Posted on 07/19/2014 6:18:35 AM PDT by bestintxas
n 1980, under the first administration of Governor Jerry Brown, California decided it wasn’t going to build any more power plants but would follow Amory Lovins’ “soft path,” opting instead for conservation and renewable energy. By 2000, with the new digital economy sucking up electricity, a drought in the Pacific Northwest cut hydropower output and the state found itself facing the Great California Electrical Shortage.
You know what happened next. For weeks the Golden State struggled to find enough electricity to power its traffic lights. Brownouts and blackouts cascaded across the state while businesses fired up smoke-belching diesel generators to keep the lights on. Governor Gray Davis finally got booted out of office but the state didn’t rescue itself until it threw up 12,000 megawatts of new natural gas plants.
At that point California officials decided that the whole thing had been engineered by Enron and other out-of-state merchant providers and the charges and lawsuits flew. No Democrat ever learned a lesson. The state is now 60 percent dependent on natural gas for its electricity — twice the national average — and its electric bills are almost twice that of surrounding states. Industry is headed for the door.
So how have California’s liberal counterparts on the East Coast managed to avoid the same fate? You’d think a region that could produce Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders plus legions of college students trained to hate fossil fuels would have no trouble pursuing the same green dreams. Well, it’s about to happen. In the next few years New England will be facing a full-scale power shortage.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
I remember them too. 108 and bam the power goes out. We’d sit outside to keep from smothering in the heat. Yay!
I have been beating the drum for some time to encourage CONSERVATIVES to get the hell out of Red England before it is too late.
Meanwhile, natural gas — the fuel that everybody loves until you have to drill for it — has risen from 15 percent to a starkly vulnerable 52 percent, just behind California.People and their politicians do this to themselves because they are stupid, mentally/emotionally unstable or are the enemies within.There’s only one problem. New England doesn’t have the pipelines to bring in the gas. Nor is anyone going to allowed to build it, either.
With our generation's progressives, I'm going with "all of the above".
We used to know this stuff. It will take some pain to get wise again...and we shall have it.
The Cape Cod NIMBY crowd got it right. Those huge windmills they wanted to put out there would’ve killed a lot of migrating birds.
It made using the Internet...a bit TROUBLESOME...
Keeping on top of unfolding events was never more difficult.
“Freeze a Yankee!” - The Folkel Minority
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bADTlEo0Y30
This version is from a live performance with explanation of how the song came about and has a few extra lines, etc. (also Gov. Brisco was replace with Clements)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6wAjslEMH10
Who needs electricity when we have delta smelt and plovers?
a lot of people are installing wood pellet stoves up there, mainly because it is their only real option to keep from freezing to death.
Just one plant! Imagine if we had a couple dozen nuclear power plants from Maine down to Connecticut. We could easily have 100% of our power needs met with clean nuclear power.
They shut down some Texas power plants too, I hope we don’t experience blackouts
yeah, that’s the one outside boston that cost #3.5bn and the enviros tried to shut it down upon commissioning.
Utility customers were the ones taking the hit.
The article is riddled with errors. There was a summit of New England governors a couple of weeks ago – not last week – but Gov. LePage of Maine skipped the photo op, because that is all it was.
Great Northern Paper in East Millinocket Maine did close down, not because of power costs, but because of lack of customers and bad management. They have not reopened and at this point no one rally expects to open on of the two plants purchased for $1 to save them (the second plant has been closed down and is being dismantled – who knew a 20 year old paper machine could be worth millions of dollars).
There are gas pipelines coming into to New England and Maine. We just need more. Most of our generating capacity in Maine is with gas. We have a very large oil fired plant on the coast that sits mostly idle but can produce lots of energy – albeit expensive energy – when needed.
I stopped reading after seeing this crap.
He, there are a few conservatives here, and indeed,
the 17.3 cents per kWh Boston households paid for electricity in February 2014 was 29.1 percent more than
the nationwide average of 13.4 cents per kWh. In each of the last five years, the price of electricity in Boston
has always exceeded that for the nation in the month of February, by 15 percent or more. (See chart 2.)
Prices paid by Boston area consumers for utility (piped) gas, commonly referred to as natural gas, were
$1.357 per therm, 25.9 percent more than the national average in February 2014 ($1.078 per therm). Since
February of 2010 the difference between local prices and those of the nation have been 25 percent or more.
(See chart 3.) http://www.bls.gov/ro1/cpibosap.pdf
They don't run without power.
The crazies are in charge. "Power for me, but not for thee, peasant" is their motto.
We'll be like the peasants in James Michener's Poland - we'll be able to burn fallen twigs and suchlike to heat a little water, but the larger windfall branches will be for the Lords, and the King's Men.
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