Category: Energy

By John Lawrence / Will Blog for Food / May 12, 2012

In this article we explore how the price of gas at the pump is determined. This is an opaque subject which has been heaped in layers of obfuscation because the oil companies don’t want you to know what a huge scam they are perpetrating on the American public systematically ripping them off at the gas tank. They want you to think that gas prices are set by immutable, impersonal factors like the “world oil market” over which we have no control nor ever could we.

When the oil company executives went before a Congressional hearing in May 2011 as gas prices hit $4.00 a gallon, Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, was asked “how are oil prices set?” He responded that they were based on the marginal cost of producing the next barrel of oil. Nothing could be further from the reality of the situation although it would be a worthy aspirational ideal, something to shoot for in a more perfect world.

by Meteor Blades / Daily Kos / May 9, 2012

Billionaire money at work: Right-wingers are being urged to cooperate to trash President Obama’s clean energy plans. The approach specifies an attack on wind turbines and provides a list of suggested approaches. So says the Guardian after viewing a confidential memorandum edited by John Droz Jr., a senior fellow at the American Tradition Institute. Senior fellow and climate-change denier.

Droz is a long-time anti-wind activist who claims the technology is unsound and the benefits non-existent. This no doubt will come as a surprise to Iowans, whose state generated 19 percent of its electricity with wind turbines in 2011.

By James Hansen / New York Times / May 9, 2012

GLOBAL warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.”

If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate.

Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk.

By Wildcoast

Environmental groups oppose the move that would limit local representation and public participation at important hearings

On Monday, May 7th, three local environmental groups announced their opposition to Governor Brown’s proposed plan to consolidate the Colorado River Basin and San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Boards. The three groups are WiLDCOAST, San Diego Coastkeeper, and Environmental Health Coalition.

As they operate now, these regional boards protect and enforce water quality standards and regulate polluters throughout the state. The governor’s plan would create a single, 23,900-square-mile regulatory region out of two distinctly different water basins. It would also require the public to travel to board meetings at locations alternating in San Diego, Orange, Riverside and Imperial counties.

San Diego, California – In a remarkable day for ocean conservation and advancing environmental safeguards in San Diego County, the Solana Beach City Council voted unanimously to pass an ordinance banning single-use plastic bags on Wednesday evening, becoming the first city in San Diego County to pass such legislation.

“Last night’s decision is a stepping-stone for other coastal communities in San Diego County to follow suit,” explains Walker Hicks, a volunteer with Surfrider’s Rise Above Plastics campaign. “We applaud the Solana Beach City Council members for their decision, and look forward to enjoying cleaner oceans, waves and beaches as a result.”

By East County Magazine / April 26, 2012

April 26, 2012 (San Diego) — U.S. Congressman and Mayoral candidate Bob Filner spoke in front of the San Diego Planning Commission today to oppose the “Quail Brush” Power Plant, slated for construction next to the San Diego Mission Trails Regional Park. The site is within the City of San Diego, but will have negative impacts in neighboring Santee. The Planning Commission was deliberating on the decision to re-zone the proposed location from “open space” to “industrial use.”

Filner joined environmental groups, community organizations, and the entire Santee City Council in opposing the power plant.

Here is the facebook link: http://www.facebook.com/events/402584333087116/424500454228837/

Attend the San Diego Planning Commission meeting at San Diego City Hall, 202 C St. 12th Floor, THIS THURSDAY at 9 am to oppose a proposed fossil fuel plant in Mission Trails Park Open Space OR send an email ASAP to planningcommission@sandiego.gov to voice your opposition.

We should not be putting power plants in our precious remaining open space.

Fire breaks out at San Onofre on Friday – took nearly an hour to contain

Editor: It seems we hear new problems about the San Onofre nuclear power plant every time we open a newspaper or watch the news. Apparently, yesterday, a fire broke out at the plant that took nearly an hour to contain.

The U-T reports: “on Friday, the plant operator reported that a fire broke out in the plant’s turbine room outside the reactor containment dome on the northern reactor, Unit 2. The fire was reported at 12:49 p.m. and was extinguished at 1:41 p.m. by the plant’s own fire department. There were no injuries, Edison said in a written statement. The fire took place “in an electrical panel,” the statement said. Edison spokeswoman Jennifer Manfre could provide no further description of the fire and its cause was still unclear.”

Friends of the Earth / April 20, 2012

San Francisco, Calif. — The Japanese firm responsible for fabricating the failing steam generators at Southern California Edison’s San Onofre nuclear reactors announced today that it is undertaking analyses of the causes of the serious, unresolved safety problems.

In papers filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the firm, Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, revealed that its reviews will extend at least through the end of August — ensuring that the troubled reactors will not be able to operate through the summer.

Rally Commemorates Chernobyl, TMI, continuing meltdown at Fukushima on Sunday, from Noon to 3pm

“Shut Down San Onofre” Momentum builds following Radioactivity Release and Design-Error Shutdown of the Plant

April 20, 2012 (SAN ONOFRE) – Nuclear Industry Expert Daniel Hirsch and Irvine City Councilmember Larry Agran will join a dozen other speakers at the “Shut Down San Onofre” rally at the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station on Sunday, April 29, to support the view that the reactor should never be restarted. The event occurs just after the 26th anniversary of the Chernobyl disaster, the 33-year anniversary of the Three-Mile Island accident, and the first Fukushima Daiichi meltdown anniversary — an accident which is far from over.

Peter Douglas, creator and long-time executive director of the California Coastal Commission was fighting an ongoing battle with cancer when he learned he’d been named the Peter Benchley Ocean Awards’ Hero of the Seas for 2012. He wrote that he was honored and would be there to accept if his body and the universe gave him dispensation. Sadly, Peter passed away on April 1. His now posthumous award is in recognition of 40 years working to assure public access to and scenic protection of California’s more than 1,100 miles of spectacular coastline. Last year a delegation from the World Bank visited California and told him his state has the best coastal protection on earth.

New Analysis Comes Following Grudging Edison Admission That Reactors 2 and 3 Face Same Dangerous Issues

By ROSE / April 12, 2012

A follow-up analysis released today by one of the nation’s leading independent nuclear engineers provides the first detailed picture of the extent of design changes made by Southern California Edison at its San Onofre nuclear reactors. These changes likely led to the equipment degradation and failure that has forced the reactors offline, pending a thorough and comprehensive investigation.

The study by Arnie Gundersen and Fairewinds Associates is the second in a series commissioned by nuclear watchdog Friends of the Earth. It is available online here.