It’s time to follow Mexico and pull the plug on “renewables”
By Ronald Stein
The only things ‘inevitable’ about the ‘transition’ to wind and solar are rocketing electricity prices and unstable power grids. Recognizing that industrial wind and solar electricity bring little to no value to electrical grids, Mexico is moving to avoid the higher electrical prices experienced by Germany, Denmark, Great Britain, South Australia, California, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and other governments that have heavily subsidized their supply of intermittent electricity. Time for California to follow the lead of our Southern neighbor and pull the plug on renewable subsidies.
To stop continuous increases in the cost of electricity, Mexico stepped up to the plate and pulled the plug on subsidy dependent intermittent power from wind and solar that has been driving up the cost of electricity for its financially challenged population. The Mexican government has taken a stand that has sent renewable energy rent seekers into a tailspin.
Does California have the leadership mettle to reverse decades of price increases for electricity?
Based on what Newsom did in San Francisco, maybe not. Governor Newsom was the San Francisco Mayor for eight years. In 2003, Newsom was elected the 42nd Mayor of San Francisco, becoming the city’s youngest mayor in a century. Newsom was re-elected in 2007. In the event our leadership does nothing to curtail continuous increases in the cost of electricity, this California Political Review article America’s Havana – Thousands Say Ciao to San Francisco may be a preview of the outlook for the entire state under current leadership.
Hopefully, Newsom could deliver such a message. I, as a Toastmaster graduate, focus on the number of “ahs” from public speakers. Governor Newsom starts almost every sentence with an “ah”, so much so that it’s so distracting that I have stopped listening to his COVID-19 updates and wait for a condensed summary from the news broadcasters. When you listen to his next pandemic update, focus on all those “ahs” and you’ll understand!
For decades, California’s bizarre laws and regulations and subsides for “green” renewables have driven up the cost of electricity for its 40 million residents. It’s time for California to reverse that upward trend that gotten prices for electricity in California are already fifty percent higher than the national average for residents, and double the national average for commercial, and are projected to go even higher.
With the shuttering of Pacific Gas & Electric’s Diablo Canyon’s Nuclear 2,160 megawatts in 2024 and Los Angeles’ Mayor Garcetti’s desire for the forthcoming closures of three natural gas-powered plants that have been generating continuously uninterruptible electricity. Our elected officials seem to be oblivious to the fact that the State has no plans for electricity generating capacity to replace what’s going to be lost. Further, that “green” electricity from wind and solar is only intermittent, as neither generates when the wind is not blowing, and when the sun’s not shining.
Since California is currently unable to generate sufficient electricity in-state to meet demand, the state is forced by its own policies to import more electricity than any other state, an outcome that is not in the financial interest of any California resident. Without any known state-fostered plans to rebuild with more in-state power generation, California continues to shut down its safely functioning nuclear and natural gas electricity generation plants!
With this path forward, in the event other states cannot generate enough electricity to export to California to replace what’s being lost by shutting down the last nuclear plant and three natural gas plants in California, it’s lights out for California’s future. Who knows how high they will go as the state continues its importing appetite for expensive electricity?
Never mentioned by the green leadership is the worldwide ecological destruction from the mining of precious minerals to support renewables that leave lands uninhabitable and worthless for plants and trees. Renewable taxpayer handouts have stripped landscapes worldwide. Left in the wake of intermittent electricity farms and subsidized biomass-fueled power plants is cynical at best, and mercenary in their ability to destroy nature’s ability to alleviate the coronavirus via cleaner air.
During this global pandemic, dependence on China for rare earth minerals, which solar panels and wind turbines are useless without, renewable electricity a costly as well as dirty proposition.
Renewables make no sense when the entire world is sick. Only using Warren Buffet’s logic does chaotic wind power bring financial wealth when Mr. Buffett said: “We get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That is the only reasons to build them. They don’t make sense without the tax credit.”
The subsidies for “green” electricity has driven up California’s cost of electricity to be among the most expensive in America, and with decades of bizarre laws and regulations that have contributed to California being a complex regulatory state, Joel Kotlin from NewGeogrpahy summarized the future in the state in his article: The Coronavirus means millennials are more screwed than ever.
As America recovers from the COVID-19 shelter-in-place mandates, California cannot rid itself from the continuing and state-prescribed high costs of energy that other states are not shackled by, and those elected California officials are doing nothing to effectively and forever resolve the causes of the high energy costs that severely limit the state’s economic base and its potential for improvement.
It’s time for California to align Mexico’s leadership bold move and pull the plug on intermittent renewables as the state needs is continuous uninterruptable electricity that’s reliable and affordable, more than ever.
Ronald Stein
Ron Stein is an engineer who, drawing upon 25 years of project management and business development experience, launched PTS Advance in 1995. He is an author, engineer, and energy expert who writes frequently on issues of energy and economics.
From cfact.org