Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by takyon on Monday August 03 2015, @07:32PM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-electric dept.

Who's forcing Marchionne and all the other major automakers to sell mostly money-losing electric vehicles? More than any other person, it's Mary Nichols. She's run the California Air Resources Board since 2007, championing the state's zero-emission-vehicle quotas and backing Pres­ident Barack Obama's national mandate to double average fuel economy to 55 miles per gallon by 2025. She was chairman of the state air regulator once before, a generation ago, and cleaning up the famously smoggy Los Angeles skies is just one accomplish­ment in a four-decade career.

Nichols really does intend to force au­tomakers to eventually sell nothing but electrics. In an interview in June at her agency's heavy-duty-truck laboratory in downtown Los Angeles, it becomes clear that Nichols, at age 70, is pushing regula­tions today that could by midcentury all but banish the internal combustion engine from California's famous highways. "If we're going to get our transportation system off petroleum," she says, "we've got to get people used to a zero-emissions world, not just a little-bit-better version of the world they have now."

We've seen campaigns to defend smoking and not wearing seatbelts and not getting vaccinated. Is this like that, or is there more to it?


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This discussion has been archived.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 Phoenix666 on Tuesday August 04 2015, @11:23AM

    by Phoenix666 (552) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @11:23AM (#217863) Journal

    Building a lot of solar would also create a lot of jobs that can't be outsourced. In the United States they spend something like $360 billion per year on foreign oil. If that money were spent in the US it would be like a major economic stimulus package every year.

    --
    Washington DC delenda est.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by Alfred on Tuesday August 04 2015, @02:31PM

    by Alfred (4006) on Tuesday August 04 2015, @02:31PM (#217925) Journal

    Building a lot of solar would also create a lot of jobs that can't be outsourced.

    That is not a real good point here. Ideally we would go all renewable and coal plants would go away. But a coal plant employs more people than a solar or wind so it would be a net loss of jobs. The jobs argument is used so much it becomes part of the go-to vernacular to the point it becomes cliché. I suspect you brought it up out of reflex. Don't take this any of this the wrong way but the jobs argument is ineffective if used in every argument but do use it in every argument where it cant be refuted.

    In the United States they spend something like $360 billion per year on foreign oil. If that money were spent in the US it would be like a major economic stimulus package every year.

    That would be huge but people will continue to spend that money because they have stuff to do and places to go. You will find very few people willing or prepared to stop spending that money and walk to work just so they can hope or invest in a solution with any progress showing up in years from now. That said anyone can do exactly that on a personal level, arrange job and home so you can walk to work, stop driving, take quick cold showers, get a cart to move groceries, buy stock in renewable energy companies, evangelize the lifestyle.