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Guest Post: The Dawn Of The Great California Energy Crash
Submitted by PeakProsperity contributing editor Gregor Macdonald
The Dawn Of The Great California Energy Crash
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?
The problem of California’s energy dependency has been decades in the making. And it’s not just its electrical power balance that presents an ongoing challenge. California’s oil production peaked in 1985. And despite ongoing gains in energy efficiency via admirably wise regulation, the state’s population and aggregate energy consumption has completely overrun supply.
Some will say, however, that California doesn’t need to concern itself with domestic energy production. As an innovation economy, in the manner of Japan or South Korea, many have said California can simply import greater and greater quantities of energy in exchange for its intellectual capital and the services and products it provides to the world. But the problem with such a notion is that it extrapolates the trend too far.
Only a century ago, California was an emerging giant of oil and gas production, building much of its wealth from natural resource extraction. It was inevitable that this would change over time. However, given the state’s high priced electricity, its wrongly devised transportation system (which is heavily exposed to oil prices), and its deep financial distress, the nation’s largest economy is having to exchange greater amounts of capital to keep itself running.
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:
California’s Great Energy Crash: State Energy Supply at Fifty-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.
Surely in the forty years that followed 1960, the prospect that California would have to import greater quantities of fossil fuels and electricity was no cause for alarm. However, the capital that is now required each year to maintain its aging highway system and purchase out-of-state oil and electricity, is mounting. While it’s true that California’s GDP is mighty and ranks as the 8th largest in the world, it’s also true that even smaller US states have seen their energy production not fall, but rather advance, in the era of higher-priced energy. Surprisingly, California’s total energy production is now lower than Pennsylvania’s, which is an intriguing contrast given that the Keystone State figures so prominently in the history of early oil and coal production.
Who will produce all the energy that California will need to buy in the future?
Golden State Hit by Nuclear Power's Inherent Complexity
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.
The complexity of nuclear power -- its enormous expense, its dependence on government financing, its long construction timeline, and its perceived and actual risk -- means that bringing new plants online is ploddingly slow and aging plants are increasingly likely to see their licenses rejected for renewal. From a recent LA Times article, California energy officials plan for life without San Onofre:
California energy officials are beginning to plan for the possibility of a long-range future without the San Onofre nuclear power plant. The plant's unexpected, nearly five-month outage has had officials scrambling to replace its power this summer and has become a wild card in already complicated discussions about the state's energy future. 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. "Some of the weaknesses we have in the infrastructure [of Southern California] are laid bare by San Onofre," said Steve Berberich, chief executive of the California Independent System Operator, the nonprofit that oversees most of the state's energy grid... Before the current shutdown at the plant, officials had planned only for a scenario in which one of the reactors would be off line. No one had anticipated a complete shutdown. The plant's 2,200 megawatts of power provide electricity to about 1.4 million homes, but the facility also provides voltage support to the transmission system that allows power to be imported from elsewhere to the region San Onofre serves, particularly San Diego.
San Onofre’s processing ability has been damaged by faulty computer modeling, which caused excessive and accelerated wear in its steam generator tubes. The cost and timeframe for a solution may be so great that the return on such an investment may not be worth it. But again, note the complexity involved here, which runs the spectrum from computer programming that guides the reactors' operation to the critical role that this southern California power source plays in the grid. In powergrids, nuclear power plants play an infrastructural role but are also critically dependent on receiving power from elsewhere in the grid. As Japan discovered, its own power plant structurally survived the tsunami but failed when it lost external power.
In 2010, the year for which the latest data is available, California consumed 258,531 million KWh (kilowatt hours). 26% of that total was imported mostly from other US states (54,406 million KWh) and a small amount came from Mexico. California’s two nuclear plants provided 32,200 million KWh, about 12% of the total power that the state consumes from all sources.
Roughly speaking (because supply, demand, and capacity fluctuate from year to year), the loss of San Onofre will increase California’s potential dependency on out of state power by at least another 5%. This will indeed push out-of-state power dependency to 30%.
California’s Soaring Oil Dependency
California, like Texas, has been a giant in the history of US oil production. But after reaching a peak rate of production in 1985-86 at around 1.1 million barrels per day, California now produces half that amount, at 540 thousand barrels per day.
Just as in other post-peak producing regions of the world, such as Mexico and the North Sea, there is a constant flow of hope and theorizing that once again California could increase its oil production. While it’s true that opening offshore blocks to development could eventually stabilize and possibly raise the state’s aggregate production, it is highly unlikely that onshore production can now be moved higher. The reason is that best technology practices are already well-deployed in California's onshore production -- where old, original fields continue to produce, but at much lower rates.
More important is that California now has over 35 million registered vehicles, nearly matching its population. That makes California automobile rich but public-transit poor, as the state remains highly leveraged to gasoline.
Indeed, the post-war buildout of California followed the low-density, urban-sprawl model that was replicated throughout the nation after 1950. Accordingly, cities like Los Angeles are having to make a Herculean effort to resurrect a light rail system (built on the grid of its historic trolley network, once the largest in the world).
But 60 years of automobile-driven development will not be undone easily. The state is already spending a disproportionate amount of capital each year just to maintain the existing highway system (an issue we will explore in Part II of this article). And despite that ongoing investment, Californians drive on roads with some of the poorest conditions in the country.
Let's take a look at the history of California's oil production against its historical consumption of gasoline:

The spread between the quantity of oil produced in California and the quantity of gasoline consumed started to blow out in the mid 1980s, when gasoline consumption rose above oil production as measured in BTUs. Many believed this to be sustainable. But as the rest of the country would discover, a price revolution in oil would eventually hurt the economy very badly -- and, consequently, oil consumption. In BTU terms, the difference between production of oil and consumption of gasoline reached its widest in 2006-2007, when annual consumption was running above 1,900 trillion BTUs and oil production at 1,250 trillion BTUs.
Now consumption, like production, is falling. Will consumption follow production downward, relentlessly?
The prospect that petrol consumption has peaked in California, along with the rest of the United States, is exciting if one is viewing such a transition through the lens of efficiency, sustainability, and post-industrialism. However, the dream of a non-industrial economy, like all good ideas, reaches a terminus when we consider that a majority of human services and products are still delivered and produced through physical processes. 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.
In Part II: California: The Bellwether for the Rest of America, we take a look at the severely-pressured state budget of California, as well as other measurements of its economy indicating that the direction of its energy balance is entering dire territory. What exactly is the cost of California's energy consumption? And what does it mean, as companies like Facebook build data centers outside the country to access external sources of electricity, that California cities such as Stockton declare bankruptcy?
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.
Such woes, however, are not unique in any way to California. They are shared by most US states right now; California is simply further down the timeline at this point. The key question here is what are the steps Californians (and the rest of us) should be taking?
Click here to access Part II of this report (free executive summary; paid enrollment required for full access).
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The entire world is facing a massive energy crisis. More than likely in the next decade.
http://ericsprott.blogspot.ca/
If I were Mexico, I'd build a couple of top tier nuclear plants in the north and sell it to California at an outrageous price.
Don't want coal or nuclear. I guess the hippies could open a pot fired generating plant. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak.......
California has huge oil deposits off its coast. All it takes is the political will to drill, and they will...soon.
Political will and a complete disregard for fisheries, tourism and quality of life.
The times they are a changing.
If you want to get around anywhere in CA, you gotta drive. Public transporation? A bus ride costs $2 - I can drive 15 miles and blast music for the same price. That's how far my favorite local skatepark is and it would cost me $6 for a bus daypass and about 2 hours of waiting and transit to get there, as compared to the 15 minutes by car (thank you freeways).
It's easy to demonize Californians for being gashoggers, but seriously, everything is really fucking far away from each other, and unless you want to ride your bike a couple of miles to the grocery store (I do, but it's hard to carry a gallon of milk and other space/weight hungry items back), you gotta drive.
I don't want to drive - I'd like to go skate at the skatepark with all the nice ramps and bowls and ledges, but I make the responsible choice (or so I think) and skate flatground at the basketball courts at the park next to my house most days. The driving mentality is so engrained that people drive 1/2 a mile or even 1/4 of a mile to the grocery store instead of just walking.
People need to start walking more and riding bicycles more... the "ride your bike to work" days are so fail lol.
People can't walk more. They're too fat.
This crisis is manufactured.
One just needs to drive the 101 and see all those miles and miles of ugly wind-mills near Livermore, milling away.... to under-stand the depth of the mis-allocation of capital. Recently Solyandra (sp!)...
Fractally, just like the Central Valley with it's miles and miles of GMO agriculture, now struggling with low yields and failed crops.
It was pure hollywood and looked great while the paint was yet fresh.
But this San Onofre.... on the fault line.... hot or cold, it's a bomb waiting to go off.
Not good...
ori
july-15th-aug-15th
101 doesn't roll by Livermore... youse talking about 580E or I-5.
And regarding fruits and vegetables, everyone should read this dude's amazing blogpost. It kicked my ass for sure.
https://realitybloger.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/that-isn-wax-on-your-apple/
Thanks SB,Stand corrected. I meant the I-5, right near/around all those stinking feed-lots and industrial stink beef farms. It's been 6-7 years now, memories fade.
ori
"And regarding fruits and vegetables, everyone should read this dude's amazing blogpost."
Do muslims eat veggies that are covered in MAP pig collagen?
corn-zein?
OMG he's everywhere!
One word: food
California has it.
He lumps organic into that mess, but organics are different. Better to grow your own with no sprays. Or know your grower and buy local, eat seasonal.
We can live without so many lights at night...too bad the politicians don't see it.
They are paid to not see it.
They can see. They are paid or coerced to not act in the interests of the people, but rather the "owners".
I know I'm a day late to this article...but I have to say, yes, in LA you have to drive every where like in most of California. Reason? Local Central Planners with their usage of zoning laws say "here's where shopping will be", "here's where offices will be", "here's where apartments will be", etc. and in doing so, everything in freankin inconvenient.
Compare this methodology to a city like Houston, where developers are allowed to build where it's convenient for the consumer. Most people in Houston, aside from getting to work, never have to go more than a mile from where they live to get to 90% of what they need to maintain basic life essentials.
Local Central Planners have destroyed California development optimization and ONE city in the entire state should give "the market" a chance and drop all the zoning constraints.
Yeah, I hear the quality of life in Compton is great. Vallejo too, not to mention San Bernadino.
THE WHOLE F'N STATE IS BANKRUPT BUT CHEAP ENERGY CAN GO TO HELL!?!?!?!?!? Can't wait for more budget cuts to maintain that quality of life............
Fuck California
Please stay there and siimer in your own juices
Signed
Texas
Fuck Texas.
Signed,
Texas
Fuck taxes.
Signed,
Skateboarder
I would live in TX long before I would live in CA.
Even if they drill for that, what makes you think it would improve energy prospects in California. The oil belongs to the oil company who sells it on the world market to the highest bidder. I don't think California can affort those prices any better than any other shithole 3rd world country. All California is likely to see is that oily slick on the water that washes up on the beaches.
Californians pay a higher price for gasoline than the other 49 states because our idiot environmentalists passed laws and regulations requiring a special formulation. Our gas is produced by only six refineries in state, and we can't buy and use the same gas the rest of the country uses.
Of course, then there's the crap the Mexicans burn in their cars. You can always tell when you're coming up behind a Mexican car, you can smell it way before you get close enough to see the license plate. How come they get a free pass? They should be required to fill up with California gas at the border -- would help our balance of payments as well as the environment.
"You can always tell when you're coming up behind a Mexican car, you can smell it way before you get close enough to see the license plate."
Are you sure it's the gasoline?
Those bean burritos can be fierce!
Does your idea of quality of life include energy consumption?
If so, where does it come from?
Windmills and rainbows?
Windmills yes, I don't how you can get them from rainbows. Please explain.
We don't need oil wells to disregard fish and wildlife. It happens on every river sequstered behind a dam.
The rich folks who own the beachfront properties don't care so much about a bankrupt government or high energy costs. They DO care about their sunset views over the Pacific.
Given they're the folks the government works for, I think you'll be waiting awhile before the drilling starts.
I would estimate when gas hits $5 there will be talk and when gas hits $10 there will be a stampede.
By the time gas hits $10, it'll look like a scene from Escape from LA in that state.
They'll end up eating each other.
The organic ones first.
They require less tenderizing, and taste better. I am tough and have a bitter aftertaste.
It'll happen either after the rioters burn down Beverly Hills or the zombie apocalypse. Give it about even money right now.
As long as we can keep playing the "civil society" game, the views will survive. Big bucks ended up there for a reason--those guys aren't going to be chumped by the oilmen without a fight.
What is 'huge'? A year's supply for the US? Two year's?
Should push for 'mammoth', 'gigantic' or 'colossal-stupendous' instead of girly 'huge'.
Should push for 'mammoth', 'gigantic' or 'colossal-stupendous' instead of girly 'huge'.
----------------------------------
That is the 'American' spirit.
When bigger than biggest is not yet big enough...
That is the Chinese Citizenism spirit.
When the most trolliest of the trolls is not yet trollish enough, so ....
"All it takes is the political will to drill, and they will...soon. "
Either they will OR the Red Chinese will (like they are doing north of Cuba and near Florida). What then?
of all the things in the world that concern me hippies is near the end of my list, misplaced blame in my opinion. If Nancy Pelosi and Maxime Waters put their efforts into campaigning for some new coal plants and called in some favours in the mainstream media to give them favourable coverage it would get built. Besides after what happened and continues to happen at Fukushima the hippies may be on to something, all that being said hippies haven't printed 16 trillion of debt denominated in USD to pay themselves and their bankster and weapons maker bosses.
edit: I will hedge the spelling here I can't be arsed looking up the proper name of that horse faced bitch, Maxine Waters, and I'm in Canada if she's not a rep from California (believe she is though as I said not going to waste time on her name).
Sir, your comparison demeans horse faced bitches everywhere. Besides, what Maxine Waters lacks in looks is well balanced by her honestly, endearing voice, and good natured attitude.
.
Lolwut?! Many of the hippies of the late 1960s/early 1970s (baby boomers) either did just that or became the bankster and weapons maker bosses. You'll notice, for example, Secretary of State Clinton wasn't adorned with a peace medallion on her recent "gin up the third world war" tour of the middle east. Even the Bernank went through a "Shaggy" phase.
Sure, not all of the hippies became what they originally opposed. Nevertheless, a significant number discovered that they get much higher from a printed green intoxicant than they ever did from a harvested green intoxicant.
They don't even want wind energy. Texas produces 3 times as much electricity from wind as California.
It's amazing that a so-called Redneck state with no state income tax produces more "environmentally friendly" energy than a "green" state, and also has better roads.
I wonder where all the money goes in California?
Government money = corruption. Do I need to answer this in a politically correct fashion Tyler?
The problem with wind energy in California is that the wind only blows strongly at night. There are times of the year when there is no wind at all. Also, the sun does not shine at night in California.
Which is yet another good reason to move to Texas.
I wonder where all the money goes in California?
MESS-I-CANs!
Actually hippies would not be interested in killing birds. We would use that stone to grind up some flour.
do you mean stone 2 birds?
Tool!
why do that-the markup on mary jane is alot higher
you can still sell the exhaust fumes. You just capture the heat content of burning it and sell the smoke.
It might not make energy production high,
but it would make energy producers high.
Just don't burn any tobacco! OMFG!
Californians would be stupid enough to do it.
Half of the electricity they buy from out of state is produced by nuclear power.
The other half is generated from coal powered plants.
All those electric cars need to get charged somehow!
we were stupid enough to fire our governor and elect a move star, because we were too stupid to deregulate power generation when we deregulated power utilities.
Actually, a very large portion of California's "foreign" electricty, like roughly 2 Gigawatts continuous, comes from hydro plants in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, British Columbia and Montana. The Grand Coulee, Chief George and dozens of other dams are creating some fine renewable energy for the West.
But don't let me muddy the cesspool with facts.
Good article, except he fails to mention that Diablo canyon is offline at least 3 years for relicensing, and they have to monitor the two faults that were not known to exist under the reactors and just offshore. So California is without both Ofre and diablo, but the ng power plant at Morro Bay has taken up the slack. No rolling blackouts .
There is no sane reason for either plant to ever open again considering that demand is going down, and we don't have any problem with supply. Not to mention the 25 years worth of radioactive waste that remains onsite of each location.
Nukes are a dangerous scam.
Not to mention there is a ton of solar going in up on the carrizo plain, and there are tons of places to put more.
Dems some facts.
WTF Really? You can't even mention Arizona? Thye get nearly 40% of that surplanted energy from Arizona and you can't even mention it...
By Chief George do you mean Chief Joseph dam?
Sorry to be a stickler, but Chief Joseph was a badass and deserves your respect.
"From where the sun now stands, I will fight no more forever." --Chief J.
The Native American tribes would be easier, and friendly to partner up with. They already sell hundreds of thousands of acre feet a water to southern california.
I'm sure Mr. Lay and Mr. Skilling and the boys @ Enron could help alleviate California's energy problems.
Someone please check with Lay in hell.
Ken Lay skipped. "Hell" is the name of a small but exclusive beach resort off Barbados.
Ken is now burning in hell
Get San Fran to give him a yell
If Ken still has greed
And Cali has need
He may have some thermal to sell
Someone should chisel that into his tombstone
From one chiseler to another. Seems appropriate!
Can you use hellfire to run an AC? Maybe this is what the politicos heve in mind. They've already made CA bad enough that hell is a local call.
When the world has it's "crisis" maybe we will be smart enough to finally start tapping our own VAST reserves, enviro-wackos be damned!
Maybe T Boones windmills will have to come out of the mothballs!
Now watch that fantasy high speed rail run on coal
Video of world's fastest steam locomotive at 126 miles per hour
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sjXC65e-xQ&feature=fvwrel
Come on the incredable leadership in California would never do anything as stupid as make a high speed rail run be powered by coal, they will go with the 21 century idea A "fusion reactor" after all it will power the train for many years and is way cleaner than coal (less carbon footprint) think of the carbon credits saved . Calafornians are so clever!
No no no, power the train with a GENERATOR that collects STATIC ELECTRICITY from the air blowing past it!
Some genius had the idea 60 years ago--if it weren't for government, it'd be in production already.
Failed you for your total lack of understanding of thermodynamics and conservation of energy. There is no free lunch.
Oh, and of course blame the boogyman government for blocking this violation of physics.
Guess it's too much of an in-joke. A lot of the regulars should get it--they claim to have read the book, which is no small feat considering it was 1100 pages of drivel.
Free Energy - Nuclear Engineer M.T. Keshe @ ElektorLive!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCFO3-MOCYE (1:40:05)
If free energy existed the world would end. Please think it through. If energy was free, you could produce infinite numbers of free energy machines, which would all create energy. Almost all energy produced becomes heat. In a relatively short time, the world would die a heat death.
EBM (Energy By Motion) machine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6MDHF39XmU (6:31)
Who is John Galt?!!
YOU ARE.
Now get up off your lazy ass and SAVE US ALL!
Naw, man, this is *California* we're talking about here. That motherfucker gonna run on self-esteem. All aborad the FeelGood about YoSeff Express to Victorville!!
While we're having fantasies let's run it on steam. That would rock. A high-speed steam engine hurtling down the tracks at 180 mph. I'd probably pay admission just to watch it scream by belching smoke and fire like a land-bound dragon.
Is that a challenge?
Dunno -- is it? The boiler would be so big it would need 32 sets of trucks to keep it rolling. It would need a coal car -- what -- 200 feet long? Most of the length would end up being fuel and water.
So yeah, easy peasy.
It would probably only have room left for 40 passengers in one Pullman waaaaaay at the back. Behind a heat shield. But man what a monster ride that would be. Totally terrifying probably, but I'd put it on my bucket list.
It will probably carry only 40 passengers at a time anyway, if it even gets built. I imagine all the money will end up goin for "studies" and crap. Bullish for freezers and aluminum foil.
The map of this HS rail has stops at locations where there are FEMA camps and prison complexes as it moves through the central San Joaquin valley (agriculture). Sounds like this train is going to be carrying a work force to work in the fields.
sad because California has unending resources, seemingly. Just look at chocolate mountain.
http://silvervigilante.com
Oregon's Columbia River Gorge supplies most of California's imported energy. It consists of hydro and wind. There is a surplus due to the hundreds of new windmills installed over the past few years that aren't needed. This article is a bunch of BS.
"This article is a bunch of BS."
This article is about California..., not Oregon. Snap out of it.
The surplus is not year round. BPA exports power in the summer when CA needs it and uses it in the NW in the winter when the NW needs it.
The aging power grid also makes it less efficient over long distances.
I consider it Washington's Columbia River Gorge.
Our good friends in California used this "green" energy to meet their legislation requiring a certain percentage of electricity be green. However, earlier this year they changed the legislation to require that it be produced in California. Whoops! It's not all fun and games for me though, because the californicators keep movin' into all the other Western States that aren't screwed up (yet).
If there's legislation in California requiring their green energy to be produced in California, I have to assume they have annexation plans for large strips of river land across Washington and Oregon.
But then maybe the California Legislature has found a way to generate power by pissing into the wind, which so far has not produced nearly as much energy as it has consumed.
This is the problem avoidance syndrome. Very quickly, ignored problems start compounding and that is where we
find ourselves today, truly stunning to observe...
A ship of fools! Jerry Brown was, is and will be the answer to a real stupid question.
Maybe Yoko Ono can come and sing a protest song - Don't Frack my Mother. That will help, honestly
California Dreamin - Mamas & The Papas
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-aK6JnyFmk (2:35)
links to music vids-what imbeciles post on ZH when they don't have anything worthwhile to add to the converation
fook mi fook yu.wmv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxbL39Voh-I (1:12)
Keep um coming I like to be introduced to new ideas or music, the posters on ZH have some "interesting" tastes and ideas, the spice of life and all that...
Soulshine Allman Brothers
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pDIQ7Otf1mw
edit: Goldilocks I gave you a thumbs up but I had to really stretch for it, I mean c'mon its the Mama's and the Papas. This is how its done (ignore the one above), Shuggy Otis is from California and many folks haven't heard of him (either that or link to Strait of Hormuz outta Compton).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--9OsfTfb6E&feature=related
Carly-Fornia Dreamin'...
Was that not a campaign slogan from a couple of years back ? Indeed -- how did it turn out ?
Can't we just use bicyles and love! Energy for everyone...kum-ba-yah!
unexpected stuff at San Onofre - have to check into that - good article.
after fukushima I found enenews.com to keep up to date with nuclear news, just a friendly FYI (I discovered it through ZH).
"And despite ongoing gains in energy efficiency via admirably wise regulation, "........regulations that have killed the golden goose....or golden bear in this case...the leftys hate energy companies...but they love their 20,000 sf McMansions....and Limos....and pools...and......Private Jets....but NO NO NO..none for you little man....
Pacific Gas & Electric in a ball of fire blew part of San Bruno the fuck up. I saw the fire-ball in person from 15 miles away and had no idea what the hell had happened, it was so huge. They should be regulated into the 7th ring of Hell just for that, never mind that the management are lying and cheating fuck-tard cowboys on meth.
Edit: Okay google-bots, I want you to index this right the first time so everyone gets it: Pacific Gas Electric fuck-tard cowboys on meth
Some idiot down arrows you. A shame. There is nothing worse than a hypocritical Limosine Liberal in my mind. Al Gore uses more carbon in one private jet trip across the country than my wife and I use in our cars in a YEAR. And he has the audacity to tell us about global warming.....I mean climate change. When I see Al living in a cardboard box, then I will start to worry about global warming.
All conservatives seem to think that all liberals, especially environmentalists, should be living in caves. Some kind of punishment ethic.
Not all, and not all. But yes, live the life that you propose. Like, Sheryl Crow should actually use only one square of TP. Yep, I betcha'
- Ned
I get bored of the liberal/right wing thing, people now matter their background who aren't fully corrupted tend to have some nuggets of interesting philosophy or knowledge that I don't have if I'm willing to listen. The important point is that the world we live in does not fit with my more libertarian small government ideology, likewise it doesn't fit with the ideologies of my liberal and socialist friends.
Welfare for banks and weapons makers, dismantling of Western industrial production and shipping it to the third world, that's what our political society stands for, that's neither right nor left!
Yep, that's why I hang around here, 'cuz I really am "new meat" when it comes to the high finance stuff. On the other hand, that does not apply to me in all cases.
And I've given up on the right-left thing. But the Statist vs. smaller .gov spectrum means something.
- Ned
thanks Ned, your last sentence was HUGE, had me thinkin...
No. They should live the life they say we all should live and leave the rest of us the hell alone. If they don't eat meat, they mean that nobody shouldn't eat meat. If they don't like guns, they mean that nobody should own a gun. If they don't believe in God they mean nobody should believe in God. Get the picture. Liberals are about control not caring about the environment. Those that do are useless idiots that follow a utopia that will never make up for our energy needs and will cost more then it saves in $$$.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-face-authoritarian-environmenta...
Also you should read up on Cass Sunstein who has a book called "Nudge" which is about how to nudge people to the place you want them to go. He also happens to be Obuttfuxx REGULATORY CZAR
No its worse than that. They DO eat meat, but they think everyone else shouldnt eat meat. And they DO own guns, they just dont want anyone else to own guns. Rosie O'donnell hates guns. Funny how she has ARMED security at the gated community she lives in. They like the finer things in life, but they dont want anyone else using "their" resources and consuming those things that they hold dear......its all for "them"
Hey, if you advocate for having a smaller carbon footprint, by all means, be the first to reduce. But don't let hypocrites like Al Gore stop the "crusade". Im not defending "conservatives" by ranting about limosine liberals. But I tend to think liberals more than conservatives are hypocrites. Especially when it comes to their "progressiveness".
The Democrat types are more hypocritical on the wealth-related issues, the Republican types are more hypocritical on the "family values" issues.
Liberal/conservative has nothing to do with it.
You've got it backwards. Loincloth primitivism is the hallmark of the Left: the give-me-everything-for-free Marxist Hippie "Occupy" protestors and Global Warmists (patsies for elite Agenda 21 globalism), manifesting in NIMBYism and BANANAism (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone). Real and balanced environmental conservatism is unrelated to the cherished deep-programmed delusions of this bunch.
Case in point, from the article: "...The dream of a non-industrial economy, like all good ideas, reaches a terminus when we consider that a majority of human services and products are still delivered and produced through physical processes."
What a classic display of stupid disconnection from reality -- an extension of the broader Someting-For-Nothing debt-subsidized culture that is on the verge of implosion (except for those who own shares in the companies that did as they were asked by outsourcing). To the loincloth wearer, the only justifiable manufacturing industry is the kind that involves Harry Potter waving his magic wand, or Jiminy Cricket wishing upon a star, and doesn't spoil anyone's view of a tree. "Post Industrial Economy" is just another flavor of reality denial.
The admins of ZH have a subtle and sophisticated sense of humor.
You really don't know anything about the Occupy folks.
It's worth the reminder that their primary motivating principle was ending governmental support of the bankster cronies who've ripped off the planet.
It's easier to lump everyone you might have a disagreement with into one huge monolithic group. But it's also lazy and stupid.
Don't talk to me about "lazy and stupid." I visited with Occupiers when they pitched a temporary campground downtown. Dominant themes were housing, dope legalization, taxing the rich, and entitlements. There was no clear position about anything productive. There were disjointed sound bites about Ending the Fed, a sign for DemocracyNow, another about Global Warming and Chemtrails, and another with "911 was an inside job." I agree with you about the banksters, but didn't see much about it from Occupy. And banksters will ALWAYS rip off the planet, at least so long as there is a centralized money system.
I'm convinced that protests in general are irrelevant. A mob is just a mob.
Call it: "Simple justice for hypocrites!"
I'm sure they have nothing to worry about. Didn't they legislate a price cap on the cost of electricity awhile back?
Problem solved!
Wrong.
I guess if you're going to miss the sarcasm (2 for 2), it's nice of you to sign your name to it.
Greenie for ya.
Four legs good. Actually, right, and as stated a while back. e.g.
http://articles.latimes.com/2002/may/16/business/fi-enron16
good dog
- Ned
The Bonneville Power Administration operates the dams on the Columbia River in Oregon. They sell all the power California needs for 5 cents per KW. California marks it up to 10 cents and everybody is happy.
The east coast is a nasty place and people there are so jealous that rich people and beautiful babes reside in such a great place in California. Ever been to San Francisco? LOL!!!
Yes. Wait - was I supposed to be impressed?
Dear Old Dad owned a '73 Bonneville 455.
By God, that was a machine.
Bonneville=Power
Or maybe salt flats. Hmm, forgot about that one.
There must be a way to harness all the hot air coming out of Nancy Pelosi -- tax her by the number of pages in ObamaCare to pay for the research
We now have Cap-N-Trade here in CA, just like Obama wanted nationally. We long ago banned new nuclear plants so that's not an option in meeting our "carbon reduction goals". Of course, there's no way in hell to make up the loss of our nuke plants through solar and wind.
We also have had "smart meters" forced on us. The goal is to make electricity expensive, then have variable, demand driven pricing to force us to consume less. So freeze in the winter and sweat in the summer. This is the "progressives" idea of energy policy.
Its all about control. You will freeze in the winter and sweat in the summer. But the "progressives" behind it all will live comfortably. Count on it. I bet the Kim family lives lavishly in North Korea too, while everyone else lives in squalor. But hey, they aren't contributing to global warming.
Just make your own.
Just like - just grow your own.
A lot of CA has a great climate.
It will be interestig to see what the California beach culture will look in a few years once the bulk of Fukushima debris is caught up in their kelp beds or floating offshore in large, radioactive rafts.
Their kelp beds are already contaminated, which means most of the food chain from plankton up to larger, migratory fish is also contaminated, and progressively getting worse.
Ugh.
Surfers will go bald and glow in the dark. Short kelp harvesters and go long wigmakers.
DW - I'm surprised you got 4 down arrows for speaking the truth. I have been watching the MSM spew denial on this. Seems kind of obvious.
In law, they call this "leading the witness". In journalism, it's just called tabloid press.
Did you all notice the line,
What comptuer modeling are we talking about here? Oh how nicely the beef of the article is ignored so they can slop some sauce on it.
SCE fucked up the flow distribution and wore out the steam generator tubes beyond their ability to function under all design conditions. Good Ol' Circle-Bar-W (W) wanted to charge them a pot of money for the C-E SG replacements, so the SCE purchasing boyz and girlz went to Mitsubishi (MHI) who also make PWR steam generators. Such a DEAL! And they were "just the same as the overpriced C-E models." So that is what SCE told the NRC. And, they were "just the same" except for all of the differences. Mamma NRC doesn't like to be tricked.
And so it goes.
- Ned
I am pretty sure energy is the least of Californias problems.
If you mean being broke is a bigger problem, yes.
But if you set fiscal fucktaredness aside, energy is serious. Our lights are going to go out a long time before the cum-stains slouching around in Sacramento admit there isn't any more money and go home.
Water, capital and business flight and too many goddamn people (legal or otherwise) are exacerbated by an energy issues. Virtually every state in the union has it Sacramento shithole equivalent.
You are arguing both sides. Wouldn't business flight mean less people?
Fewer jobs first, then eventually fewer people. People are and will continue to leave CA either because there is no work or the state is cutting off the freebies. CA is feeding on itself. - it is into the meat and bone of the middle class big time.
I'm amazed at the people I've met over the years who have never and will never leave the place they are from. Some people would rather glow in the dark than move.
Who will produce all the energy that California will need to buy in the future?
I'm glad you asked. Beautiful British Columbia...we are building power generation like fiends....
Goodluck getting those transmission lines built and, more importantly, keeping them operational. 5GW baby, coming to a "theatre" near you.
I would submit that power generation and beauty are mutually exclusive.
Turn off your computer.
If the joo york bankers didn't steal all the money california could afford a bunch more solar power.
Buzz, it ain't the bankstaz (of any flavour) in this case--it is DiFi, e.g.:
http://eem.jacksonkelly.com/2010/01/update-sen-feinstein-introduces-legi...
- Ned
We keep dinking around with solar. It's time to stop the dinking and go full throttle. It's time for environmentalists to stop worrying about the impact of solar on a field of gophers and demand more solar farms. It's time for conservatives to stop associating solar with smelly hippies and demand more system incentives.
Doing both will bolster our power position, create new jobs (manufacturing, installation and maintenance), reduce cost of household power (thus increasing discretionary spending... uh, stimulus?), and add additional capital incentives for R&D expansion.
This way we can all carry on with running our blenders, playing the XBox on the 94-inch LCD, and keep our AC at an even 60-degrees.
How much of that Columbia River gorge electricity makes it to San Diego?