AB-1346 - Gas-Powered Small Engine Ban

[toast2266]

Huh? Spare batteries charging while you are clearing snow would solve this. Kinda like having a tank of gas in the wings, no?

Those big batteries take a while to charge. I bet you'd need 2 or 3 sets of batteries on the charger to keep up with the discharge rate. So that's like an extra $1500 in batteries. At least until Tesla comes out with superchargers for snowblower batteries.

[PB]

Highest priority location for nuke in CA: Redding.
Redding and Palm Springs.
Redding, Palm Springs and any where in Butte County.
.......

Redding, Palm Springs, Butte County and Granite Bay.

......

[half-fast]

Electric Pisten Bully (article is a couple years old)

https://electrek.co/2019/05/15/all-electric-snowcat/

[bodywhomper]

On a serious note where are we getting all the electricity when cars, semis and small engines go electric ? Does CA have a new source of power that I'm not aware of at this point ? Oregon just passed a useless symbolic bill stating no more new gas cars sold after 2035 but nobody talks about the back end. Peeps like my wife can't/won't conceptualize what the big energy demand increase does to the grid. I'm all for getting off fossil fuel but let's be real here.

I believe that SMUD is trying to lead the charge:

https://www.smud.org/en/Corporate/En...-Energy-Vision

Some of the tech they are pushing is pretty cutting edge, like appropriate plants for PV farms that reflect sunlight to the underside of the panels.

I’d consider trading in my saws if I walked away with equivalent saws w/o huge expense.

A lot needs to happen in CA to ban the sale of new gas generators or use of gas genies which are outside the direct control of residents. My gas genie gets a lot of use some years. After the big winter storm in December 2021, we had neighbors and friends w/o power for 3 weeks (ours was out for 5 days). Many of the large trees that failed were old, likely drought stressed, but were not showing signs of distress and had survived similar magnitude storms and snow loads. And there’s the utility power safety shutoffs in the late summer and fall.

[fatnslow]

Nuclear. But we had better get our shit together presently, 'cause that shit doesn't just build itself in a week.

I'm actually a big supporter of NUKE energy progress but we sat on our hands for about 60 years and now way behind. Maybe some miracle advancement will happen in the next decade cause hydro and PNG ain't gonna cut it.

[Timberridge]

Din't we just have a fusion breakthru?

[Ted Striker]

A ban on gas-powered leaf blowers is good, though. We can all agree on that, right?

That's a good phase 1.

Phase 2 = banning the fucking things outright

[BmillsSkier]

Din't we just have a fusion breakthru?

I thought we just nailed down what asian-fusion food was?

[skaredshtles]

I'm actually a big supporter of NUKE energy progress but we sat on our hands for about 60 years and now way behind.

You're not wrong, but continuing to sit on our hands is probably not so smart...

[Peruvian]

I dunno. My gas blower gets 3-4 driveways done on 1/4-1/3 gallon in maybe 30-45 mins. How many batteries at $160 per ($250 for EGO brand) would I need to do that? I don't have all day.

Are we talking about cost or the ability to do it? Mustonen said two sets of batteries gets his and 1-2 neighbors cleared and just confirmed above that 3 sets of batteries would have him blowing 24/7.

The emissions from one hour of lawn mower or leaf blower use is equal to a hundreds and hundreds of miles of passenger car use, so saying we should always use today's technology is just short sighted.

[ötzi]

A ban on gas-powered leaf blowers is good, though. We can all agree on that, right?

This seems to have gotten no traction, but hell yes.

edit: my bad, Ted Striker picked up on it

[BmillsSkier]

This seems to have gotten no traction, but hell yes.

edit: my bad, Ted Striker picked up on it

Down here in God's country where there's something to be blown 12 months out of the year, the dawn chorus of the leaf blower is never-ending. Many communities have banned their use before and after certain hours.

[Buster Highmen]

I thought we just nailed down what asian-fusion food was?

It's different upstate with an electric wok.

[Buster Highmen]

Down here in God's country where there's something to be blown 12 months out of the year,.... Many communities have banned their use before and after certain hours.

And here I'd thought they'd just outlaw whorehouses.

[BmillsSkier]

And here I'd thought they'd just outlaw whorehouses.

It's a county by county decision.

[toast2266]

The emissions from one hour of lawn mower or leaf blower use is equal to a hundreds and hundreds of miles of passenger car use, so saying we should always use today's technology is just short sighted.

That's interesting. I was never under the impression that they were particularly clean, but I hadn't realized quite how bad they actually are.

Although I wonder how impractical it would be to mandate better emissions controls on small engines rather than just banning them outright. Banning probably makes sense in the long run, but I can think of all kinds of use cases where electric tech just isn't there yet.

[Dantheman]

Although I wonder how impractical it would be to mandate better emissions controls on small engines rather than just banning them outright.

I'm going to guess that 4-stroke engines with fuel injection, EGR, and catalytic converters are going to be cost-prohibitive for small engine applications. It would double the pearl-clutching opportunities, though.

[toast2266]

I'm going to guess that 4-stroke engines with fuel injection, EGR, and catalytic converters are going to be cost-prohibitive for small engine applications. It would double the pearl-clutching opportunities, though.

Probably. But I would assume the size and complexity of those components could probably be fairly small to achieve significant gains. The goal doesn't need to be perfection - we can just shoot for improvements for the time being.

Mostly I'm thinking about things like chainsaws. The biggest battery saw that Stihl makes runs (at most) a 20" bar, and runs for like 45 minutes. That's fine for backyard trimming, but that's not even close to workable for someone who cuts big trees all day.

Things like snowblowers and lawnmowers are a little easier because the (substantial) weight of the batteries is carried by the chassis. But for hand held tools that need a lot of power, I see lots of problems with this electric only rule.

[Buster Highmen]

Do they make electric axe grinders?

[TyeStick]

On a serious note where are we getting all the electricity when cars, semis and small engines go electric ? Does CA have a new source of power that I'm not aware of at this point ? Oregon just passed a useless symbolic bill stating no more new gas cars sold after 2035 but nobody talks about the back end. Peeps like my wife can't/won't conceptualize what the big energy demand increase does to the grid. I'm all for getting off fossil fuel but let's be real here.

California has a pretty good grid operator (CAISO), but they are already short energy during peak demand periods. There have been lots of near misses and some small rolling blackouts over the last few years in California. As the other west coast states (but in particular washington), move of carbon based energy sources, what energy is there will be in higher demand in both PNW and California. Long term the ability to build out new capacity (solar, nuke, etc) is there, but in the short term it will be interesting to see how this all plays out. Political wins are pretty easy but when peoples lights start going out, things may change.

From what I understand, california was saved by cell phone alerts and having a fairly large scale grid tied battery fleet this last year, but how long will that last and can that strategy scale as the load increases? For more in depth reading on the last time cali got close to serious problems you can read here.
https://www.theverge.com/2022/9/7/23...xt-phone-alert

[Dantheman]

But for hand held tools that need a lot of power, I see lots of problems with this electric only rule.

Corded saw plugged into your Cybertruck

Seriously though, I don't disagree at all. It appears there is implementation flexibility written into the law ("where feasible and cost-effective"), so exceptions for commercial users seem likely.

Does anyone even make low-emissions small engines right now? This feels like something the industry should have seem coming and tried to get ahead of, but didn't.

[Mustonen]

I’m not in CA so get to watch this from afar, but IMO this is a good thing over time. Accelerates electric adoption and innovation.

While the cost to have six 7.5AH batteries for just snow blowing is nuts, six 7.5AH batteries for snow blowing, mowing, trimming, cutting, leaf blowing, etc. isn’t actually nuts. I’m not really some huge advocate, but if you have reliable power and a good platform battery powered snow blowing isn’t as crazy as you make it out to be, in my experience.

[dunfree]

I have a hunch that AB-1346 is written by well-healed politicians (many from mild climes like LA), who have never and will never shovel or blow snow themselves. Let alone used a leaf blower, trimmer, etc. One thing that's always thrown me for a loop with Californians is just how many of them have gardeners! Like even kinda average people. And the ones who have 2nd homes around Tahoe or Big Bear probably have snow removal service too. So I think a LOT of people there are so far removed from the actual issue, they're like "What's the big deal?"

where the fuck do you think people live in California? There’s maybe 1-2 million people who live where it regularly snows in California

[dunfree]

Do they make electric axe grinders?

got myself a CBN that grinds out material faster than a thread here.

[The Tortoise]

A ban on gas-powered leaf blowers is good, though. We can all agree on that, right?

Amen