Last week started and ended with more unwelcome signs of climatic collapse, with the rough equivalent of a category 2 hurricane sweeping through Iowa starting the week, and California’s heatwave and wildfires creating a fire tornado to end it.
The intense heat in California, the hottest in 70 years, has strained its power grid, and over the weekend the state’s electric operator resorted to implementing rolling blackouts for as many as two million Californians to stabilize the grid.
Deniers were quick to pounce on the blackouts as evidence that California’s wind and solar power are unreliable. The Wall Street Journal popped out an editorial on Sunday claiming the blackouts show that renewables are unreliable, and Breitbart ran a piece quoting a tweet by denial’s new favorite former environmentalist Mike Shellenberger, whose Forbes blog about the dangers of renewables and glory of nuclear and gas was reposted by GWPF.
Were renewables actually at fault for failing to keep up with demand as Californians struggled to keep their houses cool during the hottest temperatures in the history of air-conditioning? Probably not. Experts were somewhat confused by the decision to institute rolling blackouts, because demand didn’t actually exceed supply, leading some to argue the grid operators were overly cautious to shut off power temporarily. The grid operator said the blackouts began when two gas plants were shut down on Friday, and then continued on Saturday because a third gas plant went down, along with a wind farm.
So yes, one of the four outages was renewables, compared to three fossil fuel plants. But it was only offline for 20 minutes, while the unexpected loss of the other power plants is what required the rotating power interruptions. Renewables were, in the words of the power provider’s CEO, “really not a factor.”
But per Shellenberger’s argument, what if California had spent money that’s gone to renewables on nuclear instead? If evidence from South Carolina, Georgia, and now Ohio are any indication, California would be behind schedule, over budget, and producing nothing but a whole lot of corruption and zero electricity.
However, had California invested even more into renewables or a more robust grid to balance power when solar generation fades in the evening, then it might have had more power to go around. Ironically, even someone who hates renewables admitted as much.
Because pro-fossil fuel PR guy Alex Epstein tweeted about being in Texas, where it’s 105°F, “but I’m totally comfortable thanks to reliable electricity.” And while Epstein’s intention was to criticize California’s supposedly unreliable renewables, the fact is that Texas has way more wind power than California, and lately added more renewables to make sure there’s plenty of capacity for summer heat.
Overall, it’s the number one state for wind power, so if California was keeping pace with Texas in building wind farms, the unexpected loss of power from those three fossil fuel plants might not have been such a big deal.
(Nobody tell Epstein though, wouldn’t want to ruin one of his talking points!)
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