Category: Energy

There are certainly plenty of problems with a recent proposal by California electric companies to break up monthly charges by the amount of energy used and the income of the household.

SDG&E and other giant utility companies have submitted a joint proposal to the California Public Utilities Commission which outlined a fixed-rate restructuring based on household income. In short, higher income earners would be charged more than those who make less than them.

Yet, San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond — a conservative Republican who often appears on San Diego’s most right-wing  TV station – has called the proposal “socialism in its finest.”

From Press Statement:

The Public Power San Diego coalition will hold a mass FIRE SDGE! rally on April 1st, Noon, in Civic Center Plaza, downtown San Diego.

The event will be the first mass protest advocating a divorce from San Diego Gas & Electric, which charges the nation’s highest electric rates. “This rally signals a turning point.” said Craig Rose, a member of Public Power San Diego’s steering committee.

How would you like to sound off on SDG&E about your high bills?

Right now — today, Wednesday, March 15 — the California Public Utilities Commission is holding a virtual public hearing. It starts at 1pm.

So, how can you get involved with the upcoming hearings?

The March 15th meeting is virtual and starts at 1pm.

You can access it by phone or computer.

SDG&E has made a request to the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to allow them to increase rates.

The proposal asks for an $8.45 increase per month for electricity bills and a $9.16 increase in natural gas rates, with the new rates to start in 2024 and through 2027.

“It’s going to generate $3.6 billion over a four-year period, that’s almost a billion dollars that is going to come out of the pockets of San Diego consumers,” said Alan Gin, the University of San Diego Economic Professor at the Knanuss School of Business.

The request comes on the heels of a surge in natural gas prices, where customers reportedly saw skyrocketing bills a few months prior, and the announcement just last week that SDG&E posted profits of $915 million in 2022, an 11.7% increase over 2021, $819 million.

Buried more than half way through a long article in today’s San Diego Union-Tribune entitled, “SDG&E Gas Customers to See Price Drop Again for March,” by reporter Rob Nikoiewski, was this little bombshell:

On Tuesday, Sempra reported its 2022 earnings. Among its holdings, the company reported that SDG&E posted profits of $915 million in 2022.

In 2021, SDG&E earned $819 million.

From our calculations, that’s a 11.7% increase over 2021. (Sempra is the parent corporation of SDG&E.)

On Monday, Feb. 6, the San Diego City Council felt the public’s pushback on skyrocketing bills and record levels of natural gas prices being charged by SDG&E.

Half a dozen different organizations held a press conference outside City Hall and called on the Council to hold public hearings on the January rate hike SDG&E customers saw on their bill.

The groups say the City Council should conduct hearings because the city of San Diego in 2021 signed a 20-year franchise agreement with SDG&E that retains the utility as the exclusive provider of electric and gas services within the city limits.

From San Clemente Green

Eleven years ago today — Jan. 31, 2013, we almost nuked Southern California. We owe a debt of gratitude to the nuclear operators that managed a swift and flawless emergency shutdown.

A Thank You Note to Edison Employees and a reminder to all. It is important to remember that they prevented a major disaster eleven years ago.

Your quick actions when radioactive steam began escaping into the environment, prevented a chain reaction from occurring in one of the newly replaced steam generators. It turns out that whistleblowers, afraid of known retaliation from management for such things, had rightfully warned us of this possibility two years prior.

By Craig Rose / Op-Ed San Diego Union-Tribune / Jan. 12, 2023

It’s easy to get lost in the explanations for the soaring natural gas prices causing enormous hardships for so many people in our region. Even before this surge, nearly 25 percent of us couldn’t pay our utility bills on time.

Most explanations for high retail natural gas prices focus on the soaring wholesale cost of the commodity caused by “market factors,” but a key factor is often omitted.

Public Service Announcement

Following recent news of natural gas prices skyrocketing and local utility bills going up, San Diego Gas & Electric announced Tuesday it is making $1 million in customer assistance funding available for those experiencing financial hardship.

The assistance will be disbursed through the Neighbor-to-Neighbor program, which provides up to $300 in one-time grants to help offset past-due bills

As you pay your January SDG&E bill, remember those San Diego City Council members who voted back in 2021 to approve their contract. Why?

Because San Diego Gas & Electric just announced that its customers can expect their energy bill to more than double this January. It implemented new natural gas and electric rates on Jan. 1. SDG&E says the increase reflects the rising costs of providing reliable energy services.

Ocean energy could take its place alongside solar and wind in helping to decarbonize the power grid

By Brooke Staggs / Orange County Register / December 27, 2022

If you’ve ever gone surfing or felt seasick or simply watched as the ocean crashed onto shore, you know the power that waves hold. The potentially world-changing question is, can that power be harnessed in a cost-effective way to produce clean, reliable electricity?

Solar and wind dominate discussions about renewable energy.

The Fusion Breakthrough Suggests That Maybe Someday We’ll Have a Second Sun

By Bill McKibben / The New Yorker – Reader Supported News / Dec. 13, 2022

In the meantime, we need to use the sun we’ve already got. On Tuesday, the Department of Energy is expected to announce a breakthrough in fusion energy [it did]: — scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have succeeded for the first time in making their complex and expensive machinery produce more power than it uses, if only for an instant.