Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Thursday January 24 2019, @07:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the power-to-the-people? dept.

US Appeals Court Says California Can Set its Own Low Carbon Fuel Standard:

Late last week, the US Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit published an opinion (PDF) stating that California's regulation of fuel sales based on a lifecycle analysis of carbon emissions did not violate federal commerce rules.

Since 2011, California has had a Low Carbon Fuel Standard (LCFS) program, which requires fuel sellers to reduce their fuel's carbon intensity by certain deadlines. If oil, ethanol, or other fuel sellers can't meet those deadlines, they can buy credits from companies that have complied with the standard.

California measures "fuel intensity" over the lifecycle of the fuel, so oil extracted from tar sands (which might require a lot of processing) would be penalized more than lighter oil that requires minimal processing. Ethanol made with coal would struggle to meet its carbon intensity goals more than ethanol made from gas.

Plaintiffs representing the ethanol and oil industries have challenged these rules in the court system. Most recently, they challenged California's 2015 version of the rules. (In September 2018, the state's Air Resources Board announced new amendments to the Low Carbon Fuel Standard rules, but those are not discussed in the 9th Circuit's most recent opinion.)

[...] The opinion noted:

The California legislature is rightly concerned with the health and welfare of humans living in the State of California... These persons may be subjected, for example, to crumbling or swamped coastlines, rising water, or more intense forest fires caused by higher temperatures and related droughts, all of which many in the scientific communities believe are caused or intensified by the volume of greenhouse gas emissions.


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday January 25 2019, @01:45AM (1 child)

    by AthanasiusKircher (5291) on Friday January 25 2019, @01:45AM (#791544) Journal

    I did understand your point the first time. I'm not disagreeing with anything you say. But that doesn't mean that the parent you were originally replying to didn't have a point too.

    This thread was originally about the source of "power," which is energy produced over time. The literal source of that energy is (as you note) likely the energy of supernovas, stored for billions of years and now released again.

    That's different from almost all other energy produced by humans on earth. I'm not saying the sun didn't have a role in making nuclear plants possible. I'm just saying it literally isn't the source of the energy released in nuclear power.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Friday January 25 2019, @02:17AM

    by NotSanguine (285) <NotSanguineNO@SPAMSoylentNews.Org> on Friday January 25 2019, @02:17AM (#791567) Homepage Journal

    I did understand your point the first time. I'm not disagreeing with anything you say. But that doesn't mean that the parent you were originally replying to didn't have a point too.

    This thread was originally about the source of "power," which is energy produced over time. The literal source of that energy is (as you note) likely the energy of supernovas, stored for billions of years and now released again.

    That's different from almost all other energy produced by humans on earth. I'm not saying the sun didn't have a role in making nuclear plants possible. I'm just saying it literally isn't the source of the energy released in nuclear power.

    Absolutely. On all counts.

    But I'm a fanboi.
    Hooray for the sun god! He sure is a fun god! Ra! Ra! Ra! :)

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr