California Reveals Troubling Energy Future For The Nation

By Peter Murphy

The State of California was once the land of opportunity, captured by the song, “California Here I Come.” In the latter half of the 20^th century, following the end of World War II, the Golden State’s population more than tripled in size, from just over 10.6 million in 1950, to nearly 34 million by 2000.

Times have changed, and California’s glory days are long over. Chief among the many factors for the state’s decline was on full display in recent days: rolling power blackouts. This is no accident, and should come as no surprise to the state’s obtuse political class, beginning with Gov. Gavin Newsom who, like Claude Rains’ character in Casablanca, feigned outrage over the outages.

The governor also called for an “investigation” of the blackouts, as though anyone needed to learn the cause, and he completely ducked any responsibility. He should rather glance at a mirror.
California’s politicians, especially its former four-term loquacious governor, Jerry Brown, have made it state policy to force so-called “renewable” energy to replace fossil fuels. Accordingly, much of the state’s abundant energy sources underground and offshore are off-limits.  Gov. Newsom is another global warming disciple of Gov. Brown, only now such policies are palpably and increasingly harming the state’s residents.

The strategy has long been for climate alarmists to restrict access to fossil fuels and nuclear power by restricting development and closing power plants in order to create markets for renewable energy.  The result is people and businesses are forced to pay for higher-priced, less reliable wind and solar energy with limited fossil fuels accessible.  The problem is summers get hot, especially in southern California.  In fact, summers have always been hot there, and not because of “global warming.”

Renewable energy has nowhere near the capacity to make up for restricted fossil fuel supply.

Simple laws of economics say that insufficient supply to meet current demand results in shortages and higher prices.  In the case of electrical energy in California, lack of supply to meet demand means the lights don’t turn on and the air conditioner doesn’t work, along with everything else needing power.............To Read More....