Newsom boasts California avoided rolling blackouts in extreme heat, says anti-green critics want to ‘double down on stupid’

California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday mentioned the state averted ordering rolling blackouts when electrical energy demand peaked this month from scorching warmth, and condemned claims that California could not preserve the ability on.

In an interview with CNBC’s Yasmin Khorram, the governor mentioned the state’s electrical energy demand nearly reached a file 52,000 megawatts throughout the warmth wave, and that California’s effort to speed up the transition to wash vitality has put roughly 4,000 megawatts on the grid that weren’t accessible two years in the past.

“That solely reinforces that we have got to not simply sustain, we have to leap forward of Mom Nature, and transfer this transition ahead extra aggressively,” Newsom mentioned. “And we’re dedicated to do this.”

Newsom criticized claims by media shops and Florida’s Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis that California did not preserve the ability on throughout the warmth wave, arguing that they “wished” blackouts had occurred as a result of “they wish to kill our inexperienced vitality transition.”

“They wish to double down on silly and proceed to drill and truly do extra injury,” Newsom mentioned. “And get us extra deep within the mess that we created that we’re attempting to get out of, which is the new is getting a lot hotter, the dry is getting a lot drier, and the extremes which might be self evident, not simply right here in California, however all around the western United States and around the globe, associated to local weather change.”

“So we wish to resolve for that,” Newsom continued. “We do not wish to subsidize the issue that we’re attempting to get out of. We wish to transfer away from fossil fuels.”

The governor’s remarks come as energy grids in states corresponding to California have turn into extra weak to climate-related disasters corresponding to warmth waves, storms and wildfires. California, which has set a purpose to transition to 100% renewable vitality by 2045, has shuttered a slew of gasoline energy vegetation prior to now few years, which has left the state more and more depending on photo voltaic vitality.

Newsom has cited elevated battery storage and prolonged lifetimes of backup turbines as main efforts by the state to keep away from rolling blackouts. State legislators lately permitted a file $54 billion in local weather funding, which concerned restrictions on oil and gasoline drilling and a dedication to slash greenhouse gases by a minimum of 85% by 2045. 

In August, the state banned the sale of latest gasoline-powered automobiles beginning in 2035, a rule that may drive automakers to quicken the manufacturing of cleaner automobiles starting in 2026 till gross sales of solely zero-emission vehicles, pickup vehicles and SUVs are allowed.