News

“California’s non-solar homeowners are paying a growing share of maintaining the power grid under a controversial state policy, while ratepayers with solar rooftops are paying less, a report commissioned by the state’s utility regulator said on Thursday.

The report, which was issued by the California Public Utilities Commission but performed by an outside research firm, forecast that in 2020, the policy of “”net metering”” would cost $1.1 billion a year. It will shift about $359 million in costs a year from customers with solar panels to other ratepayers. Residential customers who have no solar panels would bear about $287 million of those costs.”

“Between August 27 and September 5, Hoover’s Golden State Poll (a joint collaboration of the Hoover Institution and the research firm YouGov) surveyed 1,000 Californians on their confidence in California’s recovery – their job security and pocketbook choices (last October, a Hoover/YouGov survey sampled Californians’ attitudes toward state government and policy choices in Sacramento).

. . . Twice as many Californians reported being worse-off financially (33%) than better off (17%) over the last year.

. . . Among survey respondents who are currently employed, more than half (55%) said they weren’t confident in their ability to find another job in California within 6 months that pays as much as they are making now.”

Since just before the start of the 21st century, the Earth’s average global surface temperature has failed to rise despite soaring levels of heat-trapping greenhouse gases and years of dire warnings from environmental advocates.

California lawmakers took a major step Thursday toward lowering the state’s high electricity prices—and set the stage for a big battle over incentives that have turned the state into the biggest market for residential-rooftop solar power. A bill passed by the legislature Thursday repeals a 2001 law, meant to encourage conservation, which requires the state’s investor-owned utilities to sell power at rates that rise sharply the more electricity a customer uses. The new legislation doesn’t say how prices should be set in the future, leaving that to regulators, utilities and public advocates to work out.

Unconventional oil and natural gas activity is reshaping America’s energy future and bringing significant benefits to the US economy in terms of jobs, government revenues, and GDP. This study provides the foundation for a dialogue focused on the still-evolving but transformative economic effects of this unconventional revolution.

New Report Shows Shale Development Supporting Millions of Jobs and Boosting Income and Trade

Washington, D.C., September 4, 2013 – According to a report released today, the United States will continue to reap enormous economic and job-creation benefits from domestic oil and shale gas production.

Manufacturers consume a lot of energy, particularly natural gas. Increased domestic production of natural gas has lowered its price, and a new study by IHS estimates industrial production will increase by 3.5 percent by the end of this decade as a result of the shale energy revolution.

Germany’s agressive and reckless expansion of wind and solar power has come with a hefty pricetag for consumers, and the costs often fall disproportionately on the poor. Government advisors are calling for a completely new start.

California electric rates are among the highest in the country and it is likely that the lion’s share of future rate increases will be borne by commercial and industrial customers, such as public agencies. Why? Because California has embarked upon a significant number of policies that necessarily impact the state’s electricity supply and delivery system. As a result, electric rates continue to rise and ratepayers, including public agencies, are searching for ways to respond to the spiraling costs of this necessary service.

Seduced by generous subsidies, Germans are embracing the ambitious project with such fervor – installing solar panels on church roofs and converting sewage into heat – that instead of benefiting from a rise in green energy, they are straining under the subsidies’ cost and from surcharges.

As the debate over the practice of hydraulic fracturing to reach deeply embedded oil heats up, listening to a discussion on the topic sponsored by Los Angeles’ BizFed Institute last week, I have the feeling we will see it happen. Or should I say continue to happen since fracking, as it is called, has been going on in California for 60 years.

That’s the opinion of David Crane, chief executive officer of NRG Energy, a wholesale power company based in Princeton, N.J. What’s afoot is a confluence of green energy and computer technology, deregulation, cheap natural gas, and political pressure that, as Crane starkly frames it, poses “a mortal threat to the existing utility system.” He says that in about the time it has taken cell phones to supplant land lines in most U.S. homes, the grid will become increasingly irrelevant as customers move toward decentralized homegrown green energy.

California’s largest greenhouse gas-emitting businesses paid $12.22 per metric tonne (1.1 tons) for the right to release carbon this year, lower than expected and down almost 13 percent from the previous sale in May, the state said on Wednesday.

Carbon prices in California have slumped to the lowest level this year as the state weighs increasing the number of free permits offered to polluters in an effort to kick-start the fledgling market.

California is the second-most-expensive state in which to operate a motor vehicle, according to a new study released by Bankrate.com.