by H. Sterling Burnett
Coming to a city and state near you: California-style energy shortages and blackouts. At least that will be the case if Democrats keep their campaign promises and impose the type of zero carbon dioxide emission green energy mandates and fossil fuel restrictions on the nation that California has forced upon its residents.[A]ccording to the elitist current and former governors of California, the answer to the state’s politically induced energy crisis is for people to swelter in the dark.
It’s not enough that Californians are suffering through extreme heat and seeing their communities go up in smoke amid awful wildfires. Residents and businesses in the state are also suffering government-inflicted harm as power blackouts roll through California. The cause of the blackouts is the ever-growing spate of taxes and restrictions placed on the use of fossil fuels to generate electric power in the state, leaving it dependent on government-favored, intermittent, renewable power sources.
The news satire site The Sacramento Brie described the situation in a hilarious article, “Gov. Newsom: California successfully tests power blackouts as state prepares for 2025,” filled with made-up but basically accurate quotes. As the Brie notes, in 2018 California enacted a law requiring 50 percent of the electricity delivered in the state come from renewable sources by 2025, 60 percent by 2030, and that all electricity in the state come from sources emitting no carbon dioxide during generation by 2050. As such, the Brie writes—with good humor, a wink, and a nod—the rolling blackouts in California over the past few weeks are a preview of the state’s future.
The Brie article satirically “quotes” Gov. Gavin Newsom (D): “‘These blackouts, which occurred without prior warning or time for preparation between 3 p.m. and 10 p.m., demonstrate exactly the kind of green energy capability California government has been shooting for,’ Newsom said at a meeting of energy professionals on Sunday.”
“[R]esidents, communities and other governmental organizations did not receive sufficient warning that these de-energizations would occur, which is exactly what we expect to happen—but on a much larger scale—as the state moves toward 100 percent renewable energy in 2045,” the Brie imagines Newsom saying.
Although these quotes are fictional, they describe the situation accurately. In the past few weeks, dozens of news outlets have carried stories outlining how California’s green energy policies have resulted in repeated failures of the power supply in recent years.
For instance, an article in the California Globe, “California’s Electric Grid Is Near Collapse,” explicitly links the state’s repeated blackouts to its embrace of renewable energy sources to the exclusion of historically reliable and inexpensive electricity generated by fossil fuels. “California’s bet on renewables and shunning of natural gas and nuclear power, is directly responsible for the state’s blackouts and high electricity prices,” the author writes.
High and mighty in their mansions, the architects of the policies that have led to this power failure—such as former California governor Jerry Brown (D) and current governor Newsom—blamed the state’s common people, the unwashed hoi polloi, for the blackouts, admonishing them in multiple tweets to turn out their lights and turn up their thermostats. The latter direction from Brown is especially galling, coming as it did during a deadly heat wave. You read that right: according to the elitist current and former governors of California, the answer to the state’s politically induced energy crisis is for people to swelter in the dark.
In a rare honest moment for Newsom, he and other California officials finally admitted at a press event the renewable power mandates were responsible for the power failures across the state, as reported by Breitbart.
“California Gov. Gavin Newsom said [on August 17] the state had to ‘sober up’ about the fact that renewable energy sources had failed to provide enough power for the state at peak demand, and needed ‘backup’ and ‘insurance’ from other sources,” Breitbart reports. Newsome went on to admit the critical reason the state lacked power was its overreliance on renewable power sources, in particular wind and solar. But then Newsom lapsed back into typical political obfuscation, saying, “We failed to predict and plan these shortages.”
Who is this “we”? Analysts from think tanks in California (Reason Foundation, the Pacific Research Institute, and the Independent Institute), Washington, D.C. (the Competitive Enterprise Institute), and in between (my own think tank, The Heartland Institute in Illinois) have warned for years California’s policies would cause dangerous power shortages. And, too little, too late, on June 11, the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) admitted as much, approving the use of up to 450 megawatts of diesel generators to fill in when renewable power sources failed to supply sufficient energy. One cannot honestly say no one knew this could happen.
Unfortunately for Californians, the recent power shortfalls exceeded 1,000 megawatts, more than double the allowed diesel backup. As more and more green energy is added to the grid, the gap between the reliable power demanded and what is available on any particular day will only grow.
California-based meteorologist Anthony Watts, a senior fellow with The Heartland Institute, perhaps summed up the source of the state’s energy shortfall best:
We are on the cusp of a massive failure of the electricity grid in California. Solar power has this thorny problem; it disappears after sunset. Now, California is paying the price for abandoning reliable energy sources in favor of green energy sources such as wind and solar power, which don’t work when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. During heat waves like California is experiencing now, there’s typically plenty of sunshine, but winds are often stagnant.The situation is even worse than what Watts describes. Peak electricity use in California occurs in the summer, which coincides with wildfire season, so even when the sun is shining brightly, smoke often blocks much light from reaching rooftop solar panels. Also, if homes with solar panels are destroyed by the wildfires, even this minimal input to the system is lost.
As to wind power, winds are often stagnant in California during the early part of the summer, meaning wind turbines are not adding much to the system, but later in the summer, during peak wildfire season, the Santa Ana winds often strike. The high winds make it difficult to fight wildfires. They also sometimes cause utilities to shut down the wind turbines because winds that are too high can destroy them. Ironically, like the porridge in the fairy tale Goldilocks and the Three Bears, wind speeds have to be “just right” for wind farms to provide energy.
California could have easily avoided these problems, if only bureaucrats and politicians had allowed even one modern large coal-fueled power plant to remain open, or had they allowed new natural gas plants to be built. They could have provided more than enough power to make up for any shortfall from wind and solar. Unfortunately, California politicos care more about the approbation of fringe radical environmentalists than the well-being of the average Californian.
The Democrat Party is promising to impose California-style energy policies on the entire country if it wins power nationally in the November election. Consider yourself warned. Paraphrasing Smokey the Bear, “Only you can prevent power blackouts!”—at the ballot box.
H. Sterling Burnett
Source: heartland.org
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