Energy Exchange

Pollution monitors should be standard in LA’s oilfields

By Tim O'Connor / Published: February 6, 2018

There are several reasons to be optimistic about environmental progress in Los Angeles. The city is making massive investments in electric vehicles, making clean energy more accessible to everyday people, and cutting pollution from the ports and freeways to name a few. But with over 60,000 Angelinos living less than 500 feet from an active oil well – LA could do more to protect our health and our environment.

Oil and gas wells emit toxic chemicals that can increase our risk of developing asthma, cancer and other health problems. Recent studies by the California Air Resources Board and South Coast Air Quality Management District have uncovered elevated levels of benzene, a cancer causing agent, and other toxic compounds coming from oil and gas equipment in Huntington Beach and Signal Hill. In Santa Fe Springs a rupture at an oil site coated numerous homes with oil and generated noxious odors. Then there are the communities in Culver City, South LA, Compton and elsewhere living mere feet from drill sites who experience odors and health ailments on a regular basis. Most notoriously, the Porter Ranch community next to the Aliso Canyon gas field still reports respiratory problems and other symptoms stemming from a major gas leak in 2015.

Posted in Air Quality, Aliso Canyon, California, Methane, Natural Gas / Comments are closed

Markets offer solutions to New England energy challenges

By Liz Delaney / Published: February 5, 2018

A recent report published by ISO-New England, the Operational Fuel Security Analysis, has certainly grabbed the region’s attention.

“The ISO has been able to maintain power system reliability during severe winter conditions without using all its emergency procedures,” the report says. “However, the evolving generation mix is increasingly susceptible to variable and uncertain factors.”

The study looks ahead at the 2024/2025 time frame, examining 23 scenarios for coal, oil, gas, nuclear and renewable sources. While it says the system is maintaining a delicate balance for now, “study results suggest that in the future, New England could be headed for significant levels of emergency actions, particularly during major fuel or resource outages.”

Although EDF doesn’t necessarily agree with all the assumptions in the study, ISO New England is asking the right questions at the right time. So what are the best policies and actions we can take to ensure the New England utility grid is clean, reliable, and resilient?

Posted in General, Natural Gas, Utility Business Models / Comments are closed

Are electric vehicles finally taking off? Here’s what you need to know.

By EDF Blogs / Published: January 31, 2018

By Jason Mathers, supply chain director at EDF, Corporate Partnerships

Electric vehicles are poised to take off. We’ve just closed a year of record demand and investment. It’s no longer a question of whether electric vehicles – or EVs – will arrive, it’s how: How big of a role will EVs play, how soon and how clean will they be?

Popularizing EVs will depend on tackling key challenges. We’re seeing progress on several fronts. Read More »

Posted in Electric Vehicles / Comments are closed

Utilities planning to move Californians to time-of-use pricing need solutions for low-income customers

By EDF Blogs / Published: January 30, 2018

By Andy Bilich, clean energy analyst, and Jamie Fine, senior economist

Last month, all three of California’s major investor-owned utilities submitted applications to the California Public Utilities Commission detailing their respective strategies for how to transition residential customers to time-of-use pricing. Time-of-use pricing, if done right, is a low-cost strategy to help meet California’s climate and clean energy goals. This innovative tool can help the state rely more on clean energy and less on fossil fuels, at the same time delaying the need for new infrastructure and reducing costs and harmful emissions. While a significant number of Californians will be able to adapt to this new pricing, the shift this summer and next will likely be more challenging for some ─ namely, low-income customers in hot areas of the state.

Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) supports time-of-use pricing for its benefits to the environment, the electric system, and customer’s pockets. However, the utility plans have some troubling gaps that may prevent the new system working for everyone. For California to pioneer a clean economy for all, the utilities and the commission must proactively overcome barriers facing vulnerable customers who need more help adjusting to time-of-use rates. Read More »

Posted in California, Electricity Pricing, Time of Use / Read 2 Responses

The BLM rule should be in effect – what happened and what’s next?

By Dan Grossman / Published: January 29, 2018

January 17th should have been a positive milestone for Westerners and all Americans as limits on the unnecessary waste of American taxpayer-owned natural gas were slated to go into effect. Instead, Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, who has repeatedly shown that the least responsible companies in the oil and gas industry have his ear, has suspended this rule and greenlit the waste of millions of taxpayer dollars that could have gone to infrastructure, roads, education, and more.

The careless act is part of a pattern from Secretary Zinke and the Trump administration of misusing taxpayer resources and cozying up to the most egregious polluters. Even worse, the administration defended its efforts to remove the “burden” of involving the public in decision-making on public lands in a House Natural Resources Subcommittee hearing.

Posted in BLM Methane, Methane, Natural Gas / Comments are closed

New federal tax law is a boon for electric utilities – another reason not to bail out Ohio’s coal and nuclear plants

By John Finnigan / Published: January 29, 2018

BLOG UPDATE – FEBRUARY 16, 2018

Environmental Defense Fund and other environmental groups submitted comments [PDF] to the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio on the federal tax reform, and why the Commission should reconsider utilities’ requests to increase rates to help prop up their old coal and nuclear plants. The groups suggest the utilities should pass the savings back to customers and, in addition, consider using some of the funds to modernize the electric grid and benefit customers.

For the past few years, Ohio’s electric utilities have asked state lawmakers and the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) to bail out their old coal and nuclear plants. The storyline is, the power plants are losing money in the competitive wholesale market, so the utilities want customers to subsidize the losses and allow the plants to stay open.

To keep old plants running is throwing good money after bad. And the new federal tax law will give utilities a huge bonanza anyway, so the requested subsidies are even more unnecessary.

Tax breaks and bailouts

The new federal tax law is a jackpot for electric utilities. Congress passed the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act in late December, reducing the corporate income tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent. For the regulated businesses, the tax cut should benefit customers via lower electricity bills. But for the utilities’ unregulated businesses, the tax cut will benefit the utilities’ shareholders. Read More »

Posted in FirstEnergy, Ohio / Read 3 Responses