Looking for insight into the wind and solar ‘transition’? Then start with California – where power prices are crushing the poorest households, and blackouts and routine power rationing are now an accepted part of their attempt to run on heavily subsidised and chaotically intermittent wind and solar.
Power prices, already the highest in the USA, continue to rise at a staggering rate. And, as John Hinderaker points out below, in that respect, California is well and truly set on its path to oblivion, with householders in for much, much worse.
Using Electricity to Redistribute Money
Powerline
John Hinderaker
21 April 2023
One of the many problems with “green” energy is that it is ridiculously expensive. Millions of Americans, if they have to pay the cost of wind or solar energy to power their homes, will not be able to afford it, and will have to sell out. Liberals know this, despite their absurd propaganda about wind energy being “cheap.”
So what can they do? Follow the usual liberal playbook: make upper-income people pay the costs of their misguided policies:
California’s electric companies want to charge people based on their incomes rather than their electricity consumption in a bid to make utilities more “equitable.”
Most people think that when two people pay the same price for the same good or service, it is equitable. But not in today’s brave new world of Leftism.
The state’s major electric companies last week submitted an income-based billing proposal to the state government, which last year instructed utilities to “make electric bills more affordable and equitable.” Under the companies’ proposal, low-income households would pay as little as $15 a month in premiums, while high-income households could pay up to $128 per month. They also must pay for usage.
Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s main utility provider, boasted that the plan will “help to limit the impact on disadvantaged communities, as Californians transition to electrification in support of the state’s clean energy goals.”
In a saner world, the “impact on disadvantaged communities” would be averted by using cheap and reliable energy sources, as we have in the past. The “impact” comes exclusively from liberals’ mania for expensive, unreliable energy. Unable to deny the adverse impact of their policies, the best liberals can do is shift the burden to people who comprise a minority of voters. This is naked income redistribution:
PG&E estimates that its lowest-income customers would see a 21 percent cut in their bills, while high earners would see about a 24 percent hike. The company says it would use the profits from high-income users to fund a variety of green energy initiatives, including the purchase of electric vehicles.
Which will continue California on its path to oblivion. If I owned a house in California, I would sell it.
Californians have seen their electricity rates rise nearly 70 percent since 2010, when the state started to break from fossil fuels. California households pay nearly 83 percent more than the average for homes elsewhere in the United States.
Most people think, I am afraid correctly, that California is a lost cause. The state’s crazy left-wing policies have chased away so many normals that there may not be enough left to reclaim power from the far Left. That is a sad scenario, but if nothing else, California’s decline can serve as a warning to the states that still can be salvaged.
Powerline
STOP THESE THINGS 
I just learned today that a high-voltage power line cannot transmit power more than 300 miles (480 km), independently of its characteristics. Line losses are the limit below about 350 kV, and stability dominates at higher voltages.
Coal, gas, and nuclear power stations are sited near load centers. Solar and wind are not, because their power densities are too low to fit. How do you get the power from behind nowhere to cities?
Look up the St. Clair curves.
Grid connection of remote, intermittent generation like wind or solar is certainly a very costly. The rate of return on such transmission lines is appallingly low because of the fact that although they must be sized to carry the full name plate rating of the connected generation, this level of generation is only rarely achieved due to the low capacity factor of renewables.
Very long transmission lines can operate efficiently, they usually utilise HVDC technology. Some examples here:
https://www.power-technology.com/features/featurethe-worlds-longest-power-transmission-lines-4167964/
Their scheme is blatantly unconstitutional as the U.S. Constitution expressly forbids creating a ‘class’ of people.
We are really lucky in Australia, not for nothing are we called The Lucky Country, because we have been told that electricity is going to get cheaper. Well at least what we were told before the last election.
Reblogged this on whatyareckon and commented:
What asylum do these politicians come from?