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Energy is not so ‘renewable’ when it fails to even produce the power needed to fire up all of the state’s Teslas
Seriously – it’s 2023 (not 2002) and the “Nation State” of California can’t figure out how to keep the electrical grid operational?
ABC7 News reported Monday that PG&E said there were more than 10,000 families and businesses without power Sunday night, most in the East Bay.
“Sunday night the Orchards at Walnut Creek shopping center was filled with businesses and restaurants that looked like a ghost town with closures.”
“Also Sunday night, more than 3,000 PG&E customers in Orinda were impacted by outages. Most of downtown Orinda was impacted by outages.”
There are still power outages from Eureka and Redding in the North, all the way down south to Lompoc, according to the PG&E outage map.
Many will fondly remember the 2003 recall election of then-Gov. Gray Davis largely over how he mishandled the state’s electricity crisis. But that wasn’t all.
The rolling blackouts in the summer of 2002, Gov. Davis’s second year in office, affected approximately 1.5 million Californians.
James L. Sweeny, Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, explains what happened:
“Deregulation works–but not the way it was done in California.”
“California’s disastrous experience with electricity deregulation cast a pall on movements towards deregulation throughout the United States. Some have said that the California experience shows that deregulation cannot and does not work, which is patently untrue, as an examination of energy, price, and demand data collected before and after the California electricity crisis shows. In this paper, I will describe what happened in California and the lessons to be learned from that experience. (A more complete discussion appears in my forthcoming book, The California Electricity Crisis [Sweeney, 2002].)
The California saga went through four stages, all of which presented the state with opportunities to make good and bad decisions. These stages were: (1) a risky situation that became (2) a challenge that turned into (3) a crisis that rapidly turned to (4) blight. Each stage, and in fact the whole process, should be seen not as a series of random, disconnected events, but as a sequence in which choices were made at each juncture. (Sweeny’s paper is really interesting).
These are choices made by California’s elected leaders, then and now, and usually for political reasons instead of focusing on providing electricity to the 40 million California residents. (This is a deja vu in the water shortages arena as well).
Gov. Davis also increased California’s vehicle license fee, making himself very unpopular again with voters.
But it was the unpredictable rolling blackouts during the hot California summer which fueled the ire of voters. In Sacramento, we saw a high of 110 degrees in July 2002.
Governments are responsible for providing services that individuals cannot effectively provide for themselves: fire and police departments, roads and infrastructure, military defense, and public utilities including water service, sewage treatment, electricity and natural gas. But the leaders stray from those responsibilities, choosing shinier, prettier issues that will make headlines.
I imagine the people living in Orinda and Walnut Creek, and those from Eureka to Lompoc aren’t happy with Gov. Newsom either. He owns the unethical and faulty “climate change” driven energy policy which is creating electricity shortages because traditional sources of energy are being replaced by unreliable “renewable” energy.
Energy is not so renewable when it fails to even produce the power needed to fire up all of the state’s Teslas.
Coal, oil and gas, natural gas, hydroelectric and nuclear power are all under attack by Gov. Newsom and his fellow climate change travelers.
In September 2020, in the middle of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s COVID lockdowns and school and business closures, he issued an executive order requiring sales of all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035 and “additional measures to eliminate harmful emissions from the transportation sector,” California Globe reported.
In a Tweet, Newsom said: “We’re experiencing a climate CRISIS. Transportation is responsible for over 50% of CA’s greenhouse gas emissions. It’s time to be as bold as the problem is big. Today we announced that by 2035 every new car sold in CA will be an emission free vehicle.”
He said “Transportation is responsible for over 50% of CA’s greenhouse gas emissions,” but failed to say what form of transportation because he wants to force you and your family out of your cars and onto public transportation.
And, notably, California has some of the cleanest air in the world.
Gov. Newsom’s order has allowed the unelected California Air Resources Board to develop new passenger vehicle and truck regulations requiring increasing volumes of new zero-emission vehicles sold, as well as developing new regulations affecting medium-and heavy-duty vehicles, and to develop strategies with state, federal and local entities to achieve 100 percent zero-emission from off-road vehicles and equipment operations in the State by 2035, Chris Micheli reported at the Globe.
However, Newsom was putting the cart before the horse (accidental pun) because California not only does not have the infrastructure for an all-electric car state, we still have rolling blackouts every summer, and now power outages winter and spring with wind and heavy rain storms.
Ironically, electric car owners were told by the California Independent System Operator to NOT charge their electric cars only 20 days before Newsom’s order requiring sales of all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035… truly placing the cart before the horse. CalISO tells electric vehicle owners every summer to NOT charge their cars on heavy load days.
But because the state of 40 million residents was under strict lockdowns and being fed a steady diet of distasteful lies about the “pandemic,” Newsom got away with his shady order.
That time.
He should not get away with it again. When the state under Governor Newsom’s erroneous and nefarious “climate” policies can’t provide the power necessary during summer heat for 10,000 households in the balmy Bay Area (while it was 106 in Sacramento), perhaps this is Gavin Newsom’s Gray Davis moment.
At the very least, his faux climate policies and attempt to kill off the internal combustion engine automobile – and gas stoves – should be a career-ending policy decision by the California Governor.
Click here to read the full article in the California Globe
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