Want to see a magic trick? Watch this:
“During 40 of the last 48 days, clean energy exceeded grid demand consumed at a point during the day; compared to only seven days all of last year.”
Did you see it? Reality vanished in front of your eyes. Look again.
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The statement appeared in a news release sent out by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office last May. Thanks to some verbal sleight-of-hand, your eye sees what appears to be great progress toward “the state’s ambitious goal of 100% clean electricity by 2045.” From seven days in a year to 40 out of 48!
Here’s how the trick is done. It only happened “at a point during the day.”
To illustrate: on Thursday at 1:35 in the afternoon, data from the operator of California’s grid (CAISO.com) showed that renewable energy was providing 57% of the electricity needed by the state. Are we more than halfway to our target of 100% “clean” electricity?
Only if you live in a place where it’s never summer and it’s never night. Eight hours later, at 9:35 p.m., renewables were producing less than 19% of the state’s electricity needs. Natural gas, hydro and nuclear energy accounted for about 37%, 10% and 9%, respectively. Another 15% of the electricity used in California was imported on transmission lines from other states. Batteries were good for 10%, but only until midnight when they run out.
So it doesn’t matter at all how many days the state reaches 100% “clean” electricity “at a point during the day,” because the rest of the day and night we need natural gas, hydro, nuclear and imported electricity, or else the power’s going to go out.
Believers will say things such as “we’ve made great progress with renewables,” but this is just more magical thinking. Let’s bring up the house lights and see reality.
The first sign that you’ve been tricked is the fake market for renewable energy. California has imposed mandates on utilities to buy electricity generated by solar, wind, geothermal, biomass and biogas. Abracadabra! Demand has been created.
Now, to create supply, government subsidies and tax advantages materialize out of the money in your wallet. This magic created the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System on five square miles of the Mojave Desert near the Nevada border.
After the 2008 financial meltdown, the Obama administration was looking for “shovel-ready” projects to shower with federal stimulus cash. Apparently somebody looked in a drawer and found the abandoned plans for Ivanpah.
Outdated by the time it opened, the facility was comprised of hundreds of thousands of giant mirrors installed in circles around three spiky towers topped with capsules. The mirrors reflected the sun into the capsules, causing liquid inside to boil and send up steam that rotated turbines, generating electricity. To keep the liquid warm at night, Ivanpah burned natural gas.
Outdated by the time it opened, this quote is not only limited to the Ivanpah Solar plant.
The Left doesn’t get reality. It only see’s this is the way the “book” says it should operate.
This is exactly why RHNA housing density is failing.
Slick and the synagogue Left have been had because they so badly want to be liked they sell their souls.
Still voting D? Why?