You should know that I was a second-generation California native of 62 years who no longer lives in the state as of 2015. I am retired but had been disgruntled with the state for the previous couple of decades. The state is worn down, falling apart, and progressive utopias were, and still are, pursued at every turn. At least I got out before the blackouts.
Already, at the time, $400-$500 monthly electricity bills in the summertime heat of Bakersfield were financially strapping us. The high rates are a form of extortion to compel a resident into poorly-thought-out wind and solar schemes at a time when the powerful were beginning to kill off nuclear, natural gas, and other streams of reliable electricity. I fled a state with a current average of 25 cents per KWh to a place with 8 cents (national average: 15 cents). The state’s population is being fleeced for a blackout-riddled energy product, with rates running so high that depopulation of the Central Valley and desert regions is the unmentioned but logical consequence. What good is accomplished when you must swelter in the darkness?
The con is hidden behind the threat of “climate change”, which became the rhetorical substitute for the old “global warming”. CO2 is the go-to scapegoat, and it probably has a role. How much? Hard to say. Water vapor does to, but the sound of crickets resonates in media gabfests. People who claim to know don’t, and lack realistic scientific humility. They fail to admit that there remain huge gaps in our understanding of the dynamics of the atmosphere.
We do know that we live at a time when a plethora of global sensors – terrestrial, atmospheric, in space – produce a flood of data as never before. The problem isn’t the paucity of data. Gosh, we can see every weather system around the world. The problem lies in the processing of the visuals and numbers. What do they mean? Nearly everywhere across the airwaves and the net, ideology goes where scientific theory dare not tread. When they don’t know, they rely on their biases to hide the fact. Mediagenic mouthpieces declare that it must be man-caused, which leads the unthinking right into the wheelhouse of the progressive utopians: redesign the human being to fit into the utopians’ preferred lifestyle. We have left real scientific inquiry long ago. The results are played out in California with the mauling of the state in massive wildfires that are ignited by ideologically driven forestry practices and ideologically driven state agencies mandating and pressuring public utilities away from simple things like grid maintenance. And now, the regular blackouts.
Have you heard about PG&E’s guilty plea in causing the deaths of 84 people in the 2018 Camp Fire? Poorly maintained power lines touched off the firestorm. But why so poorly maintained? PG&E may be guilty at some level, but so are the eco-driven mandarins in Sacramento and their henchmen in state agencies such as the PUC, one of the state’s utility regulatory agencies. The political inmates running the asylum in Sacramento in their infinite wisdom foisted on the utilities the “Renewables Portfolio Standard” in 2002, 13 years before my flight from the state. The state has been in a pell-mell rush to shoehorn its grid into “renewables”, essentially wind and solar, 60% of all sources by 2030, in a mere 8 years! More money spent on the utopia is less money to prevent sparks from igniting the poorly maintained hillsides. PG&E was in the dock, but where were the activists, agency heads, and politicians? They deserve a perp-walk too.
It’s amazing that this is done as mandates for roof-top solar has reduced incoming company revenue. The utilities are hit by the double whammy of less coming in and more going out. It’s surprising that more of the state hasn’t been charred, and much more CO2 convulsed into the atmosphere than from the state’s 800,000 internal combustion engines in the residents’ possession.
And to think that now they want everyone out of their dependable car and into a $60,000-$70,000 electric vehicle. Nothing like doubling down on stupid.
RogerG
Sources:
* “Cost of electricity in California”, updated 9/3/22, at https://www.energysage.com/local-data/electricity-cost/ca/
* “Wind Energy in California”, California Energy Commission, at https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/california-power-generation-and-power-sources/wind-energy-california#:~:text=Wind%20energy%2C%20an%20integral%20part%20of%20California%27s%20electricity,the%20south%20to%20Shasta%20County%20in%20the%20north.
* “RPS [Renewables Portfolio Standard] Program Overview”, Public Utilities Commission, at https://www.cpuc.ca.gov/RPS_Overview/#:~:text=California%27s%20Renewables%20Portfolio%20Standard%20%28RPS%29%20is%20one%20of,portfolio%20from%20eligible%20renewable%20energy%20resources%20by%202030
* “PG&E pleads guilty to 84 counts of manslaughter in devastating Camp Fire”, NBC News, June 16, 2022, at https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/pg-e-pleads-guilty-84-counts-manslaughter-devastating-camp-fire-n1231256