Californians were asked to set their thermostats at 78 or higher over the weekend, and also to not charge up their electric cars. All this on the heels of a state plan approved last week to end the sale of new gas-powered cars in just 13 years.
With temperatures in California hovering between highs of 105 and 110 degrees in Southern California, the power grid is being put to the test, leading the California Independent System Operator, which runs the state’s electrical grid, to ask electric car owners to avoid charging vehicles between 4-9 pm, when the power grid was expected to be at its highest demand. Residents were also asked to avoid using major appliances.
“California and the West are expecting extreme heat that is likely to strain the grid with increased energy demands, especially over the holiday weekend,” the operator said in a statement. Since that statement, forecasters are saying the heat wave will continue into the midweek.
State energy officials said the electrical load on Tuesday potentially could hit 51,000 megawatts, the highest demand ever seen in California, the San Francisco Chronicle reported. California Independent System Operator on Monday requested the use of four temporary emergency power generators by the Department of Water Resources in Roseville and Yuba City. The generators, activated for the first time since they were installed last year, can provide up to 120 megawatts of electricity, enough to power up to 120,000 homes, the Chronicle wrote.
Also last week, the California State Assembly (legislature) voted to not shut down the nuclear power plant called Diablo Canyon in 2025, but to keep it open for another five years; the plant provides 9% of the state’s electricity.
Not everyone can afford a new car let alone
an electric car.
Keep those Teslas in the garage on trickle charge. Use your motorized mountain bikes.
Impending mandatory California Electric Vehicle firmware implementation:
“This vehicle is currently unavailable to charge, please unplug from charging station, and consult owners manual; Code 1986”
California EV/PHEV owners did not see this ban on charging their vehicles from 4pm-9pm coming. Good luck with that ban on internal combustion engines.
Be careful Alaska it could come here with the crazy lib policy’s.
Electric is coming wether you like it or not. Has nothing to do with libs vs Republican. Internal combustion engines have been and are now a thing of the past. Get with the times.
A solar storm and suddenly no electricity for weeks until the power grid is repaired. There are only enough spare transformers on hand for regional disruptions. Your opinion will not mitigate that, like it or not.
Actually it does, the current president signed an executive order. Please stop spreading misinformation.
“ That is why he will sign an Executive Order that sets a new target of electric vehicles representing half of new vehicles sold in 2030.”
Source: ‘https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/08/05/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-steps-to-drive-american-leadership-forward-on-clean-cars-and-trucks/
It’s painful to watch a once great state commit slow motion suicide.
When has Alaska been great? It’s been the laughing stock of the nation since I have been alive. Federal money sucking welfare state. Large native population. High unemployment. High alcohol use. Obesity. Huge recipient of federal tax dollars. Loser state.
That is what happens when you put the toddlers in charge.
Electric cars currently make up a small percentage of CA vehicles. Just imagine in ten years when all of those new vehicles can’t be charged, and many will be disabled on the highway. Tow truck operators will be billionaires.
So your saying charging stations won’t grow with electric car sales?
This is funny!! And to add to the irony, the gas turbines being used here are being used in the LEAST EFFICIENT way possible. Once again, fossil fuel powers the grid when Don Quixote and the sun gods can’t bring the power needed. And now the clowns that run CA are going to ban gas powered cars!!! Hahahaha. How do you plan to charge the cars??
I can recall my father calling California “The Land of Fruits and Nuts” 40 years ago.
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If only he were alive today ….
This is what you get from Liberals, no thought on cause and effect. For many of these folks its batteries grow on trees, electricity comes from the wall, and food comes from the grocery store. Across the nation our electrical grids are old, failing, and at maximum capacity.
I can remember my grandmother complaining about Alaska sucking up federal dollars 40 years ago… if only she was alive today
Nobody thinks batteries grow on trees. But yes…. electric power does come from the walls. And are you saying food doesn’t come from a grocery store? Yes electric grids are failing.. but not as bad as the combustible engine. Of course if your an Alaskan your gonna wait for the government to give you free electric cars.
I cannot put much if any importance or relevance in the ignorant comments of a person who does not even know the difference between “you’re” and “your”.
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“Your” just probably another ignorant and brainwashed millennial who believes in the myth of infinite progress, and who cannot see or understand that we are actually living in a civilization that is in terminal decline.
Just like the port in anchorage. By God’s grace we lucky God hadn’t permitted another huge earthquake to finish
it off. Time been 4years nearly 5 and still waiting.
California has a history of corrupt energy “officials” and companies. They do and say what they can get away with. I don’t trust anything at face value. And California continues make it increasingly more difficult for manufacturers because they have to make things special for California and we all pay higher prices because of it. And we will all pay for the major infrastructure overhauls and California’s stupidity that was put into the federal infrastructure bill while Californians still have no idea how they are going to collect taxes for the roads when fuel taxes are gone.
I don’t really want to secede from the United States. I want California to. Maybe they will if we vote for Marjorie Taylor Greene for president. Oh wait, she’s from California.
On this, and so many of these issues, sometimes I fear conservatives’ libertarian instincts only cause us to lose in the long run. Sometimes you need to take a page from the alt-right and go on the offense against your political enemies.
Leftists decided they like EVs, because they significantly increase control over the citizenry by restricting mobility. Conservatives value ‘freedom of choice’ and ‘letting the market decide.’
Unfortunately, when leftists successfully ban conservative preferences in the large population centers (or at the federal level), the market skews left and our ability to ‘choose’ soon disappears.
We see it all the time.
Incandescent light bulbs, toilets that flush properly, detergents that actually work, pesticides that manage to kill insects, gasoline/diesel canisters that can be discharged without an extra arm, auto battery chargers that don’t try to ‘think’ for you, and any number of other items that Democrats regulate and/or litigate into extinction.
Conservatives need to realize that allowing ‘free choice’ in the face of current leftist tactics is a losing hand over time. Red states need to go on offense – and start banning products and preferences of the left. California clearly doesn’t give a sht that EVs are not appropriate for cold climates and long distances, but they want to punish auto manufacturers for making them available.
Fight fire with fire.
Outright ban the sale of – or heavily tax EVs in Red states. Force corporate America to make a choice, rather than allowing them to continue to profit by capitulating to California.
This is an intriguing idea and comment, Apu! Thank you for making it!
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I would love to see the consumer headlock that insane California has over the rest of the nation be broken for good. Let THEM deal with their own idiotic and divorced-from-reality choices, not the rest of us!
Well, we don’t have to ban them. Just tax them as they should be taxed because they use the road system and don’t pay for any fuel taxes that fund the roads. And reverse the subsidies by collecting them back and making it a free and fair market again.
I like your attitude that red states need to go on the offensive and be truly progressive by the real definition.
And in your same spirit we need to do the same for recycling. I want a clean planet with efficient use of resources AND recycling, not shallow feel good stuff that is actually counterproductive because it is subsidized into impracticality.
Go back to horse and buggies! Oh wait you have manure? Oh my! Oh! Wait we can use that as natural fertilizer! Damn! Won’t make it there! Back to horse and buggy! Sort of liking this???
It took decades to build the fueling infrastructure for petrol cars. Electrics will follow the same pattern. They will only get better with time and provide better energy economy, less maintenance, higher reliability, and far less pollution.
The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Hydrocarbon Age won’t end for lack of oil.
Another believer in the Myth of Infinite Progress (sic).
Ya, thank goodness California banned the use of stones and horse and buggy. Imagine where we would be if they never did that, those trailblazers.
Help me to choose gas service for home and office..
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