Randolph Kinney
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- Joined
- Apr 7, 2005
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The Dawn of the Great California Energy Crash
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-dawn-of-the-great-california-energy-crash-2012-7
California, which imports over 25% of its electricity from out of state, is in no position to lose half (!) of its entire nuclear power capacity. But that’s exactly what happened earlier this year, when the San Onofre plant in north San Diego County unexpectedly went offline. The loss only worsens the broad energy deficit that has made California the most dependent state in the country on expensive, out-of-state power.
Its two nuclear plants — San Onofre in the south and Diablo Canyon on the central coast — together have provided more than 15% of the electricity supply that California generates for itself, before imports. But now there is the prospect that San Onofre will never reopen.
Will California now find that it must import as much as 30% of its power?
Indeed, the latest data shows that California energy production from all sources — oil and gas, nuclear, hydro, and renewables — has just hit new, 50-year lows:
Since 1985 (the year that state oil production peaked above one million barrels a day), the state of California has seen its portfolio of energy production steadily decline, from an all- time high above 3,600 trillion BTU (British Thermal Units) to 2,500 trillion BTU (latest available data is through 2010). Because the contribution from both nuclear and renewables during that period has been either small or simply flat, the steady decay of California’s oil and natural gas production has sent the state’s energy production to 50-year lows.
However, during those five decades from 1960 to 2010, California’s population more than doubled, from nearly 16 million to nearly 38 million people.
Additionally, California built out its freeway system and expanded greatly into counties such as Riverside and San Bernardino. Indeed, in San Bernardino County, population quadrupled from 1960 to 2010, from five hundred thousand to over two million, with the attendant homes, public infrastructure, state highways, and freeways.
This great expansion of California’s residential and industrial topography was a tremendous value proposition back when energy, especially oil, was cheap. But now we are in a new pricing era for oil. Equally, California must also pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country. In counterpoint to the dreams of energy conservation, while California’s population merely doubled, its electricity demand rose nearly fivefold, from 57 million KWh in 1960 to 258 million KWh in 2010.
Essentially, California, like the rest of the country, has built a very expensive system of transport, which is now aging along with its powergrid.
Who will produce all the energy that California will need to buy in the future?
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, a number of countries and communities are reassessing the risk and the cost of nuclear power. Overall, however, it is the aggregate complexity of nuclear power that is driving the global stagnation and now the decline of this particular source of energy.
California energy officials are beginning to plan for the possibility of a long-range future without the San Onofre nuclear power plant. That long-range planning process already involves dealing with the possible repercussions of climate change, a mandate to boost the state’s use of renewable sources to 33% of the energy supply by 2020 and another mandate to phase out a process known as once-through cooling, which uses ocean water to cool coastal power plants, that will probably take some other plants out of service.
The State of California does not deliver state transportation, health care, education, police and fire protection, and public works digitally through the Internet. Instead, energy, delivered through tangible infrastructure, is required to run the Golden State.
There is no miracle solution for California. Even if we assume that the country continues to enjoy cheap natural gas prices, the cost of imported electricity from NG-fired power generation will not fall, because the cost of electricity transmission will continue to rise as the grid ages and requires new investment. Eventually the price level of higher energy and lower quality public services will also catch up even to higher wage employees, because a hollowing-out effect is going to pare down the number of service providers — teachers, merchants, construction workers, and even health care professionals and lawyers.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-dawn-of-the-great-california-energy-crash-2012-7
California, which imports over 25% of its electricity from out of state, is in no position to lose half (!) of its entire nuclear power capacity. But that’s exactly what happened earlier this year, when the San Onofre plant in north San Diego County unexpectedly went offline. The loss only worsens the broad energy deficit that has made California the most dependent state in the country on expensive, out-of-state power.
Its two nuclear plants — San Onofre in the south and Diablo Canyon on the central coast — together have provided more than 15% of the electricity supply that California generates for itself, before imports. But now there is the prospect that San Onofre will never reopen.
Will California now find that it must import as much as 30% of its power?
Indeed, the latest data shows that California energy production from all sources — oil and gas, nuclear, hydro, and renewables — has just hit new, 50-year lows:
Since 1985 (the year that state oil production peaked above one million barrels a day), the state of California has seen its portfolio of energy production steadily decline, from an all- time high above 3,600 trillion BTU (British Thermal Units) to 2,500 trillion BTU (latest available data is through 2010). Because the contribution from both nuclear and renewables during that period has been either small or simply flat, the steady decay of California’s oil and natural gas production has sent the state’s energy production to 50-year lows.
However, during those five decades from 1960 to 2010, California’s population more than doubled, from nearly 16 million to nearly 38 million people.
Additionally, California built out its freeway system and expanded greatly into counties such as Riverside and San Bernardino. Indeed, in San Bernardino County, population quadrupled from 1960 to 2010, from five hundred thousand to over two million, with the attendant homes, public infrastructure, state highways, and freeways.
This great expansion of California’s residential and industrial topography was a tremendous value proposition back when energy, especially oil, was cheap. But now we are in a new pricing era for oil. Equally, California must also pay some of the highest electricity rates in the country. In counterpoint to the dreams of energy conservation, while California’s population merely doubled, its electricity demand rose nearly fivefold, from 57 million KWh in 1960 to 258 million KWh in 2010.
Essentially, California, like the rest of the country, has built a very expensive system of transport, which is now aging along with its powergrid.
Who will produce all the energy that California will need to buy in the future?
In the wake of the Fukushima disaster, a number of countries and communities are reassessing the risk and the cost of nuclear power. Overall, however, it is the aggregate complexity of nuclear power that is driving the global stagnation and now the decline of this particular source of energy.
California energy officials are beginning to plan for the possibility of a long-range future without the San Onofre nuclear power plant. That long-range planning process already involves dealing with the possible repercussions of climate change, a mandate to boost the state’s use of renewable sources to 33% of the energy supply by 2020 and another mandate to phase out a process known as once-through cooling, which uses ocean water to cool coastal power plants, that will probably take some other plants out of service.
The State of California does not deliver state transportation, health care, education, police and fire protection, and public works digitally through the Internet. Instead, energy, delivered through tangible infrastructure, is required to run the Golden State.
There is no miracle solution for California. Even if we assume that the country continues to enjoy cheap natural gas prices, the cost of imported electricity from NG-fired power generation will not fall, because the cost of electricity transmission will continue to rise as the grid ages and requires new investment. Eventually the price level of higher energy and lower quality public services will also catch up even to higher wage employees, because a hollowing-out effect is going to pare down the number of service providers — teachers, merchants, construction workers, and even health care professionals and lawyers.
