Beware of California Energy Policies: Be Very Afraid In Fact

Victor Furman
Upstate New York Landowner Shale Gas Activist

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California energy policies have led to an unmitigated energy disaster not unlike Germany’s Energiewende but some New Yorkers, of course, want to bring it on.

Back in July I was quoted in a Binghamton PressConnects article regarding the Broome County solar farm I’ve also written about on this blog. I said a lie was “being pushed upon the community about solar energy,” and that I thought the public was “being shammed” along with the environment as “over 1,000 mature trees were cut down to build the solar project.” This generated a letter to the editor from contributor Leo Cotnoir titled “The true cost of fossil fuels.” It was all conjecture and I had to respond with some facts. I did so by relating what’s happening as a result of California energy policies Cotnoir seems to want to see implemented in New York. God forbid!

Cotnoir claimed solar energy was only slightly higher priced than other energy and actually suggested solar farms pay the total cost of producing their electricity. He also said fossil fuel plants, on the other hand, were “allowed to use the atmosphere as a free dump for their waste products.”

Finally, he asserted that if the “costs associated with global warming and air pollution were internalized — for example, by a carbon tax — the playing field would be level and solar electricity would easily find a place in a stable mix of energy sources.” None of this is even close to true.

Here are the facts.

Thanks to forced solar energy in a state that is privy to much more sun than New York, Californians already pay about 40 percent to 60 percent more for their electricity than residents of other states.

Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed California households paying 17.97 cents per kilowatt hour for electricity, more than the national average of 12.75 cents, according to the latest data from November, 2016.

California policymakers are infatuated with renewable energy and electric vehicles. But the record-breaking heat wave that hit the state earlier this month, which left more than 30,000 customers in Los Angeles without electricity for several hours, is exposing the dangers of that infatuation.
Source: Manhattan Institute

Solar energy is not the magical cure-all that solar energy companies want the buyers to believe. Solar energy does compliment fossil fuels at this time, but is not ready to replace it. Not for a long time. All any consumer can ask for is honesty to make the best decision that serves their need.

Editor’s Note: It’s important to realize solar energy is hugely more expensive than gas and that it also fails to internalize many additional costs, such the need to duplicate energy systems to ensure a dipatchable energy backup and then starving it so the costs of those backup sources become unaffordable. This is the inevitable result of German and California energy policies.

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