Posted on 09/07/2022 7:02:13 AM PDT by servo1969
With California's energy grid unable to meet demand, four emergency gas-powered generators have been called on to ease the strain on the state's power grid.
California is facing a heat wave with triple-digit temperatures breaking records, according to CBS, which noted Livermore -- in the Golden State's Alameda County -- set a new record Monday at 116 degrees.
"We have now entered the most intense phase of this heat wave," said Elliot Mainzer, president and chief executive of the California Independent System Operator, according to The Sacramento Bee.
"The potential for rotating outages has increased significantly."
He added that the grid faced "energy deficits of 2,000 to 4,000 megawatts, which is as much as 10 percent of normal electricity demand."
How's the electric grid doing in California? It's high noon, and renewables are only producing 32.4% of the state's electricity needs. State officials want to close the gas-powered plants that are currently providing 45.1% of the electricity that keeps the lights on. pic.twitter.com/7jk1MKUZWM
-- Susan Shelley (@Susan_Shelley) September 6, 2022
To avert that, the California Independent System Operator on Monday called on the Department of Water Resources to activate four emergency generators, according to KMPH-TV. The generators were installed in 2021, two each in the Sacramento-area cities of Roseville and Yuba City.
The generators can provide up to 120 megawatts of power through natural gas. That's enough to power about 120,000 homes, according to a Department of Water Resources news release.
The situation facing California was described by The Sacramento Bee this way: "California's increasing reliance on solar power and other renewable sources has made the grid susceptible to blackouts in the early evening, when solar panels go dark but the weather stays hot."
One social media user summed it up with dark humor:
BREAKING: California's electric grid
That's it. That's the tweet.
-- onebear (@factbearthinks) September 6, 2022
"We need a reduction in energy use that is two or three times greater than what we've seen so far as this historic heat wave continues to intensify," he said.
Sooo... California, who will ban the sale of new gas cars by 2035, is now having blackouts and declared an electric grid emergency... lol... got it.
-- Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) September 6, 2022
Jack Brouwer, a professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the University of California at Irvine, told CBS in late August that the state's energy infrastructure grid cannot provide what is being expected of it.
"The grid does not currently have the capability to add millions of battery electric or even fuel-cell electric vehicles today," he said, according to CBS.
Ram Rajagopal, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford University, has said the strain EVs will place on the power grid will be devastating.
"Let's say we were to have a substantial number of [electric] vehicles charging at home as everybody dreams," he said, according to a Yahoo report in May. "Today's grid may not be able to support it. It all boils down to: Are you charging during the time solar power is on?"
Rajagopal led a study that showed that peak charging demand could more than double by 2030 if EV owners charge vehicles after work at their homes.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
Really? My takeaway is you need a two or three times increase in energy production. But I'm certainly no professor.
Fossil Fuels: Well, well, well... Look who's come crawling back...
Deny them fossil fuels if at all possible. Make them live by their own theology.
Guarantee the California hypocrites will keep the electricity flowing to Oakland, SF, Sacramento and LA. Otherwise there will be riots. The hypocrites won’t burn coal to generate electricity and have shut nuclear power plants. Yet they are importing all the coal and nuclear powered electricity from neighboring states and beyond. Those that embrace green lunacy suffer.
California, like Germany, is headed for a new era of literal darkness.
Yup,
That’s a Shame.
Oh the irony is so thick you can cut it with a knife.
Maybe CA needs to pollute the visual environment with more windmills.
What can one expect from the liberal activist mo-rons that double over to screw themselves as long as it screws everyone else. IF they are willing to cut off boobs and other appendages in order to virtue signal, they are willing to cut off their own noses to spite everyone elses faces. It’s just what they do. Not to mention, if this is what cali voters voted for then who are we to stop them?
Don’t charge your EVs!
California is for losers. What they call a RECORD HEAT WAVE, we in Arizona call SUMMER! Yawn.
Over several decades California has moved their primary electricity production outside their borders.
Exactly. They modeled their energy policy on Germany's.
Didn’t they just outlaw gas generators?
Yes it may not stop their stupidity but it will slow it down it’s a start.
maybe they need a green new deal misery index
you know to see how much people like the green new deal
“We need a reduction in energy use that is two or three times greater than what we’ve seen so far as this historic heat wave continues to intensify,”
15 DAYS TO FLATTEN THE HEAT!
like an alcoholic
CA will have to hit rock bottom
before they will change their suicidal behavior
tearing down dams, closing power plants and not building new ones is not looking so good now is it?
The Sierra Club frowns upon California's shenanigans.
“tearing down dams, closing power plants and not building new ones is not looking so good now is it?”
Most of the L.A. generation is gas turbine.
The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a motion by Mayor Michael D. Antonovich to ban utility-scale wind turbines in the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County.
‘Wind turbines create visual blight on the desert landscape, generate noise, impact wildlife and contradict the county’s [ordinance from the Dark-Sky Association] in the Antelope Valley,’ says Antonovich. ‘
The area in question contains some of the best wind resources in all of California
People act as if 116° is a horrifying record of some sort. I remember once that the temperature in downtown LA was 115° when I was there... in 1979.
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