Not sure about all that as mercury is a liquid at room temperature and I’m unfamiliar with the history of Santa Cruz, but I wasn’t necessarily trying to say California was a guardian of the future. Just that, in this example, they’re large enough in economies of scale that occasionally their decisions have enough weight to help others elsewhere, and that US states sometimes are able to effect improvement via this scale that the US Federal government is incapable of due to it’s Star Warsian ineptitude. Much like how the EU is forcing the Apples of the world to embrace standards like USB-C. Also most of Silicon Valley is basically a giant superfund site, so they got a lot of 'splainin to do.