{"id":401477,"date":"2025-09-11T18:45:24","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T16:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=401477"},"modified":"2025-09-11T18:45:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T16:45:27","slug":"fact-check-newsoms-clean-energy-claims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=401477","title":{"rendered":"Fact-Check Newsom\u2019s \u2018Clean Energy\u2019 Claims"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newsom touts \u201cclean energy\u201d as California\u2019s growth engine, but fact-checks reveal costly mandates, false claims, and heavy reliance on gas, oil, and nuclear to keep the lights on.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a recent guest op-ed published by the\u00a0Wall Street Journal<\/em>, California\u00a0Governor Newsom claimed<\/a>\u00a0that \u201cClean Energy Powers California\u2019s Economic Growth,\u201d a claim that is transparently false. American Greatness<\/a> has the story.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aggressive \u201cclean energy\u201d mandates, paired with perpetually escalating restrictions on conventional energy sources, are the reasons Californians pay the highest prices in America for\u00a0gasoline<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0electricity<\/a>, and nearly the highest prices of any major state for\u00a0natural gas<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Along with ignoring the fact that affordable energy is fundamental to economic growth and California has the least affordable energy in America, Newsom makes grossly incorrect statements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the subhead of his op-ed, he writes, \u201cMore than two-thirds of the state\u2019s electricity is from sources such as solar, wind, and geothermal.\u201d This isn\u2019t even close to accurate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The California Energy Commission reports in-state electricity production by source<\/a>. The most recent data is for 2023, and in that year, wind, solar, and geothermal energy accounted for a mere 31 percent of California\u2019s total in-state electricity production. Even when adding nuclear and hydroelectric power, California\u2019s total \u201cclean\u201d energy only accounted for 54 percent of the electricity generated in the state.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Newsom goes on to write that \u201cclimate change has made our summers hotter,\u201d and that 2024 was the warmest on record. He boasts that \u201crapid deployment of clean energy and battery storage\u201d got Californians through the summer of 2024 without blackouts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is a half-truth at best. As reported in CalMatters, a left-leaning site that covers California politics, in 2023, in order to \u201cshore up California\u2019s straining power grid,\u201d Newsom\u00a0delayed the planned closures<\/a>\u00a0of three natural gas-powered generating plants that together\u00a0contribute 2.2 gigawatts<\/a>\u00a0to California\u2019s electricity grid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2022, Newsom delayed the\u00a0planned 2025 closure<\/a>\u00a0of California\u2019s last major nuclear-powered generating plant,\u00a0Diablo Canyon<\/a>, preserving another 2.2 gigawatts of baseload electricity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Furthermore, no fact check of Newsom\u2019s WSJ op-ed would be complete without questioning his claim that 2024 was \u201cthe warmest on record.\u201d This is something we hear all the time. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is a statement meant to foment fear and discourage dissenting opinions. But is it true? <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Los Angeles County<\/em><\/strong>, a place where an estimated\u00a027 percent of all Californians<\/a>\u00a0live, has kept\u00a0temperature records since 1878<\/a>. If you plot the average annual temperature, you will see a trend suggesting that overall, in Los Angeles County, it is not quite three degrees Fahrenheit hotter in the 2020s than it was in the 1880s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The trend isn\u2019t smooth. In the 1930s, average temperatures were comparable and, in some years, hotter than in the 2020s. But there\u2019s a major factor that politicians and biased activists conveniently ignore: the urban heat island effect<\/em><\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider\u00a0this animated map<\/a>\u00a0showing urban development in Los Angeles County over the past century. The area of paved surfaces today is easily ten times more extensive than it was in the 1930s. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to no less an authority than Cal EPA,\u00a0the urban heat island effect<\/a>\u00a0can raise average temperatures by between 4- and 9-degrees Fahrenheit. By that logic, it\u2019s\u00a0cooler<\/em>\u00a0in Los Angeles County today than it was a century ago. It\u2019s pavement, not greenhouse gas, that\u2019s caused a modest rise in temperature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Returning to Newsom\u2019s dishonesty regarding energy, and to be fair, California\u2019s sunny weather and lowering costs for photovoltaic arrays and stationery, utility-scale battery storage has allowed the state to develop an impressive renewable electricity capacity. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what stabilized the grid in 2024 was 4.4 gigawatts of natural gas and nuclear-powered electricity that, were it not for Newsom\u2019s intervention, would have already been taken offline by the environmentalist fanatics who run the state. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even during afternoons in late summer when peak demand frequently\u00a0draws over 40 gigawatts<\/a>\u00a0from California\u2019s grid, 4.4 gigawatts offer a share that spells the difference between stability and crash.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read the full story here<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newsom touts \u201cclean energy\u201d as California\u2019s growth engine, but fact-checks reveal costly mandates, false claims, and heavy reliance on gas, oil, and nuclear to keep the lights on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":121246920,"featured_media":401483,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","_crdt_document":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"Debunking Newsom's Clean Energy Myths: California's Reality Check","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[691837901,691837902,691837900,691819148,691819094,691819263],"class_list":{"0":"post-401477","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"hentry","7":"category-uncategorized","8":"tag-california-politics","9":"tag-california-governor-newsom","10":"tag-los-angeles-county-2","11":"tag-oil-and-gas","12":"tag-renewable-green-energy","13":"tag-urban-heat-island-effect","15":"fallback-thumbnail"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/climatescience.press\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/AQMLPEvGcObAQee4XbTNDD94B1fULsphl4Xc__-I2-e6LR1g3SGz8w_UEpS9zkyrhLb6YeJKA14yLIAZnXfKDzVp80kgg44qT8Kpig0E_ojkeyQa8grVpZzfNuZxWTLBn-PSWQPNsPdYOloVEE5AIMNQIL2bcQ.jpeg?fit=1280%2C1280&ssl=1","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paxLW1-1Grr","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":404809,"url":"https:\/\/climatescience.press\/?p=404809","url_meta":{"origin":401477,"position":0},"title":"California Dems Scramble To Boost Oil Production After Running Refiners Out Of Town","author":"uwe.roland.gross","date":"09\/25\/2025","format":false,"excerpt":"Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed a set of energy bills Friday with the goal of lowering energy costs and stabilizing gas supply after years of allowing strict regulations to clamp down on the state\u2019s oil and gas industry.","rel":"","context":"In \"Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom\"","block_context":{"text":"Democratic California Gov. 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