Can California Move Fast Without Breaking Things?

<p>California is the proving ground for every major change that President Biden wants to accelerate nationally: 100% carbon-free electricity, fossil fuel phaseouts, climate-resilient grid hardening.&nbsp;</p><p>The state wants to make 100% of retail electricity sales carbon-free by 2045. To that, it’ll need to match its best year ever for renewable energy installations -- for 25 years more years in a row. It’ll amount to $4.5 billion in yearly spending.</p><p>California is moving fast. Is there such a thing as too fast?&nbsp;</p><p>This week, <em>Los Angeles Times</em> Staff Writer Sammy Roth joins us to talk about California’s fast, sometimes-messy, and still-evolving energy transition.&nbsp;</p><p>Plus, tensions over public lands. It’s going to take a lot of investment, difficult choices, and grit to hit California’s zero-carbon goals. It’s also going to take a lot of land.</p><p>That’s putting the Biden team in a dilemma: how to balance a historic build-out of wind and solar farms with protection of public lands?&nbsp;</p><p>Plus, we look at the details of Biden’s “once in a generation” plan to reconstruct the economy one seawall, EV charging station, and transmission project at a time.</p><p>Resources:</p><ul><li>Sammy Roth’s “<a href="https://www.latimes.com/newsletters/boiling-point" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Boiling Point</a>” newsletter</li><li><a href="https://www.latimes.com/business/story/2021-01-21/biden-priorities-climate-conservation-collide-california-desert" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sammy’s article</a> on the collision over renewables on public lands</li><li><a href="https://www.latimes.com/environment/newsletter/2021-03-25/californias-clean-energy-challenge-move-fast-dont-break-things-boiling-point" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Sammy’s article</a> on California’s pathway forward to 100% clean power</li><li><a href="https://www.eenews.net/stories/1063728877" rel="noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">E&amp;E News</a>: How Biden’s $2T infrastruc