California: We're Facing an Energy Shortage Due to Our Ban on Building Any New Power Plants. But We've Got a Great Idea: We'll Just Suck the Energy Out of the Batteries of Electric Vehicles During Power Shortages!

They're going to reverse the flow of electricity for car-charging stations to suck energy out of cars to make up for their deliberate crippling of the state's energy production.

Apart from the obvious problem of leeching electricity out of people's cars and leaving them in a low-power state for their morning drive to work, do you see another practical problem?

That's right-- people charge their cars overnight. Power demand is the greatest during the day. Power demand drops to very low levels at night. Fewer lights, the AC either off or only being used intermittently, etc.

So they'll be sucking power out of electric vehicles when power is not needed.

The few who actually are charging during the day are probably doing so at work.

So good luck getting home, assholes!

It's been said before, California's power grid will have to expand in order to meet the demand for more energy. PG&E's CEO Patricia Poppe has come up with an "unconventional" idea, using electric cars to send excess power back to the grid to prevent blackouts.

Bi-directional charging already allows a few electric cars to send energy from their battery to a home. Think of it as a backup home generator.

The Ford F-150 Lightning already has that capability and all General Motors electric vehicles are expected to follow. In a recent interview with Good Morning America, GM CEO Mary Barra talked about GM leading the way in the EV industry.

"I have tremendous confidence in our brands, the strength of our brands and our customers and the loyalty that we have," said Barra.

But PG&E's CEO, Patricia Poppe thinks the technology can go even further by also sending that excess power to the grid, except that, the interconnection is not there yet.

"Right now today, there is no technology and no automotive manufacturer whose cars can actually send power beyond the home and up into the grid," said Mark Toney, of Turn (The Utility Reform Network).

But that doesn't mean it won't eventually happen, says Kurt Johnson of the Climate Center.

"There are 125 plus vehicle-to-grid projects going on globally," revealed Johnson.

San Diego has a pilot program with school buses using bi-directional charging that feeds into the grid at the end of the day.

"It's a gigantic unharnessed, untapped power source that can be used. Most vehicles are sitting parked, unused 95 percent of the time," added Johnson.

Still, PG&E has to come up with a compensation plan for those willing to plug into the grid.

How much energy do you really think you can leach out of a the batteries of a few thousand -- or maybe just a few hundred -- electric vehicles? Do you really think that people will drop everything to drive to a bidirectional charging/charge-leaching station when you give them the heads-up that the state is about to experience rolling blackouts and brown-outs?

All to offer the public a fake, only-on-paper "plan" that excuses the Democrat leadership for its refusal to build sufficient power generation for the state.

And what starts in California ends in Missouri:

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a new rule limiting CO2 emissions from fossil fuel-fired (coal and natural gas) power plants. As you might expect, given the ideological bent of EPA, the rule is a Trojan horse, the real purpose of which is to induce the nation's coal plants and some natural gas power generation to shut down under the increasing weight of federal regulations.

Center of the American Experiment is sounding the alarm on EPA's rule. Our energy team was hired by the State of North Dakota to model the EPA proposal to determine whether it could supply reliable electricity to the 15 states on the MISO (Midcontinent Independent System Operator) grid. Our team found that the grid implied by the EPA rule, heavily dependent on sporadic wind and solar power, would result in devastating blackouts. They further calculated that if the grid were to be made mostly (but not entirely) immune to blackouts, while still complying with the EPA rule, another $246 billion would have to be spent within the MISO system alone. That public comment is embedded below.

The end of civilization does not start with a fanfare of trumpets. It just happens, and the start of the end of civilization is reckoned by future historians, when they attempt to date the Dark Ages.

William Otis writes about blue jurisdictions' decisions to make citizens officially-permitted prey species for urban predators, but the left's assault on the foundations of civilization is comprehensive and full-spectrum.

It's often said in conservative circles that decline is a choice. This is seldom better illustrated than in what is on display now in America's largest and most prominent city. The increase in crime is not just "cyclical." It's not because of COVID. It's not because of some murky social factor that academics will try to hype with impenetrable jargon. It's because of specific policy choices New York made with its eyes more-or-less open -- choices that small-time (for the moment) stealing is something we're going to live with because, well, you see, thieves gotta thieve. And we need to be more compassionate..............tolerant........inclusive........

Since then, petty theft has exploded in New York's Midtown North precinct, where both the Duane Reade and the CVS are located. In 2019, for the first half of the year, Midtown North recorded 979 petit larcenies (generally, shoplifting of minor items). By last year, they had reached 1,161, and this year, they are at 1,331.

That's a 36 percent increase over four years, which is alarming enough--but it also far understates the case. For the first half of this year, for example, the NYPD's supposedly handy CompStat map shows exactly one petit larceny at the Duane Reade corner of Broadway, and exactly one at the CVS corner of Broadway a block south, on June 6 and February 3, respectively.

These numbers defy reality. Conservatively speaking, a petit larceny happens at each of these locations at least once a day; more realistically, the rate is likely closer to hourly.

Oddly, this is both shocking news and old news. A Pew Foundation study a few years back showed that property crime is grossly understated in the statistics the press typically trots out. Less than a third even gets reported to the police and less than a fifth gets cleared. Theft victims believe that the police won't be interested, or even if they are will be unable to solve the case, and that they won't be getting their property or purse back one way or the other.

But, as Rudy Giuliani knew when he took over as mayor -- and so much of the rest of the country seems now to have forgotten -- the societal effects that start with freebie theft don't stop there:

[T]he numbers can't show how this shoplifting amnesty has contributed to Midtown West's decline in public safety, public order, and just plain livability over the past few years. Until last year, the northern area of Times Square was home to three competing drugstores. Until early 2020, all three were unremarkable, serviceable locations. They were ubiquitous chain drugstores: a Rite Aid at Eighth Avenue and 50th Street, a decades-old mainstay; the Duane Reade a block east, another longtime fixture; and the CVS, the newest addition, a block south. You went in, grabbed what you wanted off the shelf, whether it be toothpaste or nail clippers, exchanged pleasantries with the clerk while paying, and left. Maybe you just ran in to use the ATM to get cash.

Early in the pandemic, going to the Rite Aid, the store closest to me (almost directly underneath my home), stopped being an unremarkable experience. The store started locking everything up. I had to ask the clerk to unlock the deodorant, then the toothpaste. Maybe the store had always had a security guard, and maybe, like most retailers before 2020, it hadn't; I had never noticed either way. Now, there he was, firmly and conspicuously stationed at the sliding doors.

You read that right. It's now at the point where toothpaste and deodorant have to be locked up.

His presence wasn't enough to deter mass shoplifting. By early 2022, the store, plagued by profit-killing theft, had shuttered. It remains a half-block empty hulk, a vast space outside of which vagrants can panhandle and sleep unmolested by commercial activity. One of its glass doors is now covered by a formidable metal security gate.

Again, it's not news at this stage that the closure of inner city stores mostly harms (surprise!) inner city residents, namely blacks and other minorities. It's then said, truthfully after a fashion, that blacks are being "underserved" by corporate titans. What gets left unsaid is that they were being served just fine until crime -- and, more importantly, the Left's decision to do nothing about it -- forced businesses to leave.

Hit the link for the rest. He notes:

As I suggested in the sub-head, the disappearance of the accouterments of civilized life doesn't announce itself at your door. It just happens, one little step at a time.

posted by Ace at 01:10 PM

| Access Comments