The blackouts caused costly disruptions for businesses and headaches for families and fueled a run on emergency generators. Restaurants had to throw out perishable food, and people with chronic illnesses who rely on oxygen machines and other electric-powered medical devices rushed to hospitals.
A reprise during the pandemic could be more destructive and deadly, and Californians had a warning last week as wildfires erupted across the state. Perhaps this is why even California’s famously anti-fossil fuel Public Utilities Commission on Thursday momentarily set aside its climate goals and allowed PG&E to deploy hundreds of diesel-powered mobile generators to provide back-up power for homes, businesses and hospitals during power outages.
PG&E says it will spend $94 million to procure 450 megawatts of generators — enough to power 450,000 homes at one time — for communities during preventative power outages this summer and fall. Green groups wanted the utility to commission giant batteries powered by solar panels, but this isn’t a practical short-term solution.
Massive solar arrays would have to be built across northern California within the next couple of months, and even then batteries wouldn’t be able to store power to keep communities running around the clock for days. One irony is that PG&E had initially proposed deploying large natural-gas fired generators at its substations, but green groups objected.
Its backup plan is to use diesel. PG&E says the generators could run on biodiesel made from vegetable oil, but it isn’t better for carbon emissions. According to the Energy Information Administration, “the negative environmental effects of this land clearing [to produce biodiesel] and burning may be greater than the potential benefits of using biodiesel produced from soybeans and palm oil trees.”
PG&E has spent billions to boost renewable energy while neglecting its aging grid, which is why it has to resort to draconian blackouts to prevent wildfires. Now it plans to burn dirty diesel to prevent disruptive power outages that would compound the pandemic damage. Only in California’s progressive climate utopia.
