The Marin Energy Authority this week locked in the wholesale price that it will pay Shell Energy North America over the next five years for the electricity that it will sell to its Marin customers.
At the price Shell is charging, the authority will be able to fulfill it promise to offer customers electricity that comes from 25 percent renewable sources for the same amount that Pacific Gas and Electric Co. is currently charging, said Dawn Weisz, the authority's interim director
To understand what's wrong with California's initiative process, all you need to do is look at Proposition 16 on the June 8 ballot. This outrageous measure is funded by more than $25 million from PG&E, and its sole purpose is to protect PG&E profits.
Richard Halstead, Marin IJ
The Marin Board of Supervisors on Tuesday rejected most of the findings contained in a civil grand jury report that recommended pulling the plug on the Marin Clean Energy initiative.
The initiative, a program of the Marin Energy Authority, aims at reducing greenhouse gases by offering Marin residents the opportunity to purchase electricity generated from a higher percentage of renewable sources than offered by Pacific Gas and Electric Co.
The CSAC Board of Directors voted today to oppose Prop. 16, the initiative that would limit local government’s ability to expand local energy programs. While the board was presented with both sides of the argument, their decision was relatively quick and easy. CSAC’s Agriculture & Natural Resources Policy Committee and Executive Committee had both already recommended an “oppose” position.
It was an unhappy anniversary that passed without public fanfare. But nine years ago last week, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., ravaged by the energy crisis, plunged into bankruptcy.
Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2010/04/11/2668460/dan-morain-pge-flips-the-switch.html#ixzz0kttFHqCa
The lead sentence in last Friday's San Francisco Chroniclearticle (headline: "PG&E Must Stop Threats To Public Power Agencies") hints at the dilemma Peter Darbee's political recklessness has created for his company and its heretofore guardian angels, the California Public Utilities Commission:
California energy regulators delivered a rare rebuke to Pacific Gas and Electric Co. on Thursday, banning some of thehardball tactics the utility has used in its efforts to derail Marin County's new public power agency.
Sacramento-area voters, responding to a Sacramento Bee-led crusade, voted in 1923 to divorce themselves from On Monday night the Belvedere City Council voted 4-1 in favor of moving the City to 100% Deep Green with Marin Clean Energy. In doing so, the Council made a statement that this is an important issue. Belvedere became the second municipality in Marin to go 100% Deep Green as part of its ratepayer choice.
On average, SMUD rates are nearly 30% lower than PG&E – in the medium commercial rate structure, SMUD rates are nearly 36% lower
SMUD has guaranteed an immediate 2% rate reduction during the time that the acquisition costs are recovered – anticipated to be five to ten years
Ed Mainland -
I was chatting with a nice Marin lady at Joe Nation's PG&E-funded "Common Sense Coalition" February 27. She doesn't believe all this global warming stuff. "There's always been carbon dioxide in the air," she said. She knows what she knows and doesn't want to know more.
Peter Darbee's Dog of an Initiative: 3 Tapeworms Eating Away at the Internal Logic of Prop. 16
On February 25, I had the privilege of testifying on Proposition 16 before the joint hearing of the California Senate Energy, Utilities and Telecommunications Committee and the California Assembly Utilities and Commerce Committee. This is what I said:
For those who may question of damage that fossil fuels wreck on the environment, filmmakers Maryann DeLeo and Ellen Goosenberg Kent offer a thoughtful meditation on global warming while offering various suggestions on what we can do to heal the planet we so frequently take for granted. We've all seen the signs: rising sea levels, deadly heat waves, melting ice caps. As troubling as they can be, has our wasteful lifestyle truly pushed us beyond the point of no return? Now, in hopes of making life better not just for ourselves but for future generations as well, DeLeo and Kent ask the pressing questions that need to be asked before showing just what steps need to be taken in order to ensure that relationship between mankind and mother nature remains healthy and well balanced. ~ Jason Buchanan
Ecological Options Network - A CLEAN ENERGY WIN
Written by Jim Geraghty
Tuesday, 02 March 2010 00:53
Ardent supporters of Marin Clean Energy in California's trend-setting Marin County have cleared another hurdle. Bucking multi-million dollar confusion tactics, lawsuits, threats and even a ballot initiative by the local utility monopoly PG&E, the Marin Board of Supervisors, urged by citizens, voted 3 to 2 on Feb. 2, 2010 to continue their historic push toward establishing a working model for local energy independence and renewables. Corporate dirty energy forces in the form of PG&E (Pacific Gas & Electric) and its astroturf frontgroup 'Common Sense Marin' are mounting a last ditch attempt to stop Bay Area community clean energy projects in both Marin and San Francisco that citizens and enlightened public officials have been fighting for for a decade. Fearing the 'threat of a good example' will spread nationally, PG&E has launched Prop 16, a state-wide initiative for the November ballot that aims at making community choice energy impossible. Marin leaders are pointing the way to what could become a national clean energy revolution. Dirty energy monopolies be afraid. Be very afraid. Local clean energy is coming to the U.S.A..