By 2018, monthly bills for natural gas will be 11.6 percent higher than they were in January 2015, according to estimates provided during Thursday’s meeting of the state Public Utilities Commission.
If global warming is an existential threat to humankind, this hostility to a huge, promising source of clean energy is inexplicable. As the Union of Concerned Scientists says, “Effectively addressing global warming requires a rapid transformation of the ways in which we produce and consume energy.” That transformation will be far more difficult without nuclear power.
California’s last nuclear power plant will be phased out by 2025, under a joint proposal announced Tuesday morning by Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and labor and environmental groups.
One victim is Gov. Jerry Brown’s $3.1 billion plan to spend auction proceeds, now on indefinite hold. It not only affects a $500 million allocation for Brown’s bullet train project, but another $500 million for “low carbon transportation and fuels.”
Some 5,500 customers — including residences and businesses — scattered across Los Angeles were affected as of 2 p.m. Most would probably have power restored by the evening, Department of Water and Power officials said.
The linchpin of California’s climate change agenda, a program known as cap and trade, has become mired in legal, financial and political troubles that threaten to derail the state’s plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Carbon emissions from cars in the Chinese city of Chengdu could be underestimated by more than half under conventional testing methods, according to the preliminary results of a study released on Wednesday.
In California, there is so much solar energy that grid operators have to switch off solar farms. One solution of dealing with the additional power generated is to share the renewable wealth across state borders – but in the West, it’s sparking some not-so-neighborly opposition.
Fifteen years after blackouts rolled through some California neighborhoods, utility customers are still feeling the effects of post-energy-crisis regulatory changes that pushed the risk of costly projects from utility investors to ratepayers.
California natural gas prices spiked to a five-month high after state regulators approved rules to help gas utilities manage the amount of fuel flowing in pipelines due to the ongoing outage of the Aliso Canyon underground storage facility.
In many other countries, however — including countries in much hotter climates — air conditioning is still a relative rarity. But as these countries boom in wealth and population, and extend electricity to more people even as the climate warms, the projections are clear: They are going to install mind-boggling amounts of air conditioning, not just for comfort but as a health necessity.
The U.S. average retail price for gasoline was $2.24 per gallon (gal) on May 23, 50 cents per gallon (cents/gal) lower than at the same time last year, and the lowest average price just before Memorial Day weekend (the start of the summer driving season) since 2009.
Citing the threat of brown-outs this summer, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors urged Southern California residents to conserve electricity this summer and be prepared for possible 100-degree days without air conditioning.
A new wave of natural gas power plants planned for Southern California has stoked a high-stakes debate about how best to keep the lights on throughout the region.
The manager of the state’s electric grid expects current power supplies to meet summer needs for keeping the lights and air conditioning running, except in Southern California, where power plants might lack the needed natural gas. . . Without Aliso Canyon, Berberich’s agency and state regulators worry that high electric demand could require more natural gas for the power plants than Southern California Gas can supply.