State leaders in California are progressively pushing ahead with their campaign to utilize renewable energy sources and policy analysts have advised Fox News Digital that this could result in many years of potential power outages and breakdowns.
Policy analysts have advised Fox News Digital that this could result in many years of potential power outages and breakdowns.
Despite California's grid largely relying on fossil fuels, a major change is occurring, transitioning away from natural gas and coal to renewable sources of energy like wind and solar. Simultaneously, the state is pushing to electrify the economy, especially in the area of transportation, which will place additional strain on the grid.
In November, Gov. Gavin Newsom of California declared "California is drastically cutting our dependence on fossil fuels and cleaning our air," this is "worlds first detailed pathway to carbon neutrality."
California has set a target to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 85%, cut oil consumption by 94%, and increase solar and wind energy production over the next 20 years. This ambitious plan to transform the state's energy infrastructure came about three months after the state's main environmental agency passed a regulation that made electric vehicles a requirement for all new car purchases starting in 2035.
In 2021, wind and solar energy combined constituted 25% of the total electricity generated in California, while natural gas was responsible for more than 50% of power production within the state. Additionally, 19% of new cars sold in the same year were zero-emission vehicles, as per the state's data.
Fox News Digital was informed by experts that the environmental regulations imposed by Newsom and his staff have already caused turbulence in the electric grid, which they maintain will become more pronounced if existing energy from fossil fuels is eliminated and replaced with resources that are not steady.
In an interview with Fox News Digital, Edward Ring, co-founder of the California Policy Center and senior fellow there, said that "They're going to have to build an outrageous amount of wind and solar in a very short time if they want to accomplish their objectives of electrifying our whole transportation sector and our whole home heating and cooling and residential sector."
He went on to say that "There's a burden to the consumer that's going to get very heavy," he continued. "Even if they can pull it off without blackouts, the burden to the consumer is going to be ridiculous."
During the summer, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) issued multiple warnings that the high demand for electricity due to the heatwave could severely tax the capacity of utility providers.
At one point in early September, CAISO released an "energy emergency alert 3" - the most severe warning level - advising residents to reduce energy consumption to the utmost extent while expecting a period of rotating blackouts and a flex alert for more than a week. Moreover, they suggested people avoid charging their electric vehicles in order to lessen the load on the power grid.
Myron Ebell, director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute's Center for Energy and Environment, stated that the people are already enduring hardships.
He informed Fox News Digital, "They're, in fact, telling people that they're going to start shutting off natural gas to houses and that they have to convert to electricity. "Then, they're forcing people to buy electric vehicles and they're going to stop selling internal combustion engine vehicles. That will add to the grid's demand."
The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), an independent grid monitoring agency, reported in its December annual report that California is at a "high risk of energy or capacity shortfall" in the upcoming years, especially during summer, due to the closure of traditional power plants and the rising demand.
Ebell asserted that the inconsistency of solar and wind energy output in comparison to their total generation ability could lead to instability. Green energy developers and government leaders often talk about the full capacity of new renewable power projects, but rarely mention the amount of energy the project is projected to generate.
For instance, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) indicates that solar panels generate only 25% of their stated amount of energy, while wind turbines yield 34%. On the other hand, coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants are able to produce 49%, 54%, and 93% of their listed capacity, respectively.
Ebell argued that "The only way the electrification of the transportation sector and of home heating and cooling can work is if the utility sector continues to build natural gas-fired plants and looks to building nuclear plants and perhaps building new coal plants because the grid in these states that are pushing these policies is already overloaded." "As everybody moves to EVs, if it happens, the only way to do it is to find more baseload power and dispatchable power."
The California Energy Commission reports that the total output of the state's natural gas electric generators has decreased by 15% between 2013 and 2021. In April, Governor Newsom was compelled to revoke his plan to shut down California's only existing nuclear plant, which is responsible for generating 9% of the state's electric power.
The Energy Information Administration's data reveals that California imports a larger amount of electricity than any other state in the U.S., with 20%-30% of its electricity resources coming from non-renewable sources from other states.
According to Steven Malanga, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, California's grid stability could be threatened by a lack of new transmission line infrastructure to handle increased demand and link rural renewable energy initiatives to the grid. He also emphasized that battery storage needs to be more developed than it currently is.
Malanga pointed out in an interview "These are tremendous costs which haven't been fairly calculated by the renewable energy people. Essentially what happens is we have this power grid that has been built up over the decades and to go renewable doesn't just involve building renewable like wind farms and solar farms, but you also have to build new transmission lines."
He went on to point out that "In a lot of places like California, they're not even backing up renewables with natural gas, which is really what most sensible people, utility people, say you have to do because renewables are intermittent."
According to estimates from the Department of Energy, in order to achieve its climate objectives by 2030, the United States must increase its transmission infrastructure by 60%, and by 2050, it must triple its size.
Robert Bryce, an energy researcher, conducted his own investigation and found that if the nation's transmission capacity were to be tripled, it would take around 282 years based on the present rate of progress.
Malanga told Fox News Digital that "You have to get that power to cities which are the big users of electricity. So, you have to build all new transmission lines. Transmission lines are not only expensive to build, but they face tremendous environmental regulations. Permitting them takes years."
"It takes ten years just to get approvals to build some of these transmission lines and that's just one generation. Some of these places have renewable targets that are 2035, 2040 and 2045. That's not that far in the future if you're talking about building a whole new energy infrastructure, which is essentially what we're talking about in California."
"The truth of the matter is that in many places we've seen how the energy grid is already dangerously close to failing because we're not paying enough attention to sustaining the grid. This is going to result in blackouts. And we've already seen them. The stories are tragic."
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