Thread by @pwrhungry

My latest. Last week, @AirDistrict approved regs banning #natgas furnaces & water heaters. It's latest example of CA policymakers forcing residents to use electricity instead of gas. These regs are happening while CA's electricity costs are soaring. 1/x
robertbryce.substack.com/p/california-s…

Two weeks before the BAAQMD passed its ban on natural gas appliances, the Energy Information Administration released data showing that California’s residential electricity prices jumped by 14.7% in 2022. 2/x

That’s only the latest increase. Since 2008, when @Schwarzenegger signed an executive order requiring the state’s utilities to obtain a third of the electricity they sell from renewables by 2020, all-sector electricity prices in California have soared by 80%. 3/x

But here’s the really sobering part: Despite these soaring costs, the state’s headlong rush for renewables has not resulted in a big drop in the state’s electric sector missions. 4/x

it’s important to understand why these soaring energy costs matter. California has the highest poverty rate in US. A 2021 report by the Public Policy Institute of California found that “More than a third of Californians are living in or near poverty." 5/x

Los Angeles, the state’s biggest city, has one of the highest poverty rates among America’s biggest cities. About 15M Latinos live in CA & they account for about 40% of its population. But they account for nearly 52% of poor Californians. 6/x

California’s surging electricity costs have coincided with increasing renewable energy mandates and the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station in 2012. Since 2008, CA’s residential prices have increased more than 3x faster than those in the rest of the US. 7/x

Those prices will continue soaring. Last year, @californiapuc unanimously approved a scheme that aims to add more than 25 GW of renewables and 15 GW of batteries to the state's grid & @California_ISO wants $30B for transmission. @gridbrief 8/x

The total price tag for those schemes amounts to about $80B, or >$2k for every Californian. But the final price will undoubtedly be far more than $80B. Big public works projects routinely exceed initial estimates. 9/x

Plus, the states utilities are asking for huge rate increases. @SDGE & @PGE4Me are asking for 18% and 16% rate increases for next year. 10/x

None of this is surprising. Despite claims from elites @Princeton & @Stanford more renewables mean higher costs. A 2019 report from @UChiEnergy found #renewables "raise electricity prices more than previously thought” due to “hidden costs that have typically been ignored.” 11/x

As can be seen in the graphic at the top of this piece, CA's emissions have been roughly flat since about 2018. Why aren’t electricity sector emissions falling? The likely answer is the state’s heavy reliance on gas-fired electricity. 12/x

The punchline here is obvious: California provides a stark warning to the rest of the United States about how NOT to manage an electric grid. Aggressive renewable energy mandates may be politically popular, 13/x

but they come with exorbitant price tags that punish the poor and provide negligible (if any) cuts in CO2 emissions. 14/FIN
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