By Ed Maurer

     Last week, Delphine Hou, deputy director of the California Department of Water Resources energy office, announced that the state will cease its support of the ancient fossil fuel plant in Huntington Beach as it is no longer needed for grid reliability. I would guess that this role is now filled by battery electric storage systems (BESS), whose number is growing by leaps and bounds, although so far not in Orange County. The operator of the Huntington Beach facility intends to pull the plug by the end of the year, and we can be glad that at least this source of planet-warming CO² will soon disappear.