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Aaron's avatar

What’s going on with California? In the 60’s it was a bastion of freedom and reasonable governance, with some of most beautiful landscapes in the world. Now it’s a man-made dumpster fire, with years of counterproductive policies on illegal immigration, CO2 doomsday scam, soft on crime because “racism”, ignoring water storage, paying homeless mentally ill/addicts that incentivized homelessness, high taxes and exit taxes.

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SmithFS's avatar

Sounds like Europe, especially Germany, France, Britain, Ireland, Belgium going down the sewer with Neoliberalism and the Woke Mind Virus. And these idiots actually think Putin wants to invade them. Putin doesn't want anything to do with them, and has no use for Europe whatsoever. It's a basket case. He has huge markets in China, India & SE Asian countries that actually have something to offer in trade.

Some signs a counter-revolution is building in Europe but the Ecofascists are trying hard to beat down any opposition.

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Aaron's avatar

If Putin invaded Europe, he’d have to house and feed all those illegal aliens in UK, Sweden, etc.! It’s easier to stay out!

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Tuco's Child's avatar

madness

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Andy Fately's avatar

this story should be raised at every effort to explain that wind and solar with battery backup is cleaner, safer and cheaper than any other form of energy. Let them explain this

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EK MtnTime's avatar

What a continuing nightmare! Prayers that no one is adversely affected by the toxins of this fire and that it is extinguished with all due haste.

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Tuco's Child's avatar

People already reporting sickness from inhalation.

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EK MtnTime's avatar

Yes, that was my fear.

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Al Christie's avatar

Spontaneous EV battery fires re-igniting a month later? Incredibly scary stuff. Forget EVs until a better, cleaner, safer battery becomes available.

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Gene Nelson, Ph.D.'s avatar

Re-ignition of battery fires is not unheard of. The fire re-ignition in the Moss Landing turbine hall is another cost of this already-expensive scam. The subsidy-seekers drive California's irrational grid implementation. They can afford the high-priced Sacramento lobbyists! As an example, the California Energy Storage Alliance is a small player at about $120K per year.... https://cal-access.sos.ca.gov/Lobbying/Employers/Detail.aspx?id=1376253&view=activity&session=2023

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Al Christie's avatar

Yes, EV fires that are supposedly put out sometimes flare up hours or days later. That’s why tow truck companies are wary of picking up burnt out EVs to take to the dump, and that’s why it’s prudent to park them a safe distance from anything else.

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Jeff Cook-Coyle's avatar

The fire outlasted the Biden Administration's policies.

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CeeMcG's avatar

Good grief! 🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️🤦🏼‍♀️

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Urs Broderick Furrer's avatar

And now, as you previously pointed out, we’ve got more pollution and even more of the past “saved plant food emissions” have been wiped out.

All brought to you by the scientifically illiterate, virtue signaling, know nothings who want to take us back to oh, let’s say the 12th century.

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Gene Nelson, Ph.D.'s avatar

Thank you for staying on top of this story, TC. The much safer and more economical alternative to assure adequate power during load peaks for Californians are peaker plants .... and of course nuclear power plants like Diablo Canyon Power Plant. CGNP was alerted about an hour ago that another push for CAISO grid regionalization has started via California SB 540 (Becker, 2025.) We will have a Substack on it tomorrow. For now, know it is SSDD. :-(

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SmithFS's avatar

Key point is that utility battery storage is stupid & impractical. There is some merit in using battery storage for spinning reserve and that can also generate reactive power for inductive (motor) loads.

You need peaking power generation for M-F early evening peak demand, for peak summer & winter demand and for emergency backup when a big power plant or transmission line goes offline. 4 hrs of battery storage isn't enough for that, not even close, and you never know if the storage will be available as it may have been used already to cover for a wind or solar lull.

So when you have to pay for a gas generation plant, expensive peaking pipeline infrastructure, transmission line access and gas/methanol/distillate fuel storage, what on earth do you want to pay for battery storage on top of that? A crazy idea. The only purpose would be to save a tidbit of GHG emissions, not counting all the embodied emissions in all of that infrastructure. That is a case where emissions are mainly due to that rather than fuel consumption. Therefore utility battery storage is a ludicrous proposition. More propaganda and greenwashing for wind & solar scams.

It would make vastly more sense to just maintain peaking gas turbine power generation and use on site green methanol fuel. Green methanol can be made locally in mobile plants from wildfire causing forest overgrowth. And from seawater CO2 combined with nuclear hydrogen. Or flue gas CO2. Or any carbonaceous waste.

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