“California’s reliance on hydropower and proliferation of remote, centralized renewable energy plants; the mandated environmental mothballing of 19 coastal natural gas power plants located close to customers; redundant transmission lines for green power; and seasonal wind blasts, results in lethal blast-furnace-like wildfires that leave trees alone but incinerate houses.”
“California leaders and opinion-makers must first abandon their blame game and diagnose the problem more clearly than using clichés like ‘global warming,’ ‘Donald Trump,’ ‘greed’ or even ‘not enough clear cutting,’ if they are going to responsibly deal with the dangerous unintended consequences of de-modernizing its electric grid.”
A question arising out of California’s recent wave of wind-fanned wildfires, is why are public officials mainly attributing the cause to downed electric transmission lines that comprise less than ten percent of all the causes of such fires?…
“One thing … which is going awry generally – is the money being wasted on electric cars for which there is no market. Or rather, which there’s no money to be made from the making.”
– Eric Peters, Eric Peters Autos, July 25, 2019
There are nearly always multiple realities that impinge on economic events in the mixed economy. The recent report that Nissan Motors may go out of business by 2020 due to a sudden deterioration of its razor thin 1% to 2% annual profit margin is attributed to:
“A [September 1, 2015] article in the Los Angeles Times, ‘Unintended Consequences of Conserving Water: Leaky Pipes, Less Revenue, Bad Odors,’ discusses the infrastructure problems faced by sanitation districts. Reduced use reduces wastewater flows, which means there is less water in the sewer system to move solids, which are then collecting causing corrosion, back-ups and odor problems – especially in areas like Sacramento where the system is flat, precluding any gravity-driven movement through the system.”
– Marta Weissman, California’s Water Conservation Regulations and the Law of Unintended Consequences, Part 1: Management Impacts, Nov. 2, 2015.
Could plans to ration urban and agricultural water in California result in a big stink of sewer plant odors that will do little to solve long-term drought cycles? What Marta Weissman identified above lies in waiting for what California water planners have in mind for rural areas.…