California Exceeds 100% of Energy Demand With Renewables Over a Record 30 Days (electrek.co) 215
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Electrek: In a major clean energy benchmark, wind, solar, and hydro exceeded 100% of demand on California's main grid for 30 of the past 38 days. Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Z. Jacobson has been tracking California's renewables performance, and he shares his findings on Twitter (X) when the state breaks records. Jacobson notes that supply exceeds demand for "0.25-6 h per day," and that's an important fact. The continuity lies not in renewables running the grid for the entire day but in the fact that it's happening on a consistent daily basis, which has never been achieved before.
At the two-week record mark, Ian Magruder at Rewiring America made this great point on LinkedIn: "And what makes it even better is that California has the largest grid-connected battery storage facility in the world (came online in January ...), meaning those batteries were filling up with excess energy from the sun all afternoon today and are now deploying as we speak to offset a good chunk of the methane gas generation that California still uses overnight." On April 2, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) recommended 26 new transmission projects worth $6.1 billion, with a big number being devoted to offshore wind. In response, Jacobson predicted on April 4 that California will entirely be on renewables and battery storage 24/7 by 2035.
At the two-week record mark, Ian Magruder at Rewiring America made this great point on LinkedIn: "And what makes it even better is that California has the largest grid-connected battery storage facility in the world (came online in January ...), meaning those batteries were filling up with excess energy from the sun all afternoon today and are now deploying as we speak to offset a good chunk of the methane gas generation that California still uses overnight." On April 2, the California Independent System Operator (ISO) recommended 26 new transmission projects worth $6.1 billion, with a big number being devoted to offshore wind. In response, Jacobson predicted on April 4 that California will entirely be on renewables and battery storage 24/7 by 2035.
which is why we need big energy storage... (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
We need a less centralised grid than today, but we still need plenty of large solar and wind projects.
Wind, because it’s roughly counter-cyclical with solar so it improves supply stability and cuts storage requirements (which remain more expensive).
Solar, because there’s plenty of uses that can’t be served by on-site solar (skyscrapers, for one). And large solar farms are substantially better bang for buck than on-site.
There’s room for it all, and we need all of it.
Re: (Score:2)
I know that on-site solar has benefits -- I'm a big proponent. It's just not a silver bullet. Thinking of energy systems in terms of a silver bullet is fundamentally misconceived in my view, anyway -- there are so many benefits from having a heterogenous approach, above all resilience. We massively benefit from diverse supply, storage, the ability to flex demand, etc.
Re: (Score:3)
That caused quite a fracas in Hawaii.
Re: (Score:2)
And America doesn't have much excuse in this regard. Satellite views of any city in the US will show acres of potential solar sites - warehouses, dwellings, car parks. Obviously makes more sense in states that have good weather, but it seems like a no-brainer to utilise it.
Re: (Score:2)
I have the perfect roof for solar. It can produce 110% of my daily needs when the sun is out. Why don't I have it installed? First cost. The cost of installing solar is way too high for the ROI (at least in my area) The cheapest quote I received 2 years ago was over $40,000. Second, my roof is from 2008. Installing solar now will require additional costs to pay to have it taken down to replace my roof in the next 10 years. Lastly, while I'm not in a HOA because I refused to buy a home in one, all homes arou
Re: (Score:3)
Those HOAs have banned solar installations and my home will look 'wrong' in the neighborhood.
Tell me the other things the HOAs are doing that is illegal...
Re: (Score:2)
Well, the covenents for the area behind my house ban all yard signs, parking in the street, leaving the garage door open for more than 10 minutes, and visible satellite dishes.
Re: which is why we need big energy storage... (Score:2)
The government squashed the satellite dish thing, so you can fight that if you feel like slapping your HOA around in court a bit.
Re: (Score:2)
Ah yes, "covenants".
Unsanctioned policies, ergo not lawful. They do, however, provide a means for your neighbors to be petulant toward you as an incentive to be a good neighbor.
As someone else mentioned, the satellite dish was squashed by DirectTV (or was it DISH?) in court years ago. Solar panels are unlawfully blocked too. Your neighbors are welcome to live up to the covenant, but the law is not on the side of the HOA when it comes to solar.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure you can win, by suing the HOA which comes out of your and your neighbors dues. Which will cause the board to raise rates and target you more harshly in an attempt to drive you from your home or get a lien on your home (possibly outright take it).
There is a reason I do not and will never live in a HOA. I think that is the point missed here. I do not live in a HOA, everyone around me does. Being the standout won't help me sell my home in the future. Lemmings like everything to be lemming like.
Re: (Score:2)
That's the beauty - no need to sue the HOA, just let them "fine" you. When you sell your house, the escrow company remedies the illegal fines by not paying. Sure, they can "deny" your new tenants, but if you're so bad that you have so many fines, the smart HOAs will welcome your replacement.
Indeed, it's not you that needs to worry about it... this is all for posterity.
Re: (Score:2)
In the future, we will need the ability to use solar power at night. The only way to do that is some form of storage.
We can do that now -- with giant flashlights. Charge up the batteries during the day using the excess electricity, ... :-)
Re: (Score:2)
We would be better off with everyone putting solar on their rooftop and batteries in their basement while still being connected to the grid.
Yes and no.
First, putting solar on rooftops before putting it in all the more convenient places, like over car parks, is ignorant.
Second, centralized batteries potentially make much more sense. They could be designed to reduce fire risk, for example; if designed intelligently they could prevent fire in one battery (or container of batteries) from reaching others. You can't really accomplish this with residential batteries. Spreading the batteries out across many residences also spreads out the fire risk and
Re: which is why we need big energy storage... (Score:2)
I just got a battery installed. There is almost no fire risk. We're far more interested in the real risks like brush and electrical fires.
Re: (Score:2)
I just got a battery installed. There is almost no fire risk. We're far more interested in the real risks like brush and electrical fires.
Most battery systems run at 48VDC or higher /w hundreds to many thousands of amps available on the battery bus. Poor crimps or corrosion can easily cause a fire. For grounded battery systems a single short in any battery in the array can cause flows of thousands of amps that will all go into plasma/heat and bypass circuit protection. DC arcs at those voltages and currents are nasty AF.
The Internet is of course full of ESS and related component failures starting fires:
https://diysolarforum.com/foru... [diysolarforum.com]
Even
Re: (Score:2)
Oh, carp. Posting to undo erroneous mod.
Re: (Score:2)
I doubt it will be gravity with the exception of hydro. More likely if it's not conventional batteries then energy will be stored as heat.
... for a small fraction of 30 of the last 38 days (Score:5, Informative)
ah... the good ole "for 0.25 to 6 hours in 30 of the last 38 days record".
What the heck kind of tortured cherry picked thing is this?
The plain reading of "Exceeds 100% of Energy Demand With Renewables Over a Record 30 Days" is "did not dip below 100% for 30 consecutive days" which is very far from this.
Seriously what threshold is being claimed? is it "there has never before been a period of 38 days during which 100% was breach during 30 of them ?"
I'm glad if it's working out but this kind of boosterism (in the headline and article, not in tracking the peak performance) is just bizarre.
Re: ... for a small fraction of 30 of the last 38 (Score:5, Interesting)
That is a pretty strange metric, I have to agree. Using that, my home probably outperforms the CA grid. It has produced 1520 kWh this month, and consumed 974 kWh during the same period. 1249 kWh were exported to the grid, and 702 kWh imported from the grid. The consumption during sunshine hours is just low. Most of it is afternoon, evening and nights. We have some north facing panels that produce until late, but it is a fraction of noon production
We don't have batteries but are on NEM2, so it still works out.
Re: (Score:2)
While it is a strange metric, the milestone is important for many less-good reasons. It basically means that more storage is going to keep being needed.
Re: ... for a small fraction of 30 of the last 38 (Score:2)
Yes. Way more storage. That is not a surprise, though. The question is whether we need a battery sized in minutes, hours, days, weeks or months of grid usage to get to 100% renewable grid. A 6 months battery that works across seasons will never be feasible. Maybe linking electric grids across hemispheres would work ;) There would be quite the transmission losses, and costs, if it is even feasible.
Re: (Score:2)
That is a pretty strange metric, I have to agree. Using that, my home probably outperforms the CA grid. It has produced 1520 kWh this month, and consumed 974 kWh during the same period. 1249 kWh were exported to the grid, and 702 kWh imported from the grid. The consumption during sunshine hours is just low. Most of it is afternoon, evening and nights. We have some north facing panels that produce until late, but it is a fraction of noon production
We don't have batteries but are on NEM2, so it still works out.
Producing more electricity than you can ever use with rooftop PV arrays in a given year is relatively cheap and easy in a huge chunk of the country at least in terms of material costs.
Unfortunately what is orders of magnitude more expensive is merely converting energy generated when convenient into energy available when needed. There simply isn't an economically feasible technology at present to enable that at required scales.
The saturation of energy market by intermittent renewables like PV and to a far l
Re: ... for a small fraction of 30 of the last 38 (Score:2)
I am well aware of this. The major utilities pushed for NEM3 which has killed 80% of the solar market in CA in the last 12 months. This is very unfortunate.
Batteries are still quite expensive, and wear out faster than solar panels and inverters.
I will install one in 6 years, when my 20 years of NEM1/NEM2 are up, and I'm switched onto NEM3. Probably not one day before that though.
If I want to shift production and loads across TOU periods, I would need a significant battery. And for backup, I would want at le
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
Ah, the good old "if it isn't maintained for 100% of the time, it isn't a milestone."
I'm sure you'd have poo-pooed the the claim by Chuck Yeager that he broke the sound barrier in 1947. "But he got a free ride to altitude in a B-29 and it only lasted for a few minutes. Breaking the sound barrier doesn't count if the plane doesn't take off on its own and stay supersonic for the entire flight."
Reaching a milestone of 100% of the electrical demand met by renewables for 30 days in a 38-day windows is still a
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Indeed. Idiots being idiots. No surprise. Some people just have no actual intelligence or chose not to use it.
Re: ... for a small fraction of 30 of the last 38 (Score:2)
Chuck didn't even build the plane himself. So it doesn't count.
Re: (Score:2)
Re:... for a small fraction of 30 of the last 38 d (Score:4, Informative)
> What the heck kind of tortured cherry picked thing is this?
It's pretty simple? For 30 of the past 38 days, renewable energy production exceeded energy demand for at least 15 minutes.
While the 38 days part is a little strange, this is overall good information. Paired with their burgeoning energy storage capacity [slashdot.org] it means we are starting to catch a glimpse of the break-over point where we have 100% renewable energy 24/7. 15 minutes of surplus means 15 minutes of not burning fossil fuels after the sun sets.
It's a start, and already more than the shills told us was impossible.
=Smidge=
Re: (Score:2)
The plain reading of "Exceeds 100% of Energy Demand With Renewables Over a Record 30 Days" is "did not dip below 100% for 30 consecutive days"
So you are saying that "was more than" means "was not less than".
Re:... for a small fraction of 30 of the last 38 d (Score:4, Interesting)
As long as renewables are just cutting into demand for fossil fuels, you don't have to worry about storage / demand shaping / discarding energy. But now California has reached that point.
Re: (Score:2)
Also, we are currently in the most temperate time of the year. Wait until you can exceed the demand during winter or summer before running your victory lap... or are rolling blackouts no longer a thing in California?
Re: (Score:3)
As more people add solar
People aren't adding solar to grid-connected dwellings in California any more since they made it unprofitable to do so. They not only ended net metering, but they reduced the payback so much it's practically nothing. Typical PGE bait and switch enabled by Nazi Newsom, who sleeps on a big bed stuffed with Getty money.
Low energy demand (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Low energy demand (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
At 40 cents a kWh, much demand has been destroyed.
At 40c / kWh California is showing what energy costs to produce when you don't externalise all the horrific waste from its generation. If electricity cost this much everywhere in America, maybe you'd no longer be the most wasteful western nation when it comes to energy consumption per capita.
Re: (Score:3)
https://www.newsweek.com/texas... [newsweek.com]
And yet, electricity in Texas cost 11.36 cents / kWh vs 19.90 cents / kWh in California in Jan 2024.
https://www.electricchoice.com... [electricchoice.com]
So where does that leave the idea that renewable energy must be very expensive?
Also I'm curious where 40 cents above came from.
Re:Low energy demand (Score:4, Informative)
My California bill shows:
$.30648 kWh Electricity Delivery
$.09228 kWh Electricity Generation
$.00726 kWh Power Charge Indifference Adjustment (PCIA)
Total $.40602 kWh
If I use above 285 kWh, the Electricity Delivery figure jumps up to $.41126 kWh for that additional amount.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Rising grid energy prices are partly in response to people installing solar and batteries to reduce demand. The energy companies don't want their profits to fall so they collude to jack up prices. They also whine about how their old fossil and nuclear plants can't cope with rapid demand changes or being redundant for hours a day, so they should get paid for that generation even if it is not wanted.
The real dangers here are that we create a new divide between those who generate their own electricity and thos
Re: (Score:2)
At 40 cents a kWh, much demand has been destroyed.
And much casual crypto mining prevented.
Come back in July/august (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
A/C usage mostly coincides with PV generation. From sundown until about 9pm when people are arriving home and turning on their air conditioners is when California's renewables-heavy grid is stressed the most in the summer, but the state already have that short period covered. [slashdot.org] Adding EVs with bidirectional charging will only stabilize the grid even more.
Title correction (Score:3, Interesting)
100% of _electricity_ demand. There's a big difference, though - electricity accounts for less than a quarter of the energy consumption. https://flowcharts.llnl.gov/co... [llnl.gov]
This confusion of energy and electricity drives me nuts! It hides how much work there still is to get to net zero.
Re: (Score:2)
"California Tops US EV Adoption: 25% EV Share Of Total Sales In H1 2023"
https://insideevs.com/news/688... [insideevs.com]
great, now think again (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
> the demand and supply must always match
Correct. Overproduction results in increase in grid frequency which can cause a lot of damage.
> this means that that you produce more than you need and have to either sell outside ... or switch off the source
Or import less (Cali imports up to ~30% of its power from Arizona and Utah). In this case, the a good chunk of that excess power seems to have been absorbed by temporarily increasing demand through charging grid scale batteries. That energy can be (and has
FALSE impression - LOOK at the charts (Score:5, Insightful)
The charts clearly show that the 100% is only hit for a few brief minutes at the top of the day with solar panels at max output. For 2/3 of the 24 hour day, those "renewables" are not even managing to produce 60%... which means that for the vast majority of the time, traditional power is MANDATORY to prevent extreme blackouts. Oh, and because the renewables are getting in there for their chunk of energy supply (at the time and volume convenient to THEM) the traditional sources must adapt - which makes THEM more expensive and is part of what has driven electricity prices through the roof in California. If you have to have a gas plant, but you no longer need to run it at an essentially consistent rate 24/7, and instead need to adjust around the massive swings in wind and solar, the plant needs all the staffing and maintenance it always needed, but it's getting a lot less revenue, therefore it MUST charge more per megawatt - this is NOT brain surgery.
Re: (Score:2)
The charts clearly show that the 100% is only hit for a few brief minutes at the top of the day with solar panels at max output.
The moment renewables were able to do >100% someone was going to put out a story about it. Make sure people understand the context sure, but it's hardly a gotcha.
For 2/3 of the 24 hour day, those "renewables" are not even managing to produce 60%... which means that for the vast majority of the time, traditional power is MANDATORY to prevent extreme blackouts.
The chart only went to ~14:15 but renewables were 60% at 8am and peaked at 13:00 so I'd say they were above 60% for about 10 hours of the day.
But that's a fairly naive way to look at. The bulk of that is from solar, and clouds don't actually affect solar that much, making it super dependable. Double the solar installation and you've got a reliab
At what cost? (Score:3)
How much are Californians paying per kWh?
Re: (Score:3)
How much are Californians paying per kWh?
$0.27 - $0.54 depending on the time of day. At least in parts of southern california.
https://www.sce.com/residentia... [sce.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Using Los Angeles's LADWP, last month I paid $0.204 / kWh. Plus there is another 10% City utility tax on top of that. And there is also a monthly BS "power access charge" of $17 flat fee. So all told, it is $0.26 / kWh.
According to this website, LADWP's power is 13% coal and 35% natural gas and 0.1% biomass, with the rest being renewable energies of various types.
https://www.ladwp.com/who-we-a... [ladwp.com]
Re: (Score:2)
Only the socialized (i.e. municipal-run) utilities are that cheap.
Re: (Score:2)
My cheapest option is currently about $0.45/kWh with PG&E.
For 20 minutes each of those days.... (Score:2)
Re:Cool... (Score:5, Interesting)
My dude. Pyrometallurgical methods for processing the "black mass" has existed for quite a bit now. There's even a few hydrometallurgy methods that precipitate the metals as salts using pH variation. The more fringe methods are starting to use some combination of the various processes to require less energy to extract the metals.
The plastics are indeed waste, but the metals aren't going anywhere. That shit is too valuable.
Batteries may not be recyclable in CA (Score:2)
Re: Cool... (Score:2)
Re: (Score:3)
These batteries you speak of that have such an amazing ability to be “recycled”, they wouldn’t happen to be a similar/same kind of battery that often cannot be extinguished for days when merely the size of a burning EV, would they?
They are, why do you ask? Are you under the impression that "recycling" involves putting them on a pile and hoping they catch fire? Like the tire yard you compare them to.
Re:Shit Happens there too. (Score:5, Interesting)
Grid Storage is entirely different. Enter LiFePO4 batteries. These are best charged too 100% all the time. They also degrade far lower, and are the 1,000,000 mile batteries people talk about. They can be fully discharged and recharged up over and over again with negligible change in charge capacity. Fires for both types are very rare, in comparison to almost every other kind of power production, save maybe for solar fields, they almost never catch fire. If and when they do, it just becomes a matter of using the right extinguisher, which the world is getting better and better at understanding. You think Natural Gas plants never catch fire? Or methane power plants? Riiiiight.
All this is to say, this is good news. I just hope CA can keep up with renewable expansion at the rate needed to meet its goal of moving so aggressively for EVs. Grid use will undoubtably go up. But thats a good thing. Better to build a more robust grid and save the oil for shit we don't have alternatives for, like medicines, specialty plastics, hard to synthesize oils, and hydraulics.
Re: (Score:2)
I think fire risk is a major consideration but energy density isn't as big a consideration for static installations as it is for vehicles. I expect static installations will use lower density batteries if they are cheaper, and/or safer, and/or have more charge cycles.
Re: (Score:2)
And, static installations can have fire suppression systems that are appropriate for the lithium batteries installed throughout.
For some reason the dipshit AC grand-poster never considered that. Oh, I know the reason - they're an idiot who is only here for substandard low-quality FUD trolling that doesn't even stand up to the idea that when you're installing stuff in a building of arbitrary size, the considerations and specifications just may be completely different than when you are optimizing for highest
Re: (Score:2)
Refineries too. They do catch fire, causing massive problems for the neighborhoods (generally poorer places), and even when they don't catch fire they often cause health problems just living near one.
Re: Shit Happens there too. (Score:2)
I keep mine at 80-100% for years. No problems. Whatâ(TM)s your best practice?
Re: (Score:2)
Over where I live most fire dept. now have an open top container filled with water in which they put a burning BEV. Yes you need a crane to lift the car and yes you need some patience to wait for the temperature to go down but it works well.
Luckily the chance a BEV catches fire is less than one on regular fuel.
Re: (Score:2)
So you're stupidity about battery waste went nowhere, so now you're going to talk about lithium fires in EVs, as if that has anything to do with lithium batteries installed in a facility that is specifically designed to contain lithium batteries, and have fire suppression systems that are effective in dealing with lithium fires installed?
Just stop posting this stupid shit - you clearly don't know anything about it.
Re: (Score:2)
Battery plants have caught fire in the past. It was a big deal about a year or two before Covid if I remember the time frames; no exclusion zones but there was a mad scramble to find alternate suppliers.
Re: (Score:3)
You could just google it you know, or look up vids on YouTube of battery recycling plants in operation.
Re: (Score:2)
You could just google it you know, or look up vids on YouTube of battery recycling plants in operation.
The batteries are from China, the contract probably requires their return to China for recycling. China likes to keep control of the RE metals, and keeping the manufacturing and recycling in China means low cost polluting methods are available to maintain the price war.
Re: (Score:2)
You didn't look very far then.
Re:Cool... (Score:4, Interesting)
By and large, you don't see it, because nearly every single EV battery ever produced is still on the road, or has been converted to stationary storage. A lot of the recycling that happens now is being done on consumer goods (e.g., smartphones, laptops) or the rejects from battery plants, not end-of-life vehicles. Here is one video inside an operational Li-Cycle plant.
And here is a list of announced or operational battery recycling facilities [theicct.org] as of Sept 2023.
I'll flip the question around: if you think it EV battery recycling is so non-viable, where are the stories about truckloads of sad EV batteries going to landfills?
Re: (Score:2)
Anyhow, as others already informed you most batteries are still in use, one hell of a reason the recycling industry for them is still low volume.
Maybe it's time you stop reading silly websites.
Low prices and the pollution is exported ... (Score:2)
Sounds like a perfectly eco-friendly process that you'd have no problem if someone was running this in your backyard.
The CA politicians thought of that. They bought the batteries from China, the contract probably states they have to go back to China for recycling. They like to keep control of the RE metals and such. Plus being free to engage in low cost highly polluting methods help them win the price wars.
So its a win/win for CA, low prices and the pollution is exported far far away. CA politicians get to preen as greenwashed heroes.
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway, more importantly, if that's so easy and economically viable [to recycle lithium-ion batteries], where is it? Where do people actually do this on a non-lab scale if it's so easy and economical?
Large scale production of lithium-ion batteries is a very recent thing (e.g., https://batteriesnews.com/wp-c... [batteriesnews.com]). There really aren't a lot of these batteries to recycle yet (despite all the hype about short lifetimes, the current tech of lithium batteries have proven to easily exceed ten year lifetimes, and are still going strong). There are some recycling companies doing business now, but as a general thing, people aren't going into the business of recycling batteries at a large scale without a lot of ba
Re: (Score:2)
Anyway, more importantly, if that's so easy and economically viable, where is it? Where do people actually do this on a non-lab scale if it's so easy and economical? Is it like this mythical "EV cheaper than ICE car" that leftist propaganda is chock full of, but which is conspicuously absent at any, you know, actual real real-world car dealership I have asked?
So in your world, something only exists if it's already fully industrialized? Do you routinely let 'perfect' be the enemy of 'better'? And if you're asking questions at a dealership about EVs, you're getting biased information from someone that wants to sell you anything they can. If you're asking questions showing a dubious disposition towards EVs, the best manipulative sales technique the dealership can use is to reinforce that skepticism and sell you something that still burns fossil fuels, and costs
Re: (Score:2)
They will be crushed up and the recycled. Next stupid question.
Re: (Score:2)
Maybe you've heard of recycling?
Re: (Score:3)
We'll stick them on a bus and drop them off somewhere in Texas.
Re: Cool... (Score:5, Informative)
Actually California pays money to send electricity to neighboring grids during the day because they literally produce too much of it to the point that they'd overload their grid if they didn't. Then they pay again to receive it back in the evening where it doesn't produce enough.
This has been the status quo for well over a decade.
https://www.latimes.com/projec... [latimes.com]
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Re paying to get rid of excess power "It happened on eight days in January and nine in February as well."
More than 0, less than "This has been the status quo for well over a decade." would imply.
Re: Cool... (Score:2)
The point is no neighboring states buy power from California. Unlike California, they're all self-sufficient.
Re: (Score:2)
Huh? (Score:2)
"they literally produce too much of it to the point that they'd overload their grid if they didn't"
Most green generating systems can be shut off almost immediately - wind, solar, hydro etc. So why not just ask the producers to stop generating? Thats what we do here in the UK (albeit paying the producers for lost income but thats another discussion)
Re: (Score:2)
So California is this way using neighboring grids as their battery, something they slowly get rid of by building their own large batteries.
Re: (Score:2)
>> bitcoin miners. /s
Nah. There are much better uses for electricity.
Bitcoin is just a waste, and running miners part time is not economically feasible.
Re: (Score:2)
Actually California pays money to send electricity to neighboring grids during the day because they literally produce too much of it to the point that they'd overload their grid if they didn't.
If only they had more bitcoin miners. /s
The new electrical power consuming fad is AI. Just sayin....
Re: (Score:3)
for when the sun doesn't shine and the wind doesn't blow.
Let us know when that happens in California. They continually get offshore winds and most of the state is inunadated with sunshine year round.
Re: (Score:3)
California does not "continually get offshore winds". Coastal California has morning marine layer overcast (one Los Angeles TV weather reporter would write "LNAEMLCAF" to abbreviate the frequent "late night and early morning low clouds and fog") and onshore sea breezes that seasonally run around 1-5 PM. A few regions have winds augmented by inland heating and channeled by terrain, and are especially apt for wind farms: Altamont and Rio Vista for example.
"Santa Ana" wind conditions bring hot offshore winds
Re:Three Cheers (Score:5, Funny)
Quit talking about how many homeless people are in California. You realize that makes YOUR state look bad, right? People are free to move to any state, yet they rather be homeless in California than in a house in some other state.
Re:Three Cheers (Score:5, Informative)
Quit talking about how many homeless people are in California. You realize that makes YOUR state look bad, right? People are free to move to any state, yet they rather be homeless in California than in a house in some other state.
Leftist fantasy: the above.
Actual real, you know, reality: 90% of California's homeless are perfectly local, homemade in that shit of a state. [businessinsider.com]
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Now you are just trying to sling crap like an ape because you have no actual on-target arguments. Pathetic.
Re: (Score:2)
CA is a large economy, it's more planned and centralized than many others, and it's failing because planned centralized economies do not work.
Tradeoff of pollution for low price (Score:2)
You are welcome. I cannot understand how anybody in with some actual understanding of reality can see this as a bad thing. I guess actual understanding of reality is in short supply these days.
Well there is the tradeoff of pollution in raw material acquisition and battery manufacturing for lower prices. CA bought these batteries from China. Of course you understood this reality of the deal didn't you?
Probably a similar story with recycling. The contract probably requires the batteries to go back to China for recycling.
Re: (Score:2)
I do not see your point. Are you trying to make a "China baaaad!" type of "argument"?
Re: (Score:2)