Cronkite school of journalism at
Arizona state university.
Judy: The record-setting heat
wave of the past few days has
pushed California to the brink.
The state is facing its highest
chance of rolling blackouts this
year.
Stephanie sy has the latest.
Stephanie: Another searing day,
baking California.
The state's power grid operator
urged residents to conserve
energy for an eighth day
straight.
Demand for electricity last
night broke a golden state
record, threatening widespread
power losses and rolling
blackouts that were narrowly
avoided.
Residents found shade wherever
they could get it.
>> I think a lot of people are
using the air conditioner, like,
and using fans, you know,
everything to try to keep, you
know, cool.
>> We seem to always just make
it through.
We have our little tricks to
keep cool.
Everybody does.
Stephanie: At the Orange county
zoo, zookeepers gave animals
blocks of ice to stay cool.
Temperatures surpassed 110
degrees in many parts of the
state this week.
Sacramento reached a 97 year
high, at 116.
Earlier this month, California's
death valley set a new record at
127 degrees.
It was the planet's hottest
recorded September day.
Scientists say climate change
has fueled these more intense,
longer Summers, and led to more
frequent, raging wildfires.
The sprawling fairview fire
outside Los Angeles broke out
this week and is only 5%
contained.
>> The risk for outages is real
and it's immediate.
Stephanie: Last night, governor
Gavin Newsom urged people to
save power and spoke of a brutal
month to come.
>> This heat wave is on track to
be both the hottest and the
longest on record for the state
and many parts of the west for
the month of September.
Stephanie: Indeed, other parts
of the west are under the heat
dome, including Salt Lake City,
Utah, which recorded its
hottest September day since the
late 19th century this week, and
alarmingly low water levels at
the great Salt Lake.
Temperatures may not moderate in
many places until Friday.
Let's focus on the concern over
potential outages in California,
the energy grid, and what's
being done to deal with the
demands of the moment.
For that, I'm joined by
Katherine blunt, who covers
renewable energy and utilities
at the Wall Street journal.
She's also the author of the new
book "California burning: The
fall of pacific gas and electric
and what it means for America's
power grid."
Katherine blunt, thank you so
much for joining the "Newshour."
I was reading, you know, that
last night California's office
of emergency services actually
sent out an urgent text message
telling electricity customers
they needed to conserve energy
now or risk outages.
Are those kinds of alerts
working to manage demand, and
are they enough to prevent the
power grid from faltering?
Katherine: Well, I think that's
it.
That's the million-dollar
question.
There was a lot of voluntary
conservation last night which
certainly helped the situation
from going over the edge.
It was very close.
The grid operator called a
certain level of an emergency
that was just, you know, hairs
with rolling blackouts.
It was tight and that that
conservation helps.
But of course we are I'm
watching the rest of the week.
Stephanie: Yeah, it countless
California seems to have an
energy crisis every summer.
Why is that. Katherine?
Haven't there been improvements
made to make the grid more
reliable and resilient?
There were numerous rolling
blackouts that we saw in 2020.
Have things improved?
Katherine: Yeah, so there's been
a convergence of a number of
different things that have
influenced these circumstances.
For one, we are seeing more
severe heat waves across the
higher region across California
and throughout the west,
exacerbated by climate change.
And that makes it so that
electricity demand during these
periods of time is really very
high.
And this is ultimately a
question of keeping levels of
demand and supply in balance
because if there is an
imbalance, you risk wider system
breakdown.
So that's why sometimes there's
been the need for rolling
blackouts to keep those levels
in balance.
Of course, California has been
consumed by a severe drought,
hydroelectric power generation
has been constrained, and during
these heat waves, it becomes
harder for California to import
power on an emergency basis.
And of course, you know, there's
been a rapid shift to wind and
solar power over the last
several years, which makes
managing supply levels at the
time when solar production began
to ramp down especially
challenging.
So that's why you see some of
these in the Summers.
Stephanie: Could any of this
have been avoided?
I mean, you go through a lot of
the complex factors that lead to
the strain on energy
all day again for the eighth day
in a row, we have been hearing
the grid operator warn of these
rolling outages that are
extremely disruptive to hundreds
of thousands of californians
every year.
Katherine: The grid operators
have had to take increasingly
drastic measures to help manage
these supply challenges in
recent Summers.
That's meant relying on more gas
fired power generators.
Just recently, the state
legislature moved to keep the
state's last nuclear power plant
online.
It had been set to retire in the
coming years and now it just
looks like it'll run for quite
some time longer.
And so it's been -- the grid
operators have been looking for
more and more places for
additional power.
Stephanie: California has been
very aggressive in embracing
renewable, more green energy
sources, and yet every summer
again we see these energy
shortages.
You have reported, Katherine, on
how other states are also
looking at potential energy
crises as climate change means
hotter Summers, more people
needing more air conditioning.
What can be learned from
observing California's
transition to renewables, and
how that can impact energy
supply during times of great
demand?
Katherine: Yeah, absolutely.
So I mean, I think at its core,
this is a timing challenge.
It has become challenging to
navigate the near-term
transition because, of course,
you know, wind and solar power,
the production fluctuates,
fluctuates with weather and
fluctuates with time of day,
which makes it a bit more
challenging for grid operators
to make sure that there's always
adequate supplies, and in
California, you see that most
acutely, you know, after 4:00
P.M. When solar production
begins to decline.
This, you know, proponents of
the transition which of course,
is well underway, believe that
there's the appropriate
technology to be able to deal
with this in the future as we
add more battery storage to
store wind and solar power for
use when production declines.
But one additional challenge
that we're seeing here in the
near term is that there's been
supply chain issues,
inflationary pressures and other
things that have made it more
difficult to bring these
projects online and in a timely
fashion.
So it looks like the next
several years are going to be
difficult across a number of
different regions that are in
the middle of this transition.
But there's there's reason to
believe that longer term we'll
be able to sort through some of
these many challenges.
Stephanie: One of your focuses
has been the focus on wildfires
in California and how that is
further straining the energy
grid every summer, and the role
that companies like pg&e play.
How much are those issues
playing into the strain on the
grid we're seeing this week?
Katherine: Sure.
So when you think about
wildfires, and how it affects
the balance of supply and
demand, big fires can constrain
transmission capacity, which
makes it harder to move power
from point a to point B, adding
an additional challenge for the
grid operator and making sure
that there's adequate supply
everywhere.
There was a transmission
emergency yesterday in the day
before up in northern
California, likely associated
with some of pg&e's powerlines.
You know, details are aren't
exactly clear as to what exactly
the problem was, but emergency
generation was needed to offset
some of the constraints on those
lines.
So I don't think it was fire
related, but it may have been
heat related.
So there's all kinds of things
that can go wrong in the
transport of power that make
this more difficult.
Stephanie: Every year, such a
confluence of crises we're
seeing there in California.
Katherine blunt, author of the
new book "California burning,"
and Wall Street journal
reporter, thank you for joining
the "Newshour."
Katherine: Thank you very much
for having me.