Los Angeles International Airport Loses Power For an Hour Showing the Limits of an All-Electric Future

The Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) suffered a power outage on Wednesday afternoon. The outage was brief, first reported around 2:30 p.m., then resolved within an hour – around 3:30 p.m. Most of the terminals were impacted, and operations such as TSA screenings came to a screeching halt.

You cannot scan Real IDs and passports, nor can you do electronic frisking for weapons when your equipment has no power. Go figure.

According to FlightAware, by 3:15, there were 140 delays and 64 cancelations. Whether these were a result of the power outage is yet to be revealed. The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) came in to resolve the issue and took to Twitter to assure that it was not due to any rolling blackouts.

We are aware of an outage affecting LAX and our crews are responding. We will share more information as we gather it from the field. Thank you for your patience

— LADWP (@LADWP) February 1, 2023

From Patch.com:

LOS ANGELES, CA — A power outage impacted operations for nearly an hour Wednesday afternoon at LAX, authorities said.

The majority of terminals were affected by the outage, according to the airport, which first reported the issue around 2:30 p.m. As of 3:10 p.m., power had been restored to most locations or was coming online, and all systems were back online by 3:30 p.m.

No flights were canceled or delayed, according to airport public information officer Victoria Spilabotte, but passengers on some flights did have to deplane manually after jet bridges lost power.

Department of Water and Power crews were at the airport and investigating the cause of the 50-minute outage, Spilabotte said.

“Our crews were able to make switches in the field to reroute power to LAX and restore service,” the utility provider tweeted.

The outage continued to affect the surrounding area, however, with more than 350 nearby customers still without electricity as of 4:30 p.m.

Herein lies the danger of an all-electronic universe. LADWP kicked in with the most likely gas-powered backup generators to ensure essential resources stayed online, but ultimately, things ground to a halt for a period of time. No terminal to tower interfaces, no TSA capabilities, and people even had to climb down from the planes because jet bridges lost power. This was just one hour of lost power. Imagine if it the duration had been longer.

LADWP is investigating the source of the outage. No word whether Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg will weigh in, as useless as that would be.

LAX is experiencing an airport wide power outage. Not to worry, our Transportation Secretary will be reaching out to provide them with gender neutral terms for the repair team any minute now.

— Jimmy Failla (@jimmyfailla) February 1, 2023

California Governor Gavin Newsom is drunk on his progressive agenda and sees it as a calling card for his future presidency. He is deluded that leading on climate change will somehow make up for his incompetency.

Under a groundbreaking new state regulation, 35% of new 2026 car models sold in California must be zero-emissions, ramping up to 100% in 2035. Powering the vehicles means the state must triple the amount of electricity produced and deploy new solar and wind energy at almost five times the pace of the past decade.

The Air Resources Board enacted the mandate last August — and just six days later, California’s power grid was so taxed by heat waves that an unprecedented, 10-day emergency alert warned residents to cut electricity use or face outages. The juxtaposition of the mandate and the grid crisis sparked widespread skepticism: How can the state require Californians to buy electric cars if the grid couldn’t even supply enough power to make it through the summer?

At the same time as electrifying cars and trucks, California must, under state law, shift all of its power to renewables by 2045. Adding even more pressure, the state’s last nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, is slated to shut down in 2030.

Power outages like this one at LAX are a stark reminder that California is nowhere near ready for an all-electric future when it cannot even handle power management today.