Serving OB, the Peninsula and San Diego Beaches
By Don Bauder / San Diego Reader / January 24, 2012
San Diego Gas & Electric has told the California Public Utilities Commission that there is no need for local public hearings now on its attempt to get customers to pick up uninsured costs of the 2007 wildfires. Recently, the Mussey Grade Road Alliance asked for such a hearing.
by Lucas O’Connor / Two Cathedrals / Jan. 19, 2012
In 2007, massive wildfires swept through San Diego, destroying more than 1,000 homes and hundreds of other structures. Investigation into the cause of the Witch Creek fire found that SDG&E power lines were largely responsible for starting the second-largest wildfire in California’s history. The thing is, SDG&E’s insurance only covered $1 billion in damages, and it now looks as though SDG&E practices are leading to fire settlements totaling at least $2 billion.
SDG&E wants to impose a new fee (aka TAX) on homeowners, schools, businesses, and others with rooftop solar. This is a shameless effort by this investor-owned utility to increase profits and control renewable energy sources. It would be devastating to the local clean energy industry and jobs. Because of increased costs, public entities, like school and water districts, would have to make further cuts to essential services. Homeowners who bought solar systems they could afford would be stuck with higher bills. We need policies to shift us toward clean energy and a sustainable planet, not away from it.
Join us this Wednesday to say “No, you can’t take my sunshine away!”
WHEN: Wednesday, January 18, 11:45 am – 1:00 pm
WHERE: SDG&E Energy Innovation Center , 4760 Clairemont Mesa Blvd
By Dave Rice / The San Diego Reader / Dec. 17, 2011
Southern California Gas Company employees rallied across the state yesterday to protest a proposed labor agreement brought forth by the company’s parent, San Diego-based Sempra Energy. Picketing took place at Sempra facilities in Los Angeles, Anaheim, Compton, Visalia and Redlands.
Sempra employees with the Utility Workers Union of America and the International Chemical Workers Union have been without a contract since the previous agreement expired on November 1. Members say they have rejected the “last, best and final offer” made by the utility, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune.
By Alison St John / KPBS / December 13, 2011
One of many questions raised at the Energy Commission hearing was whether the power generated by the new air-cooled plant would even be used in San Diego. NRG owns the decades-old Encina power plant with the tall chimney on Carlsbad’s coastline. The company wants to build an air cooled plant next to it on the lagoon. But it has no agreement to provide that energy to SDG &E, making people wonder if the power is for LA.
My mother (like yours, I’m sure) always told me never to judge a book by its cover. So it was fitting when she told me we’d be attending an open house to see the newly built dome house nearby that can best be described as … well … ugly.
Without even asking the street name, I knew the one she was talking about. A while back, I’d been driving along that block of Sterne Street in Point Loma, rubbernecked, slammed on my brakes, reversed and stared in awe at the monstrosity before me. It was as if someone had dropped a giant igloo on top of someone else’s house. I was sure the people crushed underneath were furious.
Wind and solar sources make up almost half of all new electricity generation in Europe, but we’re far behind in the U.S. — so what gives?
Renewable energy is essential if we are to avert disastrous climate change caused by carbon-dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. Yet despite significant recent growth, less than 2 percent of the about 4 trillion kilowatt-hours of electricity the U.S. generates a year comes from solar or wind power. More than two-thirds still comes from coal, natural gas or oil, and 20 percent from nuclear power. Meanwhile, the world’s total reserves of oil, gas, coal, and uranium are expected to run out by the end of the century, especially as electricity consumption increases.
The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) president Michael Peevey has issued a ruling ordering San Diego Gas & Electric Company and two other utility companies to allow consumers who don’t want a “smart meter” installed to place their names on a delay list, pending the outcome of upcoming workshops on the issue.
By Billie Jo Jannen / East County Magazine / Sept 12, 2011
A resolution introduced by District 40 State Senator Juan Vargas (D-San Diego) and passed in both houses Friday [Sept. 9th] seeks to put the brakes on a high voltage trans-border power line slated to bring electricity in from the proposed 1250 MW La Rumorosa wind turbine project near Jacumba.
By John Lawrence / Will Blog for Food / Sept 10, 2011
All of San Diego County as well as some parts of Orange County, Arizona and Mexico experienced a blackout for about 12 hours Thursday, September 8, 2011, one of the hottest days of the year although the blackout had nothing to do with air conditioning overload or any other kind of overload to the system.
Editor: The following is an edited “executive summary” of Peter Philip’s case study – published June 10, 2011 – on SEMPRA’s plan to outsource an estimated 15,000 jobs to Mexico by building a cross-border 1250 megawatt energy transmission line to their energy facility in Mexico. The full report can be found here.
By Peter Philips, PhD
The proposed Sempra 1250 megawatt (MW) tieline connecting the California grid to envisioned new wind-farms in Mexico is not just about electricity. It is also about foregone opportunities, lost human capital investment, lost worklives, lost tax revenues, and diminished economic development prospects; and also, it is about which regulatory authority, California or Mexico, should oversee the environmental impacts of building green generation capacity for the California grid.
By Miriam Rafferty / East County Magazine / August 1, 2011
Sempra Energy has asked the U.S. Department of Energy for a presidential permit to construct a cross-border transmission line called Energia Sierra Juarez to import electricity from Sempra facilities in Mexico. The line would cross the border near Jacumba in San Diego’s East County.
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