EVERY megawatt of power generated by wind or solar has to be backed up by 1.14 megawatts of fossil fuel generation.
This is because (obviously) neither wind nor solar are steady producers, and of course solar goes 100% dark at night. Because backup has to be ready to spool up in minutes to take over the load, only gas and hydro plants can handle the task. (California of course has been tearing up hydro capacity to "save the snail darters". In addition to shutting down the very cleanest power sources we have, i.e. nuclear plants.)
The book is Shorting the Grid, by Merideth Angwin. Will introduce you to the looming catastrophe of grids controlled by politicians and not engineers.
All to make the green oligarchs richer.
I work in the Power Industry.
Gavin Newsome and every Renewable clown out there are idiots.
They know this won’t work.
They know it’s a lie.
They know that even if you cover CA with solar panels it still won’t be reliable enough to produce electricity for residential, industrial and commercial customers.
These people are nefarious and evil in their intentions.
Well....the quicker the change comes the quicker the people who voted for this qwap will find out who the REAL buffoons and mo-rons are. Hint...it’s the voters.
I frankly don’t much care if California commits suicide by ecology, but I DO insist that they not take me with them.
Reminds me a little of the hateful nutcases who go shoot up a mall or a supermarket just before they off themselves.
We could always use a good laugh!
Of course we're already laughing at you - you had the chance to get rid of this idiot, and YOU BLEW IT!
And now you're going to pay for it - even more.
Details are for chumps. Real leaders think big and don't get bogged down by reality...
Bookmark.
I’ll definitely look this up. Thx for the reference! ‘Pod
Everyone who voted this ilk in office deserves the hardships to come.
You all own this and I hope you suffer the fruits of your vote.
I liked the good old days when we thought California was going to break off and fall into the ocean.
I worked with Meredith. I didn’t know she had written that book. She is highly credible and respected. Thanks for letting me know about her book.
I’ve been pointing out the same thing for years. You need TWICE the capital investment to get one kWh from “green” that you do from conventional. You have to build TWO complete power plants with “green” compared to the one you have to build with conventional fossil, hydro, or nuke. You need to either 1) back up “green” with conventional (as you say) or 2) build massive and ultra expensive energy storage systems for when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow (compressed air energy storage, batteries, pumped hydro, ultra capacitors, flywheels, etc).
Huge amounts of research have been done on all these for decades and there really has been limited progress. The USA just doesn’t have enough sites for pumped hydro or compressed air energy storage.
The other thing never talked about is what happens to the beautiful landscape vistas when the USA is covered with ten million windmills. Then, when they are all worn out in 30 short years, what happens to ten million derelict towers with one or two snagged-toothed blades hanging by a thread and the companies that built them are all bankrupt and long gone? Traditional coal surface mines have to post surety bonds to reclaim the land when the mi es close. The same surety bonds need to be posted for “green” plants that destroy the landscape as sure as surface coal mines do. Except those ten million wind turbines will leave behind ONE BILLION TONS of buried concrete.
Fine. Separate the California power grid from the rest of the country.
Let them show us how it can be done, without any “non-green” electricity polluting their pristine grid.
The CA power grid has been broken for the last 40 years.
Throwing more $$$ at the problem isn’t going to fix it.
The problem with politicians who are lawyers is that they are not engineers
A big problem with solar is it produces plenty of voltage but not enough amperage to move the energy over long transmission line distances, its going to need help to move that energy
He can barely keep himself from sticking his finger in a light socket.
I wonder if Newsom is aware that carbon dioxide has nothing to do with climate change?
He is ignoring another more powerful greenhouse gas that is 100 times more plentiful.
That greenhouse gas is water vapor. Look outside. See those clouds in the sky?
What makes it even more richer is that California legalized all marijuana growing and usage, and growing marijuana requires tremendous amounts of electricity (for the grow lights). They did no the premise that it would eliminate illegal growing and California would grow rich off of the taxes. Of course what happened is tragically laughable. The illegal growers (mostly Cartels) outnumber the legal growers 50-1, and since California fired most of the sheriffs, then no one is around to enforce the law and get rid of illegal growing, and just when the Californians need electricity from the archaic grid, the marijuana growers are sucking all of it for their plants.