San Francisco Public Press (https://www.sfpublicpress.org/category/utilities/page/4/)
While building a power plant in Southern California that buries carbon dioxide underground can help the industry meet California’s greenhouse gas and gas reduction goals, local concerns regarding health effects and air pollutants challenge the project’s environmental claims.
This story is part of a special report on climate change in the Summer print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
President Barack Obama will soon announce a plan to limit carbon dioxide emissions from existing power plants, making tackling climate change a second term priority, according to The New York Times.
California’s effort to ensure that the state receives low carbon electricity could end up increasing greenhouse gas emissions elsewhere in the country, thanks to a practice known as contract reshuffling.Importing low-carbon electricity from out-of-state suppliers of renewable sources such as solar, wind, geothermal and hydropower is one way California’s electric utilities can decrease their carbon emissions.
This story is part of a special report on climate change in the Summer print edition of the San Francisco Public Press.
If you think of Recology as a set of blue, green and black bins that hang out in the alley of your house that you roll out to the curb weekly — you have no idea. Over the last 10 years, what San Franciscans have been thinking of “garbage collection” has been transformed into something vastly different and much more industrial. Last month the 91-year-old worker-owned company announced that 80 percent of what San Franciscans put in the bins is going somewhere other than the landfill, a vast improvement on the 34 percent national average. The 650 tons a day of recyclables hauled by Recology is divided up almost entirely by hand, by a vast army of sorters.
The next time you pass a power pole consider this: Pacific Gas & Electric expects that pole to be there until the year 2357 and perhaps until 2785. The average PG&E pole has just nine years of useful life left, according to PG&E’s sworn testimony asking for more money to speed pole replacement. It got money through rate hikes to replace poles on a 50-year cycle, but it has been replacing them on a 346 to 778 year cycle while, by PG&E’s own testimony, diverting that money to other purposes.
Extreme biodiversity, coupled with the surrounding extreme urbanism, makes the Presidio arguably the epicenter of native plant restoration in the West. The 2.3 square mile park, formerly an Army base, is home to 600 plants, more variety than in most states. It owes this biodiversity to its San Francisco location, a city at a biogeographic crossroads. At the Presidio, Betty Young leads a team of botanists that collect and grow native plants as part of a painstakingly precise attempt to restore the park’s native habitat.
PG&E has proposed charging residential customers to opt out of having wireless transmission of electric meters turned off at their homes.
The proposal announced Thursday would allow the utility to recoup the expenses it says are associated with running an opt-out program by charging participating customers. The utility has come up with a rate program with one-time charges of either $135 or $270, plus either monthly fixed charges or a surcharge on hourly rates for gas and electric.
A Muni light-rail vehicle was struck by a big rig Monday morning, injuring six people, according to San Francisco Fire Department spokeswoman Lieutenant Mindy Talmadge, in an incident that highlights the rancorous debate happening right now at the state level concerning the city’s transport safety.
The California Public Utilities Commission is weighing a decision to penalize San Francisco’s Metropolitan Transit Agency for alleged violations of key safety regulations on its light-rail system, including defective tracks and a malfunctioning automatic train control system.
A failure to communicate more regularly, and transparently, with the state was another charge leveled at the agency in a recent report issued by the commission, which oversees safety guidelines for all rail systems in the state..
The California Public Utilities Commission has decided to allow PG&E customers to opt-out of having Smart Meters installed in their homes in Northern California.
PG&E is expected to present a proposal back to the commission within two weeks to allow the opt-out “at a reasonable customer cost,” according to utilities commission President Michael Peevey.
Foes of the Smart Meters were pushing for a moratorium on further installation of the devices.
The city says it spends $3.5 million annually on unclogging sewers from fats, oils and grease from food service establishments. A new ordinance that received a unanimous vote by the Board of Supervisors this week requires all restaurants to have a grease capturing device. The devices will be inspected by the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to make sure they are working properly and are well-maintained.
