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Comment by vbezhenar | Hacker News Reader

I don’t remember blackouts in my country since 90s. It seems that parts of US could be considered worst that third-world country with some aspects.

From my old experience I could suggest buying diesel generator and have enough supply of diesel fuel to run it for a few days at least. Also few tonnes of coal, but that’s for cold climate.

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Amusingly, this whole thing is kind of happening because California chose not to buy diesel generators and coal.

(Or more accurately, chose not to buy more efficient, less polluting versions of those things)

Disagree. There’s lots of natural gas generation in the state. The issue is large weather events that is spiking demand much greater than the historical forecast.

More EVs and V2G would go a long way to stabilize the grid.

V2G seems, as a practical matter, to be extremely dependent on a complex system of intermediaries because no one wants to try having vehicles negotiate directly with the grid operator. I don’t know whether this is likely to work well in the near future.

But there’s evidently not enough natgas generation, otherwise we wouldn’t have this issue. There’s not enough because Cali chose not to buy enough (of natgas or something else).

The forecasting argument doesn’t hold water for me - California is the state trumpeting about global warming the longest; if this is because of GW and their own projections didn’t consider it, well…

50% of in-state generation comes from natural gas: https://www.energy.ca.gov/data-reports/energy-almanac/califo...

I'd call that more than 'enough'.

It's not producing enough power, so it's not "enough".

Like if I gave you an ounce of ice cream, and an ounce of steak, and you complain about not having enough food, I don't get to say "but it's 50% steak, that's more than enough".

The decades long push for "renewable" energy at all costs has made any consideration of investing in long term base load generation unpalatable in CA - which is why, as others have pointed out, CA hasn't invested in base load generation since the early 2000s.

It's utter madness. This is 100% a problem of failed policy, zero planning and living in a fantasy world detached from reality.

Worse than third world grid?? Come on

His country didnt have blackouts in the 90s, California does. The math checks out.

> with some aspects

He's clearly laid out the aspects he's talking about, too. If availability of electricity is something you prioritize, then the failure in that regard is significant. If you don't prioritize that, then recognize that you're probably in the minority.

We average about two outages per month near Silicon Valley. However, they're extremely localized. Power is pretty reliable in the cities.

I'm honestly not sure how where that falls on the spectrum of third world power reliability.

I live in urban San Francisco and my power has gone out two or three times in a decade.

Yeah, having lived in third world and now living in California, I can tell this is BS. Third world electricity is having power cuts daily in small towns(not less populated, by the way), and probably weekly in cities. I rarely had a power cut in California in the last decade. If it did, it was less than 15 minutes in all.

Will be interesting to see if we in the Nordics/EU will get blackouts the coming winter. The outlook is not great.

Ditto in the UK. Successive governments have run down infrastructure and power generation alike, with no thought as to how the UK is going to get enough power in the near future. The outgoing Idiot In Charge has just signed off on a new nuclear power plant but it'll take 10 years to build. In the meantime we're wondering if we could reopen some coal mines, and restart some of the coal-fired power plants that have been mothballed.

It's self imposed.

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