Category Archives: Government & Business

What’s brewing in Sacramento, Silicon Valley, and beyond

Government & Business, Power, Water

A Sneak Peek at “World’s Biggest” Solar Project

Construction of one of three planned solar thermal towers at the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, Ivanpah Dry Lake, CA

Construction of the Ivanpah site is reportedly on-schedule for completion in 2013

The National Clean Energy Summit 4.0 opens in Las Vegas on Tuesday, bringing policy makers and industry leaders from around the country together to “chart the course for the future of energy in America.” It’s also attracting lots of media, which is why on Monday Oakland-based BrightSource Energy opened the gates to the construction site of its 3,500 acre Ivanpah Solar Complex, which lies just over the California border, 45 minutes southwest of the Las Vegas Strip.

About 15 reporters donned hard hats and safety goggles in 100-plus temperatures to tour the active construction site in the Mojave Desert, along with officials from BrightSource, San Francisco-based construction company Bechtel Corp., and NRG Energy, which, along with Google, is the project’s main investor. Continue reading A Sneak Peek at “World’s Biggest” Solar Project →

Government & Business, The Science

Climate Study Predicts Deadly Heat for Older Californians

California’s heat waves are going to be getting longer and hotter in the coming decades, according to a new climate modeling study commissioned by the California Air Resources Board (CARB) and the EPA. The authors predict that heat-related deaths among California’s 65-and-over population could spike more than nine-fold by 2090. According to the study, currently more than 500 elderly people die annually from heat-related causes.

Using IPCC climate projections, the study models how climate change will impact California up and down the coast, including coastal cities like San Francisco and inland cities such as Riverside and Fresno.

Lead author Scott Sheridan, a geographer at Kent State University, says that the projected increase in heat-related deaths among those 65 and over are due in part to physiological reasons, but also to growing population size of this age group. By the end of the century, he says, the state’s population of people in this age bracket will increase from 4 million to 15.7 million. Sheridan says California communities that are already used to dealing with hotter temperatures, like the inland city of Fresno, may be better prepared to deal with the heat than relatively cooler coastal cities. Continue reading Climate Study Predicts Deadly Heat for Older Californians →

Government & Business, Water

Texas Drought: Two Compelling Portraits

This summer, Texas is baking. The state is experiencing its worst drought in history, which is wreaking havoc on the cattle industry, and along with that, a way of life.  Rivers are drying up, and wildfires have burned through more than three million acres in the last five months, spelling disaster not just for ranchers, but also for the region’s natural ecosystems. Plants aren’t growing normally due to the lack of rain, and this is disrupting entire food chains.

Two new reports on NPR’s  Morning Edition paint vivid portraits of how Texas is weathering the severe effects of this historic drought.

Listen to Wade Goodwyn’s report “Drought Puts Texas Ranchers, and Cattle, At Risk” and John Burnett’s “Texas Drought Takes Toll on Wildlife” on NPR.org.

Government & Business, Power

Making Renewable Energy from Farm Waste

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Cast off walnut shells await Lester’s biogasifier. Lester has more than enough for an entire year stored in his warehouse.

By Katrina Schwartz

California is just a few votes away from changing the rules to allow farmers to connect machines that create bioenergy to the electrical grid, a privilege that has thus far been reserved for farm-generated wind and solar energy.

Passage of the bill — SB 489 — would mean they could use the byproduct of their crops as fuel to create electricity.

Russ Lester, the owner of Dixon Ridge Farms, has been leading the charge to get the rules changed. He has gone to extraordinary lengths to shrink the carbon footprint of his organic walnut farm and processing plant in Yolo County. Brian Jenkins of the California Biomass Collaborative at UC Davis calls Lester the “guinea pig” of bioenergy. Continue reading Making Renewable Energy from Farm Waste →

Government & Business

Activists to Air Board: Keep the Cap, Lose the Trade

Regulators vote to keep cap-and-trade plan on track

A parade of environmental justice proponents pleaded with officials to abandon cap-and-trade. A woman in the background holds a sign that says: "Keep the cap. Drop the Trade."

Members of the “environmental justice” movement lost a major round to air officials on Wednesday, when the latter voted to keep California’s nascent cap-and-trade plan on track.

The program is a key component of the state’s landmark strategy to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.

Activists sued to stop the program, claiming it does little to curb toxic emissions from industrial facilities and farming operations.

Environmental justice advocates packed the Sacramento hearing room of the Air Resources Board to fight the state’s plan to allow corporate trading of carbon pollution rights. Marie Harrison of San Francisco’s Bayview district put it succinctly:

“We are relying on you to do what you were put here for and that is to protect us.” Continue reading Activists to Air Board: Keep the Cap, Lose the Trade →

Government & Business

Analysts Cut Carbon Price Forecast for California

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Carbon may come cheaper than first predicted when California’s cap-and-trade program finally gets rolling.

Analysts at Thomson Reuters have dropped their projections of what polluters would pay for emissions permits from $40 to $36 per metric ton of CO2-equivalent gases.

Emilie Mazzacurati, who heads the firm’s North America Carbon Team, says pushing back the compliance date to 2013 and fears of a double-dip recession are behind the 10% trimming from its prior forecast.

Analysts say they expect greenhouse gas emissions to decrease in a sluggish economy. In 2009 and 2010, California’s emissions from power plants dipped by 12% due to a combination of milder temperatures, leading to less air conditioning demand, and a lull in manufacturing.

The trading price assumes that California goes it alone in cap & trade, although two Canadian provinces are expected to join the market eventually. Rules for the State’s cap & trade program have to be finalized by the end of October.

Government & Business, The Science

Climate Change Offers Up a New Wine List

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Climate change could dramatically affect the microclimates that have made California wine country so successful. (Photo: Lauren Sommer)

You’ve probably heard of the wines that made Napa and Sonoma famous, like Cabernet Sauvignon or Chardonnay. But what about Negroamaro or Nero d’Avola?

They’re wine grapes that are well-adapted to hotter climates – the kind of conditions that California may be facing as the climate continues to warm. But for wineries that have staked their reputations on certain wines, adapting to climate change could be a tough sell.

Talk to any wine lover in California and they’ll tell you how lucky they are to live in such rich wine-producing region. Take the recent meeting of the San Francisco Wine Lovers Group at Toast wine bar in Oakland, where the favorites are California Pinot Noir, Russian River Zinfandel, and Napa Cabernet.

In fact, the type of grape – or varietal – is how most of us think about wine. Continue reading Climate Change Offers Up a New Wine List →

Government & Business

California Truckers React to New Fuel Standards

The trade group for California’s truckers says it welcomes the new federal fuel standards for big rigs — for the most part, anyway.

Yesterday President Obama announced that all heavy duty vehicles must get up to 20 percent better mileage by 2014.  This marks the first ever federal fuel efficiency rules for heavy trucks and buses.

Michael Shaw of the California Trucking Association said he welcomes the standards but wants equal focus on improving vehicle reliability.

“We want reliability considered as important as fuel efficiency because, ultimately, if a vehicle is running more efficiently, but it’s spending more time in the shop… then you may have to purchase a new truck.” said Shaw. “So are we really getting the benefit we’re expected to get?”

Shaw says these rules may also increase costs for truckers. Continue reading California Truckers React to New Fuel Standards →

Government & Business

Clean Energy Target Still Unmet, PG&E Signs More Renewables

California’s three big utilities have another two years to reach their mandated target of having 20% of their electricity generated from renewable sources, and today PG&E announced two new deals that could inch the company closer to that goal:

  • Wind:  An agreement with NextEra Energy Resources, for 25 years of wind power from the company’s 163 megawatt North Sky River project in Tehachapi, CA.  PG&E says the energy from this project could meet the needs of about 90,000 typical homes.
    • Solar:  A 25-year contract with Sempra Generation for 150 megawatts of solar power from an expansion of the Copper Mountain Solar complex near Boulder City, NV.  Just under 2/3 of that power is expected online in 2013, with the remainder available by 2015. Ultimately, the company says, this project could power 45,000 homes.

Continue reading Clean Energy Target Still Unmet, PG&E Signs More Renewables →

Government & Business

NASA and Google Team Up for Zero-Emissions Flight Contest

Google’s made all kinds of headlines with its investments in clean energy recently: $280 million for a California residential solar company, $55 million for a wind project in Kern County, more than $10 million for geothermal R&D projects, and $168 million for a massive solar farm in the California desert, just to name a few.

A new move by the company seeks to address another kind of energy challenge: airplane fuel. The company has teamed up with NASA to sponsor the Green Flight Challenge, a competition to develop emissions-free aircraft.

The challenge?  Build a plane that can fly at least 100 miles per hour and achieve the equivalent energy efficiency of 200 miles per gallon of fuel on a 200-mile flight. Continue reading NASA and Google Team Up for Zero-Emissions Flight Contest →