The primary statement in that article is purposely misleading
After doing some digging, I question whether dailykos received payment for placement of this "article?" In other words, is it a "paid promotion" or a legitimately newsworthy article? I don't know whether "pay for play" is involved, as I have no idea what business model dailykos uses. But after digging, I don't believe it is a reliably sourced article.
The website that pushed the misleading headline is linked to is Electrek.co Who is Electrek.co? I can find no "about us" or company information. According to the registrar of domain names, a .co extension is the Internet country code assigned to Colombia. In South America. So how is a "news article" originating in the nation of Columbia making astonishing claims about achievements of California renewable energy?
A "Michelle Lewis" is the author of the piece. It seems she authors many similar pieces (promotions?) I read a few pieces and every single one was waving the pom-poms for renewable energy. One story I read was about highly exciting new dealer incentives to purchase an EV car. So who is paying Michelle Lewis? (We don't know.)
electrek.co
Michelle writes that in addition to promoting Electrek, she is a writer at DroneDJ, 9to5Mac, and 9to5Google. I went to those sites, but could not find anything there that was contributed by her.
I did a search (using Whois) to find ownership of the domain electrek.co Here is what I got:
Registry Registrant ID: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
Registrant Name: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
Registrant Organization: Contact Privacy Inc. Customer 0166757208
Registrant Street: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
Registrant City: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
Registrant State/Province: ON
Registrant Postal Code: REDACTED FOR PRIVACY
Registrant Country: CA
Whoever owns it-- doesn't want you to know. Country code is Columbia, beyond reach of US authorities. Registrant country is Canada. Michelle Lewis says she is in USA. Hmmmmm.
Let's summarize:
- the article came from a blogger who 100% of the time promotes articles favorable to renewable energy.
- its publishing origination and company ownership is purposely obscured.
- this piece is highly favorable about renewables (surprise!) and includes a highly misleading headline.
- the dailykos washed its hands of any responsibility claiming they had not read or reviewed it.
I have a problem with this sort of "journalism." How many young people will see this story link on their phone, never click on it, but get led to believe solar panels are now supplying over 100% of California's energy needs? Some will form that impression-- and you have to wonder if that was the intent of making the headling so misleading and pushing it onto sites such as dailykos.
Dailykos is equally problematic putting material out they don't even review. They are not unique of course-- they and others push stories to fit "confirmation bias" of their readers-- it is a terrible practice.
I don't, and won't, read material at dailykos. I knew better when I clicked on this link ... oh well.
Now back to the regular programming ...