What Caused California’s Blackouts?

Friday 21 August 2020
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Last week, short-term blackouts rolled across an overheated California after the grid operator said there was not enough power to meet demand.  This wasn’t supposed to happen again. Not after the Enron scandal. Not after 19 years of reforms. We have a very different grid now.  Renewables skeptics, including President Trump, are seizing on the incident. What really happened? Where do we place blame? We explain the confluence of grid-management factors. Then, coal power generation in the United States plunged 30% in just the first half of this year. But what Asia, where 80% of coal gets burned now? What hope is there for a coal decline there? We’ll look at China, Japan and India. Finally, stunning public health research. What happens when you combine this up-to-date science with the new, low-cost renewable energy? You get a blockbuster picture, that’s what. We’ll examine new research that shows the health benefits alone pay for our energy transition.  Recommended reading:New York Times: Rolling Blackou

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