Energy in California used to be available, reliable and cheap. Today it is unreliable and very expensive. Why?
“Santa Ana winds continued to rip through parts of Southern California on Monday, prompting fire weather warnings and preemptive power shut-offs.
Wind gusts topped 40 miles per hour across much of Los Angeles and Ventura counties with some gusts exceeding 60 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
…Southern California Edison has proactively shut off power in dozens of communities to reduce the risk of power lines sparking brush fires (view the latest outage map).
SCE says around 3600 customers were impacted as of midday Monday with over 200-thousand potentially impacted by other outages under consideration.
That blows my mind. Up to TWOHUNNERTTHOUSAND PEOPLE could have their power turned off to prevent fires, because the state utilities and infrastructure are in such appallingly bad shape.
We used to have cheap and clean coal, nuclear and low priced fossil fuel. Today, we have very expensive solar and wind turbines—and very unstable and unreliable. Could this be part of the reason folks are fleeing California? They can’t keep the lights on?
CA Having the Darnedest Time With Electricity
BEEGE WELBORN, HotAir, 10/30/23 https://hotair.com/tree-hugging-sister/2023/10/30/ca-having-the-darndest-time-with-electricity-n588840
The magic juice. It ebbs, it flows, sometimes it just dang shuts off.
Old timers in Southern California – like we were, having lived in Orange County during the golden 80s decade thru early 90s – love to tell the youngsters of today about the times they’ve never really experienced. Cheap water – our water bill ran about $12 every…TWO MONTHS. There was natural gas for stoves and the furnace (the one night out of a thousand winter night you might need it), and there was electricity…ALWAYS…at 6.5ɇ kwhr. San Onofre, Diablo Canyon, the coal plant in Carlsbad – Southern California Edison had it humming along, and life was good.
Shine on, Golden State. It was a dream place – a pretty affordable dream for most everyone.
I know it’s hard to believe for people there now who never got to experience that CA. And it has to make folks who were just sick to their stomachs about what’s happened in the name of progressivism.
But here the state is, and there’s no fixing it any time soon. The “affordable” aspect has gone up in smoke as Newsom and the state chase Green dreams of carbon neutrality.
The infrastructure hasn’t kept up with the state’s population needs itself, less mind the grandiose plans, mandates, and deadlines imposed on citizens and utilities alike. They’re also hamstrung by regressive progressive policies as far as proper fire control for the semi-arid desert scrub most of them inhabit. Every year CA burns. Every year aging powerlines fall into scrub and brush that was never cleared or control burned off to minimize that very outcome.
And instead of using proper fire suppression techniques?
Every year it’s lather, rinse, repeat. The aging lines and poles stay the same, and the power to customers gets turned off “just in case” when the Santa Anas start to blow.
Like now. John Wayne Airport was just a couple of miles from our house. We never lost power during Santa Anas because they had to shut it down pre-emptively.
Santa Ana winds continued to rip through parts of Southern California on Monday, prompting fire weather warnings and preemptive power shut-offs.
Wind gusts topped 40 miles per hour across much of Los Angeles and Ventura counties with some gusts exceeding 60 mph, according to the National Weather Service.
…Southern California Edison has proactively shut off power in dozens of communities to reduce the risk of power lines sparking brush fires (view the latest outage map).
SCE says around 3600 customers were impacted as of midday Monday with over 200-thousand potentially impacted by other outages under consideration.
That blows my mind. Up to TWOHUNNERTTHOUSAND PEOPLE could have their power turned off to prevent fires, because the state utilities and infrastructure are in such appallingly bad shape.
How pathetic can you get? How third world country can you get?
Had it always been like that it would be one thing, but it hasn’t. CA did this to themselves.
Up and down the coast, it’s the same, pathetic story.
Much like Newsom’s botched administration of the state, the grid itself is in chaos. The California Independent System Operator (CAISO) has been forced to curtail electricity in the lines because CAs build out of wind and solar hasn’t been matched with the new transmission lines needed to carry the extra capacity, particularly when it’s produced in low-usage periods.
There’s no cistern type storage to hold “excess’ electricity for when it’s needed, so they basically have to turn the volume down or off.
The California Independent System Operator (CAISO), the grid operator for most of the state, is increasingly curtailing solar- and wind-powered electricity generation as it balances supply and demand during the rapid growth of wind and solar power in California.
Grid operators must balance supply and demand to maintain a stable electric system. The output of wind and solar generators are reduced either through price signals or rarely, through an order to reduce output, during periods of:
• Congestion, when power lines don’t have enough capacity to deliver available energy
• Oversupply, when generation exceeds customer electricity demand
In CAISO, curtailment is largely a result of congestion. Congestion-related curtailments have increased significantly since 2019 because solar generation has been outpacing upgrades in transmission capacity.
The transmission highway is full, because they’ve let renewables run way ahead of the end product delivery vehicle…in a state with routine blackouts during peak usage times.
That’s criminal.
For electrical rates that are the 3d highest in the country. Even as they’ve cut their own throats shutting down their reliable nuclear and natgas fired electrical power plants for those times when wind doesn’t blow (you can’t run turbines in a Santa Ana) and the sun doesn’t shine.
As Newsom’s desperate scramble to keep Diablo Canyon open and 3 coastal natgas fired plants running who were scheduled to be closed proves, “reliable” is the word of the day. Even Europe has found they need those nasty fossil fuels, for all the big Green talk. Or you damn well better have someone friendly with lots of extra electricity you can buy from.
Take the best care of what you have, and don’t compromise for flash over function. This is not rocket science, but it IS hard and expensive for sloganeers.
Mother Nature is on her schedule, and it’s time for the Santa Anas.
I used to hate it because we never had air conditioning, and you’d have to close the house up, or shovel the dust out.
But at least we would always had power to see where we’d put the shovel in the garage the year before.
Pathetic.
