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Just a small point about Texas: Although it still pumps huge amounts of oil and gas, it also has more wind power resources that it could deploy. Texas could hav
by matmatmatmat 5y ago
Just a small point about Texas: Although it still pumps huge amounts of oil and gas, it also has more wind power resources that it could deploy. Texas could have a lower carbon future if it so chose.
- epistasis 5y agoThough electrical consumption is far lower in California than Texas (and bills are typically lower deposits higher $/kWh), the electrical change isn't the biggest factor. The grid can always be greened fairly quickly. That's an easy change to make, and happening quickly in places like Texas where legacy expensive fossil fuel generators aren't protected by utilities. Now that renewables and storage are cheap, any new natural gas plant will soon be a stranded asset, and generators on ERCOT are quickly realizing that. A much harder change is transportation. We can't build enough electric cars fast enough for the transition, and land use patterns in Texas typically require cars even more intensively than California. In contrast, biking to work in the Bay Area is pleasant newer year round, and there's not much mass transit but at least a little. The Texas lifestyle requires a car, and people that are forced out of California typically leave in the blue low-carbon areas on this Tablueau map, but will likely move to the red high-carbon areas. https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps https://coolclimate.berkeley.edu/maps At least, that's the anecdata I have from people I know, but it's not proper data.