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It may be the money quote but you removed the context in an almost misleading way: > The drought has constrained the output of some of the region’s most signif

It may be the money quote but you removed the context in an almost misleading way: > The drought has constrained the output of some of the region’s most significant generating facilities, including the Hoover Dam. … “What changed dramatically…is we have had significantly bigger and more West-wide heat waves than ever before,” Maybe a failure of planning, but the plan was not to get "bailed out" by the grid as you guess.

AwaAwa 5y ago
Unless the plan was to have rolling brownouts/blackouts I have no doubt that being bailed out by the grid was absolutely part of the contingency plan. Maybe they didn't expect to need the contingency so soon, but that is on their risk analysis of the weather.
- cedilla 5y ago
  A deliberate underproduction to get "bailed out" is a strong accusation, I think it warrants a better proof than analysis of one line of an article. Especially when the article points out other reasons why production doesn't meet demand. Unless you talk about actual contingency plans for emergencies in which case I don't quite understand what's so scandalous about falling back on the grid in emergencies. France also falls back on Germany's power generation when they have to shut down some of their nuclear reactors during heat waves.
  - rrss 5y ago
    I think that WECC would probably have gone ballistic if this was actually California’s plan. Also, yes, being able to import from other places as a contingency is not a bad thing, it’s one of the major benefits of having the Western Interconnect at all.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    > A deliberate underproduction to get "bailed out" is a strong accusation In 2019, 25% of its electricity was imported[1]. This is before California takes even more power offline and replaces it with variable power. [1]https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156
rsj_hn 5y ago
Given that California is in drought all the time, I don't see how this changes long term planning. FYI, there is a fun wikipedia page that lists California droughts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_in_California The first sentence is: "Throughout history, California has experienced many droughts, such as 1841, 1864, 1924, 1928–1935, 1947–1950, 1959–1960, 1976–1977, 1986–1992, 1999-2004, 2006–2010, 2011–2017, 2018 and 2020-[1][2] 2021. " So the idea that OMG, we didn't realize there might be a drought - doesn't sound very plausible to me.
- cedilla 5y ago
  Uhm, okay, you have convinced me that droughts aren't a new phenomenon. The claim however was that they become more frequent and severe. Not every drought is the same. From your link: > the 2012–15 period was the driest in at least 1200 years Also, according to your link, about there was a drought in 12 of the last 20 years, with only one or two years in between droughts, where they previously usually were spaced by around a decade or more. The data listed there really doesn't seem to contradict the article's claim about more frequent droughts in the future.
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    So is your claim that the 2012-2015 drought was unknown to California when it passed the 2018 law -- maybe the legislature is filled with slow readers? Again, I don't see how the possibility of severe droughts was some unforseen thing when the law was passed. In fact the law was passed in an environment of terrible fear about climate change, so you can't really argue that no one predicted this when writing the law, can you? Don't you think, if you believe the climate is changing, that your energy plan should include production of energy not dependent on the climate? > The data listed there really doesn't seem to contradict the article's claim about more frequent droughts in the future. FYI, California droughts have in the past lasted more than 200 years. The idea that you can count years in the last century and extrapolate drought risk doesn't work. The state goes through long secular wet and dry periods, and this is something we have known for some time. Therefore any energy plan that breaks down if there is a prolonged drought is not an energy plan suitable for the state of California in any period of time. In fact any policy at all that breaks down during a prolonged -- say 100 year -- drought is not one suitable for the state of California. We have the tree ring data, and we know that this used to be called "the Great American Desert". That is why we fought water wars and built enormous public works, it's why San Francisco considered breaking off icebergs and floating them down to the bay in order to get water. California as a state has a highly variable water supply susceptible to century-long droughts. Check out this article: https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more-than-200-years-scientists-say/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-pa...

AwaAwa 5y ago

Unless the plan was to have rolling brownouts/blackouts I have no doubt that being bailed out by the grid was absolutely part of the contingency plan. Maybe they didn't expect to need the contingency so soon, but that is on their risk analysis of the weather.

cedilla 5y ago
A deliberate underproduction to get "bailed out" is a strong accusation, I think it warrants a better proof than analysis of one line of an article. Especially when the article points out other reasons why production doesn't meet demand. Unless you talk about actual contingency plans for emergencies in which case I don't quite understand what's so scandalous about falling back on the grid in emergencies. France also falls back on Germany's power generation when they have to shut down some of their nuclear reactors during heat waves.
- rrss 5y ago
  I think that WECC would probably have gone ballistic if this was actually California’s plan. Also, yes, being able to import from other places as a contingency is not a bad thing, it’s one of the major benefits of having the Western Interconnect at all.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > A deliberate underproduction to get "bailed out" is a strong accusation In 2019, 25% of its electricity was imported[1]. This is before California takes even more power offline and replaces it with variable power. [1]https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156

rsj_hn 5y ago

Given that California is in drought all the time, I don't see how this changes long term planning. FYI, there is a fun wikipedia page that lists California droughts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Droughts_in_California The first sentence is: "Throughout history, California has experienced many droughts, such as 1841, 1864, 1924, 1928–1935, 1947–1950, 1959–1960, 1976–1977, 1986–1992, 1999-2004, 2006–2010, 2011–2017, 2018 and 2020-[1][2] 2021. " So the idea that OMG, we didn't realize there might be a drought - doesn't sound very plausible to me.

cedilla 5y ago
Uhm, okay, you have convinced me that droughts aren't a new phenomenon. The claim however was that they become more frequent and severe. Not every drought is the same. From your link: > the 2012–15 period was the driest in at least 1200 years Also, according to your link, about there was a drought in 12 of the last 20 years, with only one or two years in between droughts, where they previously usually were spaced by around a decade or more. The data listed there really doesn't seem to contradict the article's claim about more frequent droughts in the future.
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  So is your claim that the 2012-2015 drought was unknown to California when it passed the 2018 law -- maybe the legislature is filled with slow readers? Again, I don't see how the possibility of severe droughts was some unforseen thing when the law was passed. In fact the law was passed in an environment of terrible fear about climate change, so you can't really argue that no one predicted this when writing the law, can you? Don't you think, if you believe the climate is changing, that your energy plan should include production of energy not dependent on the climate? > The data listed there really doesn't seem to contradict the article's claim about more frequent droughts in the future. FYI, California droughts have in the past lasted more than 200 years. The idea that you can count years in the last century and extrapolate drought risk doesn't work. The state goes through long secular wet and dry periods, and this is something we have known for some time. Therefore any energy plan that breaks down if there is a prolonged drought is not an energy plan suitable for the state of California in any period of time. In fact any policy at all that breaks down during a prolonged -- say 100 year -- drought is not one suitable for the state of California. We have the tree ring data, and we know that this used to be called "the Great American Desert". That is why we fought water wars and built enormous public works, it's why San Francisco considered breaking off icebergs and floating them down to the bay in order to get water. California as a state has a highly variable water supply susceptible to century-long droughts. Check out this article: https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-past-dry-periods-have-lasted-more-than-200-years-scientists-say/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2014/01/25/california-drought-pa...