Seriously – it’s 2023 (not 2002) and the “Nation State” of California can’t figure out how to keep the electrical grid operational?
ABC7 News reported Monday that PG&E said there were more than 10,000 families and businesses without power Sunday night, most in the East Bay.
“Sunday night the Orchards at Walnut Creek shopping center was filled with businesses and restaurants that looked like a ghost town with closures.”
“Also Sunday night, more than 3,000 PG&E customers in Orinda were impacted by outages. Most of downtown Orinda was impacted by outages.”
There are still power outages from Eureka and Redding in the North, all the way down south to Lompoc, according to the PG&E outage map.
Many will fondly remember the 2003 recall election of then-Gov. Gray Davis largely over how he mishandled the state’s electricity crisis. But that wasn’t all.
The rolling blackouts in the summer of 2002, Gov. Davis’s second year in office, affected approximately 1.5 million Californians.
James L. Sweeny, Professor of Management Science and Engineering, Stanford University, explains what happened:
“Deregulation works–but not the way it was done in California.”
“California’s disastrous experience with electricity deregulation cast a pall on movements towards deregulation throughout the United States. Some have said that the California experience shows that deregulation cannot and does not work, which is patently untrue, as an examination of energy, price, and demand data collected before and after the California electricity crisis shows. In this paper, I will describe what happened in California and the lessons to be learned from that experience. (A more complete discussion appears in my forthcoming book, The California Electricity Crisis [Sweeney, 2002].)
The California saga went through four stages, all of which presented the state with opportunities to make good and bad decisions. These stages were: (1) a risky situation that became (2) a challenge that turned into (3) a crisis that rapidly turned to (4) blight. Each stage, and in fact the whole process, should be seen not as a series of random, disconnected events, but as a sequence in which choices were made at each juncture. (Sweeny’s paper is really interesting).
These are choices made by California’s elected leaders, then and now, and usually for political reasons instead of focusing on providing electricity to the 40 million California residents. (This is a deja vu in the water shortages arena as well).
Gov. Davis also increased California’s vehicle license fee, making himself very unpopular again with voters.
But it was the unpredictable rolling blackouts during the hot California summer which fueled the ire of voters. In Sacramento, we saw a high of 110 degrees in July 2002.
Governments are responsible for providing services that individuals cannot effectively provide for themselves: fire and police departments, roads and infrastructure, military defense, and public utilities including water service, sewage treatment, electricity and natural gas. But the leaders stray from those responsibilities, choosing shinier, prettier issues that will make headlines.
I imagine the people living in Orinda and Walnut Creek, and those from Eureka to Lompoc aren’t happy with Gov. Newsom either. He owns the unethical and faulty “climate change” driven energy policy which is creating electricity shortages because traditional sources of energy are being replaced by unreliable “renewable” energy.
Energy is not so renewable when it fails to even produce the power needed to fire up all of the state’s Teslas.
Coal, oil and gas, natural gas, hydroelectric and nuclear power are all under attack by Gov. Newsom and his fellow climate change travelers.
In September 2020, in the middle of California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s COVID lockdowns and school and business closures, he issued an executive order requiring sales of all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035 and “additional measures to eliminate harmful emissions from the transportation sector,” California Globe reported.
In a Tweet, Newsom said: “We’re experiencing a climate CRISIS. Transportation is responsible for over 50% of CA’s greenhouse gas emissions. It’s time to be as bold as the problem is big. Today we announced that by 2035 every new car sold in CA will be an emission free vehicle.”
He said “Transportation is responsible for over 50% of CA’s greenhouse gas emissions,” but failed to say what form of transportation because he wants to force you and your family out of your cars and onto public transportation.
And, notably, California has some of the cleanest air in the world.
Gov. Newsom’s order has allowed the unelected California Air Resources Board to develop new passenger vehicle and truck regulations requiring increasing volumes of new zero-emission vehicles sold, as well as developing new regulations affecting medium-and heavy-duty vehicles, and to develop strategies with state, federal and local entities to achieve 100 percent zero-emission from off-road vehicles and equipment operations in the State by 2035, Chris Micheli reported at the Globe.
However, Newsom was putting the cart before the horse (accidental pun) because California not only does not have the infrastructure for an all-electric car state, we still have rolling blackouts every summer, and now power outages winter and spring with wind and heavy rain storms.
Ironically, electric car owners were told by the California Independent System Operator to NOT charge their electric cars only 20 days before Newsom’s order requiring sales of all new passenger vehicles to be zero-emission by 2035… truly placing the cart before the horse. CalISO tells electric vehicle owners every summer to NOT charge their cars on heavy load days.
But because the state of 40 million residents was under strict lockdowns and being fed a steady diet of distasteful lies about the “pandemic,” Newsom got away with his shady order.
That time.
He should not get away with it again. When the state under Governor Newsom’s erroneous and nefarious “climate” policies can’t provide the power necessary during summer heat for 10,000 households in the balmy Bay Area (while it was 106 in Sacramento), perhaps this is Gavin Newsom’s Gray Davis moment.
At the very least, his faux climate policies and attempt to kill off the internal combustion engine automobile – and gas stoves – should be a career-ending policy decision by the California Governor.
Even Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was recognized for making the trains ran on time.
“If you like your car, you can keep your car” I suggested might have become the big government fib of 2020… 2021… 2022… 2023… 2024…
View Comments (15)
"Is this Gavin Newsom's Gray Davis Moment?" It could be, considering that of the four of the five Newsom-appointed commissioners leading the California Public Utilities Commission are lawyers with zero engineering background. The other commissioner has a degree in materials engineering, which is really more of an applied chemistry degree. She may have learned about electricity in her lower division courses, but you would utility work is handled mostly by civil engineers, electrical engineers, and mechanical engineers.
https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/about-cpuc/commissioners
Absolutely, positively, Gavin Newsom, the Worst Governor Ever, does not deserve a future political career ----- as he has not deserved his past political career. Fingers crossed that with this particular "perfect storm" of power outages (for the 'nth' time, for which he is responsible, and with no end in sight) stacked on top of all the thousands of OTHER outrages, Gavin will finally get what he DOES deserve: A disgraceful end to his undeserved political career after which he is met with such indifference that he is forced to blend into the woodwork, practically invisible and mostly unnoticed, just like Gray Davis.
Not sure if California power outages under Gavin Newsom’s regime are his Gray Davis Moment? California voters were still able to oust Gray Davis through the ballot box in the early 2000's. Since that time, Democrats have hijacked California's election process making it almost impossible to oust any unpopular Democrat? Democrats can now create the mail-in ballots needed and manipulate voting machines to ensure that their candidates are installed and kept in power? Democrat voter fraud is the only way that an obnoxious WEF globalist like Gavin Newsom can stay in power and not be held accountable for acting like a petty corrupt dictator?
I worked the recall they cheated right in front of me and when I reported several instances none not even the GOP cared. Our vote does not count period. They can do whatever they want with absolutely no consequences. I grieve for my country as my freedoms, voice, and money is stolen from me every day. The light at the end of the tunnel is that the arrogant violators will fall in the end through God's grace. I'll take a front row seat and eat popcorn.
I just want him GONE, and I don't care one bit how that happens.
"By any means necessary." -Malcom X.
Great article ,Katy. Please do not stop hitting them with the truth. As we all agree- our voices are no longer heard with our votes, that is why it is all that much more important that you and your colleagues shine the light on these self serving ‘untouchable corruptibles ‘.
Katy,
You didn't exactly say what the proximate source of the outage was. Equipment failure?, power generation down?, transmission inadequacy? The PUC needs it explained to them.
Third World reliability at the highest of First World price.
Just like the WEF and UN and CCP wants...
The unholy trinity of communism and/or fascism are all fans of Gavin "The Greaser"Newsom...
Keep him AWAY from The White House by whatever means necessary....
It's going to be really interesting when the power starts going out more often and for longer periods of time. Democrats and their voters are used to just ruining everyone else's lives. But when their own lives are negatively affected it will be a huge reality check.
Here in my country, South Africa, we have had power outages for YEARS and years! To soften the news, the reporting of these blackouts have a sort of code name, they are known as LOAD SHEDDING and yes there is an App for that. Us unfortunates who still pay for power as opposed to those parasites who steal their electricity by means of ILLEGAL CONNECTIONS consult that ESKOM App (State owned power supplier: Electricity Supply Comm/Komm ESKOM) every couple of hours to see just when we are going to have our lives disrupted by a 2 or 4 hour LOAD SHEDDING incident, again. I just noted on the App that there will be load shedding here in Johannesburg from 8pm to 10pm tonight 7/7/2023 and again on Sat July 8 2023 8pm to 10pm and on and on it goes! Governor Newsom can come out here for some Load Shedding tips...Call me, I'm right here Gav!
That's a Power Outage? Here's a real POWER OUTAGE Gavin, you cannot bat in the same league as South Africa Pal!
Updated loadshedding code includes up to 16 stages to reduce grid-collapse risk
By: Terence Creamer
Power lines
A new and updated edition of the loadshedding code of practice, which includes up to 16 stages of loadshedding, has been finalised by and expert group and delivered to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa (Nersa) for approval. The current NRS 048-9 edition, known