A meteorologist friend, Anthony Watts, said Tuesday, “we are on the cusp of a massive failure of the electricity grid in California.” Anthony Watts is a senior fellow for environment and climate at The Heartland Institute, and has been in the weather business both in front of, and behind the camera as an on-air television meteorologist since 1978, and currently does daily radio forecasts. Watts is also proprietor of the award-winning website,Watts Up With That?
Apparently the California Independent System Operator agrees with Watts’ assessment:
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We can do this together. Please #conserve #energy now. Demand is higher than expected. Help relieve stress on the grid by lowering A/C, deferring use of major appliances, and turning out unneeded lights. Every MW counts.
Watts explained the difference between California’s imposed rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001, and the rolling blackouts and power outages today:
The 2000-01 blackouts “occurred when California had a shortage of electricity supply caused by electricity market manipulations. A demand-supply gap was created, mainly by Enron, to create an artificial shortage so speculators could benefit from an 800 percent increase in wholesale electricity prices. As a result, California suffered from multiple large-scale blackouts. Now an electricity shortage coupled with rolling blackouts is happening again, but for a different reason.”
He warned:
“This is going to make Enron rolling blackouts in 2000/2001 look puny. The reason? Solar power – actually the lack of it. Solar power has this thorny problem; it disappears after sunset, and California’s electric grid is highly dependent on it now thanks to the political mandate known as the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB32). AB32 specifically required that 50 percent of California’s electricity to be powered by “green energy,” aka wind and solar, by 2025 and 60 percent by 2030, ending in 100% “carbon free” energy by 2045. Now, California is paying the price for abandoning reliable energy sources in favor of green energy sources such as wind and solar power, which don’t work when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine. During heat waves like California is experiencing now, there’s typically plenty of sunshine, but winds are often stagnant.”
https://californiaglobe.com/section-2/californias-electric-grid-is-near-collapse/