Reposted from Fox and Hounds Daily
By Ronald Stein
Founder and Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure of PTS Advance, headquartered in Irvine, California
Tuesday, November 12th, 2019
California is about to take one giant step toward following Germany’s failed climate goals which should be a wake-up all for governments everywhere. Yes, you guessed it, our legislatures have authorized CalEPA in the 2019 – 2020 California State budget and Assembly Bill AB 74 to conduct studies and identify strategies to manage the decline of in-state crude oil production and decrease demand and supply of fossil fuel.
Germany tried to step up as a leader on climate change, by phasing out nuclear, and pioneered a system of subsidies for industrial wind and solar that sparked a global boom in manufacturing those technologies. Today, Germany has the highest cost of electricity in the world.
From Alberta to Australia, from Finland to France and beyond, infuriated voters are increasingly showing their displeasure with expensive energy policies imposed by politicians in an inane effort to fight purported human-caused climate change. Now you can add Chile to the growing list of countries whose governments are suffering a backlash as average people, tired of elites forcing costly climate policies down their throats with continuous proposals to raise public transport fares and energy bills.
Like Germany and a slew of other countries, California continues to make decisions based on their believe that intermittent electricity from renewable wind and solar will be the replacement to fossil fuels to run the 5th largest economy in the world. Like Germany, this has come at a HIGH COST to Californians.
With its green dreams of an emission free state, California has not even been unable to generate enough of its own electricity in-state and imported 29% of its needs in 2018. The bad news is that imported electricity comes at higher costs and those costs are being borne by residents and businesses alike. California households are already paying 50% more, and industrial users are paying more than double the national average for electricity.
The future of electricity in California does not bode well as the State has chosen to not challenge the closure of the States’ last nuclear zero emission generating plant at Diablo Canyon, and 3 natural gas generating plants in Southern California.
The four upcoming losses of continuous generating electricity are:
- 1. PG&E’s Nuclear 2,160 megawatt Generating Plant at Diablo Canyon’s to be shuttered in 2024.
- 2. The 823 mw Natural Gas Power Plant at Scattergood in Playa Del Rey, to be shuttered in 2024.
- 3. The 575 mw Natural Gas Power Plant at Haynes in Long Beach, to be shuttered in 2029.
- 4. The 472 mw Natural Gas Power Plant at Wilmington, to be shuttered in 2029.
With NO plans for industrial wind or solar renewable intermittent electricity projects to generate “replacement” electricity in-state, especially with the huge land requirements for those renewables, there will be a need to import from other states greater percentages of California’s electricity needs in the years ahead. And as you guessed it, more costs to the consumers and businesses who are already infuriated with high costs.
Could it be that our legislatures are also unaware that those unstoppable costs of more regulations, taxes and increased minimum wages targeted toward businesses are just passed through to the consumers of the services and products from those businesses? Those higher costs roll directly into housing, utilities, food, and entertainment if there’s any money left, and may be very contributory to California’s growing homelessness and poverty populations.
I know our legislatures want to sunset the oil industry, BUT imagine how life was without those fossil fuels before 1900 when we had NO militaries, NO vehicles, NO airlines that now move 4 billion people around the world, NO cruise ships that now move 25 million passengers around the world, NO merchant ships that are now moving $50 Billion dollars of products monthly through California ports, NO space program, NO medications and medical equipment, NO vaccines, NO fertilizers to help feed billions, NO tires for vehicles, and NO asphalt for roads.
Most importantly, before the 1900’s we had NONE of the 6,000 products that are manufactured from the chemicals and by-products from fossil fuels. Interestingly from each 42-gallon barrel of crude oil, half is for those thousands of products and the other half for the fuels to run commerce.
We’ve had more than 100 years to find alternative or generic methods to manufacture the thousands of products we get from those deep earth minerals, and to manufacture the fuels for commerce and the military. By nearly every quantifiable measure, we are better off than our pioneer predecessors because of fossil fuels. In more than a century we’ve only come up with electricity that can be generated intermittently from sunshine and wind.
When we look at what intermittent electricity from wind turbines or solar panels CANNOT do, we see they are blatant failures to qualify as replacements for the fossil fuels that produce those 6,000 products that are the basis of our lifestyles and of our numerous infrastructures, and manufacture more than 60 million gallons of fuels every day to meet the demands of the states’ commerce and nearly 40 million residents.
I believe it’s easy to understand that wind and solar alone are obviously incapable of supporting the military, airlines, cruise ship, and merchant ships. As a reminder just in case you’re still living in the pre-1900’s, without transportation and the leisure and entertainment industries, we have no commerce.
Imagine if politicians would tell voters that their utopian vision of a world run on solar panels and windmills is a fairy tell? But instead, they have doubled down to sunset the economy with legislature verbiage that pre-determines the outcome of the CalEPA efforts to study ways to decrease the size of the in-state oil industry that’s driving (no pun intended) the California economy.
“With its green dreams of an emission free state, California has not even been
unableable to generate enough of its own electricity in-state and imported 29% of its needs in 2018″“Autocorrect” sucks !
Article keeps mentioning how much electricity will continue to be imported, but does not point out how most of the imported is from coal and gas generation. Missed irony.
Better if the suppliers built new coal fired plants along the CA border. Lots of coal miners/operators would rejoice as well as non-CA electric customers having access to even cheaper nuclear and hydrocarbon based generators. Then mandate that CA be isolated from the national grid meaning the coal-fired plants would only be connected to the CA grid.
I prefer the scenario where Nevada and Arizona also go green, leading to them reducing their energy production, leading to them no longer being able to export energy to California, leading to 30% of the Golden State going dark. Robbing Peter (Nevada, Arizona) to pay Paul (California residents) is not a sound long-term energy policy.
Am I right in thinking that California has to export any excess of solar generation when that occurs, and pay the recipients to take it as well?
Sometimes they do, yes. However, due to Federal and probably Californian renewable subsidies, they can still “make” money at pretty significantly negative prices.
That cost is borne by taxpayers.
Cut them off! Let them eat cake!
Well … this should provide an ‘opening’ for an entrepreneur who has a new source of energy, like Brillouin Energy (whom I have _no_ faith in) https://brillouinenergy.com/ to shine (so to speak.)
Now, the (inaptly) named SunCell ™ using the Hydrino reactor is a different matter.
All the Unicorn Energy folks will be flooding into California, which is great for the rest of the country. Maybe we can extract the productive people, leave Silicon Valley and Hollywood, all the “undocumented persons” and build a wall around California. Put up a sign saying “Unicorn Haven” and direct the undocumented to the new paradise.
re: “All the Unicorn Energy folks will be …”
Don’t be an idiot, unless you can afford it. Chances are, you are wildly out of your league on this …
Jim: I have never found there’s any such rule as not being an idiot unless you can afford it. Why, the idiots are everywhere in all the comment sections. It’s a national fad. Free for the taking. (As for “my league”, since you know nothing about me, I would submit that I am not the idiot here….)
_Jim, Rather than insulting Sheri. Do you have anything of substance to say about the point Sheri was making? if not, well that makes clear whom the real idiot is.
Please don’t sacrifice all the good God-fearing, conservative folk in the hinterlands of Commifornia! They try to elect sane leaders like Devin Nunes but are vastly out numbered by the votes of illegal immigrants and the useful idiots who have recently graduated from the schools of propaganda and indoctrination run by the state. As the state continues to self destruct from it’s moronic Progressive policies there will be a real need to rescue the oppressed serfs and plebeians from the ruling coastal elites. We can restore the once great state by isolating the infection in “sanctuary cities” that are surrounded by walls like what is being built at the southern border. The L.A. basin and parts of the S.F. region would be very effective as low-security prisons for people who want use drugs and practice the cult of Progressivism. Individuals who want to become full U.S. citizens again would only have to pass a citizenship test and monthly drug tests for 5 years!
We might have to do the same thing with Seattle and Portland until most Pantifa crowd reverses their rectal-cranial inversions, but the ranch and agricultural regions would welcome a savior!
Abolition Man: Great piec e of writing! You hit the nail on the head, and with good manners that becomes an intellectual!! I think I’m in love! Linda
So – California becomes “Golgafrincham Ark 2”? (ref HHG2G)
As soon as I read “Brillouin” I thought “Hyrdi-oh-no has changed its name yet again” but i didn’t expect a cold fusion venture sponge.
I wish I had a Scientastic RnD Company, with all the lab coats and conduits everywhere and fake science… looks so cool. It’s like Climate Change(tm) but with better marketing and graphic design.
There’s a point: somebody throw the (original) Turbo Encabulator at Michael Mann (without the laughter at the end) and see if he actually realizes what it is.
re: “As soon as I read “Brillouin” I thought “Hyrdi-oh-no has changed its name yet again” ”
No, no … this is a different group headed up by founder Robert Godes. They seem enamored of the Palldium – Hydrogen “process”. They are showing results, but, scalabilty is the issue these guys face.
Judging from your response I take you have _no_ familiarity with Mills history and background. Mills has always been a one man show, with solid science and LAB WORK behind him. His earlier work wasn’t economically scalable (the CIHT cell), hence his change in direction some 5 years ago now.
These Brillouin guys are riding a different wave … they have positive, verified test results too, some performed by SRI https://brillouinenergy.com/newwebsite/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Brillouin-SRI-Technical-Progress-Report-Final-Public-2018.pdf
BUT again scalability is the issue IMNSHO.
Mills devices are now operating at the kW (kilowatt) level, ~100 kW level to be specific.
Actually, it’s because we are familiar with his history, that we are skeptical.
“…Mills devices are now operating at the kW (kilowatt) level, ~100 kW level to be specific…”
Proof? The SRI stuff says “several watts.”
As I recall SRI also certified Yuri Geller’s paranormal abilities through “scientific” laboratory testing in 1974. Feynman and Randi remained skeptics.
Indeed. The tests were conducted by parapsychologists Harold E. Puthoff and Russell Targ for Stanford Research Institute (later known as SRI International) in August 1973. Writing about the same study in a 1974 Nature article, they concluded that he had performed successfully enough to warrant further serious study.
That video at Brillouin looked really quacky, looks like quackery.
re: “That video at Brillouin looked really quacky, looks like quackery.”
I give this warning every time we discuss these things: Let’s NOT be stupid about this.
I’ve looked but only briefly at the “science” behind Brillouin’s work, but suspect it works on a basis already known to produce energy given the elements they claim are necessary to achieve this ‘trick’.
Again, they have positive results in testing, but, like other developments along these lines it is scalability, and most important, scalability economically AGAINST established technology, like nat. gas, coal, nuclear that counts.
If you haven’t read the lab test reports and insist on calling this quackery, I’ve no time to hear yet another uninformed opinion, because, such an opinion is useless in the face of what is being demonstrated in the lab.
Remember the lab? The lab is where testing of the theory takes place …
This is the third time someone has been here pushing this alleged new energy source.
If it is real, there is zero need for strong arm tactics, e.g. “People must believe”, “Look! Look!”, “See and believe!”, etc. etc.
Sell products that produce said energy and get satisfied customers that convince their friends.
Sell products that produce said energy and get satisfied customers that convince their friends.
Indeed. The time to hype a “breakthrough product” is *after* it’s done being test and is released into real world application. Before that is premature (if it does eventually amount to something) at best or pushing vaporware and/or snake oil (if it never amounts to anything) at worst.
I’m going with quackery.
_Jim: Again, they have positive results in testing, but, like other developments along these lines it is scalability, … .
I think the main problem is that they can not make small devices that reliably generate more energy than they consume.
It’s not much different from all of the battery technology breakthroughs we hear about, but then never see in the real world. It turns out that while the ‘breakthrough” works, it doesn’t scale up, or it has a very limited number of charge cycles, or uses materials that just aren’t available in large quantities which makes the batteries very very expensive.
I’ll believe they ‘have’ fusion when they are able to get even a relatively small fusion plant online and running for months on end. Otherwise it’s just vaporware.
re: “It’s not much different from all of the battery technology breakthroughs we hear about, but then never see in the real world.”
Nope, sorry friend. You’re obviously not up-to-date with developments the last couple years.
Read my PREVIOUS post on this again WHERE I mention the power levels being tested are at the 100 kW level now … the scalability is there now on Mills’ tech.
Please, read, comprehend, understand THEN comment.
DCE: It’s not much different from all of the battery technology breakthroughs we hear about, but then never see in the real world.
_Jim: Nope, sorry friend. You’re obviously not up-to-date with developments the last couple years.
Great, so there are some real world commercial products using this “breakthrough” you can point us to. no? not even one? any one surprised?
re: “no? not even one? any one surprised?”
You have presumed “an answer”; further discussion when you are, literally, “beyond reason” is time wasted. (Hint: Get out of your bubble.)
As I have written before, it matters not a whit what you, or I, think. What matters is the reality of lab tests, initially, and the commercialization to follow.
Are you not aware of history when it comes to technological developments?
How long did Edison work on his light bulb?
How long did TI take before actually introducing a battery-powered calculator to the mass market? The ‘tech’ was there, but the mass production, the incorporation in a form-function to be fully acceptable and usable to consumers took part of a decade. I have met and talked with Jerry Merriman, listed on the original TI calculator patent a copy of which hangs just inside the door in the North Building lobby at TI’s Dallas Expressway Site.
I give this warning every time we discuss these things: Let’s NOT be stupid about this.
too late, you already posted.
I’ve looked but only briefly at the “science”
that’s how con-men succeed in conning people. People don’t take the time to do more than “only briefly” look into things.
If this unicorn fart turns out to be something real, that will reveal itself in time. No amount of snake oil salesmanship on your or anyone else’s part needed.
Brilliant Light Power videos such as:
https://youtu.be/93MSeDV0B-E
Here’s another: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omUSfYuVT1c
I’m pleased the company is being unorthodox, but I’m dubious about its prospects.
If someone spends years trying to find someone to invest in a miracle, the odds are that you are pushing a scam that the smart money has no trouble seeing through.
Indeed the longer something is pushed with no pay off (IE an actual real world product) the more likely it’s a scam and/or simply does not live up to it’s hype. As far as I can see Godes has been pushing this for over a decade now, with no actual real world product looking to appear anywhere in the near future. rather than try to sell us the snake oil, _Jim should get back to us when there really is something in the real world that can be looked at in order to judge the merits (or lack there of) of the product.
Imagine Hollywood trying to produce a movie without using fossil fuels…..D’OH !
I have argued on other sites that XR should be demanding that Hollywood be shut down. Huge carbon footprint; essentially no value to society.
No value to society? Where we we be without all that virtue signalling and moral posturing to show us how wrong we are and make us feel shame?
Hollywood sans fossil fuel? But I read about a university that had the idea that they could make a movie using just cell phone cameras, and THAT wouldn’t use any fossil fuel at all! That’s a MAJOR d’oh!
Invest in moving vans. It’s the new growth industry and part of the demand response model.
Yeah but it is getting harder and harder to find customers for the flip flop. The U-Haul price ratio is ~2.5X for from/to CA v. TX and growing.
Yep. Saw the sign for $15/day to California here in Arizona. Asked a former coworker (that also worked for them coding the demand/availability system, and is still hooked in to the company) how long that had been going on. About the last nine months or so.
Told me a little secret, too – if you are going one-way specifically to the Bay area, you can get it for no rental – just turn it in with a full tank.
But it will cost you dearly when you realize you made a mistake and you join the rush to get back out again. Maybe tell them you’re going to Chicago when you meant somewhere else.
With one-way tickets for homeless to leave NY, maybe there is an opportunity there either behind the wheel or in the back of the vans.
Invest in the out-of-state utilities that are going to supply the electrical shortfall.
While I am sympathetic to your objective, please support it with facts, not fake facts. I am fairly sure that we had military before 1900.
Yep. The list is wrong in several ways. On the other hand, comparing anything on the list with what we have now is orders of magnitude different.
I have a pretty good idea of what my family has been doing for the last four hundred years. I wouldn’t trade places with any of them. Most people are in the same condition. Most of them would make the same choice.
Choices have consequences. People have to be taught the consequences of their choices. The greenies want to reduce the world’s population to less than a billion. What does that mean for your descendants? Hint, you probably won’t have any. Other hint, the world won’t be able to support the technology we now have. That means things will go backwards really fast. I’ve read the Foxfire Book. I have none of the skills necessary to live a seventeenth century existence. There will be a lot of misery before we relearn those skills.
Considering I have arthritis in both shoulder splitting wood is now out of the question. I do know how to use an ax, but I never use one to fell a large tree, chainsaws work much better for that. Funny the Socialist Republic of California want to eliminate chainsaw at least on the run on and ICE power source, funny in the forest no mater how hard you look you simple cannot find a Currant bush that puts out 110 volts.
Currants are a secondary host for white pine rust. As such they need to be eradicated along with gooseberries. Too bad they are not currents.
Curious George
Yes the usa did, but how would horses and swords defend the mighty usa? Steam powered boats lol even that would need coal and lots of it.
The British eco-friendly fleet conquered much of the world in the 18th and 19th centuries running on just wind power.
“Eco-friendly”? You know they deforested the UK, and were getting masts and lumber from Scandinavian countries by the time of the Napoleonic wars, right?
Tall Spruce and pine trees in North America were consider the “King’s Property”.
The British also decimated Virginia’s Live Oak trees around the Great Dismal Swamp.
Live Oaks have a hard dense wood and branches that run horizontal to the ground then bend upwards at angles between 45° to 90°. Making them perfect for ship’s knees
I very much doubt the Chinese and Russian navies would revert to wind-power.
I assumed he meant no military that used fossil fuels.
Good point, a point so many others seemed to have – missed?
Just the usual especially thick heads.
We did not have a military with any substantial expeditionary forces (move hundreds of thousands of tons of men and equipment fast all over the world) before 1910.
1900 Military was just beginning to get mobilized (motorized transport).
Horses had an important place in WW2, especially for Germany which was strapped for gasoline. link
They certainly have the massive staff to accomplish it at CalEPA. Spike their pensions in CalPERS too. They are good at that in California.
How sad that the rich politicians and academics and activists, who all live off the taxpayers, are making a big and very expensive plunge to eliminate fossil fuels. This experiment has been tried before and failed miserably (for example Germany). As usual with rich leftists, the pain is born inversely hard by the poor and middle class. The growth in the number of homeless people is a good indicator as is the flight of Californians to other states with more enlightened government and more enlightened voters.
this obviously has nothing to do with global warming any more….
…they all know that China, developing world, etc far exceed their emissions…and have no intention of backing off
knowing that….it’s also obvious it’s a ‘m a c s’ < won't let me post that word
It says a lot about the minds set of green governments. The increase in cost and unreliability is due not to their green policies but that.their green policies were not green enough. It’s become so obvious to anyone unindoctrinated by this religion that the policies are destroying the economy and the efficiency and affordability of electricity that at the next election the incumbents should be thrown out in a landslide. Unfortunately the badgering of the corrupted media and the orchestrated indoctrination undertaken in the schools and universities means that such a logical consequence is not so certain.As the science supporting action on climate change becomes more discredited the green zealots in charge become more feral. I just hope there are sufficient sane individuals of voting age who think like us ,who can remove these types of governments at the next election.
It is all part of big disinformation campaign.
The GreenSlime buys academic like Mark Jacobson at Stanford to produce deceptive studies on solar and wind energy that only look like engineering.
Then they use that deception to dupe the ignorant politicians and public on renewable energy’s cost, availability, and reliability.
Costs to consumers soar. The deep river of money flows into the pockets of those invested in the renewable energy schemes. And the GreenSlime feeds a piece of that windfall back to the dishonest pols as campaign support to keep the scam running even when its true costs become evident. As the pain deepens for the middle class, the conservatives flee, the liberals and public employees (unionized) of course) demand the government provide support and more thus more dependency in an ever deepening cycle. Like all progressive-socialist schemes, they will eventiually run out of OPM and other people’s electricity (other states excess).
I guess those folks enjoy rolling blackouts. Forced by government to be a survivalist. Who’d thunk?
Um, 1900 was NOT the beginning of time on planet earth. Most countries had a large military, goods were transported from one edge of the world to the other, medicines were available. There were trains and other vehicles crossing the lands. Mansions were being built.
And what exactly is so special about cruise ships? Space Program is going where exactly? Somehow enough natural fertilizer was around to help grow the crops for people to survive. There were telegraph stations just about everywhere.
In 1900 Britain was the world superpower….
Sweet unholy cow on a stick!! What exactly are you advocating for Ken?
1900 was NOT the beginning of time on planet earth, but it was near the beginning of decent livable time. Before this, only the elite had a decent life with a decent life span. The common man, the poor, had a short, brutish, vicious, sickness filled life before fossil fuels.
Sheesh. I don’t know who you are and you may be a logical human, but the nature of your post reflects the thinking of a Malthusian Cultist!
Ken, the average life expectancy at birth for a white male in the U.S. in 1900 was 47. For black males, 33 (!).
Some things used for medicines then, are now considered poison. Pharmaceuticals today are almost all synthesized from oil, and save lives. Goods were transported then, but spoilage was high, and could be deadly. Travel across oceans was dangerous and often deadly. There was natural fertilizer, but food shortages were common.
Most importantly, the environment was heavily polluted – human and animal waste flowed in the streets; water and air, contaminated. Death and disease were always present.
What do you think changed all that?
I don’t think there can have been enough natural fertilizer, and ‘survive’ is just about the right word- they certainly didn’t thrive. That’s part of the problem- the green nutters have some sort of romantic notion about pre-industrial peasant life, when in fact people lived short, harsh lives and food for most people was certainly not plentiful and cheap.
My information from Chemical Process Magazine is that 8000 products are made from oil and its derivatives.
Anyone else notice the sneaky tiptoe towards the ‘middle ground’ that legitimizes the climate change fraud? “Let’s work together to solve it without destroying the economy’ the tiptoers say. Some naively believe the ‘compromise’ will calm the alarmists and the rest are sneaky petes. There is no middle ground, there’s just the facts and the BIG LIE of man-made global warming. And it’s so threatening even the bible chimed in, ages ago: carbon is 6 protons, 6 neutrons & 6 electrons; the human body is carbon-based and The Plan is to replace cash with a carbon chip. Maybe the depopulation crowd is adapting their playbook to fit prophecy or maybe prophecy is ironically real science warning us against fake science, but either way we need to stop giving the plotters ground and take this little gem FAR more seriously: ‘The Truth Shall Make You Free.’ Because the LIE will enslave, and then kill us. We’ve been warned.
It’s never been about the planet. It’s always been about destroying the economies of the western world so they can subjugate the population.
As for Germany shutting down it’s nuclear power plants so as part of stepping up as a leader on.climate change: That can’t be the reason for shutting down the nukes, because doing so is counterproductive for decreasing greenhouse gas emissions. The reason was fear of a nuclear accident. Germany started its nuke shutdown shortly after the Fukushima incident.
I certainly agree. Even James Hansen advocates nuclear power plants, as he is solely focussed on reducing carbon dioxide emissions. France is less concerned about a nuclear accident than Germany?
“The reason was fear of a nuclear accident. Germany started its nuke shutdown shortly after the Fukushima incident.”
Reinforced by massive protests and blockages by greens demanding denuclearization.
Donald, don’t for a minute think the green crowd is logical. They talk reducing CO2 as the solution to the world’s ills but they mostly balk at nuclear (the one source of “clean” energy that has a hope of replacing fossil fuel power generation and thus reduce “greenhouse gas emissions”). The Fukushima incident was merely the excuse to do what the greens have long advocated: shutting down nuclear.
I’d say “Will the last Californian to abandon the state please turn out the lights”, but that clearly won’t be necessary.
Do homeless people vote?
Yes; en masse democrat.
The promise of a hot meal does it, I think.
If there is a tipping point, it is this: Climate Change has reached “Too Big To Fail” status.
Excellent analogy, Steve!
You need to add Oregon’s electricity sales to California in your mix. Oregon currently sells electricity to California but the Boardman coal (550mw) plant is slated to be shuttered in 2020 (it can go another 30+yrs) due to political pressure. Less electricity generation in the mix to sell to California.
It would prove interesting if neighboring states started experiencing rolling blackouts because California outbid in-state utilities for a shrinking available supply.
R_D,
See my comment below. Rate increases for PacNW hydropower for WA and OR are inevitable. If the nitwit WA governor and the corrupt OR governor get their ways, blackouts in the PacNW are in our future as well.
So, when Calizuela goes bankrupt, I suppose the US taxpayers will have to bail them out. Yeah, that’s fair.
“ … California has not even been unable to ”
Where’s the WUWT proof reader?
Should be an AI job; simple comparison of logical (not) operators used/misused in the grammar, assuring agreement where appropriate …
well, my powerbank can easily deliver more than 4000 mW. Just buy a few from China…
If you contemplate the mindset of the marxist zombies, the common denominators for all of their policies seems to boil down to two beliefs. One is that government subsidies are the only answer to everything and the other is that failure can always be overcome by increasing the subsidies and continuing to do more of the same on a larger scale. These beliefs are so ingrained that despite the rapidly rising costs of electricity, the finger of blame is always pointed elsewhere and the answer is always that we need to add more RE. The idea that RE might be a failed concept is simply not permitted in minds of these zealots and they remain locked into a utopian dream where free and endless wind and solar energy creates a world of perfect weather, free from fires , storms, floods or droughts. Of course there is a reality check coming and it won’t be nice !
The “evermore” mindset of the progressive-socialist crowd has long been noted by the rational crowd. But not noted by enough people in California to realize what is about to happen to them.
Cal plans not only running out of OPM but also Other People’s Electricity (OPE from states around them). And when this self-imposed scarcity comes to roost, Cal’s electricity prices will more than skyrocket.
There is another mindset operating here also. That is the premise that if something is reported in the news often enough and loud enough it will become fact – and the laws of physics be dammed. Just ask anyone in the ‘main’ news media if they were wrong about anything they reported. The silence will be deafening and severely under-reported.
Once the media has decided that global warming is a fact it becomes ‘cast in stone’.
Cal’s Sacramento Democrats are owned by two special interests: public unions (and their deeply underfunded pension funds invested in the renewable energy schemes) and elitist billionaires heavily invested in the Green energy scam. The only Green they intend to harvest is cash from the middle class.
It is no wonder they get the ever higher energy costs and ever lower reliability (blackouts) results they are seeing. As long as Cal’s voters there keep re-electing those same scumbags again and again, they’ll keep getting screwed over to ever higher levels.
that’s 4030 MW of power production lost by 2029. That would require at a minimum over 2000 – 2MW turbines operating at 100%. Given the reported 30% up time, at least triple that number. That would nearly double the number of turbines operating in California. I don’t think that there is enough land with adequate wind to host that many turbines.
Darrin,
I think that we in OR and WA states can look forward to higher electricity rates as CA sucks more electricity from PacNW hydropower. Governor Nitwit Inslee believed that selling electricity to CA at higher rates was a good thing, when he was a Congress-weenie.
Add the demand from Facebook, Google and Microsoft new data centers in The Dalles, OR and Quincy, WA, and electricity prices going up for us.
We want to treat everyone fairly. We’ll take employers from all west coast states equally. Aid stations for families overloaded in vans and SUVs will be set up with caring people and warm shelter.
I’m just glad that our dams on the Columbia R. are owned by the Army Corps of Engineers, if not Inslee and “If it’s Brown flush it down” Kate (slogan to get rid of Kate Brown for those living outside Oregon) would of colluded with Gang Green to rip them out already.
Yes, a note from our local** PUD came in the mail today: 5% increase. [ 4.99% ]
We knew about this because we are in a small cooperative, but the USPS brought the official notice.
Still, we have low cost relative to most of the USA.
**Kittitas County in central Washington State.
The lower 47 (48 minus California) should do them a favor. Cut them off all deliveries of gas and also electricity that has not been produced certifiably by wind or solar generation assets. California is about the enter a new age of Juche – that’s the supremely successful economic program of North Korea by which the country has been effectively isolated from the rest of the world. North Koreans sure are among the happiest people on Earth and soon Californians will be able to rejoice in eternal liss while the lower 47 live on their dreadful life of stable electricity and fuel for their cars.
California owns sizeable portions of th generating capacity in in neighboring states.
For but one example:
https://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-utah-coal-los-angeles-climate-20190711-story.html
How can “97%” of everyone it seems on the planet believe renewables are a near-term solution to (even assuming it exists) to CAGW? Why is it so hard to get all the great articles and studies published through WUWT out there? There isn’t anything on any TV network that would dare refute “the consensus”. The climate change dogmatists are clearly winning. I wish that with all the stupid ideas our government have here in Canada, that the federal leaders would at least grab a mouse, and try out Google. Our politicians have put climate change ahead of the disabled (22% of the population), veterans, and generally the national economy. Although Conservative Scheer does not necessarily subscribe to this idiocy, none of them have the cojones to contemplate calling the whole thing BS. There was one candidate in the recent federal election by the name of Maxime Bernier (Former Conservative Party leader). He got over 300,000 popular votes throughout Canada out of about 5.5 mm that voted, but couldn’t even keep his seat in his own riding, because: He doesn’t believe in government subsidies for industry (and stuck to his guns regarding dairy farmers, which probably put his lights out at home in Quebec) doesn’t believe in CAGW, and said that there are entirely too many unskilled immigrants coming to Canada. That didn’t help him either. It was simply seen as extreme right-wing racism. I think that most of my friends, and many of my colleagues agreed with Bernier’s platform, but wouldn’t vote for him because he couldn’t win. (Strategic voting -let’s vote for the local guy which gets either Daffy, Mickey, or Goofy elected.) In the first election where Bernier’s party participated after a year in existence, he won almost half as many votes as the idiotic Green party which has been around for years, under the leadership of Elizbeth May. The greens went from 1 seat to 3 (out of 338 available).
No political leader in Canada will challenge the alarmists for the fear of having to look for a real job after getting slaughtered by Greta fanatics in an election.
GAAAAHH… What to do?
Nice article. Most of the facts are right on. Sadly, the article is detracted from by a wholly unacceptable number of typos, spelling, and grammatical mistakes.
Re. California, if things are so bad there, is big business moving out ?
We are told that California has one of the Worlds biggest economies. Now
how can that be if energy costs so much.
The same goes for Germany, has business moved to other parts of Europe,
or to countries such as the US ?
Another question, we now hear from many of the Western countries that
classifying countries such as India and China as a developing country is
wrong.
As they both have developed the atom bomb, a space programme and a
military of considerable size, no way are they now poor just developing
countries.
But this was obvious from day one of the KYOTO agreement, which faced
with the outright rejection of none Western type countries cutting back on
their use of fossil fuel, who refused to sign.
My question is “”Why did the Western countries allow this ridicules state
of affeers to last so long ?””. Was it perhaps just the excuse for so many manufactures in the Western countries to move their businesses to low income countries. And why when we in the West are in effect slowly destroying
our economy, and with it our comfortable way of life, are they still allowed
to emit vast amounts of CO2.
Here in Australia with a vast sink ,around the whole country and we only
emit some 1.3 % of the Worlds content of this gas, we are clearly going into
a recession, not that PM Morrison would ever admit that.
The basic problem in the so called West, is gutless politicians who in their
endless quest for a vote or two will not speak out and tell us the truth about
Weather and long term, i.e. the 30 year Climate point.
Perhaps I am a bit simple in my thinking, but this whole rotten situation is
resting on one thing only, the facts about the molecule CO2 which is
essential to all living life on this planet, and yet its now demonised as a
pollutant.
Lets clearly state what it does when receiving energy, that’s all. Instead we
now have a vast industry which has been created about the effect of this
gas. Lots of people including the sceptics are nuking a very comfortable
living writing and talking about it.
Whole vast industries have been created to replace those industries which
emote this so called dangerous gas, which is just a minor trace gas anyway.
And don’t talk about the elephant in the room about transportation, especially aviation and shipping.
How many o the working population would be prepared o give up their car,
and change to a expensive electric car, with a high price to be paid when the
battery needs replacing.
So what are the facts as I understand it. Two things CO2 does not in itself
store energy, it re-radiates it, and second what about the logarithmic effect,
that as the amount of this trace gas is increasing in the atmosphere, its
ability to pass on energy is decreasing.
MJE VK5ELL
IMO, California and Germany are economically dead, carried only by momentum that is now almost zero.
A measure of local economic strength in the U.S. stagnated in the third quarter, dragged down by lackluster growth in major California cities, according to new data published by Yelp.
Germany’s just released third-quarter GDP growth was an anemic 0.1%, narrowly avoiding a technical recession.
I will be surprised if both aren’t now in a recession that will be reflected in their 4th quarter numbers. We shall see.
The Sacramento Democrats can get away with this electricity deception because the public K-12 education system there has produced so much of this:
The Californians
https://youtu.be/dCer2e0t8r8
A high price to pay to calm down the fury of those climate change hurricanes but somebody has to do it, no?
https://tambonthongchai.com/2019/11/14/hurricane-obsession/
Even the author is using ecospeak terminology….”sunsetting” of the oil industry, instead of the more appropriate “euthanizing”…
But German electricity BILLS – what of them? Germans use less electricity and of course millions have solar panels or share in community renewable ownership…
Germany also has probably the world’s most reliable electricity grid.
German CO2 did decrease in 2018, despite (then) economic growth and increased level of emissions from (more) transport
https://www.statista.com/statistics/449701/co2-emissions-germany/
griff November 15, 2019 at 12:40 am
But German electricity BILLS – what of them?
Germans use less electricity and of course millions have solar panels or share in community renewable ownership…
Germany also has probably the world’s most reliable electricity grid.
________________________________________________
“Without cables and a substation, the energy from offshore wind farms cannot be transported from the sea to the shore.
The 1,300-ton substation is, so to speak, the heart of alpha ventus. Its main deck is 25 metres above sea level. The platform has a workshop, emergency accommodation, a helicopter deck and a docking facility for ships. Here, the energy from all of the wind farm’s turbines is collected and is converted to 110 kilovolts.”
“The geographic conditions present particular challenges for cable laying at the German North Sea coast because of the Wadden Sea National Park, a conservation area:
The cable track to connect alpha ventus and other offshore wind farm crosses the national park across the island of Norderney and through the Wadden Sea to the mainland.
Minimally invasive construction is of paramount importance and is continuously monitored by nature conservationists.”
https://www.offshore-stiftung.de/en/grid-connection
________________________________________________
Wer kann das bezahlen, wer hat das bestellt, wer hat soviel pinke-pinke wer ist so ein Held:
Who will ever pay that, who has ordered that, who has so much €€ who will master that:
https://www.google.com/search?q=wer+kann+das+bezahlen+wer+hat+soviel+geld&oq=wer+kann+das+bezahlen%2C+wer+&aqs=chrome.
“CalEPA studying ways to sunset the California economy”
Already tried it with South Australia… big failure. The people just refuse to die.
Apologies if someone has already said this, but one of the strongest arguments against burning fossil fuels is that we need the petroleum to go on making those 6000 products.
At the rate at which Russia is setting up sub-Saharan Africa with Nuclear power, either by direct sales or by setting up co-operation agreements, we will all be migrating there for reliable power whilst the locals are migrating to the “rich” West for the handouts. Interesting times !!
“Germany’s failed climate goals which [] be a wake-up call for governments everywhere.”
Bloomberg:
“Despite higher energy bills, public opinion has remained supportive of the energy transition.
Polls conducted by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam
found in its annual survey for 2017 that 88 percent of voters back the strategy to cut emissions.”
________________________________________________
The fallacy here is TO ASK the voters if they support the “energy transition”.
Whenever asked by a camera team on the streats, “anonymous” on the telephone or by filling out forms via Internet people always tend to represent themselves as the elites of the Good doers.
________________________________________________
Instead WATCH them in the real world when they’re asked TO PAY for their Good doings:
At the supermarket shelves, where they will ALWAYS reach for the cheapest Goods available regardless of their “publicly expressed opinion”.
WATCH them in the real world when they’re asked TO PAY for their Good doings:
At the supermarket shelves, where they will ALWAYS reach for the cheapest Goods available regardless of their “publicly expressed opinion”:
https://www.google.com/search?q=tv+documentaries+heavy+couponing&oq=tv+documentaries+heavy+couponing&aqs=chrome.
________________________________________________
“Germany’s failed climate goals which [] be a wake-up call for governments everywhere.”
Bloomberg:
“Despite higher energy bills, public opinion has remained supportive of the energy transition.
Polls conducted by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies in Potsdam
found in its annual survey for 2017 that 88 percent of voters back the strategy to cut emissions.”
________________________________________________
The fallacy here is TO ASK the voters if they support the “energy transition”.
Whenever asked by a camera team on the streats, “anonymous” on the telephone or by filling out forms via Internet people always tend to represent themselves as the elites of the Good doers.
________________________________________________
Instead WATCH them in the real world when they’re asked TO PAY for their Good doings:
At the supermarket shelves, where they will ALWAYS reach for the cheapest Goods available regardless of their “publicly expressed opinion”.