[mjamil]

I'm not sure I agree.

Unless you believe there needs to be a plan for CA to secede in the future and thus it needs to be self-sufficient, why does manufacturing need to be in CA? As you stated, the Impulse stove makes heavy use of outsourced manufacturing to other parties; as long as those parties are within the US (which I'm not claiming they are, but there are states like TX that are far less concerned about environmental impact than CA is and thus could pick up any such slack), why is there a security concern here?

As for the economic concern, it seems like this is backwards: I'd argue it's the HCOL that drives industry with the need for low-wage labor away to non-CA locations. There's nothing stopping non-polluting corporations from working and hiring large numbers of people in CA.

[scoofy]

It makes no sense to say "oh, we need to manufacturer this stuff... just not here." That's basically NIMBYism for electronics.

You either make it doable or you don't.

[danlitt]

This is too strong of a statement. There are perfectly sensible reasons to NIMBY certain activities. For instance, burning wood is probably ok in general, but a horrible idea in heavily populated cities.

Obviously, California is not composed exclusively of heavily populated cities. But it does contain a lot of them! So it is not completely insane that the regulation is skewed in favour of this.

Of course, for things that are equally polluting no matter where you do them (like burning fossil fuels), moving production outside of the location but still buying produced materials is simply passing the buck. But it's not totally clear to me that's what's happening here.

[drewda]

That's exactly why the Bay Area Air Quality Management District exists (established decades before the federal EPA):

> Charged with regulating stationary sources of air pollution emissions, the Air District drafted its first two regulations in the 1950s: Regulation 1, which banned open burning at dumps and wrecking yards, and Regulation 2, which established controls on dust, droplets, and combustion gases from certain industrial sources.

> Much research and discussion went into the shaping of Regulation 2, but there was no doubt about the need for it. During a fact-finding visit to one particular facility, Air District engineers discovered that filters were used over air in-take vents to protect the plant's machinery from its own corrosive emissions! This much-debated regulation was finally adopted in 1960.

https://www.baaqmd.gov/en/about-the-air-district/history-of-...

[lokar]

Yep. And it's why it's hard to paint cars in the Bay Area, but you can do it in less populated areas with better average air quality.

[XorNot]

Fossil are not equally polluting. There's a difference between living next to a generator with exhaust at ground level, a properly designed smoke stack, and just being further away so the reactive emissions can dilute and degrade.

CO2 might be a long term problem, but it isn't the core health concern of living near combustion facilities - moving those away from residential areas isn't passing the buck, it's just good sense.

[lokar]

Depends on the fossil. Coal emits all kinds of poison in the smoke.

[bonsai_spool]

> It makes no sense to say "oh, we need to manufacturer this stuff... just not here." That's basically NIMBYism for electronics.

This statement doesn't acknowledge why NIMBYism is odious. The reason is that we all need housing, but new housing may devalue current housing. While some may wish to protect their housing values/community feel/etc, others wish and may rightly deserve, access to housing at the same levels of access as earlier generations.

The analogy to manufacturing does not exist—to suggest it does ignores the real negative externalities to people who live next to polluting facilities, especially those where the pollutant was not recognized during use.

[rcxdude]

They are not fundamentally different. The underlying hypocracy of NIMBYism is wanting the positive outcomes from something (more housing, factories producing goods) with someone else having to suffer the downsides. How obnoxious it is depends on that upside/downside risk, but fundamentally if you want a thing to happen but you want it to happen near someone else, you are part of the NIMBY problem. (Note that wanting it to not happen at all, or wanting a version that is more expensive but nicer to be near, is not the same, so long as you're happy to bear the outcome of that thing being more expensive)

[bonsai_spool]

I think it’s reasonable to want factories and pollution to be far from anyone’s dwelling, no? And for all factories to have appropriate pollution control.

[seb1204]

Do the factories need to be polluting? Or can it be done less polluting or even neutral?

[wongarsu]

But is that really California's stance? Or is it more "if you do it here, do it the right way" and then everyone uses the more polluting production methods in a state that doesn't care

The outcome is the same as long as only California does it, but the ethics of it and the outcome if every state acted like that is vastly different

[Zigurd]

The notion of comparative advantage says you don't. It's not NIMBYism. And it's not a good faith argument when it comes from folks who have a bunker in New Zealand.

[CalRobert]

Similarly saying “you can’t have slavery but you can buy stuff made by enslaved people abroad” is morally inconsistent. I don’t know the obvious answer to this though.

[BoredPositron]

Why? Manufacturing,design and engineering need highly different skill sets it's just not feasible to have both in one location because of the workforce required. It's the same in every other country some parts are industrial hubs and some design/engineering.

[trinsic2]

If this were really the case, you wouldn't need to ban the practice. You could just offer recommendations

[BoredPositron]

Despite the catchy url none of the examples from the site are bans...

[littlexsparkee]

it's just specialization, in most cases it's not efficient to do locally

[Hikikomori]

So you're fine with having a fab in your backyard?

https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2024/08/28/18869003.php

[mjamil]

And, yes, it's a really neat stove... for wealthy people. At an installed cost of ~$8k (more if you're having to replace a standalone oven/cooktop since you need the stand for it), it's competing with lower-end Viking gas ranges that include an oven, and those have an extensive service network that Impulse doesn't (yet) have.

[aldonius]

I mean, that's pretty normal right. The product starts out as a bit niche and expensive, and then as it scales in manufactured volume, variants & competitors become available at lower price points.

[raddan]

I saw this being hyped on YouTube the other day. My main concern is that there is a large lithium ion battery in a machine that is designed to get things hot. You do not want thermal runaway to happen with a battery that large inside your kitchen.

Their website says

> We’re designing and manufacturing the stovetop, battery pack, and key internal components to comply with all relevant UL standards and other applicable compliance requirements.

but this device appears to be for sale, right now. Either it is designed for safety already or it isn’t. WHICH UL safety standards? Is there an emergency shutoff? A regular old fire extinguisher probably is not going to cut it.

[tzs]

> My main concern is that there is a large lithium ion battery in a machine that is designed to get things hot. You do not want thermal runaway to happen with a battery that large inside your kitchen.

It's an induction stovetop. It doesn't itself get hot, other than whatever heat gets transferred to the top of the stove because it is in contact with the hot pot or pan sitting on top. I don't know about this one specifically but with most induction stovetops that just makes it warm to the touch in the area right under the pot or pan.

That's not going to be hot enough to be a problem for the battery even if for some reason they mounted it in contact with the bottom of the top surface, which I doubt they did.

[raddan]

> That's not going to be hot enough to be a problem for the battery even if for some reason they mounted it in contact with the bottom of the top surface, which I doubt they did.

My point is that’s what safety standards are for. Do they do safe things or not? You might be surprised to hear how many manufacturers do dumb things for one reason or another. If they really do comply with safety standards then they should be able to say which ones. Why don’t they say?

[jeffbee]

This guy is just mad that Copper murdered them by making an actual product people can actually buy, partly because, I imagine, Impulse CEO was busy making visuals for his Libertarian propaganda campaign.

The Copper stove is made in Berkeley, California, by the way.

[dangus]

I am sure the 5th largest economy in the world is truly suffering under their draconian regulations. Everyone in California making the 5th highest median income in the country wishes they were working at a local oil refinery.

To your last point, I am somewhat doubtful that this website is being honest about automotive paint shops being banned in California. Am I to believe that the 3,000 auto body shops in Southern California sit on their hands all day? Was West Coast Customs just a fake TV show filmed in Texas?

https://www.autobodynews.com/news/new-paint-voc-regulations-...

If this website’s author is correct I’m supposed to believe that no paint gets applied to cars in Canada.

As another nitpick, let’s also not forget that nobody else is building oil refineries in the US. The newest one in the entire country was built in 1976. Oil demand in the US is relatively flat since decades ago; there isn’t a pressing need for new refineries.

I also think that readers in this thread should remember that California has strict air quality regulations because its geography especially in Southern California lends itself to bad air quality. These regulations are very much written in blood. Globally, almost 7 million people die prematurely every year due to air pollution.

[vampirical]

To me at least this appears to be a smoking gun for the creator not being able to function in good faith. Whether that's intentional or self delusion, who knows.

From the page itself, "A modern auto paint shop emits volatile organic compounds (VOCs) during primer, base coat, and clear coat application. The Bay Area AQMD makes permitting a new paint shop nearly impossible. This is THE classic example of what you can't do in CA." This point is trotted out and reframed multiple times on the page but it's literally self contradictory. It's not something you can't do in California, it's something you can't do without approval in the Bay Area Air District.

It's not a good place to be doing such an activity, as the area already can't successfully keep the air healthy enough to stay within federal limits due to environmental factors that trap particulate low to the ground. If you're at all familiar with the area you know concerns about air quality are not overblown and. Go further away from people or meet strict VOC regulations if you absolutely need to be doing that kind of work in the area, seems completely reasonable to me.

[CamperBob2]

If this website’s author is correct I’m supposed to believe that no paint gets applied to cars in Canada.

Existing shops get grandfathered.

[saghm]

Is there any reason to assume that there's a dire need for more shops to apply paint in cars in California? If not, regulating to prioritize the air quality over increasing competition isn't unreasonable.

[CamperBob2]

Is there any reason to assume that air quality standards can be maintained only by 50-year-old paint shops, and not by newer ones built to higher standards?

See also the counterproductive legacy of the anti-nuclear movement.

[dangus]

I think this requires us to buy the premise in the first place, which might be questionable.

Some guy’s website claims with big red scary graphics that this stuff is banned and these poor downtrodden business owners can’t operate.

I can’t imagine that nobody has opened an auto body shop in California in the last decade or two.

When it comes to businesses like large factories opening up that’s more of something that often gets approved on a case by case basis.

E.g., we can’t just say that the Chicago Bears are banned from building a new stadium in Chicago just because they aren’t willing to pay the costs required to do so and aren’t willing to meet the city’s requirements to get the approval vote they need.

[saghm]

There's reason to assume that _some_ paint shops are needed, based on the fact that the existing ones are staying in business, and reason to assume that more paint shops would mean more pollution, based on addition. There's not really any other way to limit the number of them other than regulation than gives the state the ability to prevent new ones, and while you obviously are against that idea in practice, I don't think it's nearly as obviously a bad policy goal as you're implying.