Would these be planned and scheduled blackouts, as opposed to the ones that happen because all that “green” energy cannot provide the power necessary in the People’s Republik Of California?
Would an occasional blackout help solve climate change?
What’s more important: Keeping the lights on 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, or solving the climate crisis?
That is in many ways a terrible question, for reasons I’ll discuss shortly. (lots of yammering about lawsuits, unplanned blackouts, gas power)
Again and again, I’ve found myself asking: Would it be easier and less expensive to limit climate change — and its deadly combination of worsening heat, fire and drought and flood — if we were willing to live with the occasional blackout?
I’m not talking about a long-term future of sketchy power supplies. Plenty of studies have found that keeping the lights on with 100% climate-friendly electricity is entirely possible, especially if energy storage technologies continue to improve.
But our short- and medium-term futures are more tricky.
I have to wonder if writer Sammy Roth and the LA Times turn off all their power here and there
Could we get started ditching gas sooner — and save some money — by accepting a few more blackouts for the next few years? (snip)
I got a similar reaction on Twitter.
Of the hundreds of people who responded to my question, most rejected the idea that more power outages are even remotely acceptable — for reasons beyond mere convenience. A former member of the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s board of commissioners wrote that “someone dies every time we have a power outage.” An environment reporter in Phoenix — where temperatures have exceeded 110 degrees for a record 20 straight days — said simply, “Yikes.”
I wonder how many of those believe in anthropogenic climate change, but, aren’t willing to inconvenience their own lives? But, then Roth gets squishy
After reporting on clean energy for most of the last decade, I’ve increasingly come to the conclusion that solving climate change will require sacrifices — even if only small ones — for the sake of the greater good. Those might include lifestyle changes such as driving less or eating less meat. They might also include accepting that large-scale solar farms will destroy some wildlife habitat, and that rooftop solar panels — despite their higher costs — have an important role to play in cleaning up the grid.
Maybe learning to live with more power outages shouldn’t be one of those sacrifices.
It’s a long piece, and, at the heart, it really is about forcing Other People to accept blackouts which mean no Internet, no lights, not TV, no refrigerators, etc. All for a scam.
No. How come these loons never ask intelligent questions? Sorry; rhetorical.
No at home electric medical treatments like respirators unless you buy a dedicated Generac. No car charging, elevators and heaven forbid you’re in an emergency situation, screw you die!
All this crazy crap brought to you by the same folks who lied to you about COVID about Russian Russian Russia and about every other damn thing from hunters laptop to menstruating men.
The entire left wing of this country has gone completely insane.
As long as they shut the power off to the LA Times and all their employees.
Called a realtor, who asked if we were selling or looking for a home with solar. WTF, why? “Well, if you are, call another realtor.” Moved from Phoenix, spent months checking out the Pacific Northwest from Bremerton to Boise. Of the hundreds of homes checked out, only three had solar. NONE of the sellers listed their solar feature, none of them asked more because of solar. Something ain’t right.
Solar ought to work just fine in sunny Phoenix, but the Pacific northwest? Cooler summers and a lot of cloudy weather makes solar simply less efficient. The return on investment for solar is lower in areas which receive less direct sunlight.
This reminds me of the silly Twitter and Facebook things, “Could you live here for a month, without —- for $10,000?” and they show a nice cabin, in a beautiful setting, but it has no internet or cable TV or some other modern feature.
The warmunists want us all to forego gas heat, water heaters, ranges, and fireplaces, to depend completely on sparktricity, and now this small group of loons wants to make that intermittent, too? It wasn’t that long ago, when electricity was our only heat source, that the power was out for 4½ days, and while I obviously survived, it wasn’t a lot of fun. My sister made it through eight days without power, during the winter, but her home had a large, wood-burning fireplace.
This is one thing the heavily urbanized left don’t quite understand: when the power goes out in cities, it’s usually restored quickly, because power companies begin work on things which will restore power to the largest number of people most quickly. Those of us who live out in rural areas get power back on last, because the lines are longer, the potential breaks harder to reach, and there are fewer customers who will get power restored with any given repair.
In Plattsburgh NY,1998, an ice storm knocked out our power for 27 days. We survived on a woodstove, kerosene heater, and a battery-powered radio/TV. The snowbank in the back yard served as a refrigerator/freezer, and my Coleman Stove did yeoman duty, as did all the oil lamps I brought back from Turkey where we had electricity 4 days a week if we were lucky. We got a full-house generator that summer, and have installed one on our present house as well.
Those Coleman stoves are handy. The last time I used mine (one of the white gas type) was in a power failure. Made breakfast out on the balcony of my apartment. I’ve been thinking about getting one of those portable solar batteries popular with the van life crowd, just as backup.
Time saver: if you see the words crisis, sacrifice and greater good in close proximity, you can stop reading and turn the page. You won’t have missed anything of value.
I’ve read some stories recently about insurance companies raising rates or cancelling homeowners policies on homes with solar.
[…] Pirates Cove looks at the meanies at the L.A. Times […]
What we have learned from places that already have blackouts is that anyone who needs electricity invests in a big dirty generator. Spread out over a whole city and intentionally shutting off the grid produces MORE pollution and carbon that the power plant grid would have.