Incompetent Leadership Behind California’s Blackouts, Not Climate Change

This summer has seen repeated warnings in California that another round of rolling blackouts could be coming. (The last such round was in August 2020.).

Somehow, before today, several close calls have been averted. [bold, links added]

But today, California’s luck seems to have run out.

Even as I’m writing this post, California’s main utility PG&E has put some 525,000 customers on notice that rolling blackouts could be imposed this evening as the sun sets and power from solar arrays konks out.

Temperatures in California, particularly in the Bay Area, are indeed running unusually hot, although in most cases, not all-time records.

You won’t be surprised to learn that one mainstream press source after another attributes the power shortage and resulting blackouts to “climate change.”

But the funny thing is, as hot as the temperatures are, they are no hotter than temperatures experienced this year — and indeed every year — in other states like Arizona and Texas. And yet those states are not having rolling blackouts caused by inadequate electricity on the grid.

Nor have those states had rolling blackouts in other years when their record temperatures have been set.

In other words, these blackouts have nothing to do with “climate change,” and everything to do with criminally incompetent government policy supposedly responding to “climate change.”

Bloomberg has the latest with a piece from this afternoon headlined “California Says Brace for Blackouts as Heat Wave Drives Record Power Use.” It seems that the current heat wave is being accompanied by all-time-high power demand:

Electricity use reached 50.6 gigawatts at 3:15 p.m. local time, according to the state’s grid operator, surpassing the previous record set in 2006.

The surge in demand comes amid a punishing and lengthy heat wave that has sent temperatures soaring past 110 degrees Fahrenheit (43 Celsius), prompting officials to plead for conservation and warn rolling outages may be necessary to prevent the system from overloading.

The state’s largest power company, PG&E Corp., said in a statement that it had notified about 525,000 homes and businesses that they could lose power for up to two hours. . . .

For a second consecutive day, the state’s grid operator issued a level-2 energy emergency alert. Officials expect to ratchet that emergency up to level 3 at 5:30 p.m. local time — which would mean blackouts are imminent.

Now, it can’t possibly have come as a surprise that usage of electricity in California is increasing to all-time highs.

After all, California has been doing everything it can to induce consumers to switch all energy usage to electricity, particularly to switch from internal combustion to electric cars.

The automotive sector uses about as much energy in total as everything currently powered by electricity. Considering just the automobile sector, if everybody switched to electric cars, electricity demand would close to double.

In response to increasing government regulations and jawboning, not to mention voluntary virtue signaling, electric vehicle sales in California have been soaring.

Wikipedia here has a chart of sales of electric vehicles in California since 2010. From a base of around zero (actually 300 cars) in 2010, sales of all-electric cars rose to some 176,357 in 2021, representing a 9.5% market share of all vehicles sold.

Another 61,261 plug-in hybrids were also sold in California in 2021, constituting an additional 3.3% of the market, bringing the total market share for cars drawing electricity from the grid to 12.8%.

Of course, the use of electricity is increasing.

And the use of electricity for cars is set to increase far more, and soon. Just two weeks ago the California Air Resources Board put in place a new regulation requiring a rapid transition to a situation where only electric vehicles will be allowed in California by 2035, with interim mandates for a percentage of electric vehicle sales going up every year starting with 2026. From CARB’s release:

The new regulation accelerates requirements that automakers deliver an increasing number of zero-emission light-duty vehicles each year beginning in model year 2026. Sales of new ZEVs and PHEVs will start with 35% that year, build to 68% in 2030, and reach 100% in 2035.

Note that the 35% mandated market share of electric vehicles in 2026 represents about a trebling of the 12.8% market share for those vehicles in 2021.

With one point of market share representing about 18,000 vehicles, electric vehicle sales would appear set to increase immediately by some 70,000 per year or so, if CARB gets its way. Here is CARB’s chart of the coming post-2026 electric vehicle market share mandates:

Meanwhile, over in the market for the production of electricity, here is what Bloomberg reports:

California has aggressively closed natural-gas power plants in recent years. . . .

California also shut one of its two large nuclear plants, San Onofre, in 2013, and until recently was planning to shut its last nuclear plant, Diablo Canyon, in 2025 (although it may be reconsidering that decision). And what is the replacement for these reliable power sources?

[T]he state [is] increasingly dependent on solar farms that go dark late in the day just as electricity demand peaks. . . .

Nobody seems to have figured out that you can cover the state with solar panels, and you will still get zero electricity from them after the sun goes down at night. Could they really be this stupid? Yes.

Read a few mainstream media sources about this week’s power crunch in California, and you will find that the official explanation is “climate change.” For example, from PBS today:

California is facing its highest chance of blackouts this year as a brutal heat wave continues to blanket the state with triple-digit temperatures. . . . Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme. . . .

From NBC News, also today:

California will face its highest chance of blackouts this year as a brutal heat wave continues to blanket the state with triple-digit heat, officials warned Monday. . . . Scientists say climate change has made the West warmer and drier over the last three decades and will continue to make weather more extreme. . . .

Do they all just copy those talking points word for word from each other?

And yet somehow the major cities of Arizona and Texas have week after week of 100+ degree temperatures, year after year, without any need for rolling blackouts.

According to Weather Underground here, Phoenix got over 100 degrees F every day this year from July 1 to July 23, with many of those days over 110 and some over 115, but no threats of blackouts.

Hey, you just need enough fossil fuel power plants (including several burning coal).

Read rest at Manhattan Contrarian