Gov. Gavin Newsom. (Photo: Kevin Sanders for California Globe)
Recall Deja Vu: CA Rolling Blackouts are Back
It’s not easy being green
By Katy Grimes, August 15, 2020 10:06 am
The last California Governor blamed for rolling energy blackouts was recalled by voters and replaced. In 2003, Governor Gray Davis was recalled over leadership issues, high taxation, and inaction over a struggling California economy and rolling energy blackouts. Gov. Gavin Newsom is already facing a recall, and now with rolling blackouts, he may have just guaranteed it.
Most countries around the world think that it’s a good thing to have cheap energy. In California, we have plenty of cheap energy available, just not the political will to access it.
California depends on natural gas-driven turbines and hydroelectric generators to provide just 38 percent of its energy needs. The state imports 12 percent of its oil from Alaska, and another 58 percent from foreign nations, relying heavily on Canada, which has 19 commercial nuclear reactors, and is the world’s third largest producer of hydroelectricity.
So why are California’s utilities cutting power, and imposing rolling blackouts again?
It’s political. And it’s corrupt.
The state is awash in ultra cheap natural gas, yet in California, our corrupt government finds ways to create an energy shortage, and charge rate payers the highest rates in the country.
This is one reason California electricity costs more than twice the national median—thanks to a government-created shortage.
California’s natural gas shale formation is one of the largest in the world. And, California has been a pioneer in renewable energy, albeit still unreliable and unproven.
While California sits on one of the largest known deposits of recoverable oil and gas, production has steadily fallen. The state ignores its vast onshore and offshore deposits, which are fully accessible through conventional and hydraulic fracturing technologies.
Another reason is that the California Public Utilities Commission, the state’s energy “regulator,” has an historic dubious relationship with Wall Street, making promises to keep the profits higher of the state’s publicly held utilities, than utility profits elsewhere.
California politicians have gloated over being the first state to enact such aggressive green energy and greenhouse gas busting policy, but have yet to produce any proof that these oppressive and business-killing laws have had any “green” results.
All while they ignore that natural gas is clean, less expensive to extract, natural and abundant. It wasn’t that long ago that natural gas used to be the left’s preferred alternative to all other “dirty fuels.” But as the oil and gas industry found better, more affordable ways to access natural gas, it fell out of favor with emotional, whimsical environmentalists.
Many California residents have purchased expensive generators to keep refrigerators and freezers on, but generators rely mostly on natural gas. Democrats in the California Legislature want to ban natural gas to homes and require only electric appliances. So California residents won’t even be able to keep our power on in this “new normal.”
With triple-digit heat in California – a typical August – rolling blackouts will not be popular among voters. Californians are now being charged very high tiered energy rates, with the most expensive usage during the times it is most needed – 4 pm to 8 pm. Every which way ratepayers turn, we are getting seriously bilked by the politicians in this state.
$5 Billion Cover-Up at San Onofre
Another of the energy problem areas is the California Public Utilities Commission $5 billion cover up and scandal over the 2012 closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, due to the failure of the steam generators. San Diego attorneys Mike Aguirre and Mia Severson exposed the attempt to make the public pay big for utility and regulatory executives’ mistakes at the failed San Onofre nuclear power plant.
Southern California Edison executives purchased new steam generators from Mitsubishi, but were warned that they were bigger and run hotter, and could fail. SCE executives purchased and installed the generators anyway, knowing of a flaw in the generator design, according to records. Built to last 40 years, the generators at San Onofre failed after 2 years. And, the generators’ cost had not yet been included in rates. So SCE was faced with broken generators they could not charge ratepayers for.
Then-PUC President Michael Peevey, and executives of Southern California Edison colluded in secret to saddle ratepayers with $3.3 billion of the $5 billion shutdown cost. The $5 billion recovery settlement was negotiated in secret in Poland, away from prying eyes and open records laws in California.
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August 17, 2020 -
Comrades
Your Chairman is stressed as The Green Bad Deal has the proletariat cowering/ sweating in indigo darkness.
Torches lit, pitchforks handy, medieval carts greased, the din rises……
“It’s not easy being green.” Boy, that’s for sure!
Thank you so much for writing this. Although a lot of people probably already know about this manufactured shortage and the corruption behind it, many I’m sure do not. Perfect timing, because we’re certainly ripe right about now to hear it, aren’t we?
I remember exactly where I was when I learned that the “whimsical environmentalists” didn’t approve of natural gas. What? At that same city meeting I learned that they didn’t like hydroelectricity either. Huh?
This was many years ago and these “Karens-of-the-time” were commissioners who, although more unknowledgeable than even I was and who were possibly “useful idiots,” unfortunately had a say in the future of the city’s energy portfolio.
Imagine the sort of person who is willing to create a situation like this, for anyone, never mind for the entire state’s population, most of whom are not able to tap into the advantages our so-called “leaders” have. Especially now, with the additional problems these politicians and bureaucrats have burdened us with.
No heat for your homes and no AC in the summer is one of the primary goals of greens. Forcing more and more load onto a grid that is already collapsing is how they will accomplish their goals. Once they add in millions of electric cars you will also not be able to drive anywhere. Keep voting for these monsters and you will get what you deserve.
The communist Democrat party make life miserable for everyone but the party elite. Democrats are a criminal gang masquerading as a political party?
https://recallgavin2020.com/
My SoCal Edison Tier 1 rate is $0.21 per kWh and can increase to $0.33 per kWh.
My friends in Utah have a flat $0.11 per kWh rate.
Just sayin’
If you know any liberals give them a copy of this article. Maybe they might read it especially after experiencing a recent “rolling blackout” in this triple digit heat. Then ask them if they are interested in signing the recall petition for Grusom. https://recallgavin2020.com/
Sometimes, the sun doesn’t shine and the wind doesn’t blow.
Basing the power that fuels industry on the whims of nature has got to be the WORST way to run a utility.
@Greg Saunders
Spot on. Just what we are seeing these last couple of days. Recall Newsom.
Communist Newsom is just obeying the Communist United Nations and their Agenda 21 and Agenda 2030. They are going to take away our water and power and food and cars and make us live in highrise apartments and 50 percent of the United States will be off limits to humans. Please check out these agendas and then holler as loud as you can to wake people up to the prison state that is
coming quickly to the United States.
PS. Identified Communist Alger Hiss was the founding Secretary General of the United Nations when it was founded in San Francisco on Oct 15, 1945.
Indeed. Once they take away everything people will be forced to live in high density housing with little to no power, water or heat. Fences will keep people in and transportation restrictions will ensure you can’t leave. Your freedom will be gone and almost no one will have seen it coming. You will be told there was no other choice but to save the planet so Pelosi and Newsom can enjoy their new billion dollar palaces while you eat tiny rations of inedible food. The ice cream lady will post videos of her enjoying her $10,000 ice cream collection so you won’t feel entirely deprived.
Recall this pencil-necked little tyrant.