As John reported yesterday, the flex alerts are going out in California again. There is a summer heat wave ramping back up and the demand for electricity is climbing rapidly as people seek to run their air conditioning and keep the lights on longer while remaining inside. If residents don’t take these “flex” measures to reduce electrical demand, utility operators will once again institute a series of rolling blackouts that can last anywhere from a few hours to entire days, depending on the strain on the power grid. But now they’re adding another cautionary note. Despite recently moving to ban the sale of gasoline-powered vehicles by 2035 and encouraging everyone to “just get an electric car,” the state doesn’t want people recharging those vehicles during peak usage hours. (Those would be the hours when most people are at home and awake.) So how’s that green energy working out for you? (Washington Examiner)

California has reaffirmed its commitment to banning gasoline-powered cars and requiring all new sales to be of electric cars in coming years.

Now, California’s grid operator is telling residents not to charge their electric cars during regular heat waves in order to avoid straining the grid.

Residents have been advised to take voluntary energy cuts, including setting their thermostats to 78 degrees Fahrenheit and not charging their electric cars. This is because the “demand for electricity remains high and there is less solar energy available.” It turns out you can’t run a state of roughly 39 million people entirely on solar panels. Who could have guessed?

We’ve seen this movie before and it always plays out the same way. California was issuing flex alerts and appeals during the summer of 2020 and when people failed to curtail their consumption of electricity, rolling blackouts began. They lasted for months. Last summer was a bit cooler, so most of the blackouts were the result of wildfires. And now it’s going to happen all over again.

Telling people they need to switch over to electric vehicles when you are clearly unable to maintain the integrity of the electrical grid is the equivalent of advising everyone to go on a diet in the middle of a drought and famine. “Keeping the lights on” is absolutely one of the bare minimum services that people expect from their elected representatives. Access to food and potable water are the other two. California is currently failing at two out of the three.

The problem is that the state government in California has known that the power grid was teetering on the brink of collapse for years. They’ve experienced the blackouts while ignoring the warnings coming from utility companies. But they have continued their push to develop solar and wind power while eliminating fossil fuels. The results were predictable and in fact, had been predicted by industry analysts.

And now they are pushing everyone to move to electric vehicles while being unable to generate enough power during peak seasons to keep the lights on. There are currently an estimated 600,000 electric vehicles on the road in California out of a population driving 14.2 million cars. A little more than half a million EVs being recharged is already enough to push the grid over the edge. What’s going to happen when there are more than 14 million waiting to be plugged in?

Governor Gavin Newsom has reversed course and decided to keep the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant online, at least through the near future. But that’s simply not enough. That plant provides nearly ten percent of the state’s electricity by itself. If they won’t fire up any natural gas plants, they need to start building four or five more nuclear plants as soon as possible. The voters of California have a duty to hold the government responsible and meet their basic needs. And if they won’t vote these loons out, they only have themselves to blame when they are sweltering in the dark next summer.