Tag Archives: edison

U.S. Chamber of Commerce joins anti-solar crusade

by ArethaMaxie Posted on June 15, 2016

Throwing shade

U.S. Chamber of Commerce joins anti-solar crusade

By on Jun 15, 2016Share

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the latest conservative group to start spreading anti-solar messages. In an email sent to supporters on Wednesday, the chamber attacks net metering, a policy in place in many states that pays people with solar panels on their roofs for the electricity they feed into the grid. The group also posted a video on YouTube last week making its anti-net metering case. This is fairly new territory for the chamber, according to energy regulation experts.

In its email, the group warns: “While your neighbor is receiving a credit (in the form of a reduced electricity bill) for putting excess energy back on the electricity grid, these outdated net metering policies overlook the costs to use, maintain, and update the grid. So, who is actually paying those costs? You — and everyone else!”

There is actually some truth to this. But the problem with the chamber’s analysis is that it ignores the positive effects of rooftop solar — most importantly, that it reduces the need for dirty, fossil fuel-based energy that causes air pollution and worsens climate change.

Here’s a more fair way to paint the situation: Electric utilities are using outdated technologies that poison our air and destabilize our climate. Who is actually paying for those costs? You — and everyone else!

We reported on Tuesday about the utilities’ trade association, the Edison Electric Institute, feigning concern for consumers who could be ripped off by unscrupulous solar companies. The Chamber of Commerce’s new campaign takes a different approach by heaping blame on solar consumers. But it’s all part of the same big effort by conservative groups and dirty energy companies to kneecap the solar industry, any way they can.

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U.S. Chamber of Commerce joins anti-solar crusade

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California’s San Onofre nuclear plant gets final death blow

by Alexandra Smith Posted on June 7, 2013

California’s San Onofre nuclear plant gets final death blow

By Lisa Hymas

Shutterstock

San Onofre nuclear plant — now just a blight on the seashore.

Southern California Edison is officially giving up on the San Onofre nuclear power plant — and it’s about time. When workers have to resort to masking tape and broomsticks to patch up a leaky pipe, you know things are bad. And that’s just one of many reasons why the name of the plant is usually preceded by the word “troubled.”

Speaking of which, from CBS News:

The troubled San Onofre nuclear power plant on the California coast is closing after an epic 16-month battle over whether the twin reactors could be safely restarted with millions of people living nearby, officials announced Friday.

Operator Southern California Edison said in a statement it will retire the twin reactors because of uncertainty about the future of the plant, which faced a tangle of regulatory hurdles, investigations and mounting political opposition. With the reactors idle, the company has spent more than $500 million on repairs and replacement power.

From the Los Angeles Times:

The coastal plant near San Clemente once supplied power to about 1.4 million homes in Southern California but has been shuttered since January 2012 when a tube in its newly replaced steam generators leaked a small amount of radioactive steam, leading to the discovery that the tubes were wearing down at an unusual rate.

That’s a different leak than the one patched with masking tape, just so you know.

Anti-nuclear activists are psyched. “The people of California now have the opportunity to move away from the failed promise of dirty and dangerous nuclear power and replace it with the safe and clean energy provided by the sun and the wind,” said Erich Pica, president of Friends of the Earth U.S.

This leaves just one operating nuke plant in California — Diablo Canyon, near San Luis Obispo. Last year it was knocked offline by a jellyfish-like sea critter, but most of the time there’s nothing to worry about — other than the fact that the plant sits near two active earthquake faults.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.

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California’s San Onofre nuclear plant gets final death blow

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72 percent of bids at California’s carbon auction came from one company’s mistake

by Myrna Posted on December 21, 2012

72 percent of bids at California’s carbon auction came from one company’s mistake

By Philip Bump

abcFred

“I bid a bajillion dollars.”

Remember that time you went to an auction and you bid on 21 times as many items as you intended to? No, of course not. Who would do that?

Power company Edison International is who.

From Bloomberg:

Edison, owner of the state’s second-biggest power utility, submitted a proposal in the wrong format and offered to buy 21 times more allowances than it wanted on Nov. 14, documents obtained by Bloomberg show.

When the state Air Resources Board said last month that it had received three bids for every available permit, it failed to mention that Edison accounted for nearly 72 percent of the offers. Had the company submitted its proposals in the right format, about 225,000 permits would have gone unsold at auction, Bloomberg calculations based on data from the report show.

Ha ha. Oops! If Edison had bought 72 percent of the 28.7 million credits offered, which sold at the unexpectedly low price of $10.09, that would have been an investment of about $208 million.

It wasn’t though.

Most of Edison’s bids were eventually disqualified after exceeding auction limits, and the company ended up buying 4.05 million allowances, still 1.61 million permits more than it had intended to, according to an Edison report presented to company executives. Permits sold for $10.09 each, 9 cents above the state’s lowest allowable price, known as the “floor,” the air board said. …

On Dec. 6, California’s air board released a second set of results from its auction, saying there were just 1.06 bids for every permit offered in the Nov. 14 sale once it disqualified bids from a “very small number of auction participants” who exceeded purchasing, holding or bid guarantee limits. Permits still sold out at 9 cents above the floor, it said.

So Edison spent about $40 million — $16 million more than anticipated. Be on the lookout for a new line item on your bill next month, Edison customers.

And if you happen to know any executives at Edison International, you might kindly suggest that they stay away from eBay.

An Edison International executive, circa 1959.

Philip Bump writes about the news for Gristmill. He also uses Twitter a whole lot.

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