Eh. This is really a short-term problem. The real value of this is that it creates a market incentive for other companies to build storage and off-peak energy usage.
This may end up being the most affordable way of moving to a 100% renewable grid. Solar panels are so stupid cheap now that the best option may be to build some minimal storage, but solve most power swings by just absolutely spamming solar panels. You build enough to provide your average daily need in the lowest-producing months. Then the rest of the year you have dirt cheap power. Some power-intensive industries just become seasonal. We have a farming season. Why can’t we have an aluminum smelting season or a AI model training season? Maybe the guys working in the aluminum foundry work 12 hour days in the summer but get three months off in the winter. This type of seasonal employment variance has been the norm through almost the entire history of civilization. Before cheap lighting, even manufacturing was a seasonal affair, with longer hours in the warm months and shorter hours in the cool dark months. We’re used to our industries operating at a constant output through the year, as that is the best way to minimize CAPEX expenditure. But with dirt cheap power for most of the year, the economics of many industries change, and seasonal production swings become profitable.
This man cannot be allowed anywhere near the White House. He is extremely unlikely to reverse many of the Trump administration’s worst policies. For example, he is unlikely to reverse Trump’s rules on trans/nonbinary passports and social security name changes. Newsom is going to take one look at the polls, see that trans people are unpopular, and that it’s politically advantageous to leave bigoted policies in place. He will be too much of a coward to risk headlines that say, “President Newsom endorses child sex changes with passport policy!!” Simply put, if he is the Democratic nominee, I will not be voting for president in 2028, consequences be damned.
You can whine that “surely, he must be better on trans issues than Trump,” but there’s no evidence of that. He’s built in the same mold as some of the most vehement anti-trans bigots in the English speaking world, the current labor government in the UK. A Democrat can absolutely be just as bad for the trans community as a Republican can. The labor party proves this beyond a shadow of a doubt.
You can complain, “well, surely, even if he’s bad on trans issues, then he’ll be better on other things.” But frankly, if the Dems follow the Republicans down the path of bigotry, this is no longer my country. If that comes to pass, I see no reason to participate in elections for a country I no longer consider my own and do not plan to remain in. For me and my community, an anti-trans Democrat is even worse than a Republican in office, as it will so completely shift the Overton window as to deny trans Americans their rights for decades to come.