Posted on 07/05/2009 10:45:32 PM PDT by newbie2008
California's utilities are barreling ahead to try to meet a state mandate to garner 33% of their power from renewable sources by 2020, and some officials are concerned the effort might push up electricity prices and crimp supplies. The state auditor warned this week that the electricity sector poses a "high risk" to the state economy. A staff report from the state energy commission also warns that California could find itself uncomfortably tight on power by 2011 if problems continue to pile up.
Utilities complain that the ambitious renewable-energy mandates, combined with tougher environmental regulations on conventional plants, are compromising their ability to deliver adequate power. . . .
The stresses being felt in California could be a harbinger of problems to come in other states. The federal Waxman-Markey climate-change bill, passed by the House of Representatives on June 26, would require states to obtain about 15% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Currently, about 4% of U.S. electricity comes from renewables, excluding hydropower.
(Excerpt) Read more at volokh.com ...
hahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Of course they are!!!! hahahahhahahahahahah!!!
Oh, good. As long as "some" officials are "concerned".
We are so screwed.
Watch carefully for the fraud. there simply isn’t enough “renewable energy” to meet these goals. So... kooky plans to make kooky power will mushroom. Rate payers will pay huge premiums for “green energy” programs that won’t accomplish a thing. The regulators, staffed with ultra leftists of all stripes, will play along. You are about to be boned.....
Everything I’ve managed to learn so far tells me a 33% “renewables” requirement is not only difficult and expensive but outright physically impossible.
They may miss their goals by as much as five years, but the rolling blackouts will begin much earlier. I presume we all remember what happened in CA the last time...
I even hate to ask buy why exclude hydropower? Not complex enough? Too old school? Not sexy enough?
I’ll never understand why hydro is scorned.
Hydro kills fish. Windmills kill birds. Fish kills can be ameliorated. Raptor kills cannot.
Hydro is quiet. Windmills are noisy.
Hydro is concentrated energy. Windmills are low-density energy, is distributed all over the landscape and requires roads and power distribution lines.
Hydro builds lakes for recreation, drinking water, irrigation and flood control. Wind covers the landscape with the most ugly machines imaginable, permanently destroying once-pristine and beautiful vistas forever.
Hydro power is very cheap. Wind energy is very expensive.
Hydro enjoys economies of scale. Wind does not.
Yet which of these wins with the ecozealots?
Well, the solution must be to raise some taxes....somewhere.
/s
I think that I’ve read that usable, industrial-scale conventional hydropower in the the US is mostly exploited. Wave and tide power, OTOH, which are less conventional, are not.
Strangely, wave/tide power has a very “bad” side effect. It subtly (but measurably!!) can slow down the rotation of the Earth. Not very much, though.
“I don’t get it. Can’t they just wave a magic wand and make it happen? “
They need to get more of those “Power Points”, where most Californians think electricity comes from (according to a survey), pronto.
CalPine had feasible geothermal discovered and ready to develop in my County. The Pitt River Indian tribe and environmentalists stopped it in court.
Roseburg Forest Products has a cogeneration plant ready to start up and the environmentalists have stopped it in court - mostly on air quality concerns.
PacifiCorp had gone all the way through FERC relicensing of the hydroelectric dams on the Klamath River. The State Water Control Board has indicated it will not issue a water quality permit so relicensing cannot be completed. Indian tribes and environmentalists want four of the dams to be removed.
Fuels build-up in the 6 National Forests in my county have reached the level of serious threat to the public. Last year, 200,000 acres burned. This year, we already have a 3000 acre fire roaring toward us. Environmentalists routinely appeal almost all US Forest Service projects. (They just appealed one that had no timber harvest - it was purely a cleanup of burned over area outside of a town. The project was part of the Community’s Wildfire Protection Plan.)
My county has hundreds of thousands of acres of forest needing fuel reduction which could feed another biomass plant on a sustainable rotation, but no one will invest in one because the environemtalists will play havoc with supply and operation.
The federal energy bill excludes hydropower and biomass from the National Forests as “counting” as alternative energy.
This is why they are not meeting targets in northern CA.
vaudine
Let there be rolling blackouts.
Stupid has consequences.
Drill baby Drill.
“4% of electrical power comes from renewable sources”.
Where? Name it. Must be an over estimation.
AHhh! Natural gas; methane me thinks. Plenty of
“hot air” in Sacremento.
LMBO!!!
Zimbabwefornia, here we come,
Right back where we....
"At today's production volume."
CA could reach the 33% renewable requirement by cutting back output/consumption/sale of power from non-renewable sources. Voila.
Of course, prices would skyrocket and the economy would undergo a spectacular crash - but as far as "physically possible" goes, CA could be at 100% renewables, if it wanted to sacrifice elsewhere.
Completely self-inflicted. Tell someone who cares.
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