California appears to be presenting the green movement with yet another reality check.
Democrat Gov. Gavin Newsom has set forth arguably the country’s most ambitious state-level plan to transition from fossil fuel to renewable energy.
However, when California’s almost inevitable heat waves come in the summer and residents crank up their home air conditioners, officials turn on massive diesel-powered generators to make up for the state’s energy shortfall and to avoid rolling blackouts. [emphasis, links added]
“We laid out the markers on solar and wind, but we recognize that’s not going to get us where we need to go,” Newsom said during a recent news conference. “The issue of reliability has to be addressed.”
The summertime problem is especially acute in the early evenings when electricity from solar is not as abundant, according to the Associated Press.
To avoid running out of power this summer, as California has in recent years, Newsom wants to buy massive amounts of renewable energy.
The idea is to use the state’s purchasing power, or deep pockets, to convince private companies to build large-scale power plants that run off of heat from underground sites and strong winds blowing off the coast – the kinds of power that utility companies have not been buying because it’s too expensive and because the plants take too long to build, the wire service also reports.
Newsom has positioned the state as the most progressive when it comes to addressing climate change through clean energy.
Under his leadership, California is pushing to run on “100% clean electricity” by 2045, a move that will require building 148,000 megawatts of new power by then.
To achieve the goal, the state is fast-tracking wind, solar, and battery storage projects, but still remains dependent on the diesel generators each summer.
Newsom’s plan is to award grants for businesses to build power plants sourced from underground renewables and coastal wind farms.
Another aspect of the plan is to use a central procurement mechanism that would effectively combine the buying power of customers to cost-effectively procure such energy resources, then distribute it among those customers, according to the state’s green energy roadmap.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reports California imports more electric power than any state in the nation, despite its “significant” amount of crude oil.
In addition, California’s petroleum refineries make up 10% of the United States’ total crude oil refining capacity.
Power the Future’s Daniel Turner told Just The News that Newsom is “suffering the consequences of his own green agenda.”
“Renewable energy is proven to be a failure, both unreliable and expensive, and only free government money and mandates put on the utility companies keep them afloat,” he said.
Turner also argued that California likely wouldn’t be forced into rolling blackouts had the state not “aggressively closed nuclear and coal plants” and upended its own grid.
“This is not the result of climate change but of a political agenda, which ignores market forces and basic physics,” he said.
Climate Depot founder Marc Morano has a similar view, saying Newsom is giving his residents the “highest energy prices in the nation” due to the governor being “blinded by climate ideology.”
Those prices, Morano said, are bound to climb even further even if Newsom’s latest “scheme” is realized.
In April, Just the News reported that two utility companies in the state – San Diego Gas & Electric, PG&E, and Southern California Edison – are considering a plan to put the higher energy costs on those with higher incomes instead of consumption.
The proposal was filed jointly with California’s Public Utilities Commission and would be fixed as follows:
- Less than $28,000 – $15 a month
- $28,000 – $69,000 – $20 a month
- $69,000 – $180,000 – $51 a month
- Over $180,000 – $85 a month
Read more at Just The News
Can someone tell me what “run off of heat from underground sites” means? My guess is heating something underground as a means of storing energy. If this is true basic physics says it is bad idea. The amount of energy that can be stored by heating a substance up is quite small compared to what can be stored by chemical means such as batteries or what is found in natural gas.
The natural world has the cards stacked against net zero. On the average solar is not available twelve hours a day, and it has ten times the energy density of wind power. When it is very hot or very cold, the air is often still. That means little or no wind power when it is needed the most. The uninformed think that batteries are the answer, but they are unaffordable on the scale needed to run a grid even if enough rare earth mineral are available to make them at that scale.
“run off of heat from underground sites”
I believe that is a politians way of saying ‘geothermal’. In California, Casa Diablo is a case in point. More at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammoth_Geothermal_Complex
Some neighborhoods in my home town of Klamath Falls Oregon use geothermal heat. However, this form of energy has the same draw back as hydroelectric in that there isn’t enough of it. When it comes to producing electric power much less is available due the fact the wells are usually below the boiling point of water, where as burning coal or natural gas has heat sources around 3,500 degrees.
I don’t know if it ever came about. Casa Diablo was to run a pipeline for ‘used’ steam up to Mammoth Lakes Village to be used under sidewalks to melt snow. (Got that ‘info’ from a heavy equipment operator who worked on the centralized propane delivery system for the village. Could have been ‘just talk’.)
The idea of charging different power rates dependant on income is ludicrous and probably would fail a court challenge. Consider buying a gallon of milk. The same concept would have the price at $2.25, $3.00, $7.65, $12.75 depending on income.
“…that two utility companies in the state – San Diego Gas & Electric, PG&E, and Southern California Edison…”
Whops, ‘three’ companies.
Newsom like the rest of the Liberal Democrats bases everything on Politics and the plans of the Globalists and the UN,DNC,CFR
We shouldn’t place the Nation under total 100% renewables since their not reliable enough