Newsom waves white flag as more climate-warming power plants are coming to California

California is moving ambitiously toward a renewable-energy future. But some harsh realities this summer have forced Gov. Gavin Newsom to return to climate-warming power sources the state is trying to stop using.

Case in point: The governor has directed that new energy plants be constructed, and quickly, to provide power when an emergency arises, like a dramatic heat wave. One would be in Roseville, the other in Yuba City. A third was being considered in western Fresno County, but state officials have pulled back from that plan and are reconsidering their options.

The catch: These plants would use natural gas, not wind or solar, to power turbines to produce electricity. Natural gas is what the state is trying to get rid of.

Newsom has had to wave the white flag not of surrender, per se, but of reality, as climate-change impacts and tightening supplies have dramatically changed assumptions about how much power the state can depend on.

Supplies tighten up

In an executive order issued July 30, Newsom says California now faces the immediate shortage of 3,500 megawatts of power in the late afternoon-early evening period when extreme heat hits the state. This is a starker picture than his experts forecast just in May.

In the order, Newsom said that the “compounding effects of continuing wildfires, ongoing drought, and extreme heat conditions” are the reasons for the dire prediction. By next summer, the governor expects that emergency shortfall to grow to 5,000 megawatts.

The drought means less water in California rivers to power hydroelectric plants. Wildfires threaten to burn down transmission lines, either here or in other Western states that deliver power to California.

About $171.5 million has been allocated for construction of the new plants at the Roseville Energy Park, the Calpine Greenleaf 1 in Yuba City, and a third at a site to be determined. The plan is to produce 150 megawatts.

As they fall under the governor’s declaration of emergency, the plants won’t have to undergo environmental review. As an executive order, Newsom’s direction also does not get any review by the Legislature.

When it comes to fossil fuels, natural gas is one of the cleanest. However, burning it produces methane, a gas that contributes to global warming. One novel aspect of the plants: they will be capable of running on a fuel blend that is 75% hydrogen, 25% natural gas. Burning hydrogen produces water vapor.

While the plants won’t undergo the usual environmental scrutiny, the state still has to come up with ways to minimize impacts to air quality. What those are is undetermined at the moment.

Grid under stress

Jim Patterson, the Republican who represents north Fresno and Clovis in the state Assembly, has been sounding the alarm for years about the worsening reliability of California’s electrical grid. The new gas-fired plants are the result of poor decisions by the state, he told a press conference last week.

“Our grid is destabilized because of political decisions,” Patterson said.

He has been vice chair for eight years of the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Energy. He says Democrats have overemphasized solar and wind energy at the expense of natural gas and nuclear energy.

Taken together, it means California’s “base load” — the dependable supply of power at any time every day — is more at risk than ever before, he believes. The growing number of Flex Alerts — urgent requests by the electrical grid operator for Californians to cut back power when demand is highest — is proof of that, Patterson points out.

Looming in the future is the planned shutdown by 2025 of California’s only nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo. It produces 2,200 megawatts.

One can fault Newsom and Democratic legislative leaders for choosing to put California’s energy future into renewable sources that are not always reliable; think of solar production on cloudy days.

Or, one can laud their leading the way on global warming. In 2018 the state enacted Senate Bill 100, a landmark policy requiring that zero-carbon energy resources supply 100 percent of California’s electricity by 2045.

Perhaps Newsom should get credit for hustling to get natural gas plants built to make up for losses already anticipated, even though they will emit greenhouse gases.

The bottom-line expectation of Californians is this: When they flip the switch, the lights better come on. Flex Alerts are no way to live. The governor and Legislature, with the state Energy Commission and Public Utilities Commission, must ensure that the world’s fifth-largest economy can properly function. The specter of rolling blackouts is unacceptable, regardless of where the power comes from.