California 100 percent powered by renewables for first time

  1. At some point in the very near future you will have a large amount of surplus electricity during the day when the sun is out. More than can be sold or stored. Desalination is a good use for this as a way for California to use that power to make fresh water.

  2. It's California, so you could feasibly use some power to get water, yeah. Desalination is a thing, it's just energy-expensive.

  3. Rednecks always going on about building more oil pipelines when we should maybe be considering water pipelines to transport water from water rich areas to drought areas. Seems like it could be done and would just be another way humans alter the environment to suit our needs.

  4. I'm from the north east. Most of our power is created by hydroelectric supplemented by fossil fuel with a spattering of wind, solar and nuclear. Some of it coming from Quebec. It's definitely not a solar region but it's part of the mix. Its just gonna take time, efficiency, and money to get to a point when it makes sense.

  5. There was a wind project in the north east which was stopped from being constructed due to there being no capacity in the powerlines for transporting that electricity. You're gonna alos need a massive investment in bigger powerlines too

  6. I don’t think the US east coast really realizes how much power Quebec, Labrador, Ontario, and the Atlantic provinces sell them. We have an absolutely gigantic amount of hydro, so much that multiple Canadian provinces could be 100% powered by hydro if we needed to.

  7. I’m from Kentucky where we have friends of coal license plates. Like what about the coal industry is good? The killing children in the 1900s or maybe shit working conditions to this day that leave miners in poor condition by the time they age. Or maybe it’s the soot in the air they leave behind? All just something i can stand behind.

  8. Except doesn’t San Diego import nearly all of its power from out of state, leading to the most expensive electricity in the country? If this is the case why is there not a decrease in prices for the state. Source:I live in San Diego and the prices are brutal.

  9. The title is a little misleading. Basically the energy produced by renewables was able to meet the needs of California for a full 15 min on Saturday.

  10. SDG&E is the biggest racket ever. Even if the rest of the state is making money selling power to other states, I fully believe SDG&E will figure out a way to charge a fee for that and somehow none of the profits will reduce their rates.

  11. As someone who just moved to San Diego I A) Am sad to read San Diego might have the most expensive electricity in the US and B) can definitely confirm electricity here is bad. As if paying ~$100 for each tank of gas wasn't bad enough I am paying ~$120-130 for a month of electricity. And what's worse is I'm just 1 guy living in my little 600 sq ft apartment. Like how much damn electricity do I even use??

  12. That’s what SDG&E gives as a reason anyway. The real reason is because they’re owned by a public company that will do anything and everything they can to increase their profits because that makes shareholders happy

  13. You don't need heating or cooling for about 330 days a year, windows always open, excellent mosquito control, excellent breezes. Unless you're not on the coast, but it gets rural pretty quickly a few miles in.

  14. Yes you can see here that this was at the lowest point of demand during the day and spring days require less power than summer when AC is on.

  15. Correct. It's a start - the first flight occurred under absolutely ideal conditions and lasted all of 12 seconds. Now at any given time there are thousands of aircraft in the air traveling for hours on end. Progress begins with fits and starts.

  16. It occurred because a lot of people have been working at this for a very long time, and will continue to work at it until they can go a full 24 hours in the toughest part of the year. At that point, non-renewable will be relegated to backup until it is not needed anymore.

  17. Nice as this is, I always like to remind people that this means 100% of California’s electricity, not 100% of its total power. It’s nice that oil, gas, and coal are not being used for electricity but vast amounts are still used for transportation, heating, factories, farming, etc.

  18. It's not even 100% of its electricity. Renewables don't come close to meeting California's electricity needs. It just happened to be that at a specific point in time, there was far more supply than there was demand, to the point where the fraction of supply that was renewable surpassed the total demand at that moment in time

  19. Transportation is the largest consumer of oil. Until we see electric taking over there, we’re not really doing that great.

  20. Midwest is further along than you might think. Right now (9:20 pm central time) over 50% of the power is renewables.

  21. Without having read it, your 40% is probably the annual average, whereas when the stars align, California has the capacity and capability to provide all of its energy from renewables, which it did for the first time today

  22. Great to see the progress. What is the percentage for the year as a whole? We need to overbuild renewables so that on days that are favorable for solar and wind, there is a surplus of electricity.

  23. Not replacing the nuclear powerplant providing 10 percent of your power 24/7 365 days a year with gas turbines would be a great start. Maybe build 5 more of those

  24. Don't know why these almost irrelevant stats are always so upvoted. It doesn't mean AT ALL that the grid can be always renewable powered. Shutting down nuclear plants is a recipe for fucking disaster. Please don't shut down Diablo Canyon you donuts.

  25. I’m in the industry and have worked extensively with DCNPP. I’m afraid it’s a done deal. California’s largest power plant shut down off of a referendum with no functional issues to the plant.

  26. 100% renewables powered the whole state for 15 minutes. What is the lowest percentage of renewable energy during a typical day in California?

  27. I'd really rather headlines here be more honest. Being overly incorrectly positive like this just gives the impression that the work is done, we've solved the problem, and we don't need to try any more.

  28. The article itself was pretty fair, idk why people in the comments are so worked up about the headline which does its best within a short space. I can't think of a better headline in 59 characters.

  29. Yes. And you barely have no water at all. You have to beg for it or steal it. You robbed the Owens Valley and now they have dust storms up there where they used to have a beautiful lake.

  30. More like "100 percent powered by renewables for 15 mins at peak hour for the first time". These -misleading yet true- titles are the reason why people have mindless debates and quarrels on the internet.

  31. Pumped hydro is pretty sick when it comes to large scale storage. Problem is no water where the sun shines(southwest us)and no space to create new storage areas(single endangered ant in the area = nope)

  32. You know decarbonised reliable energy can only come from nuclear and hydro. Everyone here stroking their genitals for a 15 MINUTE RUN of power, without any tipe of meaningful storage, while California is burning methane like it's 1910 to supply for their idiotic policies

  33. The US actually uses mostly its' own-produced oil. The shit in the Middle East is for market control, not to get cheaper oil.

  34. It’s the first time it happened and is a legitimate accomplishment to celebrate. It’s a long road to fixing our energy and environmental problems, and there will be many firsts like this that bring us one step closer.

  35. Those are during fire season, not for a lack of power but the transmission lines are old and tend to spark causing brushfires. That is why we went with solar/battery backup. If you have a house and can afford it, great option. I wish the feds would have 0% interest loans for solar.

  36. Miss Wilson should weigh her words a bit more carefully. In an unlikely case someone who acknowledges the existence of fossil-fueled car engines actually reads her article...

  37. California has been building a lot of solar the last few years but also decommissioning nuclear. We get a 90° night there are going to be blackouts.

  38. Then why is my electrical bill so damn expensive. This is amazing though. Just need to figure out the water issue

  39. Neat, will there be enough when everyone in the state is running their AC in the summer and fall? Or will it be another year of rolling brown outs for electricity rationing?

  40. On Saturday April 30, 2022 (the claimed date) the lowest output of power from natural gas power plants for the California grid was 2 GW. Around this same time California exported 4 GW of electricity. Source is the

  41. Should be a picture of the hydro electric dams in Washington not of solar panels. We sell mote electricity to California than we use ourselves.

  42. Great news but then I remember how massive amounts of pollution from China end up in California within days of the pollution being created.

  43. But fox news said CA is a democratic hell hole filled with illegals and aborshins!!! Funny how i mention the budget surpluses that CA and CO got that result in taxpayers getting checks in the mail and my conservative relatives look like deers caught in the headlights.

  44. I work for SCE in LA County and I can promise you that this headline is false. California is still heavily powered by coal power plants.

  45. That mirrors the story of how the Salton Sea was created. Agricultural runoff chemicals were diverted into a dip in the desert landscape. Each year it becomes more & more salty as it has no additional water supply. It was once a stop over for many birds & waterfowl as they migrated. But it is so disgusting that it is no longer an inland waterway, & has not been a tourist attraction for many years. I visited with my family in 1965, & found a perfectly round rock, that looks like a softball. People have literally begged me to habit sliced in half to see if it’s a geode. I still have it among my memorabilia

  46. If they got all the homeless pushing those big wheels like in the beginning of Conan: The Barbarian they would have a stable job, get exercise, and power a LOT of stuff!

  47. Not 100% by solar, but renewables. And no they won’t always be powered 100% by solar but for a short period of time they were which is still impressive

  48. …for 15 minutes. And the state of current “renewable” production (eg focused on Solar) will almost certainly never get to 100% of demand on a year round basis.

  49. Right till the rolling black outs hit again this summer and they need to buy additional power, the the over loaded grid starts more fires. Where are they getting the additional power for all the electric cars? California's a joke

  50. To be fair it's not all Californias fault the water situation the west is seeing, it is definitely going to get worse but its kind of on all the states using the rocky mountains water. We are building out of control with no foresight to realize water is the most vital element we need. I know locally where I am the city recently shut down a new housing development citing lack of water. The whole world is a mess when it comes to protecting our future natural resources it is truly sad.

  51. This is nice and all, but when they started complaining about issues with imported panels, they lost me. If they are panels from China, they are potentially made by slaves. I thought we were against that sort of thing?

  52. That's great is that from other states renewables? I bet it is mostly from other states. Can't really say that is is from all renewable since it is all part of the same grid. I know that my home state makes a huge amount of renewable but it all goes to other states since they get more money selling it to other states and purchasing non renewable electricity. Until the whole grid is renewable no state can state that they are. I can state i am using only renewable but how can you make sure that your elections are renewable?

  53. Sure if you consider damming up rivers, which hurt fish stocks, and piping that power through hundreds of miles of land from other states. Seems like it's good?!

  54. Hat's off to you California! Well done. What a great effort, if only the rest of the Western World could be so progressive.

  55. Good for them I guess. Personally, I believe the only affordable and clean variant is nuclear. Unfortunately, nuclear got a bad rep thanks to both and communism and corporate greed.

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