California’s plan to support millions of new electric cars is little more than a dream
Zachary Faria
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California’s electric car mandate was always a shortsighted political statement with no feasible plan for the future. Given how frequently the state is already scrambling to keep its energy grid running, the state is all but admitting it itself.
State leaders claim that running 12.5 million electric cars on California’s roads in 2035 won’t strain the energy grid. This electric car mandate combines with California’s mandate that all state power comes from renewable energy sources by 2045. How could California be so confident that the grid could withstand these massive changes?
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It’s simple: Californian leaders think that the state won’t be run like it has been run under them for years.
The state must build “at least 6 gigawatts of solar and wind energy and battery storage a year for the next 25 years,” according to CalMatters. In the past decade, the state has averaged 1.3 gigawatts per year. In the past three years, it has only hit 4 gigawatts per year.
California wants to produce at least 25 gigawatts from offshore wind farms by 2045. The problem is that no such industry even exists in California. No wind farm projects are in the works, and it would take seven to eight years to plan, permit, and begin construction. When you consider that the state’s high-speed rail is already one century behind schedule, even that seems like a charitable time frame.
California’s energy grid has been brought to its knees by heat waves well before its plan to force 12-16 million drivers into electric vehicles. The state still gets 9% of its power from one nuclear plant, which it has repeatedly delayed closing because even the environmental zealots running the state recognize that the grid would fall apart without it. The state even had to set up five temporary gas-field generators in 2021 to try and prevent rolling blackouts.
Don’t worry, though. Those massive offshore wind farms will save the day by the time they are built in 2080.
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California’s energy woes are self-inflicted as the state moves from one misguided blunder to the next. No one forced Californian leaders to shun nuclear energy, or to pretend that shifting to all-electric vehicles will make a dent in China’s global carbon emissions. Californian leaders want to be environmental heroes, but instead, they are driving the Golden State into the ground knowing that term limits will keep them from being the ones left to fulfill the promises.