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From an outsider's perspective this appears to be a systemic failure. Maybe because California is a political whipping post, but they seem to be in the news a l

From an outsider's perspective this appears to be a systemic failure. Maybe because California is a political whipping post, but they seem to be in the news a lot with power disruptions. Is this just a perception and not reality? I live in Nebraska with high summer temperatures and don't remember there being an emergency declared.

pm90 4y ago
The population of the entire state of Nevraska is less that 2 million. The population of a single city in CA (LA) is twice that. Not an apples to apples comparison.
- mattboardman 4y ago
  Could you elaborate on the differences? Nebraska might only have 2 million people to power but that also means they only have 2 million people's worth of income taxes to manage the infrastructure. Does power infrastructure and generation become exponentially harder to scale or is it linear? (I'm genuinely curious)
SpicyLemonZest 4y ago
It's just a perception. Nebraska had rolling blackouts as recently as 2021 (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/us/nebraska-rolling-blackouts.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/us/nebraska-rolling-black...), although that was for extreme cold rather than heat.
ZeroGravitas 4y ago
Nebraska gets half it's electricity from coal, so it's basically in a continual, decades long emergency, they just don't care. Meanwhile, in California, you can't do certain things, like run a ship engine for power, most of the time because it causes unnecessary pollution that affects human health, but when this kind of emergency is declared, they relax those rules for a short period.
- richiebful1 4y ago
  And to be completely clear, those regulations make sense because the Ports of Long Beach and LA are on the edge of the second-largest metro area in the country. No need to burn bunker fuel in a massive population center except in an emergency.
- mattboardman 4y ago
  This doesn't really address my comment but rather shifts the topic from power disruptions to quality of energy sources.
  - ZeroGravitas 4y ago
    Maybe we could continue the discussion once there's actually been a power disruption and not just preperation for a yearly peak electricity demand?
AdamH12113 4y ago
I don't know much about California's energy policies, but it's worth noting that California has by far the largest population in the US (~39 million vs. ~29 million for Texas, the next largest), comprising nearly 12% of the US population. It's also the third-largest in terms of area. You'd expect them to have more problems than a state with a tenth of the population regardless of policy. Other large states have also had power problems. Texas (where I live) nearly had to shut down its entire grid due to a hard freeze last year and we've been getting regular requests from the state's grid management organization to limit power consumption on hot days. But our climate change problems tend more towards droughts and hurricanes, which don't affect the statewide power grid very much.
- mattboardman 4y ago
  I posted a reply to another comment below, but I'm curious how the population difference impacts power generation. Is power more expensive to produce or supply based on your population? Does the power infrastructure not scale effectively to the demand? Nebraska having 2 million people while also requiring a wide land coverage seems like a harder problem to solve. You can't plop a power plant down for a small town easily and if you move the energy across a long distance you now have to cover the cost of servicing the infrastructure for a small population. If anything, shouldn't overhead be cheaper the higher the population density? I'm genuinely curious since this isn't my area of expertise.
  - AdamH12113 4y ago
    I'm only an electronics engineer, so I'm afraid I can't give you a good answer on that. Generation might be cheaper at scale, but I don't think distribution necessarily is. I don't have time to do a lot of research, but I did find some interesting differences between California and Nebraska: * California imports about 25-30% of its electricity while Nebraska exports over 15%[1]. * California produces about 5 times as much electricity as Nebraska[2], with about 8 times the peak generating capacity[3][4]. * All of Nebraska's electric utilities are publicly owned[3]. * California relies more on hydroelectric power, which is more vulnerable to climate change[5]. [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156 [2] https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/?sid=US#/series/51 https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/?sid=US#/series/51 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Nebraska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Nebr... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Cali... [5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/power-plants/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/power-plant...

pm90 4y ago

The population of the entire state of Nevraska is less that 2 million. The population of a single city in CA (LA) is twice that. Not an apples to apples comparison.

mattboardman 4y ago
Could you elaborate on the differences? Nebraska might only have 2 million people to power but that also means they only have 2 million people's worth of income taxes to manage the infrastructure. Does power infrastructure and generation become exponentially harder to scale or is it linear? (I'm genuinely curious)

SpicyLemonZest 4y ago

It's just a perception. Nebraska had rolling blackouts as recently as 2021 (https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/us/nebraska-rolling-blackouts.html https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/us/nebraska-rolling-black...), although that was for extreme cold rather than heat.

ZeroGravitas 4y ago

Nebraska gets half it's electricity from coal, so it's basically in a continual, decades long emergency, they just don't care. Meanwhile, in California, you can't do certain things, like run a ship engine for power, most of the time because it causes unnecessary pollution that affects human health, but when this kind of emergency is declared, they relax those rules for a short period.

richiebful1 4y ago
And to be completely clear, those regulations make sense because the Ports of Long Beach and LA are on the edge of the second-largest metro area in the country. No need to burn bunker fuel in a massive population center except in an emergency.
mattboardman 4y ago
This doesn't really address my comment but rather shifts the topic from power disruptions to quality of energy sources.
- ZeroGravitas 4y ago
  Maybe we could continue the discussion once there's actually been a power disruption and not just preperation for a yearly peak electricity demand?

AdamH12113 4y ago

I don't know much about California's energy policies, but it's worth noting that California has by far the largest population in the US (~39 million vs. ~29 million for Texas, the next largest), comprising nearly 12% of the US population. It's also the third-largest in terms of area. You'd expect them to have more problems than a state with a tenth of the population regardless of policy. Other large states have also had power problems. Texas (where I live) nearly had to shut down its entire grid due to a hard freeze last year and we've been getting regular requests from the state's grid management organization to limit power consumption on hot days. But our climate change problems tend more towards droughts and hurricanes, which don't affect the statewide power grid very much.

mattboardman 4y ago
I posted a reply to another comment below, but I'm curious how the population difference impacts power generation. Is power more expensive to produce or supply based on your population? Does the power infrastructure not scale effectively to the demand? Nebraska having 2 million people while also requiring a wide land coverage seems like a harder problem to solve. You can't plop a power plant down for a small town easily and if you move the energy across a long distance you now have to cover the cost of servicing the infrastructure for a small population. If anything, shouldn't overhead be cheaper the higher the population density? I'm genuinely curious since this isn't my area of expertise.
- AdamH12113 4y ago
  I'm only an electronics engineer, so I'm afraid I can't give you a good answer on that. Generation might be cheaper at scale, but I don't think distribution necessarily is. I don't have time to do a lot of research, but I did find some interesting differences between California and Nebraska: * California imports about 25-30% of its electricity while Nebraska exports over 15%[1]. * California produces about 5 times as much electricity as Nebraska[2], with about 8 times the peak generating capacity[3][4]. * All of Nebraska's electric utilities are publicly owned[3]. * California relies more on hydroelectric power, which is more vulnerable to climate change[5]. [1] https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156 https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=46156 [2] https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/?sid=US#/series/51 https://www.eia.gov/state/rankings/?sid=US#/series/51 [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Nebraska https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Nebr... [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_California https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_power_stations_in_Cali... [5] https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/power-plants/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/national/power-plant...