7 ms·

Gasoline-powered lawn mowers, leaf blowers to be banned under new California law

23 points by throwawaysea 5y ago

newbamboo 5y ago
“Operating a gasoline-powered leaf blower for one hour produces as much volatile organic compounds and NOx as driving a 2017 Toyota Camry from New York City to Orlando, Florida,” Wow. I think of all the leaf blower persons working full time throughout the state and it must be in the hundreds of thousands. I think unless they try and regulate that, there will be an enormous black market in gas powered leaf blowers that’s going to make some criminal enterprise very wealthy. Would be much better to ban the blowers themselves than the sale of the blowers.
- Arrath 5y ago
  > I think unless they try and regulate that, there will be an enormous black market in gas powered leaf blowers that’s going to make some criminal enterprise very wealthy. Would be much better to ban the blowers themselves than the sale of the blowers. Banning the use of existing tools must surely be untenable due to the sheer quantity of them in use throughout the state, often by independent landscaping service companies that probably don't have the capital to refit their workforce at once.
  - ZeroGravitas 5y ago
    They can phase them out e.g. ban them in the morning and evening, ban them in built up areas, ban them in contracts given by the city government. Once you get some momentum behind it, it'll be like someone smoking in a restaurant, just an obviously unpleasant thing to be doing that was totally normal fot a while.
    - newbamboo 5y ago
      Many areas have the bans you allude to. The state could easily do the same.
Arrath 5y ago
While I applaud the move away from small ICE tools, I have to wonder how e.g. landscaping services will adapt. A day's work will certainly outstrip the capacity of a single battery for a lawn mower or leaf blower. So the contractor will use multiple batteries, and likely have a charging setup mobile with them. How will they power the charger, by running a small generator on their equipment trailer, by idling the work truck and using an inverter or like?
- chatoyance 5y ago
  In Palo Alto, to get around the leaf blower ban, they would put a Honda generator on a furniture dolly to power a corded electric leaf blower. Also, in rural NorCal, generators are essential when PG&E turns off the power (PSPSes) for up to weeks at a time. Powerwalls are unlikely to replace these. Also, rural construction projects rely on generators.
- kitsunesoba 5y ago
  Electric trucks like the F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T with their built in electrical outlets and massive batteries would solve the problem almost entirely. With that you’d only need a couple of backup batteries in a charger plugged into the truck. Naturally companies won’t roll their truck/van fleets over right away but this pressure has potential to advance the timeline of that particular transition significantly.
  - grillvogel 5y ago
    most landscaping operations are just a couple dudes and a old truck. now they have to buy a top of the line electric F150 to do their jobs?
    - kitsunesoba 5y ago
      That’s just how it is now. In a few years, there will be old electric trucks to buy for such purposes. If combined with a phased banning of small ICE devices (such as that proposed by another comment on this story’s thread), the transition won’t be too bad. It’s never going to be perfectly smooth and it has to happen at some point.
jmspring 5y ago
California needs to upgrade it's electrical infrastructure before all of these mandates take effect. Wildfires and the impact on Feather River Canyon / where a number of fires have started the last couple of years. Droughts and the impact on hydro-electric capacity. High-wind / red-flag days causing outages. These are things that are regularly happening. They should be occasional, not occurring multiple times a month. The big one is going to be the phasing out of fossil fuel vehicles. In addition to infrastructure, California does not have the generation capacity for what these mandates / initiatives will require. Take a look at rolling brownouts on extremely hot days due to the use of air conditioning. Micro-grids and local generation are topics that come up as possible solutions. Then you have to deal with infrastructure, NIMBYism, practicality - areas with extreme weather conditions (snow/etc). There is a larger question that needs to be addressed before we can go zero-emission at any particular scale. Also - someone will mention solar - places that get a lot of snow, rain, maybe are in areas with tree cover - solar isn't always sufficient for the needs of a house let alone a community.
throwawaysea 5y ago
I was surprised that this also bans gas-powered generators. What about people who live in rural areas? What are they supposed to do if they want to live off-grid or simply run a generator from time to time? What about those who need a generator backup for medical reasons (like refrigerating insulin)? And how would those working in the timber industry manage with just electric chainsaws? Battery-powered ones may not be powerful enough - and if you have to use a cord, you also need a way to recharge your power source out there.
- r00fus 5y ago
  Not to mention PGE's planned shutoffs. I'm guessing a lot of exceptions will be made here for specific use-cases/industries. Which is why legislation is often hundreds+ pages long.
- kortex 5y ago
  They aren't banning generators, they are just banning generators which generate emissions - including oxides of nitrogen (NOx), reactive organic gases (ROG), and particulate matter (PM). It likely means selling an engine without a catalytic converter will be restricted.
GeraldMillerPA 5y ago
Interesting. This is news to me --> https://geraldmillerlawyer.com/gerald-miller/ https://geraldmillerlawyer.com/gerald-miller/
kortex 5y ago
The actual law [1] says almost nothing about banning gasoline-powered engines, but rather details reducing emissions. CO2 is not considered an emission, which comprises "including oxides of nitrogen (NOx), reactive organic gases (ROG), and particulate matter (PM)." ICE cars can qualify as "zero emissions vehicles". Banning ICEs for portable equipment is absurd [2]. The power density just isn't there. Plus, what if you need to charge your battery equipment? Are you gonna use a battery powered generator? Of course not. > (E) Expected availability of zero-emission generators and emergency response equipment. This is clamping down on things like sooty two-stroke weedwackers and force them to have some kind of emissions controls. May even require a catalytic converter on all ICEs. It's not a blanket ban on all ICEs. Ok downvoters, read the law/proposal and tell me where I'm wrong. 1 - https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1346 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... 2 - anyone thinking "but batteries" I challenge you to hike 200m into the woods and up a 100m hill with a battery powered chainsaw and spares, I'll bring 2 gallons of petrol and a Husqvarna, we'll see who fells more trees. That was my summer of 2017, good times.
- WalterGR 5y ago
  > I challenge you to hike 200m into the woods and up a 100m hill with a battery powered chainsaw and spares Is California planning on mandating battery-powered chainsaws? Or are you worried about the slippery slope between lawn-care equipment and logging equipment?
  - detaro 5y ago
    > The small off-road engine (SORE) category consists of off-road spark-ignition engines that produce 19 kilowatts gross power or less (25 horsepower or less), including lawn and garden, industrial, logging, airport ground support, and commercial utility equipment, golf carts, and specialty vehicles. https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/small-off-road-engines-sore/about https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/small-off-road-engi...
    - WalterGR 5y ago

23 points by throwawaysea 5y ago

“Operating a gasoline-powered leaf blower for one hour produces as much volatile organic compounds and NOx as driving a 2017 Toyota Camry from New York City to Orlando, Florida,” Wow. I think of all the leaf blower persons working full time throughout the state and it must be in the hundreds of thousands. I think unless they try and regulate that, there will be an enormous black market in gas powered leaf blowers that’s going to make some criminal enterprise very wealthy. Would be much better to ban the blowers themselves than the sale of the blowers.

Arrath 5y ago
> I think unless they try and regulate that, there will be an enormous black market in gas powered leaf blowers that’s going to make some criminal enterprise very wealthy. Would be much better to ban the blowers themselves than the sale of the blowers. Banning the use of existing tools must surely be untenable due to the sheer quantity of them in use throughout the state, often by independent landscaping service companies that probably don't have the capital to refit their workforce at once.
- ZeroGravitas 5y ago
  They can phase them out e.g. ban them in the morning and evening, ban them in built up areas, ban them in contracts given by the city government. Once you get some momentum behind it, it'll be like someone smoking in a restaurant, just an obviously unpleasant thing to be doing that was totally normal fot a while.
  - newbamboo 5y ago
    Many areas have the bans you allude to. The state could easily do the same.

Arrath 5y ago

While I applaud the move away from small ICE tools, I have to wonder how e.g. landscaping services will adapt. A day's work will certainly outstrip the capacity of a single battery for a lawn mower or leaf blower. So the contractor will use multiple batteries, and likely have a charging setup mobile with them. How will they power the charger, by running a small generator on their equipment trailer, by idling the work truck and using an inverter or like?

chatoyance 5y ago
In Palo Alto, to get around the leaf blower ban, they would put a Honda generator on a furniture dolly to power a corded electric leaf blower. Also, in rural NorCal, generators are essential when PG&E turns off the power (PSPSes) for up to weeks at a time. Powerwalls are unlikely to replace these. Also, rural construction projects rely on generators.
kitsunesoba 5y ago
Electric trucks like the F-150 Lightning and Rivian R1T with their built in electrical outlets and massive batteries would solve the problem almost entirely. With that you’d only need a couple of backup batteries in a charger plugged into the truck. Naturally companies won’t roll their truck/van fleets over right away but this pressure has potential to advance the timeline of that particular transition significantly.
- grillvogel 5y ago
  most landscaping operations are just a couple dudes and a old truck. now they have to buy a top of the line electric F150 to do their jobs?
  - kitsunesoba 5y ago
    That’s just how it is now. In a few years, there will be old electric trucks to buy for such purposes. If combined with a phased banning of small ICE devices (such as that proposed by another comment on this story’s thread), the transition won’t be too bad. It’s never going to be perfectly smooth and it has to happen at some point.

jmspring 5y ago

California needs to upgrade it's electrical infrastructure before all of these mandates take effect. Wildfires and the impact on Feather River Canyon / where a number of fires have started the last couple of years. Droughts and the impact on hydro-electric capacity. High-wind / red-flag days causing outages. These are things that are regularly happening. They should be occasional, not occurring multiple times a month. The big one is going to be the phasing out of fossil fuel vehicles. In addition to infrastructure, California does not have the generation capacity for what these mandates / initiatives will require. Take a look at rolling brownouts on extremely hot days due to the use of air conditioning. Micro-grids and local generation are topics that come up as possible solutions. Then you have to deal with infrastructure, NIMBYism, practicality - areas with extreme weather conditions (snow/etc). There is a larger question that needs to be addressed before we can go zero-emission at any particular scale. Also - someone will mention solar - places that get a lot of snow, rain, maybe are in areas with tree cover - solar isn't always sufficient for the needs of a house let alone a community.

throwawaysea 5y ago

I was surprised that this also bans gas-powered generators. What about people who live in rural areas? What are they supposed to do if they want to live off-grid or simply run a generator from time to time? What about those who need a generator backup for medical reasons (like refrigerating insulin)? And how would those working in the timber industry manage with just electric chainsaws? Battery-powered ones may not be powerful enough - and if you have to use a cord, you also need a way to recharge your power source out there.

r00fus 5y ago
Not to mention PGE's planned shutoffs. I'm guessing a lot of exceptions will be made here for specific use-cases/industries. Which is why legislation is often hundreds+ pages long.
kortex 5y ago
They aren't banning generators, they are just banning generators which generate emissions - including oxides of nitrogen (NOx), reactive organic gases (ROG), and particulate matter (PM). It likely means selling an engine without a catalytic converter will be restricted.

GeraldMillerPA 5y ago

Interesting. This is news to me --> https://geraldmillerlawyer.com/gerald-miller/ https://geraldmillerlawyer.com/gerald-miller/

kortex 5y ago

The actual law [1] says almost nothing about banning gasoline-powered engines, but rather details reducing emissions. CO2 is not considered an emission, which comprises "including oxides of nitrogen (NOx), reactive organic gases (ROG), and particulate matter (PM)." ICE cars can qualify as "zero emissions vehicles". Banning ICEs for portable equipment is absurd [2]. The power density just isn't there. Plus, what if you need to charge your battery equipment? Are you gonna use a battery powered generator? Of course not. > (E) Expected availability of zero-emission generators and emergency response equipment. This is clamping down on things like sooty two-stroke weedwackers and force them to have some kind of emissions controls. May even require a catalytic converter on all ICEs. It's not a blanket ban on all ICEs. Ok downvoters, read the law/proposal and tell me where I'm wrong. 1 - https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202120220AB1346 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... 2 - anyone thinking "but batteries" I challenge you to hike 200m into the woods and up a 100m hill with a battery powered chainsaw and spares, I'll bring 2 gallons of petrol and a Husqvarna, we'll see who fells more trees. That was my summer of 2017, good times.

WalterGR 5y ago
> I challenge you to hike 200m into the woods and up a 100m hill with a battery powered chainsaw and spares Is California planning on mandating battery-powered chainsaws? Or are you worried about the slippery slope between lawn-care equipment and logging equipment?
- detaro 5y ago
  > The small off-road engine (SORE) category consists of off-road spark-ignition engines that produce 19 kilowatts gross power or less (25 horsepower or less), including lawn and garden, industrial, logging, airport ground support, and commercial utility equipment, golf carts, and specialty vehicles. https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/small-off-road-engines-sore/about https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/our-work/programs/small-off-road-engi...
  - WalterGR 5y ago