California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) admitted Thursday that the state still faces the risk of blackouts in heat waves despite investing in battery capacity to store electricity for use in times of peak demand.
The Los Angeles Times reported:
Gov. Gavin Newsom said Thursday that California continued to rapidly add the battery storage that is crucial to the transition to cleaner energy, but admitted it was still not enough to avoid blackouts during heat waves.
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Asked by reporters if California now had enough battery storage so that residents no longer had to worry about blackouts during times of high power use, Newsom laughed.
“We have a lot of work to do still in moving this transition, with the kind of stability that’s required,” the governor said. “So no, this is not today announcing that blackouts are part of our past.”
California is pushing to meet ambitious “green energy” and “zero emissions” targets, including a transition to an all-electric car and truck fleet, despite the fact that the state lacks power generating capacity to meet growing demand.
During blackouts in 2020, Newsom said that the state needed to “sober up” about the fact that renewable energy sources like solar and wind energy were not sufficient for the state’s needs — but then pressed ahead anyway.
The state has been shuttering fossil fuel plants and only has one nuclear power plant left. In the last drought, low water levels in dams meant shortages of hydroelectric power as well. Batteries, it is hoped, will help with the shortfall.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
