Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has learned the hard way that California’s renewable energy experiment was reckless and ill-thought-out, and should require some serious self-reflection.
California’s green energy dream is now getting dirtier, as Newsom tries to avoid the bad headlines that another round of blackouts would bring for the state with the highest energy prices in the contiguous United States. [emphasis, links added]
Newsom had campaigned on shutting down the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility. Now, the state is considering expanding the facility and increasing its storage by two-thirds.
It is the latest in a series of walkbacks for California’s weak green dream. Newsom backed extensions for gas plants and gave the green light to gas-powered generators to bail out the grid regularly.
He has also called for an extension for the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which doesn’t produce carbon emissions but makes climate zealots uncomfortable because they don’t like the word “nuclear.”
Simply put, Newsom is realizing that California’s grid cannot function without fossil fuels and nuclear energy, which is what every person with some sense has been saying since he and other California Democrats tried to fast-track an energy grid run on inefficient “green” forms of energy such as wind and solar.
All of California’s promises of phasing out “dirty” energy and running entirely on renewables to save the world ran face first into the dirty reality that renewables just aren’t that good.
Newsom appointees were basing this dream on their own hopeful projections, and they were laughably, predictably wrong.
Now Newsom, desperate to avoid further harming his future political career (and inevitable presidential run, whether that be next year or in the future) has to turn to those dirty fossil fuels and (not actually dirty) nuclear plants to keep the lights on.
Just like California’s series of failures in water storage, forest fires, poverty, homelessness, and crime, this was a predictable development.
Everyone saw it coming except the pie-in-the-sky liberals that run the state, who were so convinced that they were revolutionary geniuses who could build a better grid while listening to delusional climate activists.
Unfortunately, as is the case too often in California, they were returned to our dirty reality once again.
Top image via YouTube/screencap
Read more at Washington Examiner
I suggest that the press and Republicans back this slime ball into a corner, where he has to admit that his Green policies were wrong, impossible. If he’s wrong, the rest his ilk are wrong. The Californians who have joined the exodus to red states, took their skills and money with them, remind me of the Jews who fled Nazi Germany. Smart and prosperous.
Unfortunately we won’t see this in the mainstream media but the Republicans should certainly highlight this walk-back. Perhaps if the Newsome-DeSantis debate happen that is something that should be asked and make him squirm as he tries to extricate himself from this.
Solar power runs our household and electric cars.
Do you still pay for electricity and gasoline?
Where do you get your electricity at night? Or do you burn candles then?
As a denizen of the north part of LA, I remember the Aliso Canyon incident and the literal headaches it caused when the gas company couldn’t control the gas well leakage; certainly Sempra paid dearly for that in both direct housing assistance and governance penalties to the state and county, and then afterward the limitation of running the wells at less than half capacity for the past 8 years as Newsom pandered to the activists picketing to wholly shut down the Aliso Canyon field. Our local energy prices, both natural gas and electricity have skyrocketed due to the constraints on the gas wells, so it’s no surprise PUC has to finally lift the limitations and bring the wells back toward 100% full capacity and likely in coming years expand beyond the current capacity by opening more of the old oil caverns.
Why are you still paying for electricity and gasoline?
We don’t, because our PV solar system on the roof powers our household and electric cars.
Did you pay for your solar panels and installation? How much? How long will the panels last?
Smug much? I bet you buy some electricity from the grid.
The Stupid Jackass Party our Governor is s a total idiot and wants to ban gasoline cars all over a totally fake theory of Global Warming/Climate Change
Both California and Germany have reacted the same way to infeasibility of using wind and solar. When it gets to the point that their policies would make blackouts a routine part of life, they pull back and rely on fossil fuels. In a way this is too bad. Routine blackouts would force a strong reversal of their policies. Yet, stopping just short of these blackouts leaves them in condition where their policies have resulted in very high energy costs.
Yes, they’re pulling out the parachute like big -talkin’ Evel Knievel at the Snake River canyon. Self preservation.
Leftists do not introspect when their absurd schemes fail. They look for someone else to blame.