Don’t private jets contribute a significant amount of carbon emissions? I remember seeing headlines about how much pollution was being created from Taylor Swift’s non-stop private jet usage. Wouldn’t this tech help at least reduce that kind of pollution?
Decrease in new solar. Once the panels are up there’s no reason to take them down unless your roof is leaking or something.
There was a huge rush last year to beat the deadline to get grandfathered into the old NEM 2.0 rate structure. Like the article says, the new NEM 3.0 rate structure pays about 25% of what the old plan does for surplus energy back to the grid. This basically doubled the payback period for a solar project from like 5-6 years to over 10 years.
Under the new structure it’s more cost efficient to add battery storage so you can time your exports but the battery costs are also large so the payback period is still way higher than before. These changes basically killed all financial incentive for anyone interested in solar.
This is all different from the flat electric bill you mentioned which is something just recently approved by the CPUC. This change adds a ~$25 unavoidable fee every month so that even if you use zero or negative energy you still have to pay. To compensate, they are lowering the per-kW rates by a small amount. Of course however, this new policy has no limits on how much the new flat fee or the per-kW rate can increase. And as we’ve seen in the past few years, PG&E will raise rates however much they want with no recourse.
So in the end, big wins for PG&E shareholders. The only losers are every single Californian and every living being who enjoys a livable climate.
Prop 13 just limits how much property taxes can increase every year.
This proposed proposition would fundamentally alter how all state and local taxes are voted on. For state taxes a 2/3 majority in the assembly and senate are already required but this bill would also require voters explicitly approve every bill. For local, it would change the threshold for tax increases from ballot measures from a simple majority to 2/3 majority. Both of these changes would utterly handcuff state and local governments.
This looks great! Loved going through these kind of zines back in the day. Also, for anyone else who likes these kinds of things, the Zachtronics game EXAPUNKS uses cool in-world zines to tutorialize the gameplay mechanics. Highly recommend that game.
Wow, I didn’t realize we’re so inefficient compared to large commercial jets. 60% of the fuel for 9% of the passenger capacity? And I’m guessing most private jets aren’t even at full capacity, probably just a few passengers per flight. If 2 billionaires flying their jets create as much pollution as a full commercial jet, then eliminating their emissions seems like a win to me.
Your original post seems pretty skeptical of the EV plane tech because they are smaller planes. To me it seems like a reasonable way to start - smaller machines and probably easier to sell. And it targets a very fuel inefficient sector. Is there any reason to believe they won’t be able to scale up to full commercial passenger jet sizes?