The Los Angeles City Council is considering its own version of the national “Green New Deal.” The same idea has bee proposed for San Diego. The reality is that efforts to take more aggressive local actions on climate change are already doing more harm than good in California.
All one needs to do is look at the sudden spike in gas prices to over $4 per gallon due to the maintenance work at six of the state’s 10 refineries.
The state is now incapable of producing its own electricity, as a result of removing continuously uninterruptible electricity generation by two nuclear plants. Our state’s energy needs have also been decimated by Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti announcing the closing of three natural gas power plants from the grid, and incurring difficulties of finding huge acreage to generate intermittent renewable electricity.
According to the Energy Information Institute, California now imports two-to-three times as much electricity as states like Virginia, Ohio, Maryland and Tennessee.
Intermittent electricity from renewables has contributed to California household users paying more than 50 percent, and industrial users paying more than 100 percent, above the national average for electricity, and may also be contributory to the state’s growing homeless, poverty, and welfare populations.
Regarding California’s goal to be carbon neutral by 2050, the transportation industries have been increasing their energy demands each year. The military, aviation, cruise liners, merchant shipping, and trucking all need more fuel. But California’s crude oil production, as well as Alaskan oil imports, are in decline and cannot meet energy needs.
Shockingly, California increased it crude oil imports from foreign countries from 5 percent in 1992 to more than 57 percent in 2018 at a cost of $60 million to oil-rich nations on a daily basis, creating a potential threat to national security.
But without transportation, there is no commerce.
Ron Stein
Irvine
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