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Ratings agencies say the state’s bid to go 100% renewable poses a ‘significant threat’ to gas generators’ credit stability

Newport Wedge, California (Photo: Tom Walker/Flickr)

Gas companies in California face credit downgrades, ratings agencies say, after the state pledged to get all of its power from renewable sources by 2045.

On 10 September, California governor Jerry Brown signed a bill which would require 100% of the state electricity’s to come from carbon-free sources.

That would have no immediate effect on most gas generators, according to a report by Standard & Poor’s (S&P) analyst Michael Ferguson this month. However, he said: “We believe that over the long term, with the growth of renewable energy, these utilities face a significant threat to their market position, finances, and credit stability.”

Within a fortnight of the California bill, S&P had revised its ratings outlook for Middle River Power, an equity firm backing a natural gas-fired plant providing electricity for 500,000 people in San Berdinado, from stable to negative. On top of increased competition from renewables, the credit agency cited “a more challenging (…) regulatory environment for natural gas-fired assets over the long term because of aggressive renewable energy goal”.

“This gas plant is going to have to be refinanced,” Ferguson told Climate Home News, “and it’s going to get more and more difficult to refinance over the long-term because they are going to be facing increasing renewable penetration… Longer-term the prospects for [all] gas generation are going to be weaker.”

S&P’s report largely echoes an assessment by its rival Moody’s, released in September. According to Moody’s, the state’s new legislation was “credit negative” for companies Calpine Corporation, NRG Energy, Pacific Gas & Electric Company (PG&E), Southern California Edison Company, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California goes carbon negative

September 20, 2018

California goes carbon negative

Last week Gov. Jerry Brown signed a bill to cut California’s electricity sector emissions , which account for about 16% of the state’s total emissions, to zero by 2045. But an Executive Order he signed on the same day calls for 100% of California’s totalemissions not only to go to zero in 2045, but to go negative after that. This target is so absurdly ambitious that Euan Mearns e-mailed me asking whether the Executive Order wasn’t a hoax. But it isn’t. It reflects Gov. Brown’s determination to save the Earth from climate change whether it needs saving or not. (Inset; jubilation as Gov. Brown signs the Executive Order).

The Executive Order is linked to here. It’s in a graphical format that doesn’t allow it to be downloaded as text, so all of the excerpts presented here are screenshots.

The Order is divided into two sections – the “Whereases” and the “Now Therefores”. For those not familiar with English legal jargon the “Whereases” list the facts, or at least the facts as Gov. Brown sees them, and the “Now Therefores” list the actions that the Whereases call for. It’s important to note that the Executive Order is not legally binding and can be rescinded by a future governor, but as Vox points out it may not be as toothless as it appears:

Executive orders are often the trigger for California climate progress. That process often begins with an executive order, as it did in 2005, when Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an order establishing carbon-reduction targets through 2050. The following year, the legislature passed a version of it as AB 32, which established the machinery of emission reductions that operates in the state to this day. In 2015, Gov. Brown issued an EO establishing a new target of 40 percent reductions by 2030.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Jerry Brown: 3 Billion Will Die from Global Warming

June 5, 2018

Jerry Brown: 3 Billion Will Die from Global Warming

On April 17, 2018, California Governor Jerry Brown delivered a speech at the National Press Club in Washington DC. A day later the headline that forms the title of this post appeared in Google News. I’ve been unable to find out exactly how many views Google News gets, but it’s probably in the billions/year range, and this headline is sufficiently eye-catching that even viewers who just skim through the articles can hardly miss it. Three billion global warming deaths is, however, a lot, and the question is where Gov. Brown got this number from. It turns out to be a recent World Health Organization report that cites 3 billion as the number of people potentially affected by “household air pollution from inefficient cooking practices“. How Gov. Brown translated this into 3 billion global warming deaths isn’t clear, but if you sincerely believe that climate change will destroy civilization the important thing is to get the message across. The facts are secondary.

In the interests of fairness we must first consider what Gov. Brown actually said in his speech. According to CNS News and other sources it was this: “The prospect is 3 billion people on this planet will be subject to fatal lethal heat events.” A heat event that is both fatal and lethal can be guaranteed to kill the people who are subjected to it, but this is not quite as catchy a headline as 3 billion will die. So Gov. Brown got some help from the media in delivering his message.

Second, the World Health Organization has consistently projected that climate change deaths will be far lower than Gov. Brown claims. WHO estimates (probably overestimates, but that’s a separates issue) only the health impacts of climate change, but these include the impacts of drought (malnutrition etc), and the impacts of floods are generally included in a separate category.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Drastic Pension Cuts Will Hit California, Kentucky, Other States

January 16, 2018

Drastic Pension Cuts Will Hit California, Kentucky, Other States

The CA Supreme Court will rule on pension cuts. Curiously, the court’s ruling will be irrelevant in case of bankruptcy.

Please consider California’s Brown Raises Prospect Of Pension Cuts In Downturn.

California Governor Jerry Brown said legal rulings may clear the way for making cuts to public pension benefits, which would go against long-standing assumptions and potentially provide financial relief to the state and its local governments.

Brown said he has a “hunch” the courts would “modify” the so-called California rule, which holds that benefits promised to public employees can’t be rolled back. The state’s Supreme Court is set to hear a case in which lower courts ruled that reductions to pensions are permissible if the payments remain “reasonable” for workers.

“There is more flexibility than there is currently assumed by those who discuss the California rule,” Brown said during a briefing on the budget in Sacramento. He said that in the next recession, the governor “will have the option of considering pension cutbacks for the first time.”

That would be a major shift in California, where municipal officials have long believed they couldn’t adjust the benefits even as they struggle to cover the cost. They have raised taxes and dipped into reserves to meet rising contributions. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, the nation’s largest public pension, has about 68 percent of assets needed to cover its liabilities. For the fiscal year beginning in July, the state’s contribution to Calpers is double what it was in fiscal 2009.

“In the next downturn, when things look pretty dire, that would be one of the items on the chopping block,” Brown said.

Pension Cuts Are Coming

It’s refreshing to hear a politician admit the obvious: Pension cuts are coming.

However, whether or not the cuts are “reasonable” is irrelevant in cases of bankruptcy. Bankruptcy is under federal, not state law.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California Mulls Combustion-Engine Car Ban: “You Could Stop All Sales By 2030”

September 26, 2017

California Mulls Combustion-Engine Car Ban: “You Could Stop All Sales By 2030”

California, the state which single-handedly turned Elon Musk into the billionaire that he is today by forcing taxpayers to subsidize his unprofitable electric vehicle scam via “Zero Emission Vehicle” credits, is now considering a full ban of combustion-engine cars by as early as 2030. The potential ban was discussed by Mary Nichols of the California Air Resources Board, the same folks who decided to regulate cow farts last year, who told Bloomberg that Governor Jerry Brown has expressed interest in a ban.

Governor Jerry Brown has expressed an interest in barring the sale of vehicles powered by internal-combustion engines, Mary Nichols, chairman of the California Air Resources Board, said in an interview Friday at Bloomberg headquarters in New York. Brown, one of the most outspoken elected official in the U.S. about the need for policies to combat climate change, would be replicating similar moves by China, France and the U.K.

“I’ve gotten messages from the governor asking, ‘Why haven’t we done something already?’” Nichols said, referring to China’s planned phase-out of fossil-fuel vehicle sales. “The governor has certainly indicated an interest in why China can do this and not California.”

California has set a goal to cut carbon dioxide emissions by 80 percent from 1990 levels by 2050. Rising emissions from on-road transportation has undercut the state’s efforts to reduce pollution, a San Francisco-based non-profit said last month.

“To reach the ambitious levels of reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, we have to pretty much replace all combustion with some form of renewable energy by 2040 or 2050,” Nichols said. “We’re looking at that as a method of moving this discussion forward.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Water Wars Coming To California? Is The Drought Really Over?

March 13, 2017

Water Wars Coming To California? Is The Drought Really Over?

Authored by Capt. William E. Simpson II – USMM Ret.,

In California, the poor growth and development policies that have resulted from a lack of vision have led-to and are continuing to lead Californians down a path of unsustainable growth and a widening gap between the demand and availability of critical resources, especially water.

This gargantuan problem is augmented by a growing financial crises in California as evidenced by an out of control and growing debt problem. All the while, many elected officials in the State along with Governor Jerry Brown are thumbing their noses at the Fed and losing Federal funding for cities that obstinately insist on violating long-established immigration laws. Of course this too is not helpful to the growing State debt, which elected officials will certainly cast-off onto the weakening shoulders of taxpayers using a combination of direct tax increases and other legislative and regulatory ploys that also amount to taxes and less money in the pockets of the People.

The term ‘drought’ has been used in reference to the severe water shortages that California is experiencing. But what is the real culprit or causation of the growing water shortage? Is drought caused by a lack of precipitation as most people believe? Or is the shortfall of water availability due to some other principal factor, such as water-use outstripping supply?

The recent record precipitation in California during the winter of 2016-2017 has certainly soaked the landscape, replenishing many of California’s reservoirs and in the process giving Californians the impression that the drought is over. But that is a misconception according to sources provided herein.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Why ‘overregulated’ California is leading the way

September 17, 2016

Why ‘overregulated’ California is leading the way

Ideologues hate it when the facts get in the way of their theories. California’s Gov. Jerry Brown signed trailblazing legislation last week that commits the state to audacious greenhouse gas emission reductions by 2030 of 40 percent below 1990 levels. Not surprisingly, longstanding critics from the business community were howling once againabout how California’s business climate will deteriorate as a result.

The law extended efforts under California’s previous cap-and-trade bill which set emission targets for 2020 to match 1990 levels.

Predictions of doom for the California economy are a perennial staple of California politics. But is there any truth to them?

First, here are the bald facts. Growth of California’s ‘overregulated’ economy has frequently exceeded the U.S. economy as a whole since 1998. Annual growth in gross domestic product shown in the linked graphs is not a perfect measure of economic vitality, but it shows that fears that California is somehow stunted by its so-called excessive regulatory and tax burden isn’t supported by the growth numbers.

Moreover, states that rank highest in typical business-oriented think tank ratings such as North Dakota and Wyoming saw their economies shrink by 6.7 and 2.9 percent respectively in 2015 as California led the nation with an expansion of 4.2 percent. Of course, North Dakota and Wyoming were hit hard by the decline of oil prices as their economies are largely extractive. California’s economy is far more diverse.

It’s probably true that carbon emissions intensive industries will now think twice about expanding their presence in California. But those industries aren’t really the future that California is seeking.

Instead, the state is becoming a leader in solar and wind energy and energy efficiency technology and policy. These are cutting edge industries that other states should envy California for. One has to look no further than the coal industry to see what’s in store for the fossil fuel industry as a whole and the economies that rely on them.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California Lawmakers Move to Prevent Another Disastrous Gas Blowout at Aliso Canyon

May 14, 2016

California Lawmakers Move to Prevent Another Disastrous Gas Blowout at Aliso Canyon

Aliso Canyon is the largest natural gas storage facility in the western U.S. and the site of the October, 2015 blowout that spewed nearly 100,000 tons of methane into the skies above the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles for nearly four months.

The bill was co-authored by Senator Fran Pavley (D-Agoura Hills), and Assemblyman Scott Wilk presented SB 380 on the floor of the Assembly on April 28 and it passed both chambers with overwhelming bipartisan support.

The new law requires that all 114 wells at Aliso Canyon undergo additional tests to detect any possible leaks.

Wells can go back into use only after passing four additional structural integrity tests, and wells that have not been fully tested and certified must be temporarily plugged and isolated from the facility.

New injections could only resume if well integrity is proven “to prevent damage to life, health, property, and natural resources and other requirements.”

Senator Pavley said in a prepared statement that the law “puts public safety first.”

“Now that the news cameras have left Aliso Canyon and moved on, the governor and the Legislature have shown that their memories are vivid and that a hard lesson has been learned. We must do all we can to prevent another disaster.”

The bill also sets a deadline of July 1, 2017 for the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to open a proceeding to evaluate the feasibility of scaling back or shutting down the facility.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

‘About Time’: Jerry Brown Declares State of Emergency Over Porter Ranch

January 7, 2016

‘About Time’: Jerry Brown Declares State of Emergency Over Porter Ranch

Organizers say the leak has ‘been a wake-up call for this community…. We’re all on the front lines of climate change.’

Porter Ranch residents protest California Governor Jerry Brown’s months-long refusal to call a state of emergency over the gas leak that has been pumping out methane since October. Brown announced a state of emergency on Wednesday. (Photo: LA Daily News)

Following months of pressure from activists and residents, California Governor Jerry Brown on Wednesday issued a state of emergency over the Porter Ranch gas leak that has been pouring tens of thousands of kilograms of methane into the air surrounding the community since October.

The order means “all necessary and viable actions” will be taken to stop the leak and ensure that the Southern California Gas Company (SoCal Gas), which owns the leaking natural gas injection well, is held accountable for the damage.

“It’s about time,” Alexandra Nagy, Southern California organizer at Food and Water Watch, told Common Dreams. “It’s incredible. Now residents can actually get the assistance that they need.”

Brown issued the state of emergency after making a quiet visit to the area earlier this week to tour the facility and meet with the Porter Ranch neighborhood council. Wednesday’s order also directs action to protect public health, according to a press release issued from the governor’s office.

“It is really going to…amplify the urgency of this issue and really expose how bad the problem is,” Nagy said.

The leak, which has been ongoing since October, gained limited media attention after environmental and public health advocate Erin Brockovich declared it “a catastrophe the scale of which has not been seen since the 2010 BP oil spill.” Residents living in proximity to the well, which is situated in Aliso Canyon, roughly 30 miles northwest of Los Angeles, reported having symptoms of methane exposure, including headaches, nausea, and in some cases, bleeding eyes and gums.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California Oilfield Operators Refuse To Report Water Usage, In Violation Of The Law

August 21, 2015

California Oilfield Operators Refuse To Report Water Usage, In Violation Of The Law

How much water does California’s oil and gas industry actually use? We still don’t know, despite a 2014 law signed by Governor Jerry Brown that went into effect this year requiring companies to report on all water produced, used and disposed of by oilfield operations.

Oil and gas regulators with California’s Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) missed the first reporting deadline, April 30, claiming they had simply received too much data to process in time. But now we know there was probably another reason: hundreds of companies had flat out refused to obey the law.

In fact, more than 100 companies still refuse to comply with the water reporting requirements altogether.

DOGGR extended the filing date for the first quarter of 2015 to June 1, and has now, at long last, released the first report on oilfield water usage and disposal — though more than 100 companies still haven’t submitted any data to the state despite the extension.

According to the report, just 166 oilfield operators filed their quarterly water report by June 1, prompting DOGGR to issue 289 Notices of Violation to companies that failed to meet the extended deadline. Some 146 companies complied with the violation notices and did submit their water usage data, but 104 operators remain out of compliance and at risk of civil penalties.

No fines or other penalties have been levied against noncompliant companies so far.

DOGGR says the data it did receive, and on which the report is based, represents “approximately 59 percent of the produced water, and 41 percent of the injected water during the first quarter.” The agency did not verify the accuracy of the data self-reported by oilfield operators.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

What Does California Gov. Jerry Brown Know about the Next Crash and Recession that We Don’t?

June 11, 2015

What Does California Gov. Jerry Brown Know about the Next Crash and Recession that We Don’t?

California was America’s Greece in 2009. It had excellent wine and olive oil. But tax revenues were collapsing. The deficit ballooned. Its credit rating was cut to the lowest of any state in the US. It couldn’t borrow at reasonable rates. And when, under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, it couldn’t pay its bills with real money, it sent fancy-looking IOUs to its suppliers.

Today, California is flush with money. The economy in the coastal areas has bounced back. Unemployment, while still high in some areas, continues to drop. The budget is on its second annual “surplus” in a row. Capital gains taxes from the booming tech sector, the soaring stock market, the white-hot property sector, and all kinds of other investment activities, on top of some “temporary” tax increases, triggered a flood of revenues – $6.7 billion more than Brown’s office had estimated just in January.

OK, no one can figure out how to deal with the unfunded pension and healthcare liabilities. But what the heck, lawmakers at the Democratic stronghold are now fighting over how to spend the “surplus.” They’ve got till June 15 to figure it out and pass a budget or their pay will be docked.

Gov. Jerry Brown, sworn in for his fourth and final term in January – he’d served two terms in the 1970s – is putting his stamp of frugality on the budget, trying to stem the flood of spending proposals. But lawmakers need to be reelected, votes need to be bought, special interests need to be satisfied, and so the money needs to flow.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The California Water Shortage: A Case for Aesthetic Ecosystem and Ecological Design

May 31, 2015

The California Water Shortage: A Case for Aesthetic Ecosystem and Ecological Design

A reservoir showing the effect of drought conditions in California

In recent news, there has been significant coverage of California’s struggle with its below average precipitation in the past several years. Yes, they call it a drought.

Governor Jerry Brown and California State Water Resources Control Board have come forward with restrictions on water use, primarily in urban and suburban areas.

People are ripping up lawns.

Landscape designers are drooling (not too much) over the opportunity to redesign so many areas for better water conservation. Many are replacing lawns with cookie-cutter designed ‘xeriscapes’ or ‘desertscapes’ such as this one.

Urbanites are pitted against agrarians saying the other is more responsible.

One recent interview on NPR highlights cemetery caretakers wondering “if cemeteries, particularly for veterans, shouldn’t play by different rules than, say, a suburban lawn”?

And now, there’s a struggle between allowing salmon to spawn and the ability of Bay area residents to drink water that doesn’t taste funky.

This is where I follow up with saying, ‘The end is near!’

OK so perhaps I’m making light of the situation a bit. This is a serious situation. But we have gotten ourselves into this mess. We have been deliberately diminishing our water resources in the western US for a long time.

It’s just that the thought of water scarcity is a bit more evident now.

The good news? We’ve gotten ourselves into this mess, and we can get ourselves out. But it won’t be easy and it won’t be painless. Those in California are already beginning to feel the pain.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California State of Emergency: Up To 105,000 Gallons of Oil Spill in Santa Barbara from Plains All American Pipeline

May 21, 2015

California State of Emergency: Up To 105,000 Gallons of Oil Spill in Santa Barbara from Plains All American Pipeline

Up to 105,000 gallons of oil obtained via offshore drilling have spilled from a pipeline owned by Plains All American at Refugio State Beach in Santa Barbara County in California. At least 21,000 gallons have poured into the Pacific Ocean and the spill’s impacts stretch nine miles, according to the Associated Press.

As a result, California Governor Jerry Brown has declared a state of emergency in Santa Barbara County, which he said in a press statement “cuts red tape and helps the state quickly mobilize all available resources.”

“The 11-mile Plains American Coastal Pipeline connects Exxon’s Las Flores Canyon facility – which provides basic processing for crude produced from California’s Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) – to Plain’s larger Line 63 pipeline system,” the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) explained in a blog post. “[T]his incident demonstrates the real risks associated with industry plans to inundate California’s coastal waters, pipelines, rail lines and refineries with tar sands crudes.”

The spill, reminding some of the much-bigger 1969 Santa Barbara offshore oil spill, comes just several months after the Environmental Defense Center filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) for secretly permitting offshore hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) in the deepwater areas off the coast of California. Both ExxonMobiland the American Petroleum Institute issued motions to intervene as co-defendants in that case, which the judge granted.

Photo Credit: Greenpeace USA

“This spill shows, yet again, that safe and responsible oil and gas drilling are myths,” Marissa Knodel, climate campaigner for Friends of the Earth, said in press release. “Despite these terrible impacts, the Obama administration wants to open up new areas for drilling, which presents a dangerous and unjust risk to the homes and livelihoods of coastal communities,

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

California Adopts “Unprecedented” Restrictions On Water Use As Drought Worsens

May 6, 2015

California Adopts “Unprecedented” Restrictions On Water Use As Drought Worsens

Early last month we warned that California’s drought was approaching historic proportions and that if climatologists were to be believed, the country may see a repeat of The Dirty Thirties as experts cite “Dust Bowl” conditions. Governor Jerry Brown has called for statewide water restrictions aimed at reducing consumption by 25%.

Now, the conservation calls are getting much louder as the state’s water regulators have approved “unprecedented” measures aimed at curtailing the crisis.

Via AP:

California water regulators adopted sweeping, unprecedented restrictions Tuesday on how people, governments and businesses can use water amid the state’s ongoing drought, hoping to push reluctant residents to deeper conservation.

The State Water Resources Control Board approved rules that force cities to limit watering on public property, encourage homeowners to let their lawns die and impose mandatory water-savings targets for the hundreds of local agencies and cities that supply water to California customers.

Gov. Jerry Brown sought the more stringent regulations, arguing that voluntary conservation efforts have so far not yielded the water savings needed amid a four-year drought. He ordered water agencies to cut urban water use by 25 percent from levels in 2013, the year before he declared a drought emergency…

Despite the dire warnings, it’s also still not clear that Californians have grasped the seriousness of the drought or the need for conservation. Data released by the board

Tuesday showed that Californians conserved little water in March, and local officials were not aggressive in cracking down on waste.

A survey of local water departments showed water use fell less than 4 percent in March compared with the same month in 2013. Overall savings have been only about 9 percent since last summer.

Under the new rules, each city is ordered to cut water use by as much as 36 percent compared with 2013.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

How Much Water Does The California Oil Industry Actually Use?

April 27, 2015

How Much Water Does The California Oil Industry Actually Use?

When California Governor Jerry Brown issued mandatory water restrictions for the first time in state history, he notably excluded the agriculture and oil industries from the conservation efforts, a decision that was heavily criticized.

The oil industry, for its part, insists it is a responsible user of water. The Western States Petroleum Association, an oil industry lobbying group, for instance, wrote that “Oil companies are doing their part to conserve, recycle and reduce the water they use to produce oil and refine petroleum products.”

Some perspective is certainly needed here: the amount of water used to produce oil in California is, in fact, dwarfed by the amount used for agriculture. But the thing is, the state can’t make any fully informed decisions about whether or not to include oil development in water cuts because no one knows exactly how much water the California oil industry is using in the first place. That all changes on April 30, however.

Last September, Governor Brown signed into law SB 1281, which requires companies to make quarterly reports to state regulators at the Division of Oil, Gas and Geothermal Resources (DOGGR) detailing the source and volume of water — whether fresh, treated, or recycled — used during oil development processes, including extreme oil extraction methods like fracking, acidization and steam injection. The first set of data required to be reported to DOGGR under SB 1281 is due at the end of the month.

Required reporting on water usage is an important first step in devising an effective water conservation plan for drought-wracked California, Peter Gleick, president of the Pacific Institute, tells DeSmogBlog.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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