guess is that most of these people experienced unplanned outages a couple of times per year.  There are a lot of power poles jumping out in front of cars!

https://rvblogger.com/blog/is-overnight-rv-parking-at-costco-allowed/

Other states have hurricanes!  They happen every year.  Some make landfall with significant wind velocity, some don't.  It can't all be due to human activity.  I wonder if the utilities shut down power before the

Southern Cal Edison (southern California) as had 16 planned outages since 2013.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/should-energy-companies-shut-off-power-during-windstorms-to-prevent-fires

This whole Northern California thing is much ado about nothing!

[rstofer]

Yeah that's probably what I would do, or I would just install a transfer switch to transfer the DC power over to a charge controller and battery bank and inverter.  Not surprised they would have tons of politics making this stuff hard though.

You can get pretty close to 'off grid' in the  PG&E service area.  We installed an 8 kW array on our last house and it generated so much energy that our net bill from the utility was just the $5/mo meter charge.  We had the advantage of a utility connection without the cost of their kWh.

I'm on my second EV, a Chevy Bolt after a Chevy Spark EV.  The state is looking at taxing the vehicles because our road maintenance is paid for by gasoline taxes.  After the money is ripped off for other things!  That probably explains why our highways are in such poor shape.

That Spark EV was a little hotrod with about 400 ft-lbs of torque.  Only a little over 100 HP but it could really scoot.  With the battery low to the ground, cornering was good.  It wasn't quite a muscle car but it was close.  I loved mashing the pedal on that thing.

Chevy toned down the performance on the Sparks and the Bolts but they still move out smartly.

Of course a retired EE is going to have an EV!

[Kleinstein]

Having enough power to not paying for ectra electricity is one thing. Still most solar systems don't work if the power goes away. That would be different systems made for real off grid installations with no grid at all.

The US Grid is known to be not really good. So some power outage is normal over there. In the 3 years I was in the US, I had way more power outage than in 50 years in Germany. More overhead lines and poor maintenance make is susceptible. The climate is also part of the problem. The longer distances are another problem.
A few years ago they had also a power problem from too much demand.

[NiHaoMike]

Still most solar systems don't work if the power goes away. That would be different systems made for real off grid installations with no grid at all.

There are a few that have the capability to supply backup power during the day, without batteries. Not sure why that hasn't become a standard feature of modern solar inverters.

[tom66]

I'd like to see a source for those numbers because I can't find anything to back up your claim of 30% of emissions for transport.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1352231018307295

Paragraph 1, 24% emissions from road transport, 70% of which from road transport, 60% of that from passenger cars and 30% from trucks.

(I was rounding figures from memory, so excuse the slight over-estimation here.)

Nonetheless this makes private cars, in the EU, responsible for more than 10% of all CO2 emissions.  It is a significant figure. 

We disagree on EVs - and many other papers have come to conclusions which suggest that the manufacturing process is less resource intensive than you claim.  German electricity is also very dirty, due to the stupid decision to shut down most of Germany's nuclear power facilities.

You also don't appear to account for the lower maintenance profile of EVs - no brake pads, no oil changes, no clutch replacements.

[Mr. Scram]

It's surprising how different these numbers are from other sources. The World Economic Forum lists the total EU transport and storage number as 12%.

[bson]

I can't but help think the net metering law is aggravating the maintenance problem.  If I produce electricity during the day and you consume it, then during the night our roles are swapped there is no net income for the utility, but they have to provide a grid for us to exchange power.  The California PUC also doesn't permit the extra cost burden to be reflected in energy pricing and has to be absorbed by the utility.  In fact, as far as I can tell the PUC only permits pricing to reflect production cost.  (For some bizarre reason California government(s) seem to consider infrastructure and equipment maintenance to be an investment and not an operational cost.)  If independent producers can produce it for less they will still get paid the full regulated rate, without price competition or bidding, or any applicable market dynamics.  The utility ends up overpaying for power, even more so when you factor in the cost of maintaining the grid.  And, as if this weren't bad enough, they're by law required to provide a cash subsidy for PV installations under the misguided idea that it somehow saves them money - when in reality it's incompatible with amortizing grid maintenance costs via the sale of power, which is how they're required to operate by regulation.

[KaneTW]

It's surprising how different these numbers are from other sources. The World Economic Forum lists the total EU transport and storage number as 12%.

Depending on whichever industry needs a boost, the numbers get fudged. Right now it seems to be beneficial to focus on the green craze to an extent that hurts the economy of Europe while countries that don't give a shit get a significant advantage.

[Ground_Loop]

PS. as for the rich people who want to live among the trees, let them pay for the privilege one way or another (I'd suggest putting a very wide firebreak deeper in the forest, football field wide, or just accepting your house will burn down eventually).

Or just teach Americans to put the damn distribution wiring into the ground, like the developed central Europe does.

Much of our distribution is in the ground, but similar to Central Europe, our transmission is not.

[IanB]

Or just teach Americans to put the damn distribution wiring into the ground, like the developed central Europe does.

Distribution only tends to be underground in built-up areas. It's unnecessarily expensive to bury cables when there are no buildings and streets nearby. Here's just a random example from the UK (I stuck a pin in the map), but from living my life in Britain I can assure you it is nothing exceptional. Notice all the trees and bushes nearby. Britain is absolutely covered in aerial distribution lines just like these:

https://goo.gl/maps/yMztXmCUTvgUNSme9