Yep, I bet you missed that headline last week, but it was there if you could connect the dots. I mean what else could you conclude when you read that beginning in 2024 California will outlaw electrical generators.
California became the first state in the nation to outlaw the sale of gas-powered leaf blowers and lawnmowers in an attempt to curb emissions, a move met with both positive feedback and frustration.
Signed Saturday, the new law orders regulators to ban the sale of small off-road engines (SORE). While this is a broad category that includes generators, lawn equipment and pressure washers, it comprises a type of small engine on pace to produce more pollution each year than passenger vehicles.
California lawmakers behind law banning new gas-powered lawn equipment hope to curb emissions
Try this article for a more comprehensive understanding of the law.
California just banned the sale of gasoline powered backup generators, lawn mowers, small gas powered fire fighting pumps, and other small stationary engines, as part of their drive to reduce CO2 emissions.
Net Zero California Governor Just Banned Backup Generators and Fire Pumps
The text requires regulators to consider “… (E) Expected availability of zero-emission generators and emergency response equipment. …”, so there is no doubt they plan to cover backup generators and emergency fire fighting equipment if they can.
This is beyond serious. Imagine trying to fight the fire approaching your house, only to have a low battery light start flashing on your fire fighting water pump. Or someone who requires powered medical equipment, like oxygen generators or sleep apnea devices, struggling through an extended power outage without proper treatment for their health condition.
Gasoline powered equipment, barring a mechanical failure, works as long as you can keep it supplied with gasoline. But battery equipment needs power to recharge it. Where do you get more power, if the sky is covered with smoke or clouds, or the solar panels are covered in dust, snow or ash, and the power lines are down?
Yet, with startling shortsightedness, the state assembly has sent Governor Gavin Newsom a bill that will effectively eliminate a go-to backup: gas-powered generators. The bill (AB-1346) lumps gas-powered generators in with the offending landscaping equipment and all other “small off-road engines,” referring to them as SOREs. It “encourages” the California Air Resources Board (the state’s own sort of EPA) to “adopt cost-effective and technologically feasible regulations to prohibit engine exhaust and evaporative emissions from new small off-road engines” and to consider “expected availability of zero-emission generators.”
Why California’s Move to Ban Gas-Powered Generators (and Lawn Equipment) Could Leave Californians in the Dark
When the power went out last August, says Collin Blackwell of Eldorado Hills, California, “We went out and bought an $800 generator, so that way we could have the fridge powered up in the garage at least and be able to have food and everything in the house.” Mark Galloway of Cameron Park said he lives in a mountain community where losing power is fairly common. “You should have something, so having the backup generator and things like that—I think it’s on you to really take care of that,” he said. “It’s not like it’s something that you can’t plan for.”
Californians who have been seen power supplies become more unreliable in recent years have increasingly turned to gas-powered electric generators to keep the lights on during “public safety power shutoffs.”
According to the industry trade group, there are 1.5 million portable generators in use in California today. The average gas-powered generator can provide 10-12 hours of power to run lights, phone chargers, refrigerators, microwaves and more, with a simple refueling keeping them powered another half-day.
Banning Gas-Powered Leaf Blowers Could Have Unintended Consequences in Next Power Outage
California has more than 16.7 million of these small engines in the state, about 3 million more than the number of passenger cars on the road.
California law to eventually ban gas-powered lawn equipment
Ok, given the above, can you start to see why Newsom must think he has or will soon fix PG&E?
- I mean, what utility has the most voluntary power disruptions?
- What utility starts half the major conflagrations that California experiences in their service area?
- What utility is driving the sale of portable generators in their service area?
- What utility is responsible for the homeowner’s insurance crisis in rural areas?
- What utility is even less popular than our state legislature?
So, if Newsom and his brothers under the dome have the stones to ban private sector electrical generation and portable fire pumps, then a reasonable person can only conclude that he will fix PG&E, solve fires in our mismanaged forests, and replace the current system with a more reliable and redundant electrical grid.
If Newsom has failed to fix at least these problems, then Newsom and his fellow big city Democrats have said that they are willing to forfeit the lives of everyone in rural areas. Folks this law prevents you from protecting your life and property. It hits the elderly and poor the hardest. People that need to refrigerate insulin or keep the 02 flowing or the AC on when it’s 115 outside, will have to do without. Generators are about more than preserving the stuff you bought at Costco, but shouldn’t you have the right to keep it cold when PG&E’s lawyers tell them to pull the plug on your neighborhood?
Can you imagine the fire department showing up and letting your place burn to the ground with grandma inside because they can’t use their portable fire pump? Or the emergency workers can’t cut you out of the car with their portable equipment because their equipment relies on gasoline?
Does Gavin really not remember all the gasoline powered fire pumps used to keep San Francisco from burning to the ground after the 1989 earthquake during the World Series? Or the emergency equipment used when the elevated portion of the MacArthur freeway collapsed? Why is Gavin the only one that doesn’t have vivid memories of where he was on that day?
So, either Gavin Newsom and his fellow Democrats have fixed all the problems mentioned in this blog or they are willing to kill a lot of people to save us from the myth of global warming. Also, this policy has the effect of preventing poor and middle-class folks from leaving the big cities that Democrats control. Guess rural living is only for the very wealthy—kind of like dining at the French Laundry.
