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Next month is the ASPO conference in Sacramento CA. Nate Hagens will be one of the speakers in the plenary (as well as on the Sunday TOD breakout panels). Here is a video of the talk he gave last year at the international ASPO VI venue in Cork Ireland. The speech covered net energy, energy properties and externalities on the supply side and addiction, relative fitness and steep discount rates from an evolutionary perspective on the demand side. Here is a link to the slides themselves, (which aren't fully shown at times on the video).

Last week, Secretary of the Interior, Ken Salazar, hosted the last of 4 public forums around the country to gather input on offshore drilling and offshore renewable energy development. Choosing to end in San Francisco means he is going back to Washington with a resounding "No" in his ears. "No" to offshore drilling and "Yes" to investing in renewable energy, and any other new green technology San Francisco start-ups can figure out. All the California elected officials on the dais (Boxer, Lee, Speire, Napolitano, Woolsey, Lt Governor Garamendi) and Oregon governor Kulongoski made very clear, and sometimes even passionate, statements to the effect that CA needs and values its coastline the way it is, and the potential output of oil (estimated 1% of US daily consumption by 2030) comes no where near to justifying the risk posed to its economy and ecosystem.

"In a fight that showed the flaws in California's ballot initiative process and the sheer nerve of PG&E, the state's largest utility, clean energy and local control has won. Proposition 16, which would have change California's constitution to force cities and counties to get the approval of two-thirds of their voters before using public money to invest in local energy projects or utilities. PG&E spent over $46 million on the effort, which would have ensured its monopoly. Prop 16 stems from a 2002 state law, that allowed "community choice aggregation," which allows counties or cities to purchase electricity while utilities continue to offer the infrastructure for power delivery--the power lines, distribution equipment, supply natural, and even billing. "

Four Federal agencies today released a Final Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (Final PEIS) proposing to designate more than 6,000 miles of energy transport corridors on Federal lands in 11 Western States. The Department of the Interior's Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Departments of Energy, Agriculture, and Defense (the Agencies) prepared the Final PEIS as part of their work to implement Section 368 of the Energy Policy Act of 2005. The proposed energy corridors would facilitate future siting of oil, gas, and hydrogen pipelines, as well as electricity transmission and distribution facilities on Federal lands in the West to meet the region's increasing energy demands while mitigating potential harmful effects to the environment.

Who's going to control the local electric grid, and thus the city's energy future? Two months after Pacific Gas and Electric Co. spent $10 million to defeat a clean energy measure on the San Francisco ballot, Sup. Sophie Maxwell has stepped into the battle, introducing a mild ordinance that lifts some of the language from the Clean Energy Act but would accomplish very little. We're glad to see Maxwell stepping up her efforts to close the dirty Mirant Power Plant in Potrero Hill, but her legislation needs some significant amendments. Maxwell's ordinance, cosponsored by Sup. Aaron Peskin (who is one meeting away from being termed out), would make it city policy to "take all feasible steps" to close the Potrero plant. That's a laudable goal. It also borrows the aggressive environmental goals from the Clean Energy Act, stating that the city needs to meet all its energy needs by 2040 with renewable power. But unlike the Clean Energy Act, Maxwell's mandate ignores PG&E, which supplies the vast majority of the electricity in San Francisco and which can't even meet the state's weak alternative energy standards. Her requirement would apply only to the city's own power supplies, which come mostly from the Hetch Hetchy hydroelectric project and thus already meet the 2040 standards.

Steven Chu, President-elect Barack Obama's choice to lead the Department of Energy, seems about as climate friendly as they come. As a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and director of the DOE-funded Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, he has dedicated his career to weaning the globe from petroleum. But Chu, who declined to comment for this story, is also more industry friendly than his rhetoric suggests. Last year he sealed a deal between the Berkeley Lab, two public universities, and oil company BP, creating the largest university-industry alliance in US history, the $500 million Energy Biosciences Institute, to conduct biofuels research. The proposal sparked fierce opposition from faculty and students at the University of California-Berkeley, which will host the institute. Biology professor Ignacio Chapela called the partnership the "coup de grace to the very idea of a university that can represent the best interest of the public."

"San Diego doesn't need to import sunshine from the desert," said Weiner, conservation coordinator for the San Diego-based Desert Protective Council. Environmentalists have won some rounds. SDG&E had been pushing to build Sunrise through the heart of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, a recreational jewel beloved by hikers and campers. That 150-mile route appears doomed after recent decisions by an administrative law judge and a utilities commission member. * Map Map Judge Jean Veith wants the commission to reject the Sunrise Powerlink because she has concluded it's too costly, too harmful to the environment and not needed for SDG&E to meet clean-energy mandates.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is today expected to adopt the most radical global warming plan in the U.S., and possibly the world. If passed, it will force individuals, as well as the state's utilities, refineries and large factories to fundamentally change the way they do business, and slash greenhouse gas emissions. The plan will outline for the first time how people and businesses will be required to meet the state's 2006 'Global Warming Solutions Act' and transform California into a global leader in the fight against climate change. The board will be in session all day to consider approval of the AB 32 Scoping Plan to Reduce GHG Emissions in California. Key aspects of the plan include: * The creation of a carbon-credit 'cap and trade' market designed to give the state's major polluters cheaper ways to cut emissions; * A Low Carbon Fuel standard; * Stringent transport related greenhouse gas targets; * A target of generating 33% of the states's electricity from renewable energy by 2020; * Ambitious vehicle efficiency measures; * Implementation of a high speed rail system; * A radical green building strategy.

Sempra Energy is an energy company based in San Diego, California with 2007 revenues of $11 billion. Sempra Energy is the parent company of San Diego Gas & Electric, Southern California Gas Co., Sempra Generation, Sempra LNG and Sempra Pipelines & Storage.[1]

Nearly a dozen times over the past century, San Francisco voters have rejected ballot measures to support a takeover of the city's privately run electricity system. But advocates of public power haven't given up their goal of wresting control from Pacific Gas and Electric Co., and this year are linking support of the measure to combating global warming and securing energy independence.

If California expands its renewable power generation to be a third of electricity delivered in the state by 2020, it may cost $60 billion, the state's utility regulator said in a report issued on Thursday. It is more costly to make electricity with renewable power -- solar, wind, geothermal and other sources that emit no or low amounts of global-warming greenhouse gases -- than with natural gas, nuclear and coal power plants.

Just days before a scheduled Board of Supervisors' vote Tuesday on a "clean energy" plan, Pacific Gas and Electric Co. submitted a brief summary of its proposal to join with local governments to boost use of renewable energy. The PG&E summary, which contained few details, was submitted to the county on Friday in advance of supervisors' decision on whether to join a Marin County joint powers authority that would compete with PG&E for Marin customers. Supporters of the Marin Clean Energy initiative say the authority would match PG&E's rates while substantially reducing use of nonrenewable, "dirty" energy required to meet Marin County's energy needs.

Two of the world's richest men bankroll alternative-energy initiatives on the November ballot. Each is opposed by some of the very champions of those alternatives. Adding to the confusion, both measures carry "renewable energy" in their titles.

California utility regulators conclude that a seven-year fraud by the company caused substantial harm to customers and could have diminished worker safety. The state Public Utilities Commission on Thursday levied a $30-million fine -- its largest ever -- against Southern California Edison and ordered the utility to refund more than $81 million to customers, concluding that a seven-year fraud caused substantial harm to consumers and could have diminished worker safety. Although the fine is a record for the PUC, it is $10 million less than what was ordered in late 2007 by a commission judge. The decision also substantially reduced the judge's refund order, cutting Edison's total price tag from the fraud to $146 million from $200 million.

Costly as it may seem, California's mandate to cut climate-altering exhausts from vehicles and industry by nearly one-third in the next 12 years actually will boost the economy, a state analysis released Wednesday predicts. The improvements in fuel and energy efficiency and extra clean-technology jobs needed to achieve the required 30 percent emissions reduction would result in a net household savings of $400 to $500 a year and a net 0.2 percent or $4 billion gain in the total annual output of goods and services, according to the report.

What are the real implications of peak oil in a culture where common sense has been suppressed by consumerism? A lot of parenting is about common sense. Deep down as parents, we realize that if a child gets showered with gifts, they become unappreciative. If they receive things because they stamp their feet and scream, that behavior will continue because it has been rewarded. In the last few decades however, common sense seems to be on the decline and its commonality is certainly fading. Let me give you an example. When I was growing up, my parents would have a birthday party for me with perhaps five or six friends at maximum. There would be sandwiches, cake, balloons and big back yard in which to play. There might be a treasure hunt or a simple game, if my mother was feeling energetic. For the large part though, I was instructed to entertain my friends on my own, hardly an onerous task. The end result was an enjoyable afternoon and a few small gifts for me to play with, once everyone else had gone home.

Offshore drilling became a campaign issue as gasoline prices hit $4 a gallon. Public opinion polls show that not only do Americans want their elected leaders to do something about it, but they think drilling for oil on the continental shelf is a great idea.

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - U.S. regulators should weigh the environmental impact of oil sands extraction in Canada before granting permits for pipelines that will carry the rising flood of Canadian crude to refineries in the United States, a green group said on Wednesday. The recommendation was one of several in a report by the Washington-based Environmental Integrity Project on massive expansions and retoolings of U.S. refineries aimed at running more oil derived from the oil sands of northern Alberta.

Because of their sheer scale, all Canadians are affected by the Tar Sands, no matter where they live. If you live downstream, your water is being polluted and your fish and wildlife may be dangerous to eat. If you live in Saskatchewan you are a victim of acid rain. If you live in BC, "supertankers" may soon be plying your shoreline carrying Tar Sands oil to Asia. If you live in Ontario, you are exposed to harmful emissions from the refining of Tar Sands Oil. And the impacts do not stop at Canada's border - US refineries are re-tooling to handle the dirty oil from Alberta.