As PG&E undergoes a reorganization after declaring bankruptcy, cities around Northern California are working to figure out how to take over the distribution of electricity, hoping to better serve residents.
Category: Utilities
Posted inClimate Change, Environment, News, Sea Level Rise, Utilities
Sea Level Rise in S.F. Will Affect More Than the Waterfront
Professor Kristina Hill, of the University of California, Berkeley, outlines how sea level rise is likely to affect San Francisco, the danger posed by toxic waste and how the city could adapt.
“Places that people think are not going to flood because there’ll be a levee or a wall may actually flood as that groundwater comes right up through the surface of the soil.” — Kristina Hill
This story was produced in collaboration with Covering Climate Now. Covering Climate Now is a global journalism initiative committed to bringing more and better coverage to the defining story of our time.
Posted inPublic Safety, Utilities
Power Switch: S.F. Builds Case for Pushing Out PG&E
As local regulators push for greater or total electricity independence, some daunting realities confront the dream of a San Francisco free of the nation’s largest electrical utility and some of the highest rates in the land.
Posted inUtilities
S.F. Report: Benefits of Buying PG&E’s Grid Outweigh Costs, Risks
A San Francisco Public Utilities Commission report foresees big benefits and potential savings from the city buying PG&E’s electrical grid. But the costs and risks are also big.
Posted inCity Hall, Elections, Labor, San Francisco 2015 Nonpartisan Election Guide, Utilities
Propositions G and H: Defining ‘Clean’ or ‘Green’ Energy
To wrap your head around these dueling ballot measures, you first need to understand CleanPowerSF, San Francisco’s forthcoming municipal utility system that breaks Pacific Gas & Electric’s monopoly on delivering electricity to city residents.
Posted inClimate Change, Climate Change, Economy & Business, Environment, Utilities
Carbon Storage Could Aid Climate, but at What Cost?
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.
Posted inClimate Change, Environment, Politics, Utilities
Obama’s Climate Change Strategy Will Limit Carbon Dioxide Emissions
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.
Posted inClimate Change, Environment, Government & Politics, Utilities
California’s Hunger for Low-Carbon Power Could Hurt Other States
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.
Posted inEnvironment, Government & Politics, Utilities
Dirtytech: They Obsessively Sort and Recycle What You Dump
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.