Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Breitbart – Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti has thrown caution to the winds, by announcing plans to cancel a vital multi-billion dollar dollar plan to rebuild three large gas plants.
Los Angeles ditches plan to invest billions in fossil fuels, Mayor Eric Garcetti says
By SAMMY ROTH
FEB 11, 2019 | 5:35 PMLos Angeles is abandoning a plan to spend billions of dollars rebuilding three natural gas power plants along the coast, Mayor Eric Garcetti said Monday, in a move to get the city closer to its goal of 100% renewable energy and improve air quality in highly polluted communities.
The mayor’s decision marks an abrupt change of course for the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, where top staffers have argued in recent months that the gas plants are critical to keeping the lights on in the city. Environmental groups have urged DWP to replace the aging facilities with cleaner alternatives, saying the gas-fired plants need to go because they contribute to climate change and local air pollution.
Los Angeles has steadily moved away from coal for electricity, divesting from the Navajo plant in Arizona three years ago and announcing plans to stop buying power from Utah’s Intermountain plant by 2025. But with coal, the most polluting fossil fuel, now nearly removed from the city’s energy mix, it’s time to start planning for a future with zero planet-warming energy sources, Garcetti said Monday — and that means no natural gas.
“It’s the right thing to do for our health. It’s the right thing to do for our Earth. It’s the right thing to do for our economy,” Garcetti said. “And now is the time to start the beginning of the end of natural gas.”
“This is the Green New Deal,” he added, referring to the sweeping climate change policies championed by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y) and endorsed by several contenders for the Democratic presidential nomination. “Not in concept, not in the future, but now.”
…
Read more: https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-garcetti-los-angeles-gas-plants-20190211-story.html
Who needs power system engineers? I mean they’re all pessimists, always telling leading climate visionaries like Mayor Eric Garcetti what they can’t do, instead of embracing our inevitable green destiny, and getting on with the job of saving the world, by building the clean energy system their mayor has demanded.
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Follow the Green Fascist Road.
God – JUST SAID THIS. Can’t get it nationally – right away – these bastards will force it on us wherever they can.
By building a 3rd world electrical grid locally, it will hopefully serve as a warning to the rest of us.
peterh
Australia should be a warning to everyone.
Some people are congenitally incapable of learning from the mistakes of others.
Heck, I’m not sure if they are capable of learning from their own mistakes.
Or ‘you can’t get a person to understand something when his job depends on him not understanding it’.
There are a lot of people in Australia who have fallen for the CO2 driven climate change meme hook, line and sinker.
Today, we have a bit if a dust storm here in Sydney. Nothing unusual about that in a dry, semi-desert, climate but it didn’t take long for “climate change” to be blamed.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/hot-gusty-winds-bring-dust-cloud-to-sydney-20190213-p50xek.html
To Patrick MJD – there is nothing in that article blaming climate change, just the commenters expecting it.
I lived in Penrith (to the West of Sydney for non-Ozzers) around 25 years ago when a similar event took place. Just more of the same in our sun-burned country.
Today, boys and girls, we will learn about Seppuku.
Seppuku or pulling a Garcetti is the art of throwing away your life for a fairytail ideal
‘Some people are congenitally incapable of learning from the mistakes of others.
Heck, I’m not sure if they are capable of learning from their own mistakes.’
Not when the knee-jerk response is to rationalize it away.
Some people MAKE no mistakes (that is, they never accept they make mistakes)…it’s all somebody else’s fault that it doesn’t work as dreamed up – not their fault.
“John in Oz February 13, 2019 at 1:21 am
To Patrick MJD – there is nothing in that article blaming climate change, just the commenters expecting it.”
Nothing in the article, certainly in the comments and the minds of those who made the comments. Aussie MSM’s job is done!
The UK, Australia, Germany, New Zealand etc etc etc…they are all hell bent on being the winner in the race to the bottom.
Don’t forget Ontario, Costa Rica, and Spain.
Australia was systematically brainwashed into committing national industrial suicide by the ABC. It is one very insidious organization and an arm of the Australia Govt.
Ontario is snapping out of it.
and Germany
Stuck between a group of EU autocrats and an Angled Merkel
It won’t be much of a warning as we willhave to bail them out when all of goes to he**
Perhaps it should all go to she**
This could stop the flow of migrants to Southern California if it isn’t any better than Central America.
And if it already isn’t any better than Central America . . . ?
Will they feel the pain? Or will power grid interconnections save them? As long as they can cover their power shortfalls from other jurisdictions, everything will continue to look fine. This will quite probably encourage other cities to follow them until finally the national grid can’t keep up. Then we will all feel the pain.
That happened in the early 2000s and utility costs sky-rocketed. Buying power from outside sources is anything but cheap.
It’s called “forcing the love.” Not a good thing for sure.
You might call that ‘rape’.
And I’ll bet ‘Me Too’ is all for it.
I hear Al Gore just invested in a bunch of moving van companies….
The people of LA deserve the politicians they elect.
stupid sons a bitches!
But nobody else does. That’s the problem.
Yes they do. I live in Orange County, a formerly Red County (now Bluish) in a sea of Blue Counties here in California. I just do not understand the thought processes of our elected leaders. It is as though the office of Mayor of Los Angeles sucks out 40 IQ points from the holder of the office. The absolute amazing part is it appears that far left Governor (Gavin Newsom) is the pillar of sanity in this insane state as he is finally killing off the “High Speed Rail” union project.
“Who needs power system engineers?”
We already have industries that cannot be filled with people with the required skills. When these engineers eventually disappear who will fix the solar panels, wind turbines, battery arrays and transmission lines?
We need our best scientists and engineers working on this! Somebody get India on the phone!
For once we have the Answer to the Future Question, “Who Turned Out the Lights”
Mayor Eric Garcetti
Earthquakes, storms, mudslides, droughts, forest fires and now this? Good for LA. They already have brownouts. Someone tell Smiling Garcetti that due to global warming, they are in for intense record heat and people aren’t going to have air conditioning when the power goes out, especially when Nevada needs all they have to cool themselves off.
Evidently Mr. Mayor hasn’t quite thought this thing through.
‘Thought’.
Snicker.
I’ll bet the average progressive greenie doesn’t consider any change from fossil fuels to ‘renewable’ (double-snicker) power as anything more complicated than switching from Coke to Pepsi.
Coupled with the blithely idiotic toss-off of ‘oh, they’ll NEVER do that – they won’t end air travel, and they’ll never tell us we can’t eat meat” – except Corey Booker just did, didn’t he?
I think it’s wonderful that the mayor hasn’t thought this through. I’m looking forward to hearing about brownouts and blackouts in LA. Ocasio can then go to LA and tell them how great it is to live a simple life without 24/7 electricity.
Sarc.
Yeah – except I live in Oregon – and if Kate Brown isn’t just lining up to follow suit, I’ll eat my hat – which means I get to experience all the wonders of the third-world misery she intends to impose upon us.
So – not so wonderful from my vantage.
Get out before housing prices collapse.
But who in their right mind would buy a house in either California (that now requires solar on the house) or Oregon? Only an idiot!
Compulsory solar and batteries are now being considered by the Greens here in Australia with rebates on new houses (Meaning someone who can’t afford to build a house and pays tax subsidises those that can) etc etc. Additionally, the Greens propose some sort of fund so that people who rent, like I do, can have access to a solar farm for power.
Housing is already unaffordable to most people, even for existing stock. A solar and battery package for a typical house will cost AU$10-$15k at least. So, not only do the Greens want energy to be so expensive, which it is, they want to make housing more expensive too!
‘Get out before housing prices collapse.’
I’m a renter – and just as I type this, I heard on the radio that the legislature plans to impose ‘rent-control’ state-wide.
The level of disaster these progressive idiots are fostering staggers the imagination.
Joel, you’ve hit upon the solution. Just pass an LA county ordinance that mandates sufficient electricity at fair prices, and everything will just work itself out.
Maybe it’s a positive thing that LA welcomes all the southern newcomers from 3rd world nations. Once the GND energy plan goes into effect, they may not notice much of a change. /s
My condolences to you native Californian’s.
The governor of Calif…just pulled the troops off their southern border
I kid you not….
Buy a standby generator and stock up on petrol.
doesn’t the water go off…when the power does
Ah, water. I remember when we had town water pumped into every house. And you know Timmy, we could even flick a switch and the lights would come on. No wax, no matches. It was a wonderful time to be alive…
Reminds me of “To the Chicago Abyss” by Ray Bradbury.
I live in Cape Town – and as I write this my generator is running because the power is out and my well-point is pumping ground-water.
This is the future you face when incompetents are voted in.
Good luck !
Yeah – I was talking to someone in Muizenburg this morning and Eskom shed his load! Three hrs, he said. We continued for a while on cell phone and laptop battery. Life without lithium would be difficult.
How is the water situation in Cape Town? Wasn’t it supposed to run out of water a few years ago?
And just wait till all the white farmers are run off and you start having food shortages. Much fun ahead.
It is wonderful Joe. Clearly these people are not going to accommodate the truth so the sooner they suffer the consequences of their willful ignorance, the sooner they’ll be ‘flushed out’ and confronted by empirical reality!
The problem is they honestly think the mandate is what makes things happen.
Whether it is no nat gas, increased fuel economy, more wind power or California next year mandating all residential be net zero energy, they think of themselves as Pharaoh saying ‘so it is written, so it shall be done’.
They won’t need to decide if it’s necessary to shut down power during Santa Ana wind heat waves, load shedding will do it automatically.
Might as well rename LA…..Lost Angeles. Recalls should be fun when the power doesn’t stay on during the summer.
You don’t get a carefully designed plan. No power – no recall.
Back to paper ballots???
Whoever leads the largest rioting mob is the new Mayor.
~¿~
It will all be OK. LA geological faults will take care of this issue.
See you down in Arizona bay
Guinea pigs have their uses.
As long as I’m not one of them.
+100
jim
I’ll consider this an experiment for all the world to see. I guess somebody has to try it first to actually execute the idealism. Best of luck, LA.
It seems fairly idiotic at the moment, but the proof is in the final results. I will attempt to reserve judgement, until LA falls. And if success comes, the it will be ME who is shown to be the idiot.
BelieveImpossible!
That’s all it takes: A NewWay of “Thinking” (believing)
Democrats going full psycho.
Madness is a communicable disease – it spreads by contact.
Going?
All will be OK. LA gelogical faults will take care of this issue.
“It’s the right thing to do “. Australia’s leftist former PM Julia Gillard used to use that phrase to justify the most horrendously stupid policies.
Must be in the Communist Manifesto.
“It’s the right thing to do “.
That’s an instance of “the [disastrous] ethic of ideal ends.” Its alternative is “the ethic of responsibility.”
All will be OK. LA geological faults will take care of this issue.
Good for LA, they have earthquakes but how do we bury the commies on the east coast?
Cheers,
Speed
Jerry, it wasn’t that funny the first time you said it.
~¿~
Problem with wordpress….
I think Garcetti’s tenure as L.A. mayor is going to be short-lived. We need a few cities to go down this road, just to prove how ill-conceived and anti-human these ideas are.
It’ll be like a giant porta party without the plastic walls because walls don’t work.
Democrats don’t believe in walls.
Except around their exclusive sub-divisions.
Porta Party? Is that three girls dancing in the back of a pick-up?
Three girls in the back of a truck is a small porta party.
The giant porta party is the ongoing climate summit(s).
We’z going to party. We’z going back to Doha!
And Paris and Bali and Rio and Kyoto and Copenhagen and Katowice and Geneva and Marrakech and Milan and Buenos Aires and Cancun and Lima and Berlin and… but we ain’t going to no Omaha. We’z not going to teleconference.
We’z going to fly and fly til that train comes to suck us off its tracks.
California to pull plug on billion-dollar bullet train, cites ballooning costs….
….“LA Mayor Declares Allegiance to the Green New Deal….
Can it get any better than this?? LOL
UNEP Document Repository
“Green New Deal”, 10 publications on this topic.
https://wedocs.unep.org/discover?scope=%2F&query=Green+New+Deal&submit=
The Green New Deal is the U.S. version of the UN Global Green New Deal initiated late 2008 and into early 2009.
There are so many ironies about and in California, I cannot count them.
United Nations
UN News, 11 December 2008
“Secretary-General calls for ‘Green New Deal’ at UN climate change talks”
UN News Story at:
https://news.un.org/en/story/2008/12/284872-secretary-general-calls-green-new-deal-un-climate-change-talks
Some” Green New Deal” history.
United Nations, Davos, 29 January 2009
Secretary General
“Secretary-General’s Plenary Speech at World Economic Forum” [as prepared for delivery]
Speech mentions “Green New Deal”
https://un.org/sg/en/content/sg/statement/2009-01-29/secretary-generals-plenary-speech-world-economic-forum-global
Also available on the internet.
United Nations, Poznan, Poland, 11 December 2008
“Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s Opening Statement To The High Level Segment Of The United Nations Climate Change Conference”, 4 pages
“We need a Green New Deal”
https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/cop_14/statements/application/pdf/cop_14_statement_ban_ki-moon.pdf
COP14 ,2008 document.
I think there is a “Hollywood, Texas”.
Perhaps Texas should build a wall on their northwestern border?
And the sooner the better… they’re already being overrun with ex-pats from the PDRK (People’s Democratic Republic of Kalifornia)
And you would think SOME of them had learned a lesson…but nope. They either moved because they already understood the insanity and were running away from it, or moved because of a job and brought their insanity with them. We get enough of the insane ones and Texas becomes the next Kalifornia.
Another crash test dummy added to South Australia and the UK. The more there are, the sooner the disastrous crash will happen.
A stable electricity grid and green virtue signalling are mutually exclusive.
Rud Istvan
I’m thinking about building a house for my retirement in Scotland, assuming the SNP have been kicked out over the next few years, if not, then the north of England.
I will be installing the mother of diesel generators for when all this goes tit’s up.
How insane are the SNP?
They are considering a £2 a night hotel surcharge designated a ‘tourism tax’ in Edinburgh for all those ungrateful tourists who visit and dare to spend money in restaurants and pubs in the city supporting the local community.
They also wax lyrical about the unspoiled Scottish countryside – where visitors can while away the hours transfixed by magnificent vista’s of static wind turbines.
You couldn’t make it up, but the SNP can!
Same tax is being considered in New Zealand too to pay for clean ups etc. It’s funny because while tourists do litter, and so do NZ’ers, New Zealand IIRC is the only country in the world that litters the entire country with 1080 poison.
Patrick MJD
February 12, 2019 at 6:08 pm
We use 1080 in NZ in a very targeted way in selected parts of the country. It’s the only cost effective tool to control the plague of possums introduced from Australia that are killing our native trees and birds, including the Kiwi.
Australia uses 1080 as well but to control dingos, feral cats and foxes…not sure if the US still uses it too.
Targeted in such a controlled way that traces were found the water table in the Featherston, Wairarapa area where I once lived.
Exactly.
And you can throw in Germany.
The faster these folks move toward their promised land, the better off the rest of us will be. We just have to make sure the rest of the USA hesitates while they verify the risks they are so far ignoring.
I am not so sure. Politicians are interested in popularity and elections are nothing more then popularity contests IMO. Once they see “going green wins me votes” they all follow like lemmings. Eventually, the “ruling class” find out the hard way that’s not always the best policy.
“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly, and then applying the wrong remedies.”
Groucho Marx
Is there a terminal disease spreading around the world affecting brains of the left?
Yah.
It is a mania. Their fake news amplifier has been set at 11 to 12 for years.
We need a solution. This is getting to be a destroy all the liberal countries with stupid, schemes that do not work problem.
“brains of the left”
Assumes facts not in evidence, Colin.
It’s a tipping point and the walls are closing in on Trump (except everyone knows that walls don’t work).
https://twitter.com/i/status/1056971162566250496
WOW! doesn’t anyone have to do a cost benefit analysis before such a policy? This is getting scary.
Just wait Jim, it’s coming here next.
You know Denver runs the state, and they are hell bent on destroying it.
Xcel just chained they will be zero carbon by 2050 🤔
I’m going to have to sell my Xcel shares before then. Maybe by 2030 to get a jump on the end of the world.
Not necessarily. One of the reasons that utilities are on the renewable bandwagon is that it gives them a larger CAPEX base upon which to base their rates. It is also easy to get approved because of political virtue signalling. So if you are limited to making a 10% net return, would you rather do that on $10MM or $100MM? The only limiting factor is what the PUC will approve.
Of course not! Cost : benefit is whatever you say it is. If a Liberal says it, it must be true.
It would be interesting to run an experiment:
Shut off the synchronous back-up of the gas turbines.
Wait one year and see what happens!
You can pay me now, or you can pay him later.
Once these plants are torn down, and LA has to buy all of it’s power from out of state sources, what is expensive now we be even more expensive.
Please tell me again how it’s the Democrats who care about and protect the poor.
I won’t. I’ll remind you that during “deregulation” 20 years ago, power prices skyrocketed and Bill Clinton told BPA “Thou shalt sell electricity to LA”, so BPA had to buy that electricity back from the aluminum plants so they could sell to LA. Naturally, that made the electricity outrageously expensive.
Not working poor. Only poor on welfare. Nancy calls it a safety net.
Return with us now to those thrilling days of the 5th century.
One would think they would like walls.
Sounds to be that they are smoking pot!
What? Stupid is as stupid does.
I believe that we are not looking at Global Warming or anything like that here.
We are looking at Globalization, whose intention is not only to have one government and one market, but intent to achieve this by ruining economies and thereby creating the opportunity for an absorption into a controllable world wide economy.
This explains the inexplicable policies by the left world wide.
Apart from the tool of”Global Warming” of which there is no doubt that economies will falter if these crazy policies will be actually adopted, take note of the tool of uninhibited immigration, such as in Europe which is ruining not only economies but cultures, and the tool known as the EU which will end up with most member states becoming vassals.
The people pushing these policies are not stupid, they have been seduced by personal gain and their task is to lead normal trusting people into a latter day holocaust.
The whole thing does not make sense unless one thinks of what the true aims of Globalization really are.
LA (and California) are not “to big to fail”.
Let Soros bail them out.
You might appreciate this interview:
https://issuesetc.org/2019/02/08/0391-the-green-new-deal-dr-david-legates-2-8-19/
Dr. David Legates of the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation Goes into some of the background of the GND, and yes, it’s all about wealth redistribution.