According to The Conversation, California Governor Jerry Brown has signed a new law committing to make the Golden State the state 100 percent carbon-free by 2045.

The new law is comprised of multiple targets, committing California to draw half its electricity from renewable sources by 2026, and then to 60 percent by 2030.

California’s mission to stop relying on fossil fuels for energy has been a longtime goal in the making. Since 2010, utility-scale solar and wind electricity in California increased from 3 percent to 18 percent in 2017, exceeding expected targets, due to solar prices drop in recent years. In 2011, Brown signed a law committing the state to derive a third of its energy from renewable sources like wind and solar power by 2020. And in 2017, about 56 percent of the power California generated came from non-carbon emitting sources, placing state over halfway to their goal for 2045.

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The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has been fighting the good fight on many fronts over the years, including poverty, women’s equality, and of course, energy.

In their 2016 annual letter, the private foundation looked at the issue of access to energy. According to Bill Gates, 1.3 billion people – or 18 percent of the world’s population – live without electricity to light their homes.

Energy crisis

Many energy trouble areas exist in sub-Saharan Africa, where 7 out of 10 people live in the dark. The same problems exist in parts of Asia and India where more than 300 million people lack access to electricity.

(MORE: Take a look at the work that ECS has done with the Gates Foundation to tackle critical issues in water and sanitation.)

There are still many parts of the world that have yet to reap the benefits of Thomas Edison’s incandescent light bulb.

But it’s not just about light. Energy allows better medical care through functioning hospitals, greater educational efforts through functioning schools, and even more food through the powering of agricultural devices.

Renewable energy revolution

Not only is the provision of energy to all people essential, but the research into finding a clean, efficient way to do so is also crucial. ECS members and scientists across the globe are currently making effort to combat climate change, which is consequentially poised to hit the world’s poor the hardest.

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“Stella” is the name on every climate-cautious, pollution-loathing environmentalist’s lips.

Who is Stella? Well, she’s a car.

She may not be “pretty” by conventional standards, but Stella is the first family car powered by solar energy. The car – driven by a team of students from Eindhoven University of Technology – has just finished its road trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco, fueled solely by the California sunshine.

While the car is capable of traveling 500 miles (800km) on a single charge and can clock up to 80 miles per hour, there is still one pressing question on everyone’s mind – who will drive it?

“Do you want it in your daily life? Would you want to take it to get groceries?” asked one of Stella’s drivers, Jordy de Renet, in an interview with Popular Science.

The car’s strange shape stems from a compromise for aerodynamics and allowing comfort for at least two people. Also, the wedge-shaped vehicle’s flat surface allows for more solar cell coverage.

This from Popular Science:

Stella is CO2-neutral and the first energy-positive car in the world. The solar array charges while the car is in motion as well as when it is parked. “We get more energy out of the car than is needed to drive it,” said de Renet. That power, as much as twice what the car uses, can be returned to the grid.

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