Is a student loan bill of rights coming to California? Here’s what you need to know. Student Borrower Bill of Rights On Tuesday, the California Assembly passed a first-in-the-nation “Student Borrower Bill of Rights,” which aims to protect borrowers with student loans. Sponsored by Assemblyman Mark Stone, the bill, AB 376, primarily targets student loan […]
California Governor Gavin Newsom recently called for the state’s energy commission to investigate the cause of California’s relatively high gas prices. At the time of Newsom’s request on April 23, California drivers were paying an average of $4.03 per gallon according to AAA, or $1.18 more than the national average. “Independent analysis suggests that an […]
A new study by the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) shows how Germany, between 2006 and 2017, increased the cost of electricity for households by 34%. The report, “The Costs of Decarbonization,” documents how the German government made electricity expensive by requiring consumers to subsidize solar, wind and other forms of renewable energy. […]
Closing perfectly good nuclear power plants decades ahead of schedule is a bad idea if you care about the environment, especially if you care about carbon emissions. That’s because nuclear is the best source of low-carbon energy and actually produces most of our low-carbon electricity, over 800 billion kWhs – twice as much as all […]
The third and most ignored reason California doesn’t use much electricity is that their tax and regulatory policies and high costs of doing business have steadily driven out industries that use a lot of energy to manufacture things such as steel and cement. There’s irony in this, of course, and it’s this: California’s environmentally-minded leaders […]
Using calculations from think tank Third Way, Amy puts forth the CO2 emissions saved by each Tesla electric car to the CO2 savings of other sources of energy, as seen below. The conclusion is that “electric cars, and one company in that category (Tesla), are but one highly dependent piece of the puzzle in addressing […]
Had California and Germany invested $680 billion into new nuclear power plants instead of renewables like solar and wind farms, the two would already be generating 100% or more of their electricity from clean (low-emissions) energy sources, according to a new analysis by Environmental Progress. The analysis comes the day before California plays host to […]
Perhaps the most ignored fact in our energy-environment discussion is the non-stop evolution of fossil fuel technologies, energy sources that have now been somehow deemed Public Enemy #1, despite the fact that they supply over 80% of the energy used in the world’s richest economies with the healthiest people. While it’s indeed true that renewables […]
Is homo sapiens, in the final analysis, a being incapable of living unless supported by a universal basic income (UBI)? One of the mounting threats to liberty around the globe is that the marvels of technology are vulnerable to being exploited to normalize paternalism and dependency on government. Technology was supposed to enable a cornucopia […]
California, with 39.5 million people, is some 40 percent more populous than Texas, at 28.3 million. Yet, in spite of California’s large advantage in residents, the Golden State generated 356,800 new nonfarm jobs in the past 12 months through April, a rate of 2.1 percent, compared to 332,300 jobs in Texas, clocking in at 2.7 […]
Yet, manufacturing’s contributions to the economy are far out of proportion to its shrinking share of employment. In 2013, the manufacturing sector employed 12 million workers, but generated an additional 17.1 million indirect jobs. It has the largest multiplier of any economic sector: each dollar’s worth of manufactured goods generates $1.40 in output from other […]
Over the last year, the media have published story after story after story about the declining price of solar panels and wind turbines. People who read these stories are understandably left with the impression that the more solar and wind energy we produce, the lower electricity prices will become. And yet that’s not what’s happening. […]
Millions of Americans are shut out of jobs they could do because of occupational licensing laws. They have the ability and desire, but can’t overcome the high cost of getting the governmental license that’s required before they can legally work in a job field.
It’s not a new phenomenon, but today’s administrative state is increasingly characterized by agencies issuing “interpretive guidance” instead of troubling themselves with writing rules for public notice and comment (let alone waiting for Congress to pass a law).
California currently imports about 33 percent of its electricity from outside of the state. Of that 33 percent, 6 percent is from coal. This is compared to the 25 percent of energy imported into California in 2010 from outside states and it’s clear California is headed in the wrong direction. California will need to flip the trend in energy importing and begin to produce enough energy to become self-sustaining. Not an insignificant task.
California is also the third largest oil and gas producing state, despite what Californians may tell you. California produced on average 500,000 barrels of oil per day in 2014, third to Texas and North Dakota. This means several things. One, that California will need to eliminate its oil production in the state by 2045, leaving behind accessible and profitable hydrocarbons in the ground. Secondly, the rest of the United States will no longer have its third largest oil producing state, meaning potentially higher gas prices at the pump around the nation. This could be minimal if a reduction in oil production is gradual, but it will certainly have an impact.
The oil and gas industry supports approximately 456,000 jobs in California, many of which will be eliminated if the state transitions to 100 percent renewable energy. This equals $38 billion in Californian’s pockets from well-paying oil and gas jobs and accounts for 3.4 percent of the states GDP. In addition, California receives a kick back for all oil produced in the state, equaling $21 billion in revenue. These numbers ignore the positive impact of a burgeoning renewable energy sector and the jobs, GDP, and tax revenue it will generate. However, throughout such a significant change in a large state’s energy system, there will be an interim period where there are likely to be negative economic consequences.