This Is the State That Has Outlawed the Future Sale of Gasoline Powered Cars

ABC7 is in Los Angeles. The tweet is from Tuesday. 

Considering that California is not building new power plants and did not develop its two approved hydro plants, exactly where is the electricity to charge all of these cars going to come from? 

Of course, the all-purpose answer is, "Install more wind turbines!" The problem is that it is a meteorological fact that in extreme cold and extreme heat (when the electricity is needed the most) the winds are usually too light to turn the turbines. 

There has been a lot of news about Sacramento's extreme heat this week. Well, take a look at the weather data from their international airport Tuesday afternoon when it was 115 degrees:
Note that, while the temperature is 115°F, the wind speed was 5 mph. That is too light to turn the turbines! You could install a thousand additional windmills and you would get zero additional electricity. 

So, California -- and much of the rest of the nation -- can continue in energy fantasyland or we can get real. 

My home state of Kansas is a real offender in this regard. We are #2 for wind energy which is a huge mistake. 

If we want to decarbonize energy -- I certainly do -- we must build hydro where practical and we must build nuclear. Period. As far as I am concerned, we have plenty of wind turbines and we don't need to install any extra. 

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hilary's Forecast Path Shifts West; Updated 9:20am PDT

Dangerous Travel Conditions - People Reportedly Stranded

Update on Tornado and Wind Potential; 12 Noon PDT