Bringing power to the people - California

From Chris Wysocki at WyBlog:

California is "greening" itself toward a third world electrical grid
The "greening" of California's energy infrastructure is producing some unforeseen consequences.

Solar power doesn't work very well at night. Or on cloudy days. Wind power tends to operate intermittantly.

A robust power grid takes those factors into account, usually by having natural gas turbine generators on standby. Alas, California's ecotwits have forced most of the state's fossil fueled power plants into mothballs. The ones that are still limping along will likely be shuttered by 2020 thanks to onerous and prohibitively expensive upgrades required under the Clean Air Act.

So what will happen on cloudy, windless days?

Rolling blackouts.

In 21st Century America. California will join the third world.

It's fun to discuss alt.energy with a low-information voter. They do not get the fact that neither wind nor solar can serve as a baseload generating capacity. For every megawatt of wind turbines you install, you must also install a megawatt of gas turbine generation running on hot-standby (so it can start quickly when the wind dies down). Or live with the rolling blackouts...