CA’n legislators: “Green” energy simply can’t sustain 100% reliance
Avouching that sole dependence on “green” energy is even possible (not to mention CAISO’s false claim that renewables compose 97% of CA’n energy use) might be as preposterous as asserting the Moon lights up the Sun? Californians for Green Nuclear Power president Carl Wurtz contrasts tried-and-true nuclear energy with unreliable, impractical, and inconsistent renewable energy in the California Globe. While helpful in supplementary uses, renewables should never get the “green light” for 100% local energy dependency, says Wurtz. To receive daily updates of new Opp Now stories, click here.
It isn’t a lack of renewable electricity that is holding California back – it’s that renewables provide too much electricity at the wrong times, and not enough when the time is right. It’s attempting to lower carbon emissions by using resources that require gas-fired electricity to back them up, or keep them from destroying the grid. It’s putting blind faith in solutions that may work for flashlights, or even electric cars, but will never be practical for providing the immense power needs of an electrical grid (enough battery capacity to power our state for one day, and the extra solar and wind infrastructure to charge it, would cost at least twice California’s annual budget).
But most of all, California’s environmental policy is failing for a lack of honesty. The only thing remarkable about comparing last April’s grid mix to this year’s is their sameness – despite all of CAISO’s hyperbole, we’re making little or no progress at lowering climate emissions. Some have simply been exported by replacing in-state gas consumption with “unspecified imports,” a euphemism for electricity from out-of-state gas and coal plants.
We still need to curtail (limit) solar production between the hours of 9 AM and 3 PM to avoid overloading the grid, and we still need to pay our neighbors to accept our unwanted electricity at mid-day. Our solar farms are still generating no electricity at 8 PM, when clean electricity is needed most, yet we build more, and more, and more of them – as if making the sun shine at night was a problem that could be solved by more investment.
It should be obvious that California can’t possibly meet its climate goals continuing on this errant path, yet we soldier on anyway. There’s a chance, of course, that preventing the worst effects of climate change is already impossible. But worse would be failing to prevent them because our leaders didn’t have the humility to admit they were wrong about how to get it done.
This article originally appeared in the California Globe. Read the whole thing here.
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