California’s green energy grid is on dirty life support
Zachary Faria
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Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) has learned the hard way that California’s renewable energy experiment was reckless and ill-thought-out, and should require some serious self-reflection.
California’s green energy dream is now getting dirtier, as Newsom tries to avoid the bad headlines that another round of blackouts would bring for the state with the highest energy prices in the contiguous United States. Newsom had campaigned on shutting down the Aliso Canyon gas storage facility. Now, the state is considering expanding the facility and increasing its storage by two-thirds.
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It is the latest in a series of walkbacks for California’s weak green dream. Newsom backed extensions for gas plants and gave the green light to gas-powered generators to bail out the grid regularly. He has also called for an extension for the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant, which doesn’t produce carbon emissions but makes climate zealots uncomfortable because they don’t like the word “nuclear.”
Simply put, Newsom is realizing that California’s grid cannot function without fossil fuels and nuclear energy, which is what every person with some sense has been saying since he and other California Democrats tried to fast-track an energy grid run on inefficient “green” forms of energy such as wind and solar.
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All of California’s promises of phasing out “dirty” energy and running entirely on renewables to save the world ran face first into the dirty reality that renewables just aren’t that good. Newsom appointees were basing this dream on their own hopeful projections, and they were laughably, predictably wrong. Now Newsom, desperate to avoid further harming his future political career (and inevitable presidential run, whether that be next year or in the future) has to turn to those dirty fossil fuels and (not actually dirty) nuclear plants to keep the lights on.
Just like California’s series of failures in water storage, forest fires, poverty, homelessness, and crime, this was a predictable development. Everyone saw it coming except the pie-in-the-sky liberals that run the state, who were so convinced that they were revolutionary geniuses who could build a better grid while listening to delusional climate activists. Unfortunately, as is the case too often in California, they were returned to our dirty reality once again.