Thread by @ShellenbergerMD

“People wonder how we made it through the heat wave of 2006. The answer is we had San Onofre [nuclear plant] and a number of other plants totaling thousands of megawatts not there today.” - California electricity grid manager, 2020

forbes.com/sites/michaels…

https://twitter.com/california_iso/status/1413996558383816710

“For years we pointed out that there was inadequate supply after electricity from solar has left the peak. We have indicated that procurement needed to be fixed. We have told regulators over and over that more should be contracted for. That was rebuffed. And here we are”

Despite the on-going energy crisis created by shutting down a nuclear plant that generated power for 3M Californians, Gov @GavinNewsom is moving ahead with plans to shut down another nuclear plant that provides electricity for 3M Californians

michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/the-real-rea…

California, 2000-2020:

- diverted money from shelters to housing

- shut down reliable energy sources

- under-funded fire prevention.

Results?

- 31%⬆️ in homelessness

- blackouts & 8x larger electric price rise than rest of US

- increasing high-intensity forest fires

Democrats & progressives, taking the lead from @NRDC — which is directly invested in Chinese solar and nat gas and is working to shut down nuclear plants in CA & IL — have for 40 years opposed desalination & expanding freshwater storage, bc Malthus

nrdc.org/resources/proc…

Apocalyptic progressives may be right that civilization is unsustainable. But if they are, it won’t be because we can’t generate cheap & reliable electricity, build sufficient shelter space, produce enough freshwater, or manage forests. It will be because they didn’t allow us to.

As the system falls apart, the media does stories on failed parts — eg transmission line down, clouds/windlessness, unusually high demand for A/C — and then follow them up with stories to reinforce the narrative, eg, we just need more transmission, batteries, time-of-use pricing

For example, the LA Times coverage of these issues is indistinguishable from renewable energy industry stories and in many cases much worse. The solar industry has been covering the solar panel waste crisis more than mainstream journalists have been

Anyone who relies solely on the mainstream news media coverage of blackouts and rising prices in California will wrongly, but understandably, believe that they stem from too little weather-dependent energy, particularly solar, rather than too much.

forbes.com/sites/michaels…