California’s headlong rush to renewables has resulted in soaring electricity prices –- up nearly 15% last year alone -- but the state’s CO2 emissions aren’t falling.
Renewables may well work in the long run, but the very long run. The amount of capital that will be burned to make it work will boggle the imagination, capital that we all pay for in higher prices and subsidies. Fossil fuel companies in unconventional formations are just now beginning to earn their cost of capital and it took them well over 15 year and $500 billion, with a technology that was largely known. Imagine the havoc this effort will wreak.
All the hullaballoo about 'emissions' (really CO2 production) is based on the questionable premise that atmospheric CO2 gas is a control knob of climate that was once global warming until we had a significant hiatus and simple cycles of cooling, in spite of atmospheric CO2 levels rising.
To substantiate the argument, the alarmists must explain how CO2 has been twenty times the current level, even in the middle of previous ice ages. Similarly, our ancestors survived the Late Paleocene -Eocene thermal maximum, with temperatures more than 5–8 °C global average above todays average of around 15 degrees C. On a day-to-day basis, we survive much larger excursions in temperature and have adapted to live from the tropics to the Arctic regions without much fanfare.
The political class and their billionaire enablers from 'renewable' and EV manufacturers to the insidious WEF must be taken on if we are to survive this madness, Articles such as this one are a step forward and in the right direction.
It is interesting how the suns heat gets distributed but it also tells us that there is no buildup of heat from the sun. The earth is surrounded by deep space which has a temperature close to absolute zero.. The reason that the earth does not go to absolute zero is that it gives off it's own heat bases on it's mass alone.
I apologize if I used invective to try putting my point across. It wasn't meant. I have no horse in the race on energy generation and as such have sought to rid myself of assumptions and idols to prostrate myself before. Green energy is not green. If that is something you can't say without difficulty then we have to go back to first principles to figure out where we can at least find common ground for discussion.
I would ask you this rather than accusing you of anything. A small sert of questions helps remove the slag from the gold in terms of energy generation. What materials are necessary for the creation of x? How are they derived? Do any of those materials require mining or drilling? How much mining or drilling? Do any of the materials extracted require mechanical and/or liquid separation from a substrate? If liquids, what are they and can they be reclaimed? How much unusable stuff is left after separation? What is the most common energy source used in the scavenging of resources and production of x? What is the estimated amount of energy used per unit of power derived over the life of x?
Solar simply cannot be viewed scientifically as either clean or efficient when these questions are answered. Further it suffers from a relatively short life, has unpleasant end of life issues including heavy metal sloughing if not carefully disposed of, requires base load backup in every instance it is put into the grid, and its diffuse generation require enormous land in deploying in any meaningful way. Wind suffers from a slightly overlapping set of important problems associated with its production and deployment. I say none of this because I hate wind or solar or that I think. Oil is wonderful. But in a world of rapidly increasing energy needs for an ever more hungry population, why don't we expect honestly from our government and scientific institutions on the climate and on energy development?
I welcome any study that concludes that the real cost of solar in California is $.025 not including subsidies and including net real cost of material extraction, safe harboring of mining cast-off and panel.reclamatiom.
The grid can only take AC power but solar panels produce low variable voltage DC. Where is the change made from DC to AC. Is it by you or the power company?
When do you think you became an engineer? I know you worked as an engineer, but the people who hired you must have minimum requirements. What were they?
Of course they think $5,000,000 in reparations for non-slaves is a great idea too. I wouldn't place much value in what they say.....unless you dumb enough to live there.
I'm glad to hear it. Actual Californians of your generation are in short supply. I have no trouble believing that you enjoy a solid middle class living out there and are happy with the PVs and electric cars. You make a good case for your position and represent what it is to be a proud Californian.
I am so glad that after 38 years, I got the hell out of CA in 2014. May have been the best decision of my life. (And I do know that I save $25,000 in taxes every year.)
I loved living in California and still have some of my best friends there. But it (in my case LA) has become barely livable. For the working classes it is an absurdist apocalypse of a place with corruption in governance, awful schools, high taxes, unbelievably bad government services and increasing levels of violence. What California represented several decades ago is unrecognizable today.
I can't speak for the huge swaths of places between LA and San Francisco (which again is a hollowed out shell of its former, awesome self) or in the northern part of the state. They might still be wonderful. I hope they are
Robert, you should be aware that the green energy proponents always tout output based on the manufacturers claims. The output, which is variable low voltage DC must be converted to high voltage AC before it can be added to the distribution system. The conversion is so inefficient that there would be no green energy remaining. The net benefit would be zero.
Your PV panels produce low voltage variable DC power and your home runs on AC. Even you should be able to understand that there would be significant loses in such a system. I have reviewed the system from a technical perspective and concluded that there would be no net energy produced.
Over how many years? Since all of California's solar power is sun synchronous, Your panels merely caused CAISO to curtail the same MW output of large solar generators under the control of CAISO. See: http://www.caiso.com/informed/Pages/ManagingOversupply.aspx During the month of March, 2023 606,123 MWh was curtailed. Your solar panels are part of an expensive California "shell game" that makes California power the most expensive in the lower 48 states most of the time. Your power bill is subsidized by the California ratepayers that chose not to participate in the shell game. These are some of the reasons why the CPUC just implemented NEM 3.0, which reduces the cost-shifting for solar panels being installed now. BTW, the nonprofit I've been working for since 2016 has intervened in more than ten CPUC proceedings. We have saved the state's ratepayers billions of dollars.
Anyone can call themselves an engineer. The ones that count are those that actually have a state license and are qualified as professional engineers. The person who runs the train is an engineer. Your qualification as "former Electronics Engineer" would mean nothing in court whereas a PE would be certified as an expert.
But the electricity is generated by fossil fuels. With all of your training you should be able to do the math with respect to solar panels. The solar panels on your house are about 18% efficient and any output is based on their output, not what they can deliver. I have done the math and the results tell me that solar panels will not deliver any net energy.
so you are one of the net metering bandits, getting paid 30 cents per kWh, when going wholesale rate for elec in CA is like 12 cents. I guess you may be grandfathered in this system that impoverishes the bottom 90% of CA, but no one else will be able to screw the people like that in the future. And yes, maybe you should think twice about the numbers on the internet, even though we all know the internet is always right.
Robert, I need your help! Clearway Energy Group, Inc. has purchased the Dan's Mountain Wind Force Project earlier this month or late February. On 2-22-23, I filed a Freedom Of Information [FOI] with the Allegany County Government, MD concerning grandfathering the 2020 MD Public Service Commission's CPCN Exemption with the 2015 Board of Zoning Appeals [BOZA] project under a different CPCN Exemption, issued in 2009. [I finally get to pick up a flash stick today - after 3:00 PM.] Clearway is using the 2015 BOZA case no. 942 in filing for permits & the application when the MD PSC 2009 CPCN Exemption was relinquished June 24, 2016 [almost 7 years ago]. The 2020 Exemption requires a BOZA hearing under the MD PSC PUA §7-207.1, but because the 14 wind turbines [from the FAA 's determination] are 614 ft. tall &two turbines are 551 ft. tall, the locations of the turbines won't meet the qualifications of the Allegany County, MD's Land Use Code §360-107 for buffers & setbacks.
Clearways filed an application on March 10, 2023 for nine wind turbines under the 2015 BOZA case no. 942; the County Commissioners won't allow the Planing & Zoning Depart. to give out information to the public, sighting MD Code, General Provisions § 4-335 Trade secrets; confidential information. From the PJM Grid website on 2-26-23, the power is for 70 MW, transmission owner is Allegany Power System, the status is listed as "Engineering and Procurement", projected in-service date as 6-1-23, & the state is listed as PA instead of MD. Then in Clearway's 4th quarter 2022 report on 2-23-23, they projected purchasing the Dan's Mountain Wind Project in MD for 54 MW, with the power agreement with Constellation Energy, in the near further.
The I filed a FOI on March 27, 2023 for a copy of the entire application. The County attorney called yesterday, wanting a second extension for the 1st FOI concerning grandfathering. I told him to give me what they had done and the rest next week, and inquired if I could have a copy of the FOI for the application early next week. The attorney started the narrative about MD Code § 4-335 and I stopped him and said applications do not contain trade secrets & confidential information. I asked him question that I already knew. He said he didn't know; I then informed him what information I knew & it all were obtained from internet searches that MD Code § 4-335 does not apply in this application.
What I need from you is information about Clearway's businesses practices, in their numerous projects in Texas, do they follow state and local codes, are their studies actuate or just cut & paste from projects all over the county, and how detrimental are their wind turbines on the communities?
ANCHOR does have a game plan to stop this project, but I will not speak of it on a public platform. I would appreciate any information you provide. K. Darlene Park, E-mail: kdpark@breezeline.net
Don't be fooled, California will always find a way to lie its way to its needed supply. I remember when a friend working in the portable generator space installed multiple tandem diesel gennies in fields just inside Oregon in the early 2000's to add capacity to the grid in the Golden State. He spoke of dozens of generators operating 24/7 because California was desperate for power and Oregon had more lax environmental rules regarding emissions for generators.
The state's rule makers and bureaucrats are expert at David Copperfield-like obfuscation and word salad. The funding for totally irrelevant high speed rail line demonstrates ably how incurable a condition this is. It was brought home to Californians when during the Trump era, the feds cancelled $1B in continuing funds offered to the project because of massive cost overruns and little actual progress. The US had already given CA $2.5B several years earlier only to see the final cost estimate balloon by several tens of billions. The federal response was pretty simple - CA had not demonstrated any ability to contain costs or that it could even build the first leg of the line to Bakersfield.
Who cares about the poor? They don't work at awesome tech startups or appear in movies and tv shows. That's what this all comes down to - vanity. California is lousy with it, vanity of self righteousness, vanity of celebrity, vanity of fake humility, vanity of self aggrandizement, vanity of empty wealth.
CA will continue bringing in the self righteous fools wealthy enough to afford its excesses and poor governance because they desperately want to be validated and to live in the Golden State. There will continue to be those seeking to make it big there for many years. But the truly wealthy, even if they're absurdly progressive will vote with their feet and go ruin some other state like Texas or Arizona. The net drain on the state's coffers and increasing tax and fee structure of the state will continue hollowing out what was a nice place to live thirty years ago and a wonderful place 40 years back.
The California energy policy of deliberately driving the price of electric power continuously upward is based upon the hypothesis of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. This Hypothesis is falsified by the late physical chemist, climatologist and Expert Reviewer of the manuscripts for the earliest of the Climate Assessment Reports of the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)) Vincent Gray (PhD, physical chemistry, Cambridge University) in his memoir (icecap.us/images/uploads/SPINNING_THE_CLIMATE08.pdf). In brief, the IPCC climate models make "projections" and are "evaluated" but for the conditional outcomes of the events of the future for Earth's climate system to be regulated by a regulatory official, predictions that have been validated are required. In my own research I have discovered that the illusion of predictions that have been validated from the IPCC climate models is created by attachment of unusual and deceptive meanings to statistical terms in the text of the argument made by the IPCC climate models, Attachment of these meanings to these terms encodes the argument made by an IPCC climate model in a language. which presents the illusion that such a model makes "predictions' and is "validated" though this is not true. In my own research I have devised an algorithm that decodes the encoded coded text and, in this way, falsifies the Catastrophic Anthropogenic hypothesis. I present details in the paper entitled. "Detecting the Impossibility of Regulation." To receive a copy, sent a request for same to me by email to terry_oldberg@yahoo.com.
Great article, thanjk you.
also see:
The Great Abdication: California Lost
In California, public officials favor the lawless and deviant over the law-abiding and hardworking.
https://tucoschild.substack.com/p/the-great-abdication-california-lost
Great work Robert.
Renewables may well work in the long run, but the very long run. The amount of capital that will be burned to make it work will boggle the imagination, capital that we all pay for in higher prices and subsidies. Fossil fuel companies in unconventional formations are just now beginning to earn their cost of capital and it took them well over 15 year and $500 billion, with a technology that was largely known. Imagine the havoc this effort will wreak.
All the hullaballoo about 'emissions' (really CO2 production) is based on the questionable premise that atmospheric CO2 gas is a control knob of climate that was once global warming until we had a significant hiatus and simple cycles of cooling, in spite of atmospheric CO2 levels rising.
To substantiate the argument, the alarmists must explain how CO2 has been twenty times the current level, even in the middle of previous ice ages. Similarly, our ancestors survived the Late Paleocene -Eocene thermal maximum, with temperatures more than 5–8 °C global average above todays average of around 15 degrees C. On a day-to-day basis, we survive much larger excursions in temperature and have adapted to live from the tropics to the Arctic regions without much fanfare.
The political class and their billionaire enablers from 'renewable' and EV manufacturers to the insidious WEF must be taken on if we are to survive this madness, Articles such as this one are a step forward and in the right direction.
It is interesting how the suns heat gets distributed but it also tells us that there is no buildup of heat from the sun. The earth is surrounded by deep space which has a temperature close to absolute zero.. The reason that the earth does not go to absolute zero is that it gives off it's own heat bases on it's mass alone.
I apologize if I used invective to try putting my point across. It wasn't meant. I have no horse in the race on energy generation and as such have sought to rid myself of assumptions and idols to prostrate myself before. Green energy is not green. If that is something you can't say without difficulty then we have to go back to first principles to figure out where we can at least find common ground for discussion.
I would ask you this rather than accusing you of anything. A small sert of questions helps remove the slag from the gold in terms of energy generation. What materials are necessary for the creation of x? How are they derived? Do any of those materials require mining or drilling? How much mining or drilling? Do any of the materials extracted require mechanical and/or liquid separation from a substrate? If liquids, what are they and can they be reclaimed? How much unusable stuff is left after separation? What is the most common energy source used in the scavenging of resources and production of x? What is the estimated amount of energy used per unit of power derived over the life of x?
Solar simply cannot be viewed scientifically as either clean or efficient when these questions are answered. Further it suffers from a relatively short life, has unpleasant end of life issues including heavy metal sloughing if not carefully disposed of, requires base load backup in every instance it is put into the grid, and its diffuse generation require enormous land in deploying in any meaningful way. Wind suffers from a slightly overlapping set of important problems associated with its production and deployment. I say none of this because I hate wind or solar or that I think. Oil is wonderful. But in a world of rapidly increasing energy needs for an ever more hungry population, why don't we expect honestly from our government and scientific institutions on the climate and on energy development?
I welcome any study that concludes that the real cost of solar in California is $.025 not including subsidies and including net real cost of material extraction, safe harboring of mining cast-off and panel.reclamatiom.
There is no way you can take variable low voltage DC and change it to AC by changing how the panels are wired.
The grid can only take AC power but solar panels produce low variable voltage DC. Where is the change made from DC to AC. Is it by you or the power company?
When do you think you became an engineer? I know you worked as an engineer, but the people who hired you must have minimum requirements. What were they?
Of course they think $5,000,000 in reparations for non-slaves is a great idea too. I wouldn't place much value in what they say.....unless you dumb enough to live there.
I'm glad to hear it. Actual Californians of your generation are in short supply. I have no trouble believing that you enjoy a solid middle class living out there and are happy with the PVs and electric cars. You make a good case for your position and represent what it is to be a proud Californian.
I am so glad that after 38 years, I got the hell out of CA in 2014. May have been the best decision of my life. (And I do know that I save $25,000 in taxes every year.)
I loved living in California and still have some of my best friends there. But it (in my case LA) has become barely livable. For the working classes it is an absurdist apocalypse of a place with corruption in governance, awful schools, high taxes, unbelievably bad government services and increasing levels of violence. What California represented several decades ago is unrecognizable today.
I can't speak for the huge swaths of places between LA and San Francisco (which again is a hollowed out shell of its former, awesome self) or in the northern part of the state. They might still be wonderful. I hope they are
Robert, you should be aware that the green energy proponents always tout output based on the manufacturers claims. The output, which is variable low voltage DC must be converted to high voltage AC before it can be added to the distribution system. The conversion is so inefficient that there would be no green energy remaining. The net benefit would be zero.
Your PV panels produce low voltage variable DC power and your home runs on AC. Even you should be able to understand that there would be significant loses in such a system. I have reviewed the system from a technical perspective and concluded that there would be no net energy produced.
Over how many years? Since all of California's solar power is sun synchronous, Your panels merely caused CAISO to curtail the same MW output of large solar generators under the control of CAISO. See: http://www.caiso.com/informed/Pages/ManagingOversupply.aspx During the month of March, 2023 606,123 MWh was curtailed. Your solar panels are part of an expensive California "shell game" that makes California power the most expensive in the lower 48 states most of the time. Your power bill is subsidized by the California ratepayers that chose not to participate in the shell game. These are some of the reasons why the CPUC just implemented NEM 3.0, which reduces the cost-shifting for solar panels being installed now. BTW, the nonprofit I've been working for since 2016 has intervened in more than ten CPUC proceedings. We have saved the state's ratepayers billions of dollars.
Anyone can call themselves an engineer. The ones that count are those that actually have a state license and are qualified as professional engineers. The person who runs the train is an engineer. Your qualification as "former Electronics Engineer" would mean nothing in court whereas a PE would be certified as an expert.
PE's do receive training in their chosen field of practice. I received training in 4 fields of practice that included on the job training.
Did you pay for the PV panels yourself? Do you even know how much they cost?
But the electricity is generated by fossil fuels. With all of your training you should be able to do the math with respect to solar panels. The solar panels on your house are about 18% efficient and any output is based on their output, not what they can deliver. I have done the math and the results tell me that solar panels will not deliver any net energy.
so you are one of the net metering bandits, getting paid 30 cents per kWh, when going wholesale rate for elec in CA is like 12 cents. I guess you may be grandfathered in this system that impoverishes the bottom 90% of CA, but no one else will be able to screw the people like that in the future. And yes, maybe you should think twice about the numbers on the internet, even though we all know the internet is always right.
You say "metered amount" but is that the low voltage variable DC that the panels produce or do you invert it to AC before it goes to the grid?
Robert, I need your help! Clearway Energy Group, Inc. has purchased the Dan's Mountain Wind Force Project earlier this month or late February. On 2-22-23, I filed a Freedom Of Information [FOI] with the Allegany County Government, MD concerning grandfathering the 2020 MD Public Service Commission's CPCN Exemption with the 2015 Board of Zoning Appeals [BOZA] project under a different CPCN Exemption, issued in 2009. [I finally get to pick up a flash stick today - after 3:00 PM.] Clearway is using the 2015 BOZA case no. 942 in filing for permits & the application when the MD PSC 2009 CPCN Exemption was relinquished June 24, 2016 [almost 7 years ago]. The 2020 Exemption requires a BOZA hearing under the MD PSC PUA §7-207.1, but because the 14 wind turbines [from the FAA 's determination] are 614 ft. tall &two turbines are 551 ft. tall, the locations of the turbines won't meet the qualifications of the Allegany County, MD's Land Use Code §360-107 for buffers & setbacks.
Clearways filed an application on March 10, 2023 for nine wind turbines under the 2015 BOZA case no. 942; the County Commissioners won't allow the Planing & Zoning Depart. to give out information to the public, sighting MD Code, General Provisions § 4-335 Trade secrets; confidential information. From the PJM Grid website on 2-26-23, the power is for 70 MW, transmission owner is Allegany Power System, the status is listed as "Engineering and Procurement", projected in-service date as 6-1-23, & the state is listed as PA instead of MD. Then in Clearway's 4th quarter 2022 report on 2-23-23, they projected purchasing the Dan's Mountain Wind Project in MD for 54 MW, with the power agreement with Constellation Energy, in the near further.
The I filed a FOI on March 27, 2023 for a copy of the entire application. The County attorney called yesterday, wanting a second extension for the 1st FOI concerning grandfathering. I told him to give me what they had done and the rest next week, and inquired if I could have a copy of the FOI for the application early next week. The attorney started the narrative about MD Code § 4-335 and I stopped him and said applications do not contain trade secrets & confidential information. I asked him question that I already knew. He said he didn't know; I then informed him what information I knew & it all were obtained from internet searches that MD Code § 4-335 does not apply in this application.
What I need from you is information about Clearway's businesses practices, in their numerous projects in Texas, do they follow state and local codes, are their studies actuate or just cut & paste from projects all over the county, and how detrimental are their wind turbines on the communities?
ANCHOR does have a game plan to stop this project, but I will not speak of it on a public platform. I would appreciate any information you provide. K. Darlene Park, E-mail: kdpark@breezeline.net
Don't be fooled, California will always find a way to lie its way to its needed supply. I remember when a friend working in the portable generator space installed multiple tandem diesel gennies in fields just inside Oregon in the early 2000's to add capacity to the grid in the Golden State. He spoke of dozens of generators operating 24/7 because California was desperate for power and Oregon had more lax environmental rules regarding emissions for generators.
The state's rule makers and bureaucrats are expert at David Copperfield-like obfuscation and word salad. The funding for totally irrelevant high speed rail line demonstrates ably how incurable a condition this is. It was brought home to Californians when during the Trump era, the feds cancelled $1B in continuing funds offered to the project because of massive cost overruns and little actual progress. The US had already given CA $2.5B several years earlier only to see the final cost estimate balloon by several tens of billions. The federal response was pretty simple - CA had not demonstrated any ability to contain costs or that it could even build the first leg of the line to Bakersfield.
Who cares about the poor? They don't work at awesome tech startups or appear in movies and tv shows. That's what this all comes down to - vanity. California is lousy with it, vanity of self righteousness, vanity of celebrity, vanity of fake humility, vanity of self aggrandizement, vanity of empty wealth.
CA will continue bringing in the self righteous fools wealthy enough to afford its excesses and poor governance because they desperately want to be validated and to live in the Golden State. There will continue to be those seeking to make it big there for many years. But the truly wealthy, even if they're absurdly progressive will vote with their feet and go ruin some other state like Texas or Arizona. The net drain on the state's coffers and increasing tax and fee structure of the state will continue hollowing out what was a nice place to live thirty years ago and a wonderful place 40 years back.
Good point. But the poor also vote for the politicians who are screwing them.
The California energy policy of deliberately driving the price of electric power continuously upward is based upon the hypothesis of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming. This Hypothesis is falsified by the late physical chemist, climatologist and Expert Reviewer of the manuscripts for the earliest of the Climate Assessment Reports of the United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)) Vincent Gray (PhD, physical chemistry, Cambridge University) in his memoir (icecap.us/images/uploads/SPINNING_THE_CLIMATE08.pdf). In brief, the IPCC climate models make "projections" and are "evaluated" but for the conditional outcomes of the events of the future for Earth's climate system to be regulated by a regulatory official, predictions that have been validated are required. In my own research I have discovered that the illusion of predictions that have been validated from the IPCC climate models is created by attachment of unusual and deceptive meanings to statistical terms in the text of the argument made by the IPCC climate models, Attachment of these meanings to these terms encodes the argument made by an IPCC climate model in a language. which presents the illusion that such a model makes "predictions' and is "validated" though this is not true. In my own research I have devised an algorithm that decodes the encoded coded text and, in this way, falsifies the Catastrophic Anthropogenic hypothesis. I present details in the paper entitled. "Detecting the Impossibility of Regulation." To receive a copy, sent a request for same to me by email to terry_oldberg@yahoo.com.
I am:
Terry Oldberg
Engineer/Scientist/Public Policy Researcher
27250 Julietta Ln
Los Altos Hills, CA
1-650-941-0533
terry_oldberg@yahoo.com