Trying To See If California's Energy Plans Add Up

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Trying To See If California's Energy Plans Add Up

  • A couple of weeks ago (July 29) I had a post titled “A Little Arithmetic: The Cost Of A Solar-Powered Grid Without Fossil Fuel Back-up.” In that post I did some simple calculations based on California’s current electricity usage and output from its existing solar generating facilities to figure out how much they would need in the way of solar panels and batteries to get through a low-output stretch in the winter without any fossil fuel assistance.

  • Since for solar energy the “low-output stretch” is essentially everything from September 21 to March 21, I calculated that they would need roughly something in the range of 54,000 GWH of grid-scale battery storage, which at current prices would run around $10 trillion — assuming that someone could in the meantime invent the grid-scale batteries for this purpose that could store thousands of GWHs of energy for as much as a full year until needed.

  • Now a reader from California writes to say that he has shown my July 29 post to some business associates who are in the process of developing one of the huge battery complexes that California is just starting to build.

  • The reader reports the response of his battery-developing colleagues as being, in summary, “his arithmetic is correct”; however, “his assessment doesn’t address all the tools in the toolbox.”

  • For supposedly a more full understanding, the battery-developers provide me with a link to the March 15, 2021 Report of several California agencies charged with meeting California’s 2045 zero carbon target, the Report being titled “Achieving 100 Percent Clean Electricity in California: An Initial Assessment.”

  • Does the California multi-agency Report provide any reason to believe that the California bureaucrats have any good idea as to how to get to a zero-emissions electrical grid? The answer is no.

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A Couple Of Examples Of Real Systemic Racism in the U.S.

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  • There has been a lot of talk recently about “systemic racism” in the United States.

  • At first, I was skeptical of the term, particularly because those who throw the term around rarely name an example of specific conduct by anyone that intentionally disadvantages blacks. But the more I think about it, the more I realize that there actually are quite a number of instances of major societal institutions engaging in systemic conduct that is clearly known to differentially disadvantage blacks.

  • In every case I can think of, the conduct that systemically disadvantages blacks is a sacred cow of the left promoted for the benefit of some other progressive interest group.

  • For today, I’ll discuss two of the most clear-cut examples.

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Andrew Cuomo And The Perils Of Politicized Prosecution

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Andrew Cuomo And The Perils Of Politicized Prosecution

  • Here in New York, the news today is dominated by one big story: a supposedly “independent” investigative report issued by the Attorney General has apparently validated allegations of a pattern of sexual harassment committed by our Governor, Andrew Cuomo. From CBS News, August 3:

  • New York Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple current and former staffers as well as women who did not work for his administration, the state's attorney general Letitia James said Tuesday during a press conference summarizing the findings of an independent investigation.

  • Suddenly, a guy who had been riding high on a wave of (ridiculously) favorable publicity for his (disastrous) handling of the Covid-19 crisis now faces calls from all over the place — even from President Biden! — to resign. How could this all have gone so wrong so quickly?

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Does The President Have The Authority To Issue A Nationwide Ban On Evictions?

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  • As you may know, during the current pandemic, since the enactment of the so-called “CARES Act” in March 2020, there has been in effect, in various forms, a federal “moratorium” on evictions of rental tenants from their apartments. Thus some landlords have now gone well over a year without getting paid what they are owed, and with no access to any legal remedy.

  • The most recent version of the “moratorium” expired on July 31 (Saturday). This version had been promulgated by the CDC on its own authority, without specific authorization from Congress. On Sunday (August 1) the Democratic Congressional leadership called on President Biden to extend the moratorium. From The Hill, August 2:

  • Top House Democrats on Sunday called on the Biden administration to extend the eviction moratorium amid the coronavirus pandemic, hours after the ban expired, putting millions of Americans at risk of being forced out of their homes. “Action is needed, and it must come from the Administration. That is why House leadership is calling on the Administration to immediately extend the moratorium,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), Majority Whip James Clyburn (D-S.C.) and Assistant Speaker Katherine Clark (D-Md.) wrote in a joint statement.

  • Wait a minute: They’re saying that Congress has passed no law specific to Covid-19 calling for this eviction moratorium, and yet the leaders of Congress are demanding that the President just enact it on his own authority? Is that how this is supposed to work?

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A Little Arithmetic: The Costs Of A Solar-Powered Grid Without Fossil Fuel Back-up

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  • Yesterday’s post made the point that states or countries seeking to march toward 100% “renewable” electricity don’t seem to be able to get past about the 50% mark, no matter how many wind turbines and solar panels they build.

  • The reason is that, in practical operation, due to what is called “intermittency,” no output is available from the solar and wind sources at many times of high demand; therefore, during those times, other sources must supply the juice. This practical problem is presented most starkly in California, where the “renewable” strategy is based almost entirely on solar panels, with only a very small wind component.

  • Daily graphs published by the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) show a clear and obvious pattern, where the solar generation drops right to zero every evening just as the peak demand period kicks in from about 6 to 9 PM.

  • Commenter Sean thinks he has the answer: . . .

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The Triumphant March Toward 100% "Renewable" Electricity: Germany and California

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The Triumphant March Toward 100% "Renewable" Electricity: Germany and California

  • As a state or a country, if you want to have any status in the ranks of the climate virtuous, the key metric is your commitment to get most or all of your energy from “renewables” (mainly wind and solar) by the earliest possible date. Everybody is doing it, and you are nobody if you don’t get in on the bidding.

  • Just a couple of weeks ago (July 14), according to Reuters, the European Commission entered a bid of 40% of final energy consumption from “renewables” by 2030. Back here in the US, the most recent bid from the Biden administration (from April 28) is a goal of 80% of electricity by 2030, which is ambitious on its own, although electricity is a minority of final energy consumption. Congress has yet to consider the Biden administration bid.

  • Within both the EU and the US, there are national and state champions that are far out-virtuing everybody else. In the EU, it’s Germany. . . . Here in the US, our champion is California.

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