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"content": "\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced through a collaboration between \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/\">KQED\u003c/a> in California and \u003ca href=\"https://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeff Hunerlach, a building trades union leader based in Humboldt County, doesn’t represent any maritime workers — but he expects a windfall of new jobs for his members from two clusters of wind turbines planned on floating platforms 20 miles off the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the turbines are unlikely to generate power for another decade, the transformation of 80 acres of waterfront land in Humboldt into a hub for offshore wind operators and their vessels is imminent following a federal lease auction earlier this month. Similar work will be needed in Morro Bay, onshore from three clusters of wind turbines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The work starts now,” said Hunerlach, district representative at Operating Engineers Local No. 3 and local leader of 16 affiliated locals representing a variety of trades laborers. “For Humboldt this means growing the middle class.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joining the chorus of environmental groups that celebrated the results of the lease auctions were unions representing electricians, laborers and other trades — groups that for decades were frequently at odds with the green movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Substantial new waterfront infrastructure will be needed at Humboldt and Morro Bay to bring electricity from offshore wind turbines onto shore, where it will power homes, electric vehicles and industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Humboldt port, Hunerlach anticipates that hundreds of union workers will be employed during construction, with additional permanent jobs once the facility is running. Statewide, he expects that the number of jobs created to support the new industry will be in the “tens of thousands.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wind farm development rights were secured by large energy companies already developing wind farms on the East Coast, where shallower waters allow for the use of traditional tower-based designs. Some of the winning bidders are transitioning or expanding from fossil fuel to clean energy production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981159\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981159 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic.jpg\" alt=\"A blue graphic with a gray map of California. Turbines are located off the state's northern and central coast. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The floating platforms would be located about 20 miles off the state’s coast.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“On an overall basis for offshore wind, we see the U.S. market as one of the top one or two markets globally that we’ll be investing in over the next decade and a half,” said Sam Eaton, a U.S.-based executive at RWE, a German energy company founded more than a century ago that secured the rights to build one of the wind farms off Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we focused in on the floating offshore wind space, California’s option really put the U.S. right at the forefront,” Eaton said. “It’s one of the first to hit the kind of scale that we’re talking about and sets up the Western part of the country extremely well to be a hub for the industry globally.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Best wind potential\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While offshore wind power is a significant component of energy industries in Europe and Asia, just a handful of turbines are currently generating power in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A belated offshore wind farming boom along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts is anticipated in the years and decades ahead, aided by international technology and know-how. Offshore wind energy is also being considered for Hawaii.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Offshore wind farming off the West Coast is complicated by the closeness to shore of the steep continental shelf. Waters viable for wind farming are too deep for the towers that hold most offshore turbines in place worldwide. The wind farms off California will be among the first in the world to float on giant platforms tethered to the seafloor and connected to land through electrical cables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Efforts to build out the new industry will create jobs while providing federal incentives for developers to invest in coastal communities where new infrastructure will be needed. The efforts are, however, creating clashes with fishing fleets fretful not only of losing hunting grounds, but of broader impacts on their quarry from the new approach to renewables generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981066\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981066 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut.jpg\" alt=\"An older man who appears to be of both white and Asian ancestry, with close-cropped gray hair and a black hoodie pictured below-deck of a boat on a bright yet cloudy, glare-y day.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2400\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-800x1000.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-1020x1275.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-160x200.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-768x960.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-1229x1536.jpg 1229w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-1638x2048.jpg 1638w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dick Ogg is a commercial fisherman based out of Bodega Bay. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to throw billions of dollars into something that we don’t really know what the impact is going to be,” said Dick Ogg, a commercial fisherman of crab, albacore, black cod and rockfish. He’s based out of Bodega Bay but chases salmon from the state’s North Coast south to Morro Bay, which is another quiet part of California where an infrastructure boom is planned to get electricity from offshore wind turbines to land-based power customers. “We’d like to see a project that is smaller.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fishing fleets nationally are angry about what they say is a lack of consultation with them by wind developers and by the federal government, with hundreds of lobstermen in Maine attending protests about plans there. Tribes, too, say their members are being ignored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re asking developers to simply view us for what we are: sovereign nations,” said Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, who for thousands of years have lived on the redwood coast and along the Klamath River in what is now northwestern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yurok tribal leaders spoke with half a dozen potential developers in advance of California’s offshore wind auction, but Myers said they weren’t consulted by RWE or the other auction winners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers said the worst impacts would be visual, viewed from sacred high country, particularly at night during ceremonies that include prayers. But he said the tribe also worries about unknown effects of rapid development in what has long been a quiet region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The last thing we want to do is destroy the environment in the process of trying to save it.” Myers said. “This gung ho approach of having a single-minded goal is exactly how that happens. We have to look at this. We have to weigh every step. That’s what we do as tribal people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RWE’s Eaton said the company had held off on engaging with groups like fishing fleets and tribes in California until it had won a lease at auction. “We’re prepared to begin those dialogues very soon,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at Princeton University modeled a variety of pathways that could see the U.S. reach net carbon neutrality by 2050, meaning the nation would stop being a net climate polluter by that point. Without offshore wind, it would technically be possible to reach “net zero” by 2050, but that would be “more expensive than tapping into the abundant strong wind potential that’s right off our shores,” said Jesse Jenkins, a member of Princeton’s \u003ca href=\"https://netzeroamerica.princeton.edu/?explorer=pathway&state=national&table=e-positive&limit=200\">Net-Zero America project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best wind potential in the country, if not the world, is off the Northern California and Southern Oregon coast,” Jenkins said. “It’s an important resource that the region is looking to tap into.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Net-Zero America project didn’t consider potential wave energy generation because it isn’t yet commercially viable, Jenkins said the heavy chop of the Pacific Ocean could eventually be used to produce this additional form of clean ocean energy — perhaps operating off the same floating platforms as wind turbines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are several companies working to develop wave energy,” Jenkins said. “It’s very difficult to build things that can survive the pummeling of West Coast waves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A cornerstone of ambitious plans\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>State renewable energy mandates in California and elsewhere have for years spurred planning of offshore wind farming, with the goal of replacing power plants that generate the pollution responsible for climate change. More recently the federal government under President Joe Biden has been working to open up additional offshore waters for potential leases and to eliminate development bottlenecks imposed by the pro-fossil-fuel Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California air regulators have charted an ambitious path to dramatically reducing planet-warming emissions over the next two decades, which Gov. Gavin Newsom has said will “spur an economic transformation akin to the industrial revolution” and create a “pollution-free future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To hit clean energy targets that are among the most ambitious in the world, California will have to foster the construction of renewable generating capacity faster than ever before. The state is relying on robust offshore wind development in this plan, and it wants to see 5 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity installed by 2030, which would be roughly equivalent to the output of eight or 10 natural gas power plants. The goal quadruples by 2045.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is working to overcome workforce and technological barriers that could hinder the new industry, and it’s banking on rapid global innovation to push wind farms into deeper waters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Floating platforms are going through a period of great innovation,” said Stephanie McClellan, executive director of the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://turnforward.org/about/\">Turn Forward\u003c/a>, which aims to accelerate the build-out of offshore wind farms nationally. Gas-and-oil drillers already use floating turbines, and some of those designs are being adapted for wind farming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re starting to see a variety of different innovations, a number of different designs,” McClellan said. “We’ll start to see which of these are going to rise to the top in terms of usage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While floating technology is essential for building wind turbines along California’s coast, it in many ways could turn out to be superior to the fixed-tower turbines that currently dominate the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because building further offshore, where floating technology would be required even along the East Coast and along other shallower coastlines, reaches stronger winds while reducing potential conflicts with fishing fleets. It can also ease concerns of residents and tourism operators about impacts of wind farms on ocean views. “There’s higher wind speeds in deeper waters,” McLellan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981064 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Blue water with small white turbines photographed from the sky. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This aerial photograph taken on June 16, 2022, shows a wind turbine farm in the Baltic Sea, northeast of the island of Rügen in Germany. \u003ccite>(Fred Tanneau/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Some environmental risks, many benefits\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Assessing the likely environmental impacts of floating wind generation is difficult “because there’s not an awful lot of it in the world,” said Andrea Copping, an oceanographer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. After spending a decade investigating likely impacts, she said, “I think the risks are reasonably small and manageable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the turbines will be so far out to sea, there would be fewer threats of turbine blades striking land-based birds and bats, Copping said. And tethering of platforms to the seafloor should cause fewer harms than the installation of towers, which require extensive pile driving that can harm whales and other wildlife by creating underwater booms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more platforms you put out there, you increase the risk incrementally with each one,” Copping said. “If I have concerns at all, it’s probably looking 30 or 40 years in the future with many, many things out there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Impacts aside, some environmentalists are leery at the presence of fossil fuel companies in the growing offshore wind sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shell is a joint-venture partner on a wind farm planned off the coast of New Jersey, which is leading efforts on the East Coast to attract offshore wind farm manufacturing and other facilities to its shores. Other gas and oil giants like BP registered to bid for last week’s auction, though none emerged as auction winners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeff Tittel, a veteran New Jersey environmentalist and former president of the state’s Sierra Club chapter, points out that many of the wind developers setting up operations in the U.S. retain extensive fossil fuel operations, which he says erodes trust. RWE, for example, operates natural-gas-fired power plants across Western Europe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I kind of get it, that energy companies want to diversify, like they used to be coal, and then they went into oil and then they went into wind and solar,” Tittel said. “Does that mean that they’re willing to go to 100% renewable and put their other businesses out of business? That’s why I say there’s a trust issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981065\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981065 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Men in orange, yellow, gray shirts and hard hats stand in front of a crane. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jeff Hunerlach (far left), district representative at Operating Engineers Local No. 3, photographed here with the Golden State Bridge operating engineers. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jeff Hunerlach)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For unions, working for fossil fuel companies is nothing new. What’s new for them are vast workforce opportunities in a fast-emerging industry — one that’s slowing the destruction of a livable climate, instead of contributing to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a climate change issue,” said Hunerlach, the union official in Humboldt County. “We’re really excited to be able to be part of this historic new industry.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Efforts to build out the new industry will create jobs while providing federal incentives for developers to invest in coastal communities where new infrastructure will be needed.",
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"title": "California Jobs Boom Anticipated Following Offshore Wind Auction | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cem>This story was produced through a collaboration between \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/\">KQED\u003c/a> in California and \u003ca href=\"https://www.climatecentral.org/\">Climate Central\u003c/a>.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeff Hunerlach, a building trades union leader based in Humboldt County, doesn’t represent any maritime workers — but he expects a windfall of new jobs for his members from two clusters of wind turbines planned on floating platforms 20 miles off the coast.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the turbines are unlikely to generate power for another decade, the transformation of 80 acres of waterfront land in Humboldt into a hub for offshore wind operators and their vessels is imminent following a federal lease auction earlier this month. Similar work will be needed in Morro Bay, onshore from three clusters of wind turbines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The work starts now,” said Hunerlach, district representative at Operating Engineers Local No. 3 and local leader of 16 affiliated locals representing a variety of trades laborers. “For Humboldt this means growing the middle class.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Joining the chorus of environmental groups that celebrated the results of the lease auctions were unions representing electricians, laborers and other trades — groups that for decades were frequently at odds with the green movement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Substantial new waterfront infrastructure will be needed at Humboldt and Morro Bay to bring electricity from offshore wind turbines onto shore, where it will power homes, electric vehicles and industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the Humboldt port, Hunerlach anticipates that hundreds of union workers will be employed during construction, with additional permanent jobs once the facility is running. Statewide, he expects that the number of jobs created to support the new industry will be in the “tens of thousands.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The wind farm development rights were secured by large energy companies already developing wind farms on the East Coast, where shallower waters allow for the use of traditional tower-based designs. Some of the winning bidders are transitioning or expanding from fossil fuel to clean energy production.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981159\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981159 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic.jpg\" alt=\"A blue graphic with a gray map of California. Turbines are located off the state's northern and central coast. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic-800x450.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic-1020x574.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic-160x90.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic-768x432.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/kqed-graphic-1536x864.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The floating platforms would be located about 20 miles off the state’s coast.\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“On an overall basis for offshore wind, we see the U.S. market as one of the top one or two markets globally that we’ll be investing in over the next decade and a half,” said Sam Eaton, a U.S.-based executive at RWE, a German energy company founded more than a century ago that secured the rights to build one of the wind farms off Northern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“When we focused in on the floating offshore wind space, California’s option really put the U.S. right at the forefront,” Eaton said. “It’s one of the first to hit the kind of scale that we’re talking about and sets up the Western part of the country extremely well to be a hub for the industry globally.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Best wind potential\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>While offshore wind power is a significant component of energy industries in Europe and Asia, just a handful of turbines are currently generating power in the U.S.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A belated offshore wind farming boom along the Atlantic, Pacific and Gulf coasts is anticipated in the years and decades ahead, aided by international technology and know-how. Offshore wind energy is also being considered for Hawaii.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Offshore wind farming off the West Coast is complicated by the closeness to shore of the steep continental shelf. Waters viable for wind farming are too deep for the towers that hold most offshore turbines in place worldwide. The wind farms off California will be among the first in the world to float on giant platforms tethered to the seafloor and connected to land through electrical cables.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Efforts to build out the new industry will create jobs while providing federal incentives for developers to invest in coastal communities where new infrastructure will be needed. The efforts are, however, creating clashes with fishing fleets fretful not only of losing hunting grounds, but of broader impacts on their quarry from the new approach to renewables generation.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981066\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981066 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut.jpg\" alt=\"An older man who appears to be of both white and Asian ancestry, with close-cropped gray hair and a black hoodie pictured below-deck of a boat on a bright yet cloudy, glare-y day.\" width=\"1920\" height=\"2400\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-800x1000.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-1020x1275.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-160x200.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-768x960.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-1229x1536.jpg 1229w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61560_DSC01937-qut-1638x2048.jpg 1638w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Dick Ogg is a commercial fisherman based out of Bodega Bay. \u003ccite>(Aryk Copley/KQED)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“We’re going to throw billions of dollars into something that we don’t really know what the impact is going to be,” said Dick Ogg, a commercial fisherman of crab, albacore, black cod and rockfish. He’s based out of Bodega Bay but chases salmon from the state’s North Coast south to Morro Bay, which is another quiet part of California where an infrastructure boom is planned to get electricity from offshore wind turbines to land-based power customers. “We’d like to see a project that is smaller.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Fishing fleets nationally are angry about what they say is a lack of consultation with them by wind developers and by the federal government, with hundreds of lobstermen in Maine attending protests about plans there. Tribes, too, say their members are being ignored.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re asking developers to simply view us for what we are: sovereign nations,” said Frankie Myers, vice chairman of the Yurok Tribe, who for thousands of years have lived on the redwood coast and along the Klamath River in what is now northwestern California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Yurok tribal leaders spoke with half a dozen potential developers in advance of California’s offshore wind auction, but Myers said they weren’t consulted by RWE or the other auction winners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Myers said the worst impacts would be visual, viewed from sacred high country, particularly at night during ceremonies that include prayers. But he said the tribe also worries about unknown effects of rapid development in what has long been a quiet region.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The last thing we want to do is destroy the environment in the process of trying to save it.” Myers said. “This gung ho approach of having a single-minded goal is exactly how that happens. We have to look at this. We have to weigh every step. That’s what we do as tribal people.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>RWE’s Eaton said the company had held off on engaging with groups like fishing fleets and tribes in California until it had won a lease at auction. “We’re prepared to begin those dialogues very soon,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Researchers at Princeton University modeled a variety of pathways that could see the U.S. reach net carbon neutrality by 2050, meaning the nation would stop being a net climate polluter by that point. Without offshore wind, it would technically be possible to reach “net zero” by 2050, but that would be “more expensive than tapping into the abundant strong wind potential that’s right off our shores,” said Jesse Jenkins, a member of Princeton’s \u003ca href=\"https://netzeroamerica.princeton.edu/?explorer=pathway&state=national&table=e-positive&limit=200\">Net-Zero America project\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The best wind potential in the country, if not the world, is off the Northern California and Southern Oregon coast,” Jenkins said. “It’s an important resource that the region is looking to tap into.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the Net-Zero America project didn’t consider potential wave energy generation because it isn’t yet commercially viable, Jenkins said the heavy chop of the Pacific Ocean could eventually be used to produce this additional form of clean ocean energy — perhaps operating off the same floating platforms as wind turbines.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There are several companies working to develop wave energy,” Jenkins said. “It’s very difficult to build things that can survive the pummeling of West Coast waves.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A cornerstone of ambitious plans\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>State renewable energy mandates in California and elsewhere have for years spurred planning of offshore wind farming, with the goal of replacing power plants that generate the pollution responsible for climate change. More recently the federal government under President Joe Biden has been working to open up additional offshore waters for potential leases and to eliminate development bottlenecks imposed by the pro-fossil-fuel Trump administration.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California air regulators have charted an ambitious path to dramatically reducing planet-warming emissions over the next two decades, which Gov. Gavin Newsom has said will “spur an economic transformation akin to the industrial revolution” and create a “pollution-free future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To hit clean energy targets that are among the most ambitious in the world, California will have to foster the construction of renewable generating capacity faster than ever before. The state is relying on robust offshore wind development in this plan, and it wants to see 5 gigawatts of offshore wind capacity installed by 2030, which would be roughly equivalent to the output of eight or 10 natural gas power plants. The goal quadruples by 2045.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California is working to overcome workforce and technological barriers that could hinder the new industry, and it’s banking on rapid global innovation to push wind farms into deeper waters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Floating platforms are going through a period of great innovation,” said Stephanie McClellan, executive director of the nonprofit \u003ca href=\"https://turnforward.org/about/\">Turn Forward\u003c/a>, which aims to accelerate the build-out of offshore wind farms nationally. Gas-and-oil drillers already use floating turbines, and some of those designs are being adapted for wind farming.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re starting to see a variety of different innovations, a number of different designs,” McClellan said. “We’ll start to see which of these are going to rise to the top in terms of usage.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While floating technology is essential for building wind turbines along California’s coast, it in many ways could turn out to be superior to the fixed-tower turbines that currently dominate the industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That’s because building further offshore, where floating technology would be required even along the East Coast and along other shallower coastlines, reaches stronger winds while reducing potential conflicts with fishing fleets. It can also ease concerns of residents and tourism operators about impacts of wind farms on ocean views. “There’s higher wind speeds in deeper waters,” McLellan said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981064\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981064 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Blue water with small white turbines photographed from the sky. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61698_GettyImages-1241365168-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">This aerial photograph taken on June 16, 2022, shows a wind turbine farm in the Baltic Sea, northeast of the island of Rügen in Germany. \u003ccite>(Fred Tanneau/AFP via Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003ch2>Some environmental risks, many benefits\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Assessing the likely environmental impacts of floating wind generation is difficult “because there’s not an awful lot of it in the world,” said Andrea Copping, an oceanographer at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. After spending a decade investigating likely impacts, she said, “I think the risks are reasonably small and manageable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Because the turbines will be so far out to sea, there would be fewer threats of turbine blades striking land-based birds and bats, Copping said. And tethering of platforms to the seafloor should cause fewer harms than the installation of towers, which require extensive pile driving that can harm whales and other wildlife by creating underwater booms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The more platforms you put out there, you increase the risk incrementally with each one,” Copping said. “If I have concerns at all, it’s probably looking 30 or 40 years in the future with many, many things out there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Impacts aside, some environmentalists are leery at the presence of fossil fuel companies in the growing offshore wind sector.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Shell is a joint-venture partner on a wind farm planned off the coast of New Jersey, which is leading efforts on the East Coast to attract offshore wind farm manufacturing and other facilities to its shores. Other gas and oil giants like BP registered to bid for last week’s auction, though none emerged as auction winners.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeff Tittel, a veteran New Jersey environmentalist and former president of the state’s Sierra Club chapter, points out that many of the wind developers setting up operations in the U.S. retain extensive fossil fuel operations, which he says erodes trust. RWE, for example, operates natural-gas-fired power plants across Western Europe.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I kind of get it, that energy companies want to diversify, like they used to be coal, and then they went into oil and then they went into wind and solar,” Tittel said. “Does that mean that they’re willing to go to 100% renewable and put their other businesses out of business? That’s why I say there’s a trust issue.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981065\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\" style=\"max-width: 1920px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981065 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut.jpg\" alt=\"Men in orange, yellow, gray shirts and hard hats stand in front of a crane. \" width=\"1920\" height=\"1280\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut.jpg 1920w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/RS61700_IMG_5344-15-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1920px) 100vw, 1920px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Jeff Hunerlach (far left), district representative at Operating Engineers Local No. 3, photographed here with the Golden State Bridge operating engineers. \u003ccite>(Courtesy of Jeff Hunerlach)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For unions, working for fossil fuel companies is nothing new. What’s new for them are vast workforce opportunities in a fast-emerging industry — one that’s slowing the destruction of a livable climate, instead of contributing to it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This is a climate change issue,” said Hunerlach, the union official in Humboldt County. “We’re really excited to be able to be part of this historic new industry.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Saving Salmon: Chinook Return to California's Far North — With a Lot of Human Help",
"headTitle": "Saving Salmon: Chinook Return to California’s Far North — With a Lot of Human Help | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Chinook salmon haven’t spawned in the McCloud River for more than 80 years. But last summer, thousands of juveniles were born in the waters of this remote tributary, miles upstream of Shasta Dam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The young Chinook salmon — some now finger-sized smolts in mid-migration toward the Pacific Ocean — are part of a state and federal experiment that could help make the McCloud a salmon river once again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Winter-run Chinook were federally listed as endangered in 1994, but recent years have been especially hard for the fish. Facing severe drought and warm river conditions, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nrdc.org/experts/doug-obegi/agencies-planning-disaster-ca-salmon-if-2022-dry\">most winter-run salmon born naturally in the Sacramento River have perished\u003c/a> over the past three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So restoring Chinook to the McCloud has become an urgent priority for state and federal officials. In the first year of a drought-response project, about 40,000 salmon eggs were brought back to the McCloud, a picturesque river in the wilderness of the Cascade mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Iconic in Northern California, Chinook salmon are critical pieces of the region’s environment. They are consumed by sea lions, orcas and bears, and they still support a commercial fishing industry. Chinook remain vital to the culture and traditional foods of Native Americans, including the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, whose historical salmon fishing grounds include the McCloud River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservation experts say the McCloud’s cold, clean water holds great promise as a potential Chinook refuge — and is perhaps even a future stronghold for the species. Restoring salmon there is considered critical to the species’ survival, since they now spawn only in low-lying parts of the Central Valley near Redding and Red Bluff, where it’s often too hot and dry for most newborn fish to survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We probably won’t be able to maintain winter-run Chinook on the valley floor forever,” said Matt Johnson, senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981043\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981043\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Photo shows two hatchery juveniles (with copper tails) that were used to test efficiency of the trapping system and two that spent their early lives imprinting on McCloud River water. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Matt Johnson of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife measures four winter-run Chinook salmon as part of a trial to estimate the species’ production and survival. \u003ccite>(Eric Holmes/UC Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Johnson spent much of the past five months camped beside the incubation site on the lower McCloud River, guarding the eggs and emerging fry and overseeing the experiment, which is a \u003ca href=\"https://wildlife.ca.gov/News/partners-return-winter-run-chinook-salmon-eggs-to-mccloud-river\">collaboration between his agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service (also known as NOAA Fisheries), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, biologists say, the project has gone well. About 90% of the eggs hatched, and the young fish reportedly have thrived in the McCloud, growing faster than hatchery fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recent rainstorms have boosted \u003ca href=\"https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/11377100/#parameterCode=00060&period=P7D\">river flows\u003c/a>, which may increase the odds that salmon will reach the ocean this year, escaping the dangerous water pumps and predators of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project is the first step in a long-term plan that may involve capturing adult winter-run Chinook in the lower Sacramento and transporting them to the McCloud to spawn. It’s a difficult and risky venture for the fish but it may be the best shot the species has at survival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The winter run is headed for extinction, no question, if we don’t develop an artificial system for keeping it going,” said Peter Moyle, a fish biologist at UC Davis who has studied Central Valley fish since the 1970s. He co-authored a \u003ca href=\"https://caltrout.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SOS-II-Fish-in-Hot-Water-Report.pdf\">report warning that many of California’s native salmon and trout are likely to vanish this century (PDF)\u003c/a> as the environment warms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A genetically unique run of salmon, winter-run Chinook once spawned in the McCloud in great numbers, along with other seasonal runs of the fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='medium' align='right' citation='Peter Moyle, fish biologist, UC Davis']‘The winter run is headed for extinction, no question, if we don’t develop an artificial system for keeping it going.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though the Central Valley’s river system, which includes the McCloud River, marks the southern limit of the Chinook’s range, it was once their stronghold. \u003ca href=\"https://cws.ucdavis.edu/library/historical-abundance-and-decline-chinook-salmon-central-valley-region-california\">Between 1 and 2 million fish\u003c/a>, some weighing 50 pounds or more, spawned in the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers each year before the Gold Rush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fish have dwindled to a fraction of their historic abundance. \u003ca href=\"https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=84381&inline\">Spawning numbers of winter-run Chinook\u003c/a> dropped to fewer than 200 in the early 1990s. They’ve rebounded, but their future remains in doubt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The McCloud — a state-designated wild and scenic river — used to offer prime habitat, with deep gravel beds for egg-laying and year-round flows of clean, cold water from Mount Shasta. Construction of Shasta Dam in the 1940s — and Keswick Dam shortly after — changed all this by \u003ca href=\"https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=ceebefd9685143daa5bf30d5a7e0c7fa\">locking ocean-run salmon out of some 500 miles of productive high-elevation habitat\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The salmon became confined instead to the lower reaches of the Sacramento River system, where they did not previously spawn. Blazing temperatures in the summer — when the winter-run fish lay and fertilize their eggs near Redding and Red Bluff — have made it difficult for salmon to thrive. Chinook, especially in their early life stages, are sensitive to high temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only with the support of hatcheries have California salmon remained abundant enough to be fished.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>River habitat for winter-run Chinook salmon has shrunk\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Juvenile Chinook salmon born in the McCloud River once migrated downstream, into the Sacramento River and out to the Pacific Ocean. Today, about 80% of the salmon’s historical river habitat is behind dams, which prevents the adult fish from swimming upstream to spawn. The state is mounting an experiment to return them to the McCloud River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981045\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 740px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981045 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/download-11.png\" alt=\"Color coded map of river habitat for winter-run chinook salmon.\" width=\"740\" height=\"561\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/download-11.png 740w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/download-11-160x121.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Map of river habitat for winter-run Chinook salmon. \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For decades, fishing groups, agencies and Winnemem Wintu tribal leaders have pondered the possibility of reintroducing salmon into the McCloud. Finally, last spring and summer, after two poor spawning years in a row — and with a third one looking likely — federal and state agencies took action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year “temperature modeling going into the winter-run spawning season showed a lot of uncertainty — basically a 50-50 chance of being able to maintain suitable temperatures for winter-run eggs to develop in the river,” said Johnson of the Department of Fish and Wildlife.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A bumpy trip for precious salmon eggs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Because winter-run Chinook are listed as endangered, fishery agencies are scrambling to save the fish. Last spring they transported about three dozen adult winter-run Chinook trapped at the base of Keswick Dam, just north of Redding, about 50 miles southeast to the north fork of Battle Creek, a tributary near Red Bluff where waters typically run cool and clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also launched a more complicated effort: They took winter-run Chinook eggs from adult fish at a federal salmon hatchery and transported them up and over Shasta Dam to a remote national forest campground next to the McCloud River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They came in two batches of 20,000 — the first by truck on a bumpy, 80-mile ride. A helicopter delivered the second clutch. “We wanted to make sure the transportation phase went smoothly,” Johnson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fertilized eggs were incubated in protective cages submerged in river water for weeks. The scientists even placed an electrified barrier around the eggs to protect them from foraging black bears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981046\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981046 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Rachel Johnson of NOAA Fisheries and state biologists Sam Funakoshi and Ross Schaefer check a trap for winter-run Chinook salmon that will be transported downstream of Keswick Dam to help them migrate to the ocean.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rachel Johnson of NOAA Fisheries and state biologists Sam Funakoshi and Ross Schaefer check a trap for winter-run Chinook salmon that will be transported downstream of Keswick Dam to help them migrate to the ocean. \u003ccite>(Carson Jeffres/UC Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Of the 40,000 eggs, Johnson said, about 36,000 emerged as fry. In late summer, the biologists released them into the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientists wanted the fish to spend time in McCloud, both to utilize its invertebrate food sources and to undergo the olfactory imprinting process that enables migrating adult salmon to find their birth streams years later. Indeed, it is this process that gives salmon their remarkable homing powers and would truly make these fish McCloud River salmon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an undisturbed ecosystem, the fish in the river would simply swim downstream, through San Francisco Bay, and out into the ocean. But this unique scenario, where a dam and reservoir block their migration, called on a different approach that required human help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State and federal scientists had to recapture the salmon and release them into the lower Sacramento River. The Fish and Wildlife team placed several traps on the McCloud about 20 miles below the release site and managed to capture 1,600 of them. They then drove the fish downstream and released them into the Sacramento River. If all goes well, some of the young salmon will return from the ocean in two to four years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agencies plan to repeat the project next year, transporting more Chinook eggs up to the McCloud and again hauling the young fish back downstream. “We intend to do it again, and do it better,” Johnson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To improve the program’s effectiveness, scientists are now addressing some unanswered questions from the experiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/contact/rachel-johnson-phd\">Rachel Johnson\u003c/a>, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, wants to know how many of the salmon released at the incubation site made it as far downstream as the fish trap array. This will reveal the survival rate of the released fish and help Johnson and her colleagues better understand the quality of the McCloud’s habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To do this, she is studying data on daily river flow rates and capture rates in the traps, then combining this information with the known effectiveness of the types of gear they used. That, she said, would “give us the number that swam past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From what they already know about the size of the fish upon recapture, it’s looking good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fish in the McCloud were 30 to 40% larger than the average winter-run fish that were being caught at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam,” she said, referring to a structure downstream of Shasta.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A gem in ‘a string of pearls’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A great deal of work has already been done to help Sacramento River salmon. State agencies and conservation groups have \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2018/12/restoring-floodplains-reversal-california-central-valley/\">restored floodplains\u003c/a> and side channels, where slow-moving water provides young fish with abundant food and shelter from predators. This work often involves removing, or carving notches in, levees so that river water can flow over farm fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Johnson sees this connected system of restored habitat parcels as a “string of pearls,” and says the McCloud might be one of its more valuable gems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Better still, the McCloud’s geographic location at the upper end of the watershed could have a beneficial trickle-down effect through the watershed and the early life stages of Chinook, ultimately improving their lifelong survival rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can have such highly productive, good-growth habitat so high in the system, it starts the fish off in such a strong condition,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Protecting areas lower in the watershed are important to Chinook, too. Research by Jacob Katz, biologist with the group California Trout, shows that floodplains restored in the lower stretches of the Sacramento watershed have helped salmon. Smolts grow faster on inundated floodplains than they do in the river’s channelized main stem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katz said reintroducing Chinook to the high-elevation spawning areas in the McCloud will complement the work he has done, and vice versa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Both spawning habitat and rearing habitat are necessary, yet insufficient on their own,” he said. “We need to restore every link in the habitat chain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Ambitious future plans\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The summer’s salmon relocation effort was technically not a reintroduction project but an emergency drought action required by the state and federal endangered species acts and intended to shield winter-run Chinook from drought impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, it’s likely that the McCloud effort of last summer will develop in years ahead into a full-fledged salmon reintroduction program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Randy Beckwith, head of the state Department of Water Resources’ Riverine Stewardship branch, said “the juvenile collection piece is the most difficult part” of a potential long-term McCloud River reintroduction plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981047\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981047 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Marine Sisk, a biologist with the Winnemem Wintu tribe, measures a juvenile winter-run Chinook salmon reared in the McCloud (top) compared to a much smaller similar-age fish reared in the hatchery.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marine Sisk, biologist with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, measures a juvenile winter-run Chinook salmon reared in the McCloud (top) compared to a much smaller similar-age fish reared in the hatchery. \u003ccite>(Eric Holmes/UC Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the state and federal fishery scientists did their work a few miles upstream, Beckwith’s agency tested a $1.5 million contraption dubbed the Juvenile Salmonid Collection System in the narrow McCloud River arm of Lake Shasta. The setup is a floating array designed to deflect floating debris, like logs and trash, while a dangling synthetic curtain funnels the young salmon into a dead-end live trap. The trap component has not been installed yet due to regulatory constraints associated with handling endangered species, but the agency has plans to do so, possibly next summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While traps of the sort already used on the McCloud are designed to catch a sample fraction of a river’s fish, the system the state is working on will hopefully catch all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A successful McCloud River salmon reintroduction would also mean giving adult salmon access to the river. Currently, Keswick Dam, just upstream of Redding, marks the end of the line for free-swimming adult salmon. If they are to get beyond this point, fishery managers will need to do one of two things: build a stairway, called a fish ladder or fishway, which leads migrating salmon around a dam, or trap the fish and truck them upstream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ladders would give the salmon autonomy to migrate on their own. But Shasta Dam is a 600-foot-high barrier, so hauling them instead would be much cheaper. It is generally considered the only feasible solution on the table, although federal officials have no firm plans to do so yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But scientists have questioned the effectiveness of trap-and-haul programs. In a 2017 paper, Moyle and a colleague, biologist \u003ca href=\"https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/people/robert-lusardi\">Robert Lusardi\u003c/a>, warned that \u003ca href=\"https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03632415.2017.1356124\">it can cause high mortality rates in transferred fish\u003c/a>, both adults going upstream and juveniles coming downstream. A trap-and-haul program for salmon “should proceed with extreme caution,” they wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s another option, too. Battle Creek, which flows off Mount Lassen’s south flank, could also serve as a lifeline for winter-run Chinook. It was once an important spawning stream and, like most California rivers, is now riddled with dams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But unlike Keswick and Shasta, they are small. \u003ca href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/mp/battlecreek/status.html\">One dam was removed in 2010\u003c/a>, and Katz said there are \u003ca href=\"https://caltrout.org/campaigns/battle-creek-dams\">plans to remove or modify the rest to provide Chinook with unassisted passage\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Battle Creek offers an opportunity to have a second population of winter-run fish that doesn’t need to be trucked — a completely volitional population,” he said. “Battle Creek could be the epitome of a 21st-century reconciled watershed.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "Urgently trying to help an endangered species devastated by drought, biologists hauled 40,000 eggs to the McCloud River this year, then brought the young fish back again to migrate. So far, it's gone well.",
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"description": "Urgently trying to help an endangered species devastated by drought, biologists hauled 40,000 eggs to the McCloud River this year, then brought the young fish back again to migrate. So far, it's gone well.",
"title": "Saving Salmon: Chinook Return to California's Far North — With a Lot of Human Help | KQED",
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"headline": "Saving Salmon: Chinook Return to California's Far North — With a Lot of Human Help",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Chinook salmon haven’t spawned in the McCloud River for more than 80 years. But last summer, thousands of juveniles were born in the waters of this remote tributary, miles upstream of Shasta Dam.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The young Chinook salmon — some now finger-sized smolts in mid-migration toward the Pacific Ocean — are part of a state and federal experiment that could help make the McCloud a salmon river once again.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Winter-run Chinook were federally listed as endangered in 1994, but recent years have been especially hard for the fish. Facing severe drought and warm river conditions, \u003ca href=\"https://www.nrdc.org/experts/doug-obegi/agencies-planning-disaster-ca-salmon-if-2022-dry\">most winter-run salmon born naturally in the Sacramento River have perished\u003c/a> over the past three years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So restoring Chinook to the McCloud has become an urgent priority for state and federal officials. In the first year of a drought-response project, about 40,000 salmon eggs were brought back to the McCloud, a picturesque river in the wilderness of the Cascade mountains.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Iconic in Northern California, Chinook salmon are critical pieces of the region’s environment. They are consumed by sea lions, orcas and bears, and they still support a commercial fishing industry. Chinook remain vital to the culture and traditional foods of Native Americans, including the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, whose historical salmon fishing grounds include the McCloud River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Conservation experts say the McCloud’s cold, clean water holds great promise as a potential Chinook refuge — and is perhaps even a future stronghold for the species. Restoring salmon there is considered critical to the species’ survival, since they now spawn only in low-lying parts of the Central Valley near Redding and Red Bluff, where it’s often too hot and dry for most newborn fish to survive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We probably won’t be able to maintain winter-run Chinook on the valley floor forever,” said Matt Johnson, senior environmental scientist with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981043\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1981043\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Photo shows two hatchery juveniles (with copper tails) that were used to test efficiency of the trapping system and two that spent their early lives imprinting on McCloud River water. \" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-01.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Matt Johnson of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife measures four winter-run Chinook salmon as part of a trial to estimate the species’ production and survival. \u003ccite>(Eric Holmes/UC Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Johnson spent much of the past five months camped beside the incubation site on the lower McCloud River, guarding the eggs and emerging fry and overseeing the experiment, which is a \u003ca href=\"https://wildlife.ca.gov/News/partners-return-winter-run-chinook-salmon-eggs-to-mccloud-river\">collaboration between his agency, the National Marine Fisheries Service (also known as NOAA Fisheries), the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the Winnemem Wintu Tribe\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>So far, biologists say, the project has gone well. About 90% of the eggs hatched, and the young fish reportedly have thrived in the McCloud, growing faster than hatchery fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Recent rainstorms have boosted \u003ca href=\"https://waterdata.usgs.gov/monitoring-location/11377100/#parameterCode=00060&period=P7D\">river flows\u003c/a>, which may increase the odds that salmon will reach the ocean this year, escaping the dangerous water pumps and predators of the Sacramento–San Joaquin Delta.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The project is the first step in a long-term plan that may involve capturing adult winter-run Chinook in the lower Sacramento and transporting them to the McCloud to spawn. It’s a difficult and risky venture for the fish but it may be the best shot the species has at survival.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The winter run is headed for extinction, no question, if we don’t develop an artificial system for keeping it going,” said Peter Moyle, a fish biologist at UC Davis who has studied Central Valley fish since the 1970s. He co-authored a \u003ca href=\"https://caltrout.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/05/SOS-II-Fish-in-Hot-Water-Report.pdf\">report warning that many of California’s native salmon and trout are likely to vanish this century (PDF)\u003c/a> as the environment warms.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A genetically unique run of salmon, winter-run Chinook once spawned in the McCloud in great numbers, along with other seasonal runs of the fish.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘The winter run is headed for extinction, no question, if we don’t develop an artificial system for keeping it going.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Even though the Central Valley’s river system, which includes the McCloud River, marks the southern limit of the Chinook’s range, it was once their stronghold. \u003ca href=\"https://cws.ucdavis.edu/library/historical-abundance-and-decline-chinook-salmon-central-valley-region-california\">Between 1 and 2 million fish\u003c/a>, some weighing 50 pounds or more, spawned in the tributaries of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers each year before the Gold Rush.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fish have dwindled to a fraction of their historic abundance. \u003ca href=\"https://nrm.dfg.ca.gov/FileHandler.ashx?DocumentID=84381&inline\">Spawning numbers of winter-run Chinook\u003c/a> dropped to fewer than 200 in the early 1990s. They’ve rebounded, but their future remains in doubt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The McCloud — a state-designated wild and scenic river — used to offer prime habitat, with deep gravel beds for egg-laying and year-round flows of clean, cold water from Mount Shasta. Construction of Shasta Dam in the 1940s — and Keswick Dam shortly after — changed all this by \u003ca href=\"https://noaa.maps.arcgis.com/apps/MapJournal/index.html?appid=ceebefd9685143daa5bf30d5a7e0c7fa\">locking ocean-run salmon out of some 500 miles of productive high-elevation habitat\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The salmon became confined instead to the lower reaches of the Sacramento River system, where they did not previously spawn. Blazing temperatures in the summer — when the winter-run fish lay and fertilize their eggs near Redding and Red Bluff — have made it difficult for salmon to thrive. Chinook, especially in their early life stages, are sensitive to high temperatures.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Only with the support of hatcheries have California salmon remained abundant enough to be fished.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>River habitat for winter-run Chinook salmon has shrunk\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Juvenile Chinook salmon born in the McCloud River once migrated downstream, into the Sacramento River and out to the Pacific Ocean. Today, about 80% of the salmon’s historical river habitat is behind dams, which prevents the adult fish from swimming upstream to spawn. The state is mounting an experiment to return them to the McCloud River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981045\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 740px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981045 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/download-11.png\" alt=\"Color coded map of river habitat for winter-run chinook salmon.\" width=\"740\" height=\"561\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/download-11.png 740w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/download-11-160x121.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 740px) 100vw, 740px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Map of river habitat for winter-run Chinook salmon. \u003ccite>(NOAA)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>For decades, fishing groups, agencies and Winnemem Wintu tribal leaders have pondered the possibility of reintroducing salmon into the McCloud. Finally, last spring and summer, after two poor spawning years in a row — and with a third one looking likely — federal and state agencies took action.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Last year “temperature modeling going into the winter-run spawning season showed a lot of uncertainty — basically a 50-50 chance of being able to maintain suitable temperatures for winter-run eggs to develop in the river,” said Johnson of the Department of Fish and Wildlife.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A bumpy trip for precious salmon eggs\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>Because winter-run Chinook are listed as endangered, fishery agencies are scrambling to save the fish. Last spring they transported about three dozen adult winter-run Chinook trapped at the base of Keswick Dam, just north of Redding, about 50 miles southeast to the north fork of Battle Creek, a tributary near Red Bluff where waters typically run cool and clear.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also launched a more complicated effort: They took winter-run Chinook eggs from adult fish at a federal salmon hatchery and transported them up and over Shasta Dam to a remote national forest campground next to the McCloud River.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They came in two batches of 20,000 — the first by truck on a bumpy, 80-mile ride. A helicopter delivered the second clutch. “We wanted to make sure the transportation phase went smoothly,” Johnson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The fertilized eggs were incubated in protective cages submerged in river water for weeks. The scientists even placed an electrified barrier around the eggs to protect them from foraging black bears.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981046\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981046 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Rachel Johnson of NOAA Fisheries and state biologists Sam Funakoshi and Ross Schaefer check a trap for winter-run Chinook salmon that will be transported downstream of Keswick Dam to help them migrate to the ocean.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-003.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Rachel Johnson of NOAA Fisheries and state biologists Sam Funakoshi and Ross Schaefer check a trap for winter-run Chinook salmon that will be transported downstream of Keswick Dam to help them migrate to the ocean. \u003ccite>(Carson Jeffres/UC Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Of the 40,000 eggs, Johnson said, about 36,000 emerged as fry. In late summer, the biologists released them into the wild.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The scientists wanted the fish to spend time in McCloud, both to utilize its invertebrate food sources and to undergo the olfactory imprinting process that enables migrating adult salmon to find their birth streams years later. Indeed, it is this process that gives salmon their remarkable homing powers and would truly make these fish McCloud River salmon.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an undisturbed ecosystem, the fish in the river would simply swim downstream, through San Francisco Bay, and out into the ocean. But this unique scenario, where a dam and reservoir block their migration, called on a different approach that required human help.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>State and federal scientists had to recapture the salmon and release them into the lower Sacramento River. The Fish and Wildlife team placed several traps on the McCloud about 20 miles below the release site and managed to capture 1,600 of them. They then drove the fish downstream and released them into the Sacramento River. If all goes well, some of the young salmon will return from the ocean in two to four years.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The agencies plan to repeat the project next year, transporting more Chinook eggs up to the McCloud and again hauling the young fish back downstream. “We intend to do it again, and do it better,” Johnson said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To improve the program’s effectiveness, scientists are now addressing some unanswered questions from the experiment.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://www.fisheries.noaa.gov/contact/rachel-johnson-phd\">Rachel Johnson\u003c/a>, a biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center, wants to know how many of the salmon released at the incubation site made it as far downstream as the fish trap array. This will reveal the survival rate of the released fish and help Johnson and her colleagues better understand the quality of the McCloud’s habitat.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To do this, she is studying data on daily river flow rates and capture rates in the traps, then combining this information with the known effectiveness of the types of gear they used. That, she said, would “give us the number that swam past.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>From what they already know about the size of the fish upon recapture, it’s looking good.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The fish in the McCloud were 30 to 40% larger than the average winter-run fish that were being caught at the Red Bluff Diversion Dam,” she said, referring to a structure downstream of Shasta.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A gem in ‘a string of pearls’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>A great deal of work has already been done to help Sacramento River salmon. State agencies and conservation groups have \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/environment/2018/12/restoring-floodplains-reversal-california-central-valley/\">restored floodplains\u003c/a> and side channels, where slow-moving water provides young fish with abundant food and shelter from predators. This work often involves removing, or carving notches in, levees so that river water can flow over farm fields.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Johnson sees this connected system of restored habitat parcels as a “string of pearls,” and says the McCloud might be one of its more valuable gems.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Better still, the McCloud’s geographic location at the upper end of the watershed could have a beneficial trickle-down effect through the watershed and the early life stages of Chinook, ultimately improving their lifelong survival rates.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you can have such highly productive, good-growth habitat so high in the system, it starts the fish off in such a strong condition,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Protecting areas lower in the watershed are important to Chinook, too. Research by Jacob Katz, biologist with the group California Trout, shows that floodplains restored in the lower stretches of the Sacramento watershed have helped salmon. Smolts grow faster on inundated floodplains than they do in the river’s channelized main stem.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Katz said reintroducing Chinook to the high-elevation spawning areas in the McCloud will complement the work he has done, and vice versa.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Both spawning habitat and rearing habitat are necessary, yet insufficient on their own,” he said. “We need to restore every link in the habitat chain.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>Ambitious future plans\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The summer’s salmon relocation effort was technically not a reintroduction project but an emergency drought action required by the state and federal endangered species acts and intended to shield winter-run Chinook from drought impacts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>However, it’s likely that the McCloud effort of last summer will develop in years ahead into a full-fledged salmon reintroduction program.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Randy Beckwith, head of the state Department of Water Resources’ Riverine Stewardship branch, said “the juvenile collection piece is the most difficult part” of a potential long-term McCloud River reintroduction plan.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1981047\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-1981047 size-medium\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Marine Sisk, a biologist with the Winnemem Wintu tribe, measures a juvenile winter-run Chinook salmon reared in the McCloud (top) compared to a much smaller similar-age fish reared in the hatchery.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02-1020x679.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/121222-Hatchery-Fish-CM-02.jpg 1024w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Marine Sisk, biologist with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe, measures a juvenile winter-run Chinook salmon reared in the McCloud (top) compared to a much smaller similar-age fish reared in the hatchery. \u003ccite>(Eric Holmes/UC Davis)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>While the state and federal fishery scientists did their work a few miles upstream, Beckwith’s agency tested a $1.5 million contraption dubbed the Juvenile Salmonid Collection System in the narrow McCloud River arm of Lake Shasta. The setup is a floating array designed to deflect floating debris, like logs and trash, while a dangling synthetic curtain funnels the young salmon into a dead-end live trap. The trap component has not been installed yet due to regulatory constraints associated with handling endangered species, but the agency has plans to do so, possibly next summer.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While traps of the sort already used on the McCloud are designed to catch a sample fraction of a river’s fish, the system the state is working on will hopefully catch all of them.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>A successful McCloud River salmon reintroduction would also mean giving adult salmon access to the river. Currently, Keswick Dam, just upstream of Redding, marks the end of the line for free-swimming adult salmon. If they are to get beyond this point, fishery managers will need to do one of two things: build a stairway, called a fish ladder or fishway, which leads migrating salmon around a dam, or trap the fish and truck them upstream.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ladders would give the salmon autonomy to migrate on their own. But Shasta Dam is a 600-foot-high barrier, so hauling them instead would be much cheaper. It is generally considered the only feasible solution on the table, although federal officials have no firm plans to do so yet.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But scientists have questioned the effectiveness of trap-and-haul programs. In a 2017 paper, Moyle and a colleague, biologist \u003ca href=\"https://watershed.ucdavis.edu/people/robert-lusardi\">Robert Lusardi\u003c/a>, warned that \u003ca href=\"https://afspubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03632415.2017.1356124\">it can cause high mortality rates in transferred fish\u003c/a>, both adults going upstream and juveniles coming downstream. A trap-and-haul program for salmon “should proceed with extreme caution,” they wrote.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There’s another option, too. Battle Creek, which flows off Mount Lassen’s south flank, could also serve as a lifeline for winter-run Chinook. It was once an important spawning stream and, like most California rivers, is now riddled with dams.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But unlike Keswick and Shasta, they are small. \u003ca href=\"https://www.usbr.gov/mp/battlecreek/status.html\">One dam was removed in 2010\u003c/a>, and Katz said there are \u003ca href=\"https://caltrout.org/campaigns/battle-creek-dams\">plans to remove or modify the rest to provide Chinook with unassisted passage\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Battle Creek offers an opportunity to have a second population of winter-run fish that doesn’t need to be trucked — a completely volitional population,” he said. “Battle Creek could be the epitome of a 21st-century reconciled watershed.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Report: Truck Makers Lobby to Weaken US and California Climate Policies",
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"content": "\u003cp>Truck manufacturers and an industry trade group \u003ca href=\"https://influencemap.org/report/US-Heavy-Duty-Transport-Climate-Change-20434\">privately lobbied to weaken U.S. climate policies while publicly promoting zero-emissions trucks\u003c/a>, according to a new report from a think tank that tracks corporate influence on climate policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate watchdog \u003ca href=\"https://influencemap.org/\">InfluenceMap\u003c/a> found that trade group \u003ca href=\"http://www.truckandenginemanufacturers.org/\">the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association\u003c/a> (EMA) and companies \u003ca href=\"https://www.volvotrucks.us/\">Volvo\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.daimlertruck.com/en/\">Daimler Truck\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.navistar.com/\">Volkswagen (Navistar)\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.paccar.com/\">PACCAR\u003c/a> opposed climate policy on the federal and state levels while publicly promoting zero-emissions fleets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationally, truck manufacturers lobbied against the \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-seeks-input-phase-3-greenhouse-gas-standard-rulemaking-heavy-duty-engines-and\">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions\u003c/a> from heavy-duty truck models. The agency started phasing in new compliance and emissions standards in 2011. It’s now developing new greenhouse gas requirements for heavy-duty engines and trucks that would be applied to model year 2030 trucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the state level, the EMA led a lobbying campaign in several states to oppose the adoption of the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/fact-sheets/advanced-clean-trucks-fact-sheet\">Advanced Clean Trucks rule\u003c/a> (ACT), which originated in California. The rule gradually increases the percentage of electric truck sales over the coming years. California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont and Washington have adopted the ACT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transportation sector makes up \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions\">27% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions\u003c/a>. Of that percentage, medium- and heavy-duty trucks — everything from delivery vans to big rigs — make up 26%, according to an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions by the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November, the U.S. signed a nonbinding global agreement committing to 100% new zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty sales by 2040.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>InfluenceMap found that while manufacturers privately oppose ambitious climate rules, they publicly promote zero-emissions fleets. The organization’s report notes that Ford Motor and General Motors disclosed “less on climate policy than the other EMA truck makers analyzed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Findings showed that Ford and GM did not join an EMA lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board that would delay emissions from heavy-duty trucks. The two companies were the only ones analyzed in the report that did not join \u003ca href=\"https://www.pzevf.org/\">Partners for a Zero Emission Vehicle Future\u003c/a>. That’s a coalition of truck manufacturers, retailers and trucking associations that opposes what it calls “a patchwork” of state regulations for getting to zero emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The extent of lobbying\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>InfluenceMap analyst Kalina Dmitriew wrote \u003ca href=\"https://influencemap.org/report/US-Heavy-Duty-Transport-Climate-Change-20434\">the report\u003c/a> based in part on previously unseen lobbying documents, including private emails and letters received through 33 public records requests across 11 states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dmitriew says she knew lobbying was taking place but the “sheer scale” and the extent of it was surprising. She says such an endeavor “really appears to be a strategic and coordinated effort across multiple U.S. states.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>InfluenceMap’s report identified the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association as spearheading lobbying efforts, especially on ACT rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an email, EMA President Jed Mandel wrote that his group is “committed to a zero-emissions future for the U.S. trucking industry, which is why manufacturers are investing billions of dollars, developing groundbreaking zero-emission technologies and commercial vehicles, and working to ensure that federal and state regulations are workable and effective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Truck manufacturers are responding to regulatory demands. \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/regulations-greenhouse-gas-emissions-commercial-trucks\">Federal policy\u003c/a> requires the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from diesel vehicles. States that have adopted the ACT rule require manufacturers to build zero-emissions trucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patricio Portillo, senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, says the report shows that some truck manufacturers can’t be trusted. “The hypocrisy is frankly pretty outrageous,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s unfortunate about this is that state and federal policymakers really look to (truck manufacturers) as valued stakeholders with important input,” Portillo says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maine and Colorado have delayed adopting versions of California’s ACT rule, and Portillo believes lobbying from truck manufacturers played a role.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rather than spending those millions to oppose clean truck rules, they should be investing [in] them,” Portillo says. “Build the manufacturing and supply chains that are actually needed to get these vehicles to market into fleets and into these states that want to see the big significant benefits that can accrue from this rule.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Portillo says the regulations are not just good for the climate, but for local air quality. Medium- and heavy-duty trucks, he says, pass more frequently through lower-income communities and communities of color, generating pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bob Ramorino is president of Roadstar Trucking in Hayward, and he wants to add electric trucks to his fleet of about 25 vehicles. He thinks the new regulations at the federal and state levels are challenging for truck makers to address at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have got to meet the challenge,” Ramorino says, yet “they’ve got to remain profitable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Carlos Morales, who owns and operates a tractor-trailer in Richmond, stricter standards in the state could force him to leave the industry he’s been a part of since 2003. Over the years Morales has upgraded his vehicle and bought new ones to meet changing emissions requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This may be my last truck,” he says in Spanish. “The laws are very strict and really impact us.” Morales says he’s concerned he won’t be able to buy an electric vehicle when the time comes.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Truck+makers+lobby+to+weaken+U.S.+climate+policies%2C+report+finds&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Truck manufacturers and an industry trade group \u003ca href=\"https://influencemap.org/report/US-Heavy-Duty-Transport-Climate-Change-20434\">privately lobbied to weaken U.S. climate policies while publicly promoting zero-emissions trucks\u003c/a>, according to a new report from a think tank that tracks corporate influence on climate policy.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate watchdog \u003ca href=\"https://influencemap.org/\">InfluenceMap\u003c/a> found that trade group \u003ca href=\"http://www.truckandenginemanufacturers.org/\">the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association\u003c/a> (EMA) and companies \u003ca href=\"https://www.volvotrucks.us/\">Volvo\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.daimlertruck.com/en/\">Daimler Truck\u003c/a>, \u003ca href=\"https://www.navistar.com/\">Volkswagen (Navistar)\u003c/a> and \u003ca href=\"https://www.paccar.com/\">PACCAR\u003c/a> opposed climate policy on the federal and state levels while publicly promoting zero-emissions fleets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Nationally, truck manufacturers lobbied against the \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/newsreleases/epa-seeks-input-phase-3-greenhouse-gas-standard-rulemaking-heavy-duty-engines-and\">U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s requirements to reduce greenhouse gas emissions\u003c/a> from heavy-duty truck models. The agency started phasing in new compliance and emissions standards in 2011. It’s now developing new greenhouse gas requirements for heavy-duty engines and trucks that would be applied to model year 2030 trucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the state level, the EMA led a lobbying campaign in several states to oppose the adoption of the \u003ca href=\"https://ww2.arb.ca.gov/resources/fact-sheets/advanced-clean-trucks-fact-sheet\">Advanced Clean Trucks rule\u003c/a> (ACT), which originated in California. The rule gradually increases the percentage of electric truck sales over the coming years. California, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont and Washington have adopted the ACT.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The transportation sector makes up \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/greenvehicles/fast-facts-transportation-greenhouse-gas-emissions\">27% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions\u003c/a>. Of that percentage, medium- and heavy-duty trucks — everything from delivery vans to big rigs — make up 26%, according to an inventory of greenhouse gas emissions by the EPA.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In November, the U.S. signed a nonbinding global agreement committing to 100% new zero-emission medium- and heavy-duty sales by 2040.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>InfluenceMap found that while manufacturers privately oppose ambitious climate rules, they publicly promote zero-emissions fleets. The organization’s report notes that Ford Motor and General Motors disclosed “less on climate policy than the other EMA truck makers analyzed.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Findings showed that Ford and GM did not join an EMA lawsuit against the California Air Resources Board that would delay emissions from heavy-duty trucks. The two companies were the only ones analyzed in the report that did not join \u003ca href=\"https://www.pzevf.org/\">Partners for a Zero Emission Vehicle Future\u003c/a>. That’s a coalition of truck manufacturers, retailers and trucking associations that opposes what it calls “a patchwork” of state regulations for getting to zero emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>The extent of lobbying\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>InfluenceMap analyst Kalina Dmitriew wrote \u003ca href=\"https://influencemap.org/report/US-Heavy-Duty-Transport-Climate-Change-20434\">the report\u003c/a> based in part on previously unseen lobbying documents, including private emails and letters received through 33 public records requests across 11 states.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Dmitriew says she knew lobbying was taking place but the “sheer scale” and the extent of it was surprising. She says such an endeavor “really appears to be a strategic and coordinated effort across multiple U.S. states.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>InfluenceMap’s report identified the Truck and Engine Manufacturers Association as spearheading lobbying efforts, especially on ACT rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an email, EMA President Jed Mandel wrote that his group is “committed to a zero-emissions future for the U.S. trucking industry, which is why manufacturers are investing billions of dollars, developing groundbreaking zero-emission technologies and commercial vehicles, and working to ensure that federal and state regulations are workable and effective.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Truck manufacturers are responding to regulatory demands. \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/regulations-emissions-vehicles-and-engines/regulations-greenhouse-gas-emissions-commercial-trucks\">Federal policy\u003c/a> requires the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from diesel vehicles. States that have adopted the ACT rule require manufacturers to build zero-emissions trucks.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Patricio Portillo, senior advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, says the report shows that some truck manufacturers can’t be trusted. “The hypocrisy is frankly pretty outrageous,” he says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What’s unfortunate about this is that state and federal policymakers really look to (truck manufacturers) as valued stakeholders with important input,” Portillo says.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Maine and Colorado have delayed adopting versions of California’s ACT rule, and Portillo believes lobbying from truck manufacturers played a role.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Rather than spending those millions to oppose clean truck rules, they should be investing [in] them,” Portillo says. “Build the manufacturing and supply chains that are actually needed to get these vehicles to market into fleets and into these states that want to see the big significant benefits that can accrue from this rule.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Portillo says the regulations are not just good for the climate, but for local air quality. Medium- and heavy-duty trucks, he says, pass more frequently through lower-income communities and communities of color, generating pollution.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bob Ramorino is president of Roadstar Trucking in Hayward, and he wants to add electric trucks to his fleet of about 25 vehicles. He thinks the new regulations at the federal and state levels are challenging for truck makers to address at the same time.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“They have got to meet the challenge,” Ramorino says, yet “they’ve got to remain profitable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For Carlos Morales, who owns and operates a tractor-trailer in Richmond, stricter standards in the state could force him to leave the industry he’s been a part of since 2003. Over the years Morales has upgraded his vehicle and bought new ones to meet changing emissions requirements.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“This may be my last truck,” he says in Spanish. “The laws are very strict and really impact us.” Morales says he’s concerned he won’t be able to buy an electric vehicle when the time comes.\u003cimg decoding=\"async\" src=\"https://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmac=UA-5828686-4&utmdt=Truck+makers+lobby+to+weaken+U.S.+climate+policies%2C+report+finds&utme=8(APIKey)9(MDAxOTAwOTE4MDEyMTkxMDAzNjczZDljZA004)\">\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management finalized the sale of offshore wind leases along California’s coastline Wednesday, with the combined bids totaling $757.1 million, which the agency says well exceeds the first lease sales that were held in the Atlantic.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The U.S. Department of the Interior’s auction lasted for more than 30 rounds over the course of two days, as developers bid aggressively for five lease areas totaling more than 500 square miles both northwest of Morro Bay and off the coast of Humboldt County.[pullquote align=\"right\" size=\"medium\" citation=\"Gov. Gavin Newsom\"]‘Together with leadership from the Biden-Harris Administration, we’re entering a new era of climate action and solutions that give our planet a new lease on life.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Department Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement that the aggressive bidding is a signal of industry momentum around American offshore wind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A sustainable, clean energy future is within our grasp and the Interior Department is doing everything we can to ensure that American communities nationwide benefit,” Haaland said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The auction is a crucial step toward a new source of clean power for California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government estimates that floating turbines that harness energy from powerful winds could power more than 1.5 million homes, and development of these turbines could create tons of new jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Tens of thousands of jobs from construction phase to operation and maintenance and supply chain,” Jeff Hunerlach, a district representative with Operating Engineers Local 3 in Humboldt County, told KQED in an interview. “It’s such a historical day. The work starts now. Now, we know who the companies are. We know where our energy is to zero in on, making sure that we put Californians to work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industry analysts say the winning developers are well-known companies in the fledgling offshore wind industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1980905\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1496px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1980905\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines.png\" alt=\"Map of California coastline showing parcels leased for wind turbines\" width=\"1496\" height=\"1342\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines.png 1496w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines-800x718.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines-1020x915.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines-160x144.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines-768x689.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1496px) 100vw, 1496px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The federal government auctioned off leases for wind production in 583 square miles of deep ocean waters, located about 20 miles offshore of Humboldt County and Morro Bay. Combined, the five lease zones have the potential to produce more than 4.5 gigawatts, enough to power roughly 1.5 million homes. \u003ccite>(Associated Press, using data from the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“These are established players, the developers that the leases are in the hands of,” said Stephanie McClellan, executive director of the offshore wind nonprofit Turn Forward, in an interview with KQED. “They’ve already got leases on the East Coast and these leases are in good hands. California West Coast offshore wind is off to the races.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom described the wind lease sale as a “critical component” of the state hitting its goal of 90% clean energy by 2035. “Together with leadership from the Biden-Harris Administration, we’re entering a new era of climate action and solutions that give our planet a new lease on life,” Newsom said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But commercial fishers have urged federal and state regulatory agencies to slow down the process, fearing impacts to their business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fishermen are not opposed to renewable energy,” Ken Bates, president of the California Fishermen’s Resiliency Association, told KQED in an interview. “Fishermen see what’s going on in the ocean. We see warm-water events, species shift, all of those things. Fishermen are opposed to losing the very limited fishing grounds in California. That’s our concern.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Developers must now submit design, construction and operation plans to California and to the federal government for review and permitting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Climate Central’s John Upton contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Department Secretary Deb Haaland said in a statement that the aggressive bidding is a signal of industry momentum around American offshore wind.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“A sustainable, clean energy future is within our grasp and the Interior Department is doing everything we can to ensure that American communities nationwide benefit,” Haaland said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The auction is a crucial step toward a new source of clean power for California.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The federal government estimates that floating turbines that harness energy from powerful winds could power more than 1.5 million homes, and development of these turbines could create tons of new jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Tens of thousands of jobs from construction phase to operation and maintenance and supply chain,” Jeff Hunerlach, a district representative with Operating Engineers Local 3 in Humboldt County, told KQED in an interview. “It’s such a historical day. The work starts now. Now, we know who the companies are. We know where our energy is to zero in on, making sure that we put Californians to work.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Industry analysts say the winning developers are well-known companies in the fledgling offshore wind industry.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1980905\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 1496px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1980905\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines.png\" alt=\"Map of California coastline showing parcels leased for wind turbines\" width=\"1496\" height=\"1342\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines.png 1496w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines-800x718.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines-1020x915.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines-160x144.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/12/floating-wind-turbines-768x689.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1496px) 100vw, 1496px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">The federal government auctioned off leases for wind production in 583 square miles of deep ocean waters, located about 20 miles offshore of Humboldt County and Morro Bay. Combined, the five lease zones have the potential to produce more than 4.5 gigawatts, enough to power roughly 1.5 million homes. \u003ccite>(Associated Press, using data from the US Bureau of Ocean Energy Management)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>“These are established players, the developers that the leases are in the hands of,” said Stephanie McClellan, executive director of the offshore wind nonprofit Turn Forward, in an interview with KQED. “They’ve already got leases on the East Coast and these leases are in good hands. California West Coast offshore wind is off to the races.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Gov. Gavin Newsom described the wind lease sale as a “critical component” of the state hitting its goal of 90% clean energy by 2035. “Together with leadership from the Biden-Harris Administration, we’re entering a new era of climate action and solutions that give our planet a new lease on life,” Newsom said in a statement.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But commercial fishers have urged federal and state regulatory agencies to slow down the process, fearing impacts to their business.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Fishermen are not opposed to renewable energy,” Ken Bates, president of the California Fishermen’s Resiliency Association, told KQED in an interview. “Fishermen see what’s going on in the ocean. We see warm-water events, species shift, all of those things. Fishermen are opposed to losing the very limited fishing grounds in California. That’s our concern.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Developers must now submit design, construction and operation plans to California and to the federal government for review and permitting.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cem>Climate Central’s John Upton contributed to this report. \u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>There was a moment a few years back when it seemed to Jessie Liu like the entire state of California was on fire. Mendocino, Shasta, Trinity, Lake and Santa Clara counties all endured the flames of the hellish wildfire season of 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It hit us so suddenly and abruptly,” said Liu, a physician at \u003ca href=\"https://laclinica.org/\">La Clínica de La Raza\u003c/a>, a health care facility that serves lower-income, uninsured and underinsured patients in Oakland. “It’s shocking how quickly that’s become the norm. It’s something that we are now expecting. We were very fortunate this year to have a relatively light — knock on wood — wildfire season. But we can’t expect to be this fortunate here and in the years to come.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liu and her patients have not yet faced evacuation because of the fires, but she figures it’s a question of when, not if. And when that moment comes, Liu will have a new tool to help ease the abruptness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate experts at Harvard and officials with the nonprofit humanitarian relief agency Americares have prepared a first-of-its-kind series of open-source reference materials to help health care facilities successfully withstand a range of natural disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reference information, known as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.americares.org/what-we-do/community-health/climate-resilient-health-clinics/\">Climate Resilience for Frontline Clinics Toolkit\u003c/a>, contains detailed guidance for health care administrators, physicians and patients on topics ranging from dealing with power outages to crafting social media posts to managing the treatment of patients with such ailments as kidney disease, diabetes and asthma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The information, which was largely compiled using survey data from clinic workers who were asked what they wish they knew about treating patients during natural disasters, is available as a series of downloadable PDFs at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.americares.org/what-we-do/community-health/climate-resilient-health-clinics/\">toolkit website\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first reference materials, which were released this summer, focused on helping facilities, doctors and their patients successfully navigate extreme heat events. Officials recently released guides focused on wildfires, and an informational module concerning hurricanes will soon be available to all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort, a collaboration of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/\">Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment\u003c/a> at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Harvard Global Health Institute, is specifically designed for use by free and charitable care health clinics. Biogen, the Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, has been a key sponsor of the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In future years, the designers of the toolkit hope to expand availability of the resources so they can be used by health care facilities in lower-income countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Designers of the toolkit said it occupies a unique position as a source of medical information that simultaneously provides resources both for those who work in hospitals and those who are treated in them. Policy manuals and communication plans are typically designed for health care administrators. Medical reference books are aimed at providers. And health care information pamphlets are usually reserved for patients. But with aspects of the toolkit designed for each of those audiences, its creators say it is distinctly able to serve all three of those groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we want to make sure we get is a crucial interface between health care systems and patients that is, potentially, uniquely able to keep people safe,” said Aaron Bernstein, director of the Harvard climate center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bernstein said that the information contained in the toolkit was designed with an eye toward anticipating potential issues and providing opportunities for planning and practical decision-making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If someone has serious medical problems and says, ‘You know, I really would like to evacuate. I just have no idea how I can do it. I don’t have a car or there’s nowhere for me to go,’” Bernstein said. “There’s a lot of folks who may not have thought as much about not only how they would and where they would evacuate to, but, again, critically, whether their medical conditions may make it so that it’s even more important for them to be proactive. And I think a provider can really underscore that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being proactive is a chief concern for providers like Jessie Liu. 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We have to … it’s our responsibility and our role to provide that information and that guidance, especially in these natural disasters that are known to have such great impacts on human health.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>There was a moment a few years back when it seemed to Jessie Liu like the entire state of California was on fire. Mendocino, Shasta, Trinity, Lake and Santa Clara counties all endured the flames of the hellish wildfire season of 2020.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It hit us so suddenly and abruptly,” said Liu, a physician at \u003ca href=\"https://laclinica.org/\">La Clínica de La Raza\u003c/a>, a health care facility that serves lower-income, uninsured and underinsured patients in Oakland. “It’s shocking how quickly that’s become the norm. It’s something that we are now expecting. We were very fortunate this year to have a relatively light — knock on wood — wildfire season. But we can’t expect to be this fortunate here and in the years to come.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Liu and her patients have not yet faced evacuation because of the fires, but she figures it’s a question of when, not if. And when that moment comes, Liu will have a new tool to help ease the abruptness.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Climate experts at Harvard and officials with the nonprofit humanitarian relief agency Americares have prepared a first-of-its-kind series of open-source reference materials to help health care facilities successfully withstand a range of natural disasters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The reference information, known as the \u003ca href=\"https://www.americares.org/what-we-do/community-health/climate-resilient-health-clinics/\">Climate Resilience for Frontline Clinics Toolkit\u003c/a>, contains detailed guidance for health care administrators, physicians and patients on topics ranging from dealing with power outages to crafting social media posts to managing the treatment of patients with such ailments as kidney disease, diabetes and asthma.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The information, which was largely compiled using survey data from clinic workers who were asked what they wish they knew about treating patients during natural disasters, is available as a series of downloadable PDFs at the \u003ca href=\"https://www.americares.org/what-we-do/community-health/climate-resilient-health-clinics/\">toolkit website\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The first reference materials, which were released this summer, focused on helping facilities, doctors and their patients successfully navigate extreme heat events. Officials recently released guides focused on wildfires, and an informational module concerning hurricanes will soon be available to all.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The effort, a collaboration of the \u003ca href=\"https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/c-change/\">Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment\u003c/a> at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, and the Harvard Global Health Institute, is specifically designed for use by free and charitable care health clinics. Biogen, the Massachusetts-based biotechnology company, has been a key sponsor of the project.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In future years, the designers of the toolkit hope to expand availability of the resources so they can be used by health care facilities in lower-income countries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Designers of the toolkit said it occupies a unique position as a source of medical information that simultaneously provides resources both for those who work in hospitals and those who are treated in them. Policy manuals and communication plans are typically designed for health care administrators. Medical reference books are aimed at providers. And health care information pamphlets are usually reserved for patients. But with aspects of the toolkit designed for each of those audiences, its creators say it is distinctly able to serve all three of those groups.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“What we want to make sure we get is a crucial interface between health care systems and patients that is, potentially, uniquely able to keep people safe,” said Aaron Bernstein, director of the Harvard climate center.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Bernstein said that the information contained in the toolkit was designed with an eye toward anticipating potential issues and providing opportunities for planning and practical decision-making.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If someone has serious medical problems and says, ‘You know, I really would like to evacuate. I just have no idea how I can do it. I don’t have a car or there’s nowhere for me to go,’” Bernstein said. “There’s a lot of folks who may not have thought as much about not only how they would and where they would evacuate to, but, again, critically, whether their medical conditions may make it so that it’s even more important for them to be proactive. And I think a provider can really underscore that.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Being proactive is a chief concern for providers like Jessie Liu. She said the open-source nature of the toolkit — which keeps it free, adaptable and easy to access — is vital given that many of the patients she serves have lower incomes.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“In particular for our populations who are at greater risk because of their lower socioeconomic status, greater percentage of outdoor laborers, by way of being Black, brown, Native and living in communities and neighborhoods that have historically been marginalized and under-resourced, we are wanting to be able to provide culturally appropriate and easily accessible resources,” Liu said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And the importance of providing that information goes beyond simply addressing medical concerns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are the bastions of health for our communities,” Liu said. “We’re at the front lines, and patients and communities come to us. They trust us. We have to … it’s our responsibility and our role to provide that information and that guidance, especially in these natural disasters that are known to have such great impacts on human health.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California air regulators on Wednesday released a final draft of the state’s new climate blueprint, charting an ambitious path to dramatically reduce planet-warming gas emissions over the next two decades.[pullquote size=\"medium\" align=\"right\" citation=\"Gov. Gavin Newsom\"]‘It’s the most ambitious set of climate goals of any jurisdiction in the world, and it’ll spur an economic transformation akin to the industrial revolution.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan would siphon down the state’s use of fossil fuels almost entirely and paints a not-too-distant picture of what Gov. Gavin Newsom said is a “pollution-free future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the most ambitious set of climate goals of any jurisdiction in the world, and if adopted, it’ll spur an economic transformation akin to the industrial revolution,” Newsom said in a statement emailed to reporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His administration is billing it as the world’s first “achievable roadmap to implement carbon neutrality,” from a major economy. But nothing in this document will be easy for California. Nor is it guaranteed to succeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan, drafted by the state Air Resources Board, calls for slashing greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 48% by the year 2030 and 85% by 2045 (so far, the state has cut its carbon pollution by just 3% — and recent research from a UCLA-led \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749122011022#:~:text=In%20this%20short%20communication%2C%20we,GHG)%20emission%20reductions%20since%202003.\">study suggests those gains might have been wiped out by the firestorms of 2020\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California would need to add tens of millions of electric cars to its roads and be using a tenth of the liquid petroleum, gas and diesel it uses today in a little more than two decades.[aside postID=\"news_11930288,science_1980725\" label=\"Related Posts\"]State officials said the backbone of the transition is a “clean, affordable and reliable grid,” and the policy framework includes a commitment to build no new gas plants. Instead, the state will meet the increased demand for electricity with renewable energy. To do that, California will need to build more wind and solar at a highly expedited rate, quadrupling its current capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To keep the lights on, California will need to double its existing electricity generation capacity. The state narrowly avoided rolling blackouts this year after electricity demand nearly surpassed supply during a heat wave that baked the state for 10 days in September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lauren Sanchez, the governor’s climate adviser, acknowledged on a call with reporters that “this plan will indeed be very difficult to achieve because of the scale of the task and the speed with which it needs to be delivered.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, she said, “the governor will not take failure as an option, and neither should any of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A more aggressive plan\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The state’s powerful air board circulated a preliminary draft of the plan early in the year with the goal of 40% emissions reductions by 2030, but Gov. Newsom asked the agency to be more aggressive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the board hashed out the details over the course of months, California passed regulations to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Newsom signed a series of aggressive climate bills into law setting new targets for clean energy and carbon sequestration on natural and working lands, establishing new rules on existing oil wells near neighborhoods and schools and expanding carbon capture and removal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest draft incorporates these new efforts and others on offshore wind, clean fuels and climate-friendly housing construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But advocates and environmentalists want the state to move even faster, and have pressed for more aggressive targets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ellie Cohen, CEO of policy nonprofit The Climate Center, and UC Berkeley professor Dan Kammen \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2022/11/california-climate-air-resources-board-scoping-plan/\">argued in an opinion piece\u003c/a> last week for California’s target to be “at least 55% below 1990 levels by 2030.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also criticized the state for what they said is “gambling on carbon capture and storage, a failed and expensive technology that perpetuates pollution in frontline communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reached by email on his way back from the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, Kammen said that the state’s latest version still relies too much on these technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The harsh grip of petroleum’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2006, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, into law, which mandated that the state produce a climate change road map every five years. The air board released the first plan in 2008, and this is its third update.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board Chair Liane Randolph told reporters that this update “is far and away the most important and the one with the most ambitious targets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to take action to reduce the worst impacts of a changing climate,” Randolph said. “And there is only one way to do that: Break forever our dependance on fossil fuels, the harsh grip of petroleum, and move as fast as we can to a clean energy economy. And that’s what this plan does. It delivers a massive reduction of climate-warming pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state estimates it would cut air pollution by 71% and save Californians $200 billion in health costs due to pollution, while creating 4 million new jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan would siphon down the state’s use of fossil fuels almost entirely and paints a not-too-distant picture of what Gov. Gavin Newsom said is a “pollution-free future.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“It’s the most ambitious set of climate goals of any jurisdiction in the world, and if adopted, it’ll spur an economic transformation akin to the industrial revolution,” Newsom said in a statement emailed to reporters.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>His administration is billing it as the world’s first “achievable roadmap to implement carbon neutrality,” from a major economy. But nothing in this document will be easy for California. Nor is it guaranteed to succeed.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan, drafted by the state Air Resources Board, calls for slashing greenhouse gas emissions below 1990 levels by 48% by the year 2030 and 85% by 2045 (so far, the state has cut its carbon pollution by just 3% — and recent research from a UCLA-led \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0269749122011022#:~:text=In%20this%20short%20communication%2C%20we,GHG)%20emission%20reductions%20since%202003.\">study suggests those gains might have been wiped out by the firestorms of 2020\u003c/a>).\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California would need to add tens of millions of electric cars to its roads and be using a tenth of the liquid petroleum, gas and diesel it uses today in a little more than two decades.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>State officials said the backbone of the transition is a “clean, affordable and reliable grid,” and the policy framework includes a commitment to build no new gas plants. Instead, the state will meet the increased demand for electricity with renewable energy. To do that, California will need to build more wind and solar at a highly expedited rate, quadrupling its current capacity.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To keep the lights on, California will need to double its existing electricity generation capacity. The state narrowly avoided rolling blackouts this year after electricity demand nearly surpassed supply during a heat wave that baked the state for 10 days in September.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Lauren Sanchez, the governor’s climate adviser, acknowledged on a call with reporters that “this plan will indeed be very difficult to achieve because of the scale of the task and the speed with which it needs to be delivered.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But, she said, “the governor will not take failure as an option, and neither should any of us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>A more aggressive plan\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The state’s powerful air board circulated a preliminary draft of the plan early in the year with the goal of 40% emissions reductions by 2030, but Gov. Newsom asked the agency to be more aggressive.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>While the board hashed out the details over the course of months, California passed regulations to phase out the sale of new gasoline-powered cars.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And Newsom signed a series of aggressive climate bills into law setting new targets for clean energy and carbon sequestration on natural and working lands, establishing new rules on existing oil wells near neighborhoods and schools and expanding carbon capture and removal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The latest draft incorporates these new efforts and others on offshore wind, clean fuels and climate-friendly housing construction.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But advocates and environmentalists want the state to move even faster, and have pressed for more aggressive targets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Ellie Cohen, CEO of policy nonprofit The Climate Center, and UC Berkeley professor Dan Kammen \u003ca href=\"https://calmatters.org/commentary/2022/11/california-climate-air-resources-board-scoping-plan/\">argued in an opinion piece\u003c/a> last week for California’s target to be “at least 55% below 1990 levels by 2030.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They also criticized the state for what they said is “gambling on carbon capture and storage, a failed and expensive technology that perpetuates pollution in frontline communities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Reached by email on his way back from the COP27 climate summit in Egypt, Kammen said that the state’s latest version still relies too much on these technologies.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>‘The harsh grip of petroleum’\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>In 2006, Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signed AB 32, the Global Warming Solutions Act, into law, which mandated that the state produce a climate change road map every five years. The air board released the first plan in 2008, and this is its third update.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Board Chair Liane Randolph told reporters that this update “is far and away the most important and the one with the most ambitious targets.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We need to take action to reduce the worst impacts of a changing climate,” Randolph said. “And there is only one way to do that: Break forever our dependance on fossil fuels, the harsh grip of petroleum, and move as fast as we can to a clean energy economy. And that’s what this plan does. It delivers a massive reduction of climate-warming pollution.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state estimates it would cut air pollution by 71% and save Californians $200 billion in health costs due to pollution, while creating 4 million new jobs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "Delegation From Disaster-Laden Sonoma County, a Test Kitchen for Climate Innovation, Attends COP27",
"headTitle": "Delegation From Disaster-Laden Sonoma County, a Test Kitchen for Climate Innovation, Attends COP27 | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>A delegation of mayors, climate scientists, water officials and energy leaders from Sonoma County are representing the Bay Area at this year’s annual U.N. climate conference, known as COP27, underway in Egypt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are touting Sonoma County as one of the world’s testing grounds for big climate change solutions — including water-saving ideas and clean energy projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they have a good argument to make. More than 85% of the electricity that powers homes and businesses in Sonoma County comes from renewable sources, according to county energy officials. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11929864/recycled-water-may-prove-crucial-for-northern-california-amid-ongoing-droughts-climate-change\">Towns like Santa Rosa recycle 98% of their wastewater\u003c/a>, and the Sonoma County Water Agency recently started monitoring the skies for catastrophic storms that could cause climate-induced flooding, using several radar units that predict flood risk with precision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-11/california-cities-ban-new-gas-stations-amid-climate-change\">Rohnert Park banned the building of new gas stations\u003c/a>, a move meant to speed up the transition to electric vehicles. Jackie Elward, the city’s mayor, is in Egypt talking about that and what else Rohnert Park is doing to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that local adaptation solutions to climate change matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have been changing everything to follow the evolution of climate change,” she said. “As leaders, we are supposed to show people the way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elward is from the Democratic Republic of Congo and will make her climate case on the world stage as an immigrant and Rohnert Park’s first Black mayor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sonoma County is dealing with its fair share of climate impacts: The same Russian River that \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/28/as-skies-clear-guerneville-residents-assess-flood-damage/\">flooded 3,000 homes and businesses in Guerneville in 2019\u003c/a> nearly dried up this summer after years of drought; since 2017, eight big wildfires have devastated neighborhoods around Santa Rosa and destroyed wineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1980742\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1980742\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Row and after row of a suburban neighborhood lay in shambles. The homes are no longer intact. The plots are strewn about with debris and char from fire. Naked trees line each street.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view shows burned properties in Santa Rosa on Oct. 12, 2017. \u003ccite>(Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Rogers will showcase his community, which is striding toward a fossil fuel-free economy after feeling “the sting of climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have boomeranged out of tragedy,” he said. “Our story is using the tragedy to build a better community and one that’s going to be more responsive and be a part of addressing climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sonomacleanpower.org/\">Sonoma Clean Power\u003c/a> is the public power provider for both Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park. The power aggregator uses renewable energy as its default electricity, sourcing clean power for 87% of Sonoma and Mendocino counties. Geof Syphers, CEO for the agency, is not in Egypt but wants the team to relay a message to other local leaders: Take risks. Be a test kitchen for climate ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t want to design your trillion-dollar program and have it fall on its face,” he said. “A big part of what I want to pitch is learning from these experiments and encouraging other local governments to run those experiments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='medium' align='left' citation='Chris Rogers, mayor of Santa Rosa']‘We have boomeranged out of tragedy. Our story is using the tragedy to build a better community and one that’s going to be more responsive and be a part of addressing climate change.’[/pullquote]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those experiments was to make the water system in the county 100% carbon-free by 2015; now, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sonomawater.org/carbon-free-water\">all of the power that Sonoma Water uses to gather and transport water throughout the region is generated by hydroelectric, wind, geothermal and solar sources\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sonoma’s carbon-free water system wouldn’t have been possible without the Regional Climate Protection Authority, a Sonoma-wide collaboration that was established in 2009 with \u003ca href=\"https://rcpa.ca.gov/\">a\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://rcpa.ca.gov/\">countywide\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://rcpa.ca.gov/\">mindset\u003c/a> for solving climate problems. It’s the state’s only regional climate authority; every city and agency in Sonoma County coordinates grants and other planning for climate protection and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That model is worth exploring and sharing with other communities that are looking for a way forward,” said Grant Davis, general manager of Sonoma Water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representatives from the water agency, which supplies water to more than 600,000 people, will also share in Egypt how they are adapting to atmospheric rivers — big storms that can cause extreme flooding. According to recent research from Bay Area scientists, these storms are expected to get up to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212094722000275\">37% wetter by the end of the century\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team will take part in a session on atmospheric rivers, including how the agency is providing reservoir operators with near-term climate forecasts to inform their management decisions using a program called forecast-informed reservoir operations, or FIRO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you don’t have enough atmospheric rivers in winter, you’ll slide towards drought. If you have too many, and they’re too big, you head towards flood,” said Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps Oceanography. Ralph is attending the conference in Egypt, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1980721\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1980721\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A white radar unit points toward the sky. It looks like a mix between a mushroom and a spaceship. A bright blue sky with wispy clouds is in the background.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A radar unit in Santa Rosa hunts for severe rain. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED News)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Water managers at Lake Mendocino used to release water based on demand, independent of forecasted storms. Now, they mostly conserve and wait for a major rainstorm, releasing water from the reservoir at times when they know more is on the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program “was able to save 20% of that reservoir’s capacity in a drought year because we were able to hold the water back when you know you don’t have rain coming,” said Brad Sherwood, assistant general manager for Sonoma Water, who is also attending the global conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress allowed the agencies to pilot this technology — really a new way of thinking about water management — at Lake Mendocino. But the idea has spread, and reservoir operators across the West Coast are experimenting with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In partnership with agencies across the region and state, Sonoma Water is creating a Bay Area-wide system of radar units that can better predict the characteristics of a storm, called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sonomawater.org/aqpi\">Advanced Quantitative Precipitation Information system\u003c/a>, funded by the California Department of Water Resources.[pullquote size='medium' align='right' citation='Dale Roberts, principal engineer, Sonoma Water']‘We want to give people a heads-up to start preparing for storms sooner than they would and before it’s too late.’[/pullquote]It is a regional system of low-level radar units located in fields and on mountaintops. When fully built and synced up, they will generate local information about how dumping rains could affect the flooding of burn scars, highways, towns, streams and rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll be able to help the community be prepared to, perhaps, evacuate, put up sandbags or perhaps weatherproof their houses,” said Dale Roberts, principal engineer for the agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The white radar units slowly spin, rising around 20 feet into the air and pointing up to the sky, looking like a cross between a mushroom and a spaceship. Agency officials want to understand a storm’s direction, moisture content and speed; they use the radar to hunt for rain that’s on its way within the next few hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists can cross-reference that data against how fast streams or rivers are moving and other factors to forecast the severity of a storm on a community or highway. There are radar units in San José, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz, but the scientists expect that number to grow to seven by the end of 2023, including one in the hills of Alameda County, one in San Mateo County, one facing the ocean in Marin County and another near Geyserville in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We want to give people a heads-up to start preparing for storms sooner than they would and before it’s too late,” Roberts said.\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>A delegation of mayors, climate scientists, water officials and energy leaders from Sonoma County are representing the Bay Area at this year’s annual U.N. climate conference, known as COP27, underway in Egypt.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>They are touting Sonoma County as one of the world’s testing grounds for big climate change solutions — including water-saving ideas and clean energy projects.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>And they have a good argument to make. More than 85% of the electricity that powers homes and businesses in Sonoma County comes from renewable sources, according to county energy officials. \u003ca href=\"https://www.kqed.org/news/11929864/recycled-water-may-prove-crucial-for-northern-california-amid-ongoing-droughts-climate-change\">Towns like Santa Rosa recycle 98% of their wastewater\u003c/a>, and the Sonoma County Water Agency recently started monitoring the skies for catastrophic storms that could cause climate-induced flooding, using several radar units that predict flood risk with precision.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Earlier this year, \u003ca href=\"https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-11/california-cities-ban-new-gas-stations-amid-climate-change\">Rohnert Park banned the building of new gas stations\u003c/a>, a move meant to speed up the transition to electric vehicles. Jackie Elward, the city’s mayor, is in Egypt talking about that and what else Rohnert Park is doing to decrease greenhouse gas emissions, arguing that local adaptation solutions to climate change matter.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have been changing everything to follow the evolution of climate change,” she said. “As leaders, we are supposed to show people the way.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Elward is from the Democratic Republic of Congo and will make her climate case on the world stage as an immigrant and Rohnert Park’s first Black mayor.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sonoma County is dealing with its fair share of climate impacts: The same Russian River that \u003ca href=\"https://www.mercurynews.com/2019/02/28/as-skies-clear-guerneville-residents-assess-flood-damage/\">flooded 3,000 homes and businesses in Guerneville in 2019\u003c/a> nearly dried up this summer after years of drought; since 2017, eight big wildfires have devastated neighborhoods around Santa Rosa and destroyed wineries.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1980742\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1980742\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-800x533.jpg\" alt=\"Row and after row of a suburban neighborhood lay in shambles. The homes are no longer intact. The plots are strewn about with debris and char from fire. Naked trees line each street.\" width=\"800\" height=\"533\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-800x533.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-1020x680.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-160x107.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-768x512.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut-1536x1024.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/RS27514_GettyImages-860684916-qut.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An aerial view shows burned properties in Santa Rosa on Oct. 12, 2017. \u003ccite>(Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Santa Rosa Mayor Chris Rogers will showcase his community, which is striding toward a fossil fuel-free economy after feeling “the sting of climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We have boomeranged out of tragedy,” he said. “Our story is using the tragedy to build a better community and one that’s going to be more responsive and be a part of addressing climate change.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://sonomacleanpower.org/\">Sonoma Clean Power\u003c/a> is the public power provider for both Santa Rosa and Rohnert Park. The power aggregator uses renewable energy as its default electricity, sourcing clean power for 87% of Sonoma and Mendocino counties. Geof Syphers, CEO for the agency, is not in Egypt but wants the team to relay a message to other local leaders: Take risks. Be a test kitchen for climate ideas.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“You don’t want to design your trillion-dollar program and have it fall on its face,” he said. “A big part of what I want to pitch is learning from these experiments and encouraging other local governments to run those experiments.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One of those experiments was to make the water system in the county 100% carbon-free by 2015; now, \u003ca href=\"https://www.sonomawater.org/carbon-free-water\">all of the power that Sonoma Water uses to gather and transport water throughout the region is generated by hydroelectric, wind, geothermal and solar sources\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Sonoma’s carbon-free water system wouldn’t have been possible without the Regional Climate Protection Authority, a Sonoma-wide collaboration that was established in 2009 with \u003ca href=\"https://rcpa.ca.gov/\">a\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://rcpa.ca.gov/\">countywide\u003c/a> \u003ca href=\"https://rcpa.ca.gov/\">mindset\u003c/a> for solving climate problems. It’s the state’s only regional climate authority; every city and agency in Sonoma County coordinates grants and other planning for climate protection and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“That model is worth exploring and sharing with other communities that are looking for a way forward,” said Grant Davis, general manager of Sonoma Water.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Representatives from the water agency, which supplies water to more than 600,000 people, will also share in Egypt how they are adapting to atmospheric rivers — big storms that can cause extreme flooding. According to recent research from Bay Area scientists, these storms are expected to get up to \u003ca href=\"https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2212094722000275\">37% wetter by the end of the century\u003c/a>.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The team will take part in a session on atmospheric rivers, including how the agency is providing reservoir operators with near-term climate forecasts to inform their management decisions using a program called forecast-informed reservoir operations, or FIRO.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“If you don’t have enough atmospheric rivers in winter, you’ll slide towards drought. If you have too many, and they’re too big, you head towards flood,” said Marty Ralph, director of the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at Scripps Oceanography. Ralph is attending the conference in Egypt, too.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1980721\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 2560px\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1980721\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-scaled.jpg\" alt=\"A white radar unit points toward the sky. It looks like a mix between a mushroom and a spaceship. A bright blue sky with wispy clouds is in the background.\" width=\"2560\" height=\"1920\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-scaled.jpg 2560w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/11/IMG_0863-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 2560px) 100vw, 2560px\">\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A radar unit in Santa Rosa hunts for severe rain. \u003ccite>(Ezra David Romero/KQED News)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>Water managers at Lake Mendocino used to release water based on demand, independent of forecasted storms. Now, they mostly conserve and wait for a major rainstorm, releasing water from the reservoir at times when they know more is on the way.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The program “was able to save 20% of that reservoir’s capacity in a drought year because we were able to hold the water back when you know you don’t have rain coming,” said Brad Sherwood, assistant general manager for Sonoma Water, who is also attending the global conference.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Congress allowed the agencies to pilot this technology — really a new way of thinking about water management — at Lake Mendocino. But the idea has spread, and reservoir operators across the West Coast are experimenting with it.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In partnership with agencies across the region and state, Sonoma Water is creating a Bay Area-wide system of radar units that can better predict the characteristics of a storm, called the \u003ca href=\"https://www.sonomawater.org/aqpi\">Advanced Quantitative Precipitation Information system\u003c/a>, funded by the California Department of Water Resources.\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>It is a regional system of low-level radar units located in fields and on mountaintops. When fully built and synced up, they will generate local information about how dumping rains could affect the flooding of burn scars, highways, towns, streams and rivers.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’ll be able to help the community be prepared to, perhaps, evacuate, put up sandbags or perhaps weatherproof their houses,” said Dale Roberts, principal engineer for the agency.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The white radar units slowly spin, rising around 20 feet into the air and pointing up to the sky, looking like a cross between a mushroom and a spaceship. Agency officials want to understand a storm’s direction, moisture content and speed; they use the radar to hunt for rain that’s on its way within the next few hours.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Scientists can cross-reference that data against how fast streams or rivers are moving and other factors to forecast the severity of a storm on a community or highway. There are radar units in San José, Santa Rosa and Santa Cruz, but the scientists expect that number to grow to seven by the end of 2023, including one in the hills of Alameda County, one in San Mateo County, one facing the ocean in Marin County and another near Geyserville in Sonoma County.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cp>California legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office are discussing a possible compromise over the future of the state’s last operating nuclear power plant that could allow operator Pacific Gas and Electric to seek federal funds for a longer lifespan for the reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tentative proposal would amount to a legislative placeholder, keeping the idea of an extended run for the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in play while giving the Legislature more time to consider earthquake safety, delayed maintenance and other issues at the site, located midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan surfaced amid the chaotic, final days of the Legislature’s two-year session, which ends at midnight Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On August 12, the Democratic governor proposed extending the plant’s operating run by five to 10 years beyond its scheduled closing by 2025. Newsom said extending the life of the plant is necessary to maintain reliable power supplies in the climate change era.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside postID='news_11922354,news_11917283']But legislators have complained about being bull-rushed at the last minute with a vastly complex plan, which would have had to be in print as a bill by late Sunday to be considered in this session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a state Senate Energy Committee meeting last week, Sen. John Laird, a Santa Cruz Democrat whose district includes the plant, raised the possibility of the Legislature doing what is “absolutely necessary” to allow investor-owned PG&E to seek the federal funds, while putting off other, more contentious questions tied to the future of the reactors until next year when the Legislature returns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Biden administration has established a $6 billion program to rescue nuclear plants at risk of closing, but to apply for the funds by the September 6 deadline, Diablo Canyon needs state legislation to show it has a pathway to continue operations beyond its planned shutdown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the hearing, a top Newsom administration official, Ana Matosantos, agreed that Laird’s proposal was a possibility to allow PG&E to seek the funds, among other options that could be considered. The state expects to know by January if the reactors would qualify for a share of the funding, which some critics have doubted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is active conversation, and there will be bill language circulating at some point” on a possible compromise, Laird said in an interview after the hearing. With negotiations continuing, it wasn’t immediately clear what the final proposal would look like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s late-hour plan, which included a $1.4 billion forgivable loan for PG&E, also has seen resistance from other Democratic legislators, who have proposed an alternative that would speed up the development of solar and other renewable power sources but require the nuclear plant to close as scheduled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s proposal would attempt to unspool a complex 2016 agreement among environmentalists, plant worker unions and the utility to close the decades-old plant by 2025. The joint decision also was endorsed by California utility regulators, the Legislature and then-Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In doing so, he’s restarted a long-running debate over seismic safety at the site, which has several earthquake faults in the vicinity, with one running 650 yards from the reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups depicted the move as a “dangerous” betrayal of the 2016 pact. Plant workers and pronuclear activists have supported an extended run for the plant, citing the need for its carbon-free power amid a warming climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is little time to work out a compromise. PG&E CEO Patricia “Patti” Poppe told investors in a call last month that Newsom would have to sign state legislation by September to open the way for the utility to reverse course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an appearance in Los Angeles this week, Newsom expressed optimism his proposal would be approved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m confident we’ll land this,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E also would have to obtain a new operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to run the plant beyond 2025. The utility is following two tracks: assessing the possibility of a longer run, while simultaneously continuing to plan for closing and dismantling the plant as scheduled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E Vice President Maureen Zawalick told the Diablo Canyon Decommissioning Engagement Panel this week that if the state enacts the needed legislation, “we would take immediate actions” to seek an extended license, while applying for the federal funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>California legislators and Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office are discussing a possible compromise over the future of the state’s last operating nuclear power plant that could allow operator Pacific Gas and Electric to seek federal funds for a longer lifespan for the reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The tentative proposal would amount to a legislative placeholder, keeping the idea of an extended run for the Diablo Canyon Power Plant in play while giving the Legislature more time to consider earthquake safety, delayed maintenance and other issues at the site, located midway between Los Angeles and San Francisco.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The plan surfaced amid the chaotic, final days of the Legislature’s two-year session, which ends at midnight Wednesday.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>On August 12, the Democratic governor proposed extending the plant’s operating run by five to 10 years beyond its scheduled closing by 2025. Newsom said extending the life of the plant is necessary to maintain reliable power supplies in the climate change era.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>But legislators have complained about being bull-rushed at the last minute with a vastly complex plan, which would have had to be in print as a bill by late Sunday to be considered in this session.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At a state Senate Energy Committee meeting last week, Sen. John Laird, a Santa Cruz Democrat whose district includes the plant, raised the possibility of the Legislature doing what is “absolutely necessary” to allow investor-owned PG&E to seek the federal funds, while putting off other, more contentious questions tied to the future of the reactors until next year when the Legislature returns.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The Biden administration has established a $6 billion program to rescue nuclear plants at risk of closing, but to apply for the funds by the September 6 deadline, Diablo Canyon needs state legislation to show it has a pathway to continue operations beyond its planned shutdown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>At the hearing, a top Newsom administration official, Ana Matosantos, agreed that Laird’s proposal was a possibility to allow PG&E to seek the funds, among other options that could be considered. The state expects to know by January if the reactors would qualify for a share of the funding, which some critics have doubted.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There is active conversation, and there will be bill language circulating at some point” on a possible compromise, Laird said in an interview after the hearing. With negotiations continuing, it wasn’t immediately clear what the final proposal would look like.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s late-hour plan, which included a $1.4 billion forgivable loan for PG&E, also has seen resistance from other Democratic legislators, who have proposed an alternative that would speed up the development of solar and other renewable power sources but require the nuclear plant to close as scheduled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Newsom’s proposal would attempt to unspool a complex 2016 agreement among environmentalists, plant worker unions and the utility to close the decades-old plant by 2025. The joint decision also was endorsed by California utility regulators, the Legislature and then-Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In doing so, he’s restarted a long-running debate over seismic safety at the site, which has several earthquake faults in the vicinity, with one running 650 yards from the reactors.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Environmental groups depicted the move as a “dangerous” betrayal of the 2016 pact. Plant workers and pronuclear activists have supported an extended run for the plant, citing the need for its carbon-free power amid a warming climate.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>There is little time to work out a compromise. PG&E CEO Patricia “Patti” Poppe told investors in a call last month that Newsom would have to sign state legislation by September to open the way for the utility to reverse course.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In an appearance in Los Angeles this week, Newsom expressed optimism his proposal would be approved.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“I’m confident we’ll land this,” he said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E also would have to obtain a new operating license from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to run the plant beyond 2025. The utility is following two tracks: assessing the possibility of a longer run, while simultaneously continuing to plan for closing and dismantling the plant as scheduled.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>PG&E Vice President Maureen Zawalick told the Diablo Canyon Decommissioning Engagement Panel this week that if the state enacts the needed legislation, “we would take immediate actions” to seek an extended license, while applying for the federal funding.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"content": "\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday to drastically limit the power of the federal Environmental Protection Agency to regulate planet-warming emissions\u003c/a> upsets environmentalists, but experts say it doesn’t necessarily pose a threat to California’s ability to maintain its own stringent greenhouse gas reduction rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 6-3 vote in the West Virginia v. EPA decision marks a significant change in how the federal EPA can exercise power to address climate change, making it clear that without approval from Congress, the agency is limited in how it can set national standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bigger question now is how the ruling could affect the control all federal agencies have in imposing regulations and how states like California — which have historically taken a stronger approach to tackling climate change — could be affected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Air Resources Board, which oversees the state’s efforts to reduce air pollution, told CalMatters the agency agrees that the state’s policies and regulatory agencies now play an even more critical role in the fight against climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several experts say the ruling would not hinder the state’s efforts. Still, California’s efforts alone can’t solve a global problem, said attorney Sean Donahue, whose firm, Donahue, Goldberg & Littleton, wrote a brief in the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has its own state laws that are regulating carbon dioxide emissions, so in that respect, it matters less to California directly,” Donahue said. “However, we’re all affected by climate change. California is doing a lot to try to reduce its own emissions, but we won’t have a safe climate unless everybody pitches in, and the federal government’s efforts are really important there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s authority to independently set stronger tailpipe emissions standards than those of the federal government was granted half a century ago, when Congress passed \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/evolution-clean-air-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the Clean Air Act in 1970\u003c/a>. The law included special conditions for California to help the state address its severe smog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts worry that Thursday’s ruling could lead federal agencies to take a more cautious and less effective approach to addressing major threats to public health and safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The opinion takes away one of the EPA’s tools to address climate change going forward,” said UCLA law professor Blake Emerson. “But the broader significance is that it’s going to provide a precedent for both the Supreme Court itself and the lower courts to strike down federal regulations, both with regards to the environment and with regards to market regulation and public health and safety if those courts think that the agency has taken a really major policy position.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[aside label='Climate Change Coverage' tag='climate-change']Cara Horowitz, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law, agreed, adding that “regulations that affect significant swaths of the economy that are not explicitly authorized by Congress with very specific and clear statutory language, are especially vulnerable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several state leaders on Thursday maintained that California would continue to lead the nation in setting its own rules to reduce emissions, affirming that the ruling would not impede the state’s efforts to combat climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Today’s ruling makes it even more imperative that California and other states succeed in our efforts to combat the climate crisis,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “California will remain the tentpole for this movement with record investments and aggressive policies to reduce pollution, to protect people from extreme weather, and to leave our children and grandchildren a world that’s better off than we found it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney General Rob Bonta called the Supreme Court’s decision “misguided and gravely disappointing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are running out of time in the fight against climate change, and we need all levels of government working together to take action before it’s too late,” he said in a statement.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>“In California, we have strong programs in place to address climate change, and we will not go backwards. With the future of our planet at stake, our commitment to tackling the climate crisis cannot waver.”\u003c/p>\n\n",
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"excerpt": "The US Supreme Court's decision to limit federal environmental protection rules will have little to no effect on California's carbon-reduction policies, according to experts — and state leaders say they are doubling down on their climate commitment.",
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"description": "The US Supreme Court's decision to limit federal environmental protection rules will have little to no effect on California's carbon-reduction policies, according to experts — and state leaders say they are doubling down on their climate commitment.",
"title": "California Climate Rules Won't Be Undercut by Supreme Court's Ruling, Experts Say | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>The \u003ca href=\"https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/21pdf/20-1530_n758.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">U.S. Supreme Court’s decision on Thursday to drastically limit the power of the federal Environmental Protection Agency to regulate planet-warming emissions\u003c/a> upsets environmentalists, but experts say it doesn’t necessarily pose a threat to California’s ability to maintain its own stringent greenhouse gas reduction rules.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The 6-3 vote in the West Virginia v. EPA decision marks a significant change in how the federal EPA can exercise power to address climate change, making it clear that without approval from Congress, the agency is limited in how it can set national standards.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The bigger question now is how the ruling could affect the control all federal agencies have in imposing regulations and how states like California — which have historically taken a stronger approach to tackling climate change — could be affected.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s Air Resources Board, which oversees the state’s efforts to reduce air pollution, told CalMatters the agency agrees that the state’s policies and regulatory agencies now play an even more critical role in the fight against climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several experts say the ruling would not hinder the state’s efforts. Still, California’s efforts alone can’t solve a global problem, said attorney Sean Donahue, whose firm, Donahue, Goldberg & Littleton, wrote a brief in the case.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“California has its own state laws that are regulating carbon dioxide emissions, so in that respect, it matters less to California directly,” Donahue said. “However, we’re all affected by climate change. California is doing a lot to try to reduce its own emissions, but we won’t have a safe climate unless everybody pitches in, and the federal government’s efforts are really important there.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The state’s authority to independently set stronger tailpipe emissions standards than those of the federal government was granted half a century ago, when Congress passed \u003ca href=\"https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/evolution-clean-air-act\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">the Clean Air Act in 1970\u003c/a>. The law included special conditions for California to help the state address its severe smog.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Some experts worry that Thursday’s ruling could lead federal agencies to take a more cautious and less effective approach to addressing major threats to public health and safety.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“The opinion takes away one of the EPA’s tools to address climate change going forward,” said UCLA law professor Blake Emerson. “But the broader significance is that it’s going to provide a precedent for both the Supreme Court itself and the lower courts to strike down federal regulations, both with regards to the environment and with regards to market regulation and public health and safety if those courts think that the agency has taken a really major policy position.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Cara Horowitz, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at UCLA School of Law, agreed, adding that “regulations that affect significant swaths of the economy that are not explicitly authorized by Congress with very specific and clear statutory language, are especially vulnerable.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Several state leaders on Thursday maintained that California would continue to lead the nation in setting its own rules to reduce emissions, affirming that the ruling would not impede the state’s efforts to combat climate change.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Today’s ruling makes it even more imperative that California and other states succeed in our efforts to combat the climate crisis,” Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. “California will remain the tentpole for this movement with record investments and aggressive policies to reduce pollution, to protect people from extreme weather, and to leave our children and grandchildren a world that’s better off than we found it.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Attorney General Rob Bonta called the Supreme Court’s decision “misguided and gravely disappointing.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We are running out of time in the fight against climate change, and we need all levels of government working together to take action before it’s too late,” he said in a statement.\u003cstrong> \u003c/strong>“In California, we have strong programs in place to address climate change, and we will not go backwards. With the future of our planet at stake, our commitment to tackling the climate crisis cannot waver.”\u003c/p>\n\n\u003c/div>\u003c/p>",
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"title": "Slick Business: Texas Oil Company Wants to Use California Clean Energy Credits to Extract More Oil",
"headTitle": "Slick Business: Texas Oil Company Wants to Use California Clean Energy Credits to Extract More Oil | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>Occidental Petroleum is seeking to sell credits in California’s transportation carbon market to help finance the construction of what would be the world’s largest industrial carbon dioxide removal plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The operation would effectively invert what Occidental has done for a century, by taking carbon out of the air and sending it underground, even if on a relatively small scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a twist. Occidental has said it plans to use some or most of the carbon dioxide it captures from the Texas plant to squeeze more petroleum out of the ground, by pumping it into aging oil fields. As a result, the California carbon market, which is meant to help lower the climate emissions of transportation in the state, could supply tens of millions of dollars to help extract more oil, thereby contributing more emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[pullquote size='small' align='right' citation='Danny Cullenward, CarbonPlan']‘There’s a holy war brewing in climate politics over these kinds of technologies and whether or not they’re a tool of the oil industry.’[/pullquote]Occidental’s plans raise one of environmental advocates’ biggest concerns about carbon removal technologies: that they will be used by oil companies to delay the far more urgent task of rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels. By allowing companies to sell credits for captured carbon dioxide used to produce oil, some advocates warn, California’s program is poised to do just that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, Chief Executive Vicki Hollub has said Occidental will expand oil production, rather than curtail it, using captured CO2 to produce what the company is audaciously branding as “net-zero oil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People familiar with Occidental’s plans say that accessing California’s transportation market is critical to financing the “direct air capture” plant, which the company has said would cost up to $1 billion and would initially pull half-a-million metric tons of the greenhouse gas out of the air every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Occidental says it will break ground this year in West Texas, near Odessa. If the project is completed as planned, it would mark a quantum leap for a technology that some scientists and advocates say could play an important role in meeting climate targets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pressed by a raft of climate disasters, regional and national governments across the globe are rushing to support carbon removal technologies. The bipartisan infrastructure bill that Congress passed last year included $3.5 billion to build direct air capture “hubs.” Meanwhile, New York and Washington, the European Union and others have enacted or are considering a range of possible incentives, from clean-fuel policies like California’s to government procurement programs for carbon dioxide removal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some environmental advocates say that many of the policies that are emerging, including California’s clean fuels market and a federal carbon capture tax credit, have been shaped by oil companies to their own advantage, diluting the climate benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a holy war brewing in climate politics over these kinds of technologies and whether or not they’re a tool of the oil industry,” said Danny Cullenward, the policy director at CarbonPlan, a nonprofit that analyzes the integrity of carbon removal efforts. Cullenward said incentives like California’s are beginning to shape a new field, “and I don’t think it’s an accident that we’re seeing deployment aligned with industry priorities. Deployment is not aligning around pure climate objectives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Getting to ‘net zero’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The case for carbon removal emerged from the uncertain math of climate models. When climate scientists have tried to model pathways that limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, nearly all of them have required some degree of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Many of the models require billions of tons of carbon removal per year by mid-century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When accounting for sectors like agriculture and long-haul shipping, scientists and governments simply haven’t figured out how to get all the way to zero emissions fast enough. That leaves carbon removal to provide the “net” in “net zero.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few if any scientists or experts think direct air capture technology alone can achieve that scale. Natural carbon removal like reforestation will need to play a large role, and there are a suite of other techniques, like converting waste biomass into charcoal that can be mixed into the soil or tinkering with seawater to enhance its absorption of CO2. But all these approaches have their limits, risks and drawbacks, and increasingly, many people say direct air capture should be part of the mix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage750px.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1979076 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage750px.png\" alt=\"Graphic titled "How An Oil Company Plans to Pull Carbon from the Air." It's a cartoon overhead view of the plant Occidental proposes building, with arrows and text bubble indicating what the various buildings, silos, etc., do, and how everything is connected.\" width=\"750\" height=\"700\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage750px.png 750w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage750px-160x149.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the largest existing direct air capture plant, built by the Swiss start-up Climeworks, which has not partnered with oil companies, removes only 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Even if Occidental can realize its direct air capture ambitions to eventually remove 1 million tons annually at its Texas plant, the benefit would be minuscule on a planetary scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The International Energy Agency has said direct air capture capacity must reach roughly 85 million tons by 2030, a feat that would still represent less than three-tenths of 1% of current global energy-related emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hope, or prayer, is that capacity could rise sharply in the following two decades. By 2050, the Biden administration’s long-term strategy for reaching net-zero emissions is counting on direct air capture and other carbon removal technologies to make up nearly 10% of all emissions cuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The question now is whether the technology can be pursued in such a way that it doesn’t distract or detract from the urgent task of phasing out fossil fuels. And many advocates warn there’s little hope of achieving that goal if the emerging direct air capture industry is built by oil companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Seeking access to California’s market \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s low-carbon fuel standard, or LCFS, aims to lower the state’s transportation emissions by setting a statewide benchmark for the carbon intensity of its fuels. In order to sell gasoline or diesel, which fall above that mark, a refiner must buy credits, which companies generate by selling low-carbon fuels like biodiesel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2018, oil refineries and biofuels plants also have been allowed to install carbon capture equipment to effectively lower the carbon intensity of their fuels. Direct air capture plants do not need to sell any fuel at all — they can simply generate and sell credits by capturing and storing carbon dioxide. They cannot, however, sell the oil they extract with the CO2 they capture as a low-carbon fuel. Any of these operations can be located outside California, but refiners or biofuels plants must sell their fuel in the state to access its carbon market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The value of the credits fluctuates, but at the beginning of this year they averaged about $170 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, making the market extremely attractive for carbon capture and removal operations looking to cover their costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert Zeller, vice president of technology at Occidental’s low-carbon business, said in an interview last month that his company was working with regulators in California to gain access to the LCFS market for the Texas direct air capture plant. He did not elaborate on whether the company plans to sell credits for captured CO2 that is used for oil production, as opposed to pure storage. Occidental declined to answer questions for this article.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the LCFS rules are clear: Companies are free to sell credits for carbon removal from the atmosphere, even if the carbon is used to extract more oil, and they are not required to account for the emissions that come from burning that oil when determining how many carbon credits they can sell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many environmental advocates say that system undermines the state’s larger climate goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Giving a carbon capture project the same number of credits whether or not it helps produce additional oil makes no sense as a climate mitigation or a carbon removal policy,” said Cullenward, the policy director at CarbonPlan, in an email. “It only makes sense as a carbon capture technology subsidy that actively privileges oil and gas production over climate-safe applications.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s equal treatment of carbon dioxide used for so-called “enhanced oil recovery” and that which is just stored is particularly problematic, Cullenward said, because each credit sold in the state represents an additional volume of gasoline or diesel that is burned in its cars and trucks. In other words, the removal comes instead of phasing out some amount of fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeremy Martin, director of fuels policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said he thinks the state should “adjust” how it treats enhanced oil recovery. Like many environmental advocates who support carbon removal technologies, Martin said their promise is in helping address emissions from certain sectors, like aviation and heavy industry, that are extremely difficult or expensive to reduce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But I think it’s also really important not to lose sight of the fact that using these technologies to maximize emissions reduction as we’re transitioning off of petroleum, that’s what makes sense to us, that’s what our analysis supports,” Martin said. “It does not support using these technologies as an alternative to ramping down petroleum.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee for California’s Air Resources Board, which administers the LCFS, submitted draft comments recommending that enhanced oil recovery projects be barred from the system, warning that allowing them increases emissions and extends the life of “highly polluting facilities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>James Duffy, a staffer at the board’s LCFS program, said in an interview that his agency had developed robust regulations to ensure that carbon dioxide storage is safe and well monitored, even when it is injected in oil fields, but that any emissions that come from the oil produced are “not part of the accounting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Occidental’s grand ambition \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At the CERAWeek energy conference last month in Houston, a couple of dozen men and women hailing mostly from the financial and energy sectors watched as Occidental unveiled a holographic animation of its direct air capture plant. The presentation showed a rectangular perimeter of giant fans sucking in vast volumes of virtual air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company has licensed technology from Carbon Engineering, a Canadian direct air capture start-up, that passes air over a mineral-laced liquid, which draws out the carbon. The display showed how this carbonated mineral would then be sent through a series of pipes and towers, which would mix it with another mineral before processing and heating it to eventually produce a concentrated stream of carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979112\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1979112\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage-800x596.png\" alt=\"An rendering of a plant to capture carbon from the air shows a long brown building running across the foreground, with large round fans inset along the roof of the building. The ground is brown and the sky is pale blue with puffy clouds.\" width=\"800\" height=\"596\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage-800x596.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage-1020x760.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage-160x119.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage-768x572.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage.png 1062w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rendering of a planned direct air capture plant in Texas that would initially pull 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide out of the air annually. Occidental Petroleum, which is planning to build the plant, would use some or most of the carbon dioxide it captures to pump more oil out of depleted reservoirs. \u003ccite>(Carbon Engineering)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The plant would be powered with a combination of renewable energy, generated specifically for its operation, and natural gas. Carbon Engineering’s designs include equipment to capture the emissions from burning the natural gas as part of the plant’s operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That morning, Hollub, Occidental’s CEO, told a ballroom full of people at the annual energy industry conference that “initially, this was solely a business focus for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company’s oil fields in the Permian Basin, beneath Texas and New Mexico, still hold about 2 billion barrels of oil, she said, but in order to pump the oil to the surface, Occidental must inject carbon dioxide into the reservoir to increase its pressure. That carbon dioxide had generally been mined from naturally occurring underground pools, but about a dozen years ago, Hollub said, they realized those pools were drying up. “There wasn’t sufficient CO2 to help us develop all of those reserves,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps carbon capture offered a solution, she recalled. Technologies to extract carbon dioxide from exhaust plumes had been used by industry for decades, and more recently, some scientists and companies had begun experimenting with ways to pull the gas straight from the air. Even when it is injected in oil fields, the vast majority of the carbon dioxide can be locked away underground, if it is monitored properly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For both approaches, the chief obstacle to scaling the technology is not technical but financial, so Occidental set about trying to help tip the scales, and in 2018, two key pieces fell into place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Washington, Congress passed an expansion of a federal tax credit for carbon capture and storage, which Hollub said her company worked on with then-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat and the bill’s sponsor. And in California, state regulators began allowing carbon capture and direct air capture plants to begin accessing its low-carbon fuels market, even if they were located outside the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both changes drew lobbying and support from Occidental and other oil companies. And because carbon capture or direct air capture projects can combine, or “stack,” the two credits, a new market emerged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To underscore the importance of the 2018 federal tax credit to his business, Zeller, the vice president at Occidental’s low-carbon business, told a CERAWeek panel, “That’s the reason I’m here today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a call with investors late last month, Hollub and other executives said the company would build 70 direct air capture plants by 2035. But central to this plan is a strategy to produce what Occidental calls “net-zero oil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, nearly all of the carbon dioxide injected for enhanced oil recovery can remain underground if it is monitored properly, and experts say it is possible to store more carbon dioxide than is emitted by the oil that’s produced. Compared to a conventional barrel of oil, the life-cycle emissions are substantially lower, and Hollub has made a spirited case for the environmental benefits of oil pumped with captured CO2, saying it is better than drilling new fields with new infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a March interview, Zeller said the company’s position has evolved, from focusing almost purely on producing oil to being open to other uses for the carbon dioxide. If a customer is willing to pay a premium to inject carbon dioxide for pure storage, he said, “sure, OK, we’ll do that.” If companies want to buy CO2 to make synthetic fuel, he said, “sure, no problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Zeller made it clear that Occidental’s plans haven’t strayed from oil, either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to be listening to the market, and people aren’t ready for net-zero oil, really, they’re not,” he said, adding, “They will be, because it is going to be a high-value, low-cost answer, and people just need to get past the emotions of it, and they will. They have to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last three weeks, Occidental has announced a flurry of activity around its direct air capture plans. Airbus, the European airplane manufacturer, said it would buy credits to remove 100,000 metric tons per year for four years from the Texas plant, coming on top of investments by United Airlines, Shopify and others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One week later, Occidental announced a deal with a South Korean refiner to buy up to 200,000 barrels of oil squeezed out of the ground with CO2 captured by the Texas plant. In a press release, the companies boasted of a milestone in emissions reduction efforts, an “affordable, scalable” way to work toward their own climate goals, by buying and selling net-zero oil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pVpuCW682XuzAGmkurLDvW?domain=insideclimatenews.org\">\u003cem>InsideClimate News\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/bJVSCXDM32FBx0oJiEwEOr?domain=insideclimatenews.org\">Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003cem>here.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "The oil company plans on removing carbon from the atmosphere and pumping it into the ground to extract more oil in the Permian Basin. Climate activists fear the fossil fuel industry will use this new technology as a cover for continuing to sell oil.",
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"description": "The oil company plans on removing carbon from the atmosphere and pumping it into the ground to extract more oil in the Permian Basin. Climate activists fear the fossil fuel industry will use this new technology as a cover for continuing to sell oil.",
"title": "Slick Business: Texas Oil Company Wants to Use California Clean Energy Credits to Extract More Oil | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>Occidental Petroleum is seeking to sell credits in California’s transportation carbon market to help finance the construction of what would be the world’s largest industrial carbon dioxide removal plant.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The operation would effectively invert what Occidental has done for a century, by taking carbon out of the air and sending it underground, even if on a relatively small scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But there’s a twist. Occidental has said it plans to use some or most of the carbon dioxide it captures from the Texas plant to squeeze more petroleum out of the ground, by pumping it into aging oil fields. As a result, the California carbon market, which is meant to help lower the climate emissions of transportation in the state, could supply tens of millions of dollars to help extract more oil, thereby contributing more emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘There’s a holy war brewing in climate politics over these kinds of technologies and whether or not they’re a tool of the oil industry.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Occidental’s plans raise one of environmental advocates’ biggest concerns about carbon removal technologies: that they will be used by oil companies to delay the far more urgent task of rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels. By allowing companies to sell credits for captured carbon dioxide used to produce oil, some advocates warn, California’s program is poised to do just that.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Indeed, Chief Executive Vicki Hollub has said Occidental will expand oil production, rather than curtail it, using captured CO2 to produce what the company is audaciously branding as “net-zero oil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>People familiar with Occidental’s plans say that accessing California’s transportation market is critical to financing the “direct air capture” plant, which the company has said would cost up to $1 billion and would initially pull half-a-million metric tons of the greenhouse gas out of the air every year.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Occidental says it will break ground this year in West Texas, near Odessa. If the project is completed as planned, it would mark a quantum leap for a technology that some scientists and advocates say could play an important role in meeting climate targets.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Pressed by a raft of climate disasters, regional and national governments across the globe are rushing to support carbon removal technologies. The bipartisan infrastructure bill that Congress passed last year included $3.5 billion to build direct air capture “hubs.” Meanwhile, New York and Washington, the European Union and others have enacted or are considering a range of possible incentives, from clean-fuel policies like California’s to government procurement programs for carbon dioxide removal.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But some environmental advocates say that many of the policies that are emerging, including California’s clean fuels market and a federal carbon capture tax credit, have been shaped by oil companies to their own advantage, diluting the climate benefits.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“There’s a holy war brewing in climate politics over these kinds of technologies and whether or not they’re a tool of the oil industry,” said Danny Cullenward, the policy director at CarbonPlan, a nonprofit that analyzes the integrity of carbon removal efforts. Cullenward said incentives like California’s are beginning to shape a new field, “and I don’t think it’s an accident that we’re seeing deployment aligned with industry priorities. Deployment is not aligning around pure climate objectives.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Getting to ‘net zero’\u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>The case for carbon removal emerged from the uncertain math of climate models. When climate scientists have tried to model pathways that limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, nearly all of them have required some degree of removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Many of the models require billions of tons of carbon removal per year by mid-century.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>When accounting for sectors like agriculture and long-haul shipping, scientists and governments simply haven’t figured out how to get all the way to zero emissions fast enough. That leaves carbon removal to provide the “net” in “net zero.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Few if any scientists or experts think direct air capture technology alone can achieve that scale. Natural carbon removal like reforestation will need to play a large role, and there are a suite of other techniques, like converting waste biomass into charcoal that can be mixed into the soil or tinkering with seawater to enhance its absorption of CO2. But all these approaches have their limits, risks and drawbacks, and increasingly, many people say direct air capture should be part of the mix.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage750px.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-1979076 size-full\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage750px.png\" alt=\"Graphic titled "How An Oil Company Plans to Pull Carbon from the Air." It's a cartoon overhead view of the plant Occidental proposes building, with arrows and text bubble indicating what the various buildings, silos, etc., do, and how everything is connected.\" width=\"750\" height=\"700\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage750px.png 750w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage750px-160x149.png 160w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 750px) 100vw, 750px\">\u003c/a>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Still, the largest existing direct air capture plant, built by the Swiss start-up Climeworks, which has not partnered with oil companies, removes only 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide per year. Even if Occidental can realize its direct air capture ambitions to eventually remove 1 million tons annually at its Texas plant, the benefit would be minuscule on a planetary scale.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The International Energy Agency has said direct air capture capacity must reach roughly 85 million tons by 2030, a feat that would still represent less than three-tenths of 1% of current global energy-related emissions.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The hope, or prayer, is that capacity could rise sharply in the following two decades. By 2050, the Biden administration’s long-term strategy for reaching net-zero emissions is counting on direct air capture and other carbon removal technologies to make up nearly 10% of all emissions cuts.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The question now is whether the technology can be pursued in such a way that it doesn’t distract or detract from the urgent task of phasing out fossil fuels. And many advocates warn there’s little hope of achieving that goal if the emerging direct air capture industry is built by oil companies.\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Seeking access to California’s market \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>California’s low-carbon fuel standard, or LCFS, aims to lower the state’s transportation emissions by setting a statewide benchmark for the carbon intensity of its fuels. In order to sell gasoline or diesel, which fall above that mark, a refiner must buy credits, which companies generate by selling low-carbon fuels like biodiesel.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Since 2018, oil refineries and biofuels plants also have been allowed to install carbon capture equipment to effectively lower the carbon intensity of their fuels. Direct air capture plants do not need to sell any fuel at all — they can simply generate and sell credits by capturing and storing carbon dioxide. They cannot, however, sell the oil they extract with the CO2 they capture as a low-carbon fuel. Any of these operations can be located outside California, but refiners or biofuels plants must sell their fuel in the state to access its carbon market.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The value of the credits fluctuates, but at the beginning of this year they averaged about $170 per metric ton of carbon dioxide, making the market extremely attractive for carbon capture and removal operations looking to cover their costs.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Robert Zeller, vice president of technology at Occidental’s low-carbon business, said in an interview last month that his company was working with regulators in California to gain access to the LCFS market for the Texas direct air capture plant. He did not elaborate on whether the company plans to sell credits for captured CO2 that is used for oil production, as opposed to pure storage. Occidental declined to answer questions for this article.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But the LCFS rules are clear: Companies are free to sell credits for carbon removal from the atmosphere, even if the carbon is used to extract more oil, and they are not required to account for the emissions that come from burning that oil when determining how many carbon credits they can sell.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Many environmental advocates say that system undermines the state’s larger climate goals.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“Giving a carbon capture project the same number of credits whether or not it helps produce additional oil makes no sense as a climate mitigation or a carbon removal policy,” said Cullenward, the policy director at CarbonPlan, in an email. “It only makes sense as a carbon capture technology subsidy that actively privileges oil and gas production over climate-safe applications.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>California’s equal treatment of carbon dioxide used for so-called “enhanced oil recovery” and that which is just stored is particularly problematic, Cullenward said, because each credit sold in the state represents an additional volume of gasoline or diesel that is burned in its cars and trucks. In other words, the removal comes instead of phasing out some amount of fossil fuels.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Jeremy Martin, director of fuels policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said he thinks the state should “adjust” how it treats enhanced oil recovery. Like many environmental advocates who support carbon removal technologies, Martin said their promise is in helping address emissions from certain sectors, like aviation and heavy industry, that are extremely difficult or expensive to reduce.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“But I think it’s also really important not to lose sight of the fact that using these technologies to maximize emissions reduction as we’re transitioning off of petroleum, that’s what makes sense to us, that’s what our analysis supports,” Martin said. “It does not support using these technologies as an alternative to ramping down petroleum.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In March, the Environmental Justice Advisory Committee for California’s Air Resources Board, which administers the LCFS, submitted draft comments recommending that enhanced oil recovery projects be barred from the system, warning that allowing them increases emissions and extends the life of “highly polluting facilities.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>James Duffy, a staffer at the board’s LCFS program, said in an interview that his agency had developed robust regulations to ensure that carbon dioxide storage is safe and well monitored, even when it is injected in oil fields, but that any emissions that come from the oil produced are “not part of the accounting.”\u003c/p>\n\u003ch2>\u003cstrong>Occidental’s grand ambition \u003c/strong>\u003c/h2>\n\u003cp>At the CERAWeek energy conference last month in Houston, a couple of dozen men and women hailing mostly from the financial and energy sectors watched as Occidental unveiled a holographic animation of its direct air capture plant. The presentation showed a rectangular perimeter of giant fans sucking in vast volumes of virtual air.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company has licensed technology from Carbon Engineering, a Canadian direct air capture start-up, that passes air over a mineral-laced liquid, which draws out the carbon. The display showed how this carbonated mineral would then be sent through a series of pipes and towers, which would mix it with another mineral before processing and heating it to eventually produce a concentrated stream of carbon dioxide.\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1979112\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage.png\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1979112\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage-800x596.png\" alt=\"An rendering of a plant to capture carbon from the air shows a long brown building running across the foreground, with large round fans inset along the roof of the building. The ground is brown and the sky is pale blue with puffy clouds.\" width=\"800\" height=\"596\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage-800x596.png 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage-1020x760.png 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage-160x119.png 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage-768x572.png 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/04/DirectAirCaptureStorage.png 1062w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">A rendering of a planned direct air capture plant in Texas that would initially pull 500,000 tons of carbon dioxide out of the air annually. Occidental Petroleum, which is planning to build the plant, would use some or most of the carbon dioxide it captures to pump more oil out of depleted reservoirs. \u003ccite>(Carbon Engineering)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>The plant would be powered with a combination of renewable energy, generated specifically for its operation, and natural gas. Carbon Engineering’s designs include equipment to capture the emissions from burning the natural gas as part of the plant’s operations.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>That morning, Hollub, Occidental’s CEO, told a ballroom full of people at the annual energy industry conference that “initially, this was solely a business focus for us.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>The company’s oil fields in the Permian Basin, beneath Texas and New Mexico, still hold about 2 billion barrels of oil, she said, but in order to pump the oil to the surface, Occidental must inject carbon dioxide into the reservoir to increase its pressure. That carbon dioxide had generally been mined from naturally occurring underground pools, but about a dozen years ago, Hollub said, they realized those pools were drying up. “There wasn’t sufficient CO2 to help us develop all of those reserves,” she said.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Perhaps carbon capture offered a solution, she recalled. Technologies to extract carbon dioxide from exhaust plumes had been used by industry for decades, and more recently, some scientists and companies had begun experimenting with ways to pull the gas straight from the air. Even when it is injected in oil fields, the vast majority of the carbon dioxide can be locked away underground, if it is monitored properly.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>For both approaches, the chief obstacle to scaling the technology is not technical but financial, so Occidental set about trying to help tip the scales, and in 2018, two key pieces fell into place.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In Washington, Congress passed an expansion of a federal tax credit for carbon capture and storage, which Hollub said her company worked on with then-Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a North Dakota Democrat and the bill’s sponsor. And in California, state regulators began allowing carbon capture and direct air capture plants to begin accessing its low-carbon fuels market, even if they were located outside the state.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Both changes drew lobbying and support from Occidental and other oil companies. And because carbon capture or direct air capture projects can combine, or “stack,” the two credits, a new market emerged.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>To underscore the importance of the 2018 federal tax credit to his business, Zeller, the vice president at Occidental’s low-carbon business, told a CERAWeek panel, “That’s the reason I’m here today.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a call with investors late last month, Hollub and other executives said the company would build 70 direct air capture plants by 2035. But central to this plan is a strategy to produce what Occidental calls “net-zero oil.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over time, nearly all of the carbon dioxide injected for enhanced oil recovery can remain underground if it is monitored properly, and experts say it is possible to store more carbon dioxide than is emitted by the oil that’s produced. Compared to a conventional barrel of oil, the life-cycle emissions are substantially lower, and Hollub has made a spirited case for the environmental benefits of oil pumped with captured CO2, saying it is better than drilling new fields with new infrastructure.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>In a March interview, Zeller said the company’s position has evolved, from focusing almost purely on producing oil to being open to other uses for the carbon dioxide. If a customer is willing to pay a premium to inject carbon dioxide for pure storage, he said, “sure, OK, we’ll do that.” If companies want to buy CO2 to make synthetic fuel, he said, “sure, no problem.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>But Zeller made it clear that Occidental’s plans haven’t strayed from oil, either.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>“We’re trying to be listening to the market, and people aren’t ready for net-zero oil, really, they’re not,” he said, adding, “They will be, because it is going to be a high-value, low-cost answer, and people just need to get past the emotions of it, and they will. They have to.”\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>Over the last three weeks, Occidental has announced a flurry of activity around its direct air capture plans. Airbus, the European airplane manufacturer, said it would buy credits to remove 100,000 metric tons per year for four years from the Texas plant, coming on top of investments by United Airlines, Shopify and others.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>One week later, Occidental announced a deal with a South Korean refiner to buy up to 200,000 barrels of oil squeezed out of the ground with CO2 captured by the Texas plant. In a press release, the companies boasted of a milestone in emissions reduction efforts, an “affordable, scalable” way to work toward their own climate goals, by buying and selling net-zero oil.\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/pVpuCW682XuzAGmkurLDvW?domain=insideclimatenews.org\">\u003cem>InsideClimate News\u003c/em>\u003c/a>\u003cem> is a nonprofit, independent news organization that covers climate, energy and the environment. \u003ca href=\"https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/bJVSCXDM32FBx0oJiEwEOr?domain=insideclimatenews.org\">Sign up for the ICN newsletter \u003c/a>\u003c/em>\u003cem>here.\u003c/em>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"title": "California's Transition to Solar Energy Is at a Crossroads: What That Means for Equity and Your Energy Bill",
"headTitle": "California’s Transition to Solar Energy Is at a Crossroads: What That Means for Equity and Your Energy Bill | KQED",
"content": "\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The pitched battle over rooftop solar regulations in California is at a momentary détente, with several vested interests hoping that Gov. Gavin Newsom will intervene to swing the new rules on solar incentives their way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The proposed changes would affect subsidies for generating power with rooftop solar arrays. In January, they provoked an all-out revolt among solar installers and some environmentalists. But unions and utilities are on the other side. They want drastic changes, arguing that renters and people with lower incomes shouldn’t have to pay more than their fair share for power. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote size='small' citation='Veronica Young, Berkeley resident']‘We always had crazy-high electric and gas bills, so we used some of her retirement to essentially eliminate the worry about unpredictable energy bills.’[/pullquote]Environmental groups that usually agree on green energy are divided on the proposed changes, because they say the changes that are supposed to promote equity will jeopardize the state’s ability to reach its ambitious climate goals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Luverta Cooper, a retired accountant, installed solar panels last year on the family’s 1963 ranch-style home in Richmond’s Hilltop neighborhood. If the proposed net-metering changes were in place, they would’ve changed her entire calculus on whether to install solar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It cost about $40,000. More than we were expecting, but we’re totally electrified now,” she said. “Our PG&E bill was running like $500 a month.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The family went big: 19 panels, 320 watts, a battery in the garage to store power for blackouts, and a heat pump in the side yard to replace the gas heater and AC. Her daughter, Veronica Young, who takes care of her parents, helped with the research and decision-making, and said the savings means the investment will pay off in about 10 years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We always had crazy-high electric and gas bills, so we used some of her retirement to essentially eliminate the worry about unpredictable energy bills,” Young explained. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The utility bill went from about $500 per month to only $5 per month — a fee for the gas connection. And now PG&E pays the family for the excess electricity their system generates and transmits to the electrical grid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote size='small' citation='Mark Toney, executive director, The Utility Reform Network (TURN)']‘We think it’s important that the cost of greening the grid does not mean that low-income families, that communities of color are cut off from solar because the prices are too doggone high.’[/pullquote]At issue are the rules that govern selling power back to the utilities. It’s been five years since state utility regulators last adjusted the incentives to go solar so people like the Coopers could make the change financially feasible. Experts say it’s high time for adjustments, because when the Coopers pay less for power, that means their neighbors pay more. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The utilities still have to maintain infrastructure, build new and greener power plants, and bury power lines so they don’t start wildfires. Those costs are built into the cost of energy per kilowatt. Customers with solar pay for fewer kilowatts, or maybe don’t pay at all if they can sell enough extra solar power back to the utility. That means rates go up for the rest of the utility’s customers. The utilities argue that \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">someone \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">has to pay so the electrical grid functions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It’s the other electrical customers who pay the subsidies. The subsidies do not come from the utility companies, it comes from utility customers,” said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, a utility watchdog.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For once, TURN has found itself agreeing with the state’s investor-owned utilities. But TURN’s argument is about equity. The people who have a few extra thousand dollars to invest in rooftop solar aren’t representative of California as a whole, Toney said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1972585\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1972585\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-800x551.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"551\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-800x551.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-1020x702.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-768x529.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-1536x1057.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-2048x1410.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-1920x1322.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Biden has set a goal of making the U.S. carbon neutral by 2050, which will require steeper emissions cuts than the US has ever achieved. To reach it, coal power would have to wane into a footnote, replaced by renewables like solar and wind. \u003ccite>(Alex Wong/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Solar adopters \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2021/06/01/rooftop-solar-inequity/#:~:text=California%27s%20distributed%20solar%20policy%20hurts%20the%20poor.&text=As%20numerous%20EI%20blogs%20and,pumps%20kilowatts%20into%20the%20grid.\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">skew whiter and higher-income\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> compared to California’s demographics, although their median incomes are dropping gradually. However, most renters — 45% of California residents — don’t even have a chance to go solar, he said. People who invested in solar should pay their fair share. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It made sense for early adopters to receive a high subsidy rate. But the price of solar installation has dropped [by] more than 50% in the past several years. And the solar subsidies have tripled in that same time,” Toney said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some environmental justice advocates are pushing for a grid participation fee that would be reduced for homeowners with lower incomes, along with lower subsidies for future solar customers, in alignment with the reduced cost of actually installing solar, plus more incentives to install battery storage and funding to help lower-income homeowners install solar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We think it’s important that the cost of greening the grid does not mean that low-income families, that communities of color are cut off from solar because the prices are too doggone high,” he said. “We have to find a solution that provides the greatest amount of clean energy at the most economical prices. The fact is, utilities are awful at doing that in a cost-effective manner.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the environmental front, respected national organizations are split — with the Natural Resources Defense Council siding with the investor-owned utilities in the name of equity, and the Sierra Club lining up with the solar installers to keep things the same, so as not to jeopardize the state’s ambitious climate goals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">[pullquote size='small' citation='Ben Giustino, A1 Sun']‘People call it the solar coaster. It’s a disruptive technology. And so there’s a lot of larger powers that don’t really necessarily know what to do with it or like it because it challenges their way of doing business.’[/pullquote]The Public Utilities Commission proposal that went public in December would cut the rates that customers can get when they sell their excess solar power back to utilities. The proposal would also impose a new monthly fee to connect solar customers to the grid. Plus, it would set aside $600 million to help lower-income communities go solar and add battery storage for peak evening hours after the sun goes down, when electrical usage is still high.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are two competing visions for what solar power generation will look like in California. Solar installers want it distributed, in small arrays on rooftops across the state. Utilities want to invest in large-scale arrays developed out in the desert and built by union labor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many environmentalists ask, why don’t we have both? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It is going to be a tall order to build out all the resources we need to hit our climate targets. And California needs a thriving rooftop solar industry,” said Kate Ramsay, an attorney with the Sierra Club, one of the many parties that weighed in to ask state regulators to keep the subsidies. She says the fact that this discussion is going on at all means that California’s green energy industry is thriving and mature. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We have greened many parts of our grid,” she said. “Now a lot of parties are trying to focus on decarbonizing those peak hours in the late afternoons and evenings, when we’re firing up our gas plants, particularly on the hottest days of the summer.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1978645\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1978645\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Giustino, owner of A1 Sun, shows off a packet of rooftop solar panels at his Berkeley business in February 2022. \u003ccite>(Raquel Maria Dillon)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rooftop solar systems won’t solve that peak problem, unless more homeowners invest in battery storage. The proposed changes include incentives to install batteries. But they’ll also mean it’ll take longer for the savings on power bills to pay off after a home gets panels. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ben Giustino, with A1 Sun, the Berkeley company that installed the Coopers’ panels and battery, says solar installers are in limbo, waiting for the PUC to reevaluate its proposal and wondering what to tell their customers and sales leads in the meantime. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Giustino’s father founded the company, which makes Ben the second generation in his family to work in solar. It’s a family-owned business, complete with a dog named Sunshine. He and his colleagues are riled up about what the Public Utilities Commission might do to their industry. But he says one thing he’s learned from watching his dad over the years is that solar is a threat to the status quo, which benefits investor-owned utilities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“People call it the solar coaster. It’s a disruptive technology. And so there’s a lot of larger powers that don’t really necessarily know what to do with it or like it because it challenges their way of doing business,” Giustino said. He thinks the proposal before the Public Utilities Commission was bought and paid for by investor-owned utilities and jeopardizes the future of clean energy in California. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’s rooftops that can be used” to generate power, he said. “That benefits the homeowners, it benefits the grid, it reduces CO2 emissions. So the main gist of what investor-owned utilities are trying to do is pull the rug out from the competition so they can maintain monopoly.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The California Solar and Storage Association, which represents installers and the 75,000 Californians who work in the solar industry, says the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://calssa.org/press-releases/2022/2/23/calssa-statement-on-california-energy-commissions-announcement-on-californias-clean-energy-progress\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">proposed changes to subsidies\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> would cost thousands of jobs statewide. Giustino says they would jeopardize a dozen jobs at his company. But worse, he says, cutting subsidies and adding fees would make solar power a niche industry, like it was when his dad got into the business — only for tinkerers, off-grid homesteaders and devoted environmentalists. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’s still lots of people here who are probably going to install solar just because it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “But if you look across the state and across the industry, there’s no doubt that people will stop installing solar if it stops making financial sense for them.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since the proposal came out in December, it’s been busy at A1 Sun. Potential customers want to complete their solar projects and get grandfathered in before regulators make a decision. But even customers who already have rooftop arrays will lose their current rates eventually. Exactly when depends on what California utility regulators decide to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Under the much-criticized proposal that the PUC is reevaluating, Luverta Cooper will be grandfathered in and able to sell power for solar credits at current rates for the next 15 years, and then at dramatically lower rates. But Veronica Young is quick to admit that part of what inspired her and her family to go solar was that “we truly hate PG&E” because the company isn’t managing the environment and wildfire risk well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“PG&E has not done what they should have,” she said. “And because of that, the customer is being punished. We’re the ones paying the lawsuits that they lost.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Young and her mother don’t buy the arguments about equity, even though the family is African American. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Veronica did not grow up poor, but I did. And so I do understand that part of it,” Cooper said. “I have family who couldn’t afford to do this, and I understand those issues, but I don’t feel like I need to be made responsible for what others are doing. I’m taking responsibility for my own situation.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cooper says she and her husband worked hard to buy this house back in 1984, so she could provide her daughter with all the privileges of a middle-class upbringing. She intends to keep her home updated so she can pass it on to her daughter and share the generational wealth she’s accumulated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“A lot of the people who do solar aren’t exactly truly rich,” Young said. “I think they’re like us, who are [a] middle-class family who want to get off from paying unpredictable energy bills.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad fullwidth]\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>[ad floatright]\u003c/p>\n",
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"excerpt": "Homeowners with rooftop solar arrays can sell excess energy back to the utility company. A proposal to change how that works has erupted in conflicts over fairness, jobs and the state's climate goals. ",
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"description": "Homeowners with rooftop solar arrays can sell excess energy back to the utility company. A proposal to change how that works has erupted in conflicts over fairness, jobs and the state's climate goals. ",
"title": "California's Transition to Solar Energy Is at a Crossroads: What That Means for Equity and Your Energy Bill | KQED",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The pitched battle over rooftop solar regulations in California is at a momentary détente, with several vested interests hoping that Gov. Gavin Newsom will intervene to swing the new rules on solar incentives their way. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The proposed changes would affect subsidies for generating power with rooftop solar arrays. In January, they provoked an all-out revolt among solar installers and some environmentalists. But unions and utilities are on the other side. They want drastic changes, arguing that renters and people with lower incomes shouldn’t have to pay more than their fair share for power. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We always had crazy-high electric and gas bills, so we used some of her retirement to essentially eliminate the worry about unpredictable energy bills.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>Environmental groups that usually agree on green energy are divided on the proposed changes, because they say the changes that are supposed to promote equity will jeopardize the state’s ability to reach its ambitious climate goals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Luverta Cooper, a retired accountant, installed solar panels last year on the family’s 1963 ranch-style home in Richmond’s Hilltop neighborhood. If the proposed net-metering changes were in place, they would’ve changed her entire calculus on whether to install solar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It cost about $40,000. More than we were expecting, but we’re totally electrified now,” she said. “Our PG&E bill was running like $500 a month.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The family went big: 19 panels, 320 watts, a battery in the garage to store power for blackouts, and a heat pump in the side yard to replace the gas heater and AC. Her daughter, Veronica Young, who takes care of her parents, helped with the research and decision-making, and said the savings means the investment will pay off in about 10 years. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We always had crazy-high electric and gas bills, so we used some of her retirement to essentially eliminate the worry about unpredictable energy bills,” Young explained. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The utility bill went from about $500 per month to only $5 per month — a fee for the gas connection. And now PG&E pays the family for the excess electricity their system generates and transmits to the electrical grid. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "‘We think it’s important that the cost of greening the grid does not mean that low-income families, that communities of color are cut off from solar because the prices are too doggone high.’",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>At issue are the rules that govern selling power back to the utilities. It’s been five years since state utility regulators last adjusted the incentives to go solar so people like the Coopers could make the change financially feasible. Experts say it’s high time for adjustments, because when the Coopers pay less for power, that means their neighbors pay more. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The utilities still have to maintain infrastructure, build new and greener power plants, and bury power lines so they don’t start wildfires. Those costs are built into the cost of energy per kilowatt. Customers with solar pay for fewer kilowatts, or maybe don’t pay at all if they can sell enough extra solar power back to the utility. That means rates go up for the rest of the utility’s customers. The utilities argue that \u003c/span>\u003ci>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">someone \u003c/span>\u003c/i>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">has to pay so the electrical grid functions. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It’s the other electrical customers who pay the subsidies. The subsidies do not come from the utility companies, it comes from utility customers,” said Mark Toney, executive director of The Utility Reform Network, or TURN, a utility watchdog.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">For once, TURN has found itself agreeing with the state’s investor-owned utilities. But TURN’s argument is about equity. The people who have a few extra thousand dollars to invest in rooftop solar aren’t representative of California as a whole, Toney said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1972585\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1972585\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-800x551.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"551\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-800x551.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-1020x702.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-160x110.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-768x529.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-1536x1057.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-2048x1410.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2021/02/gettyimages-527740276_custom-44a9fba694aee1e1f2cd4d4751a8498bea2e25f3-1920x1322.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">President Biden has set a goal of making the U.S. carbon neutral by 2050, which will require steeper emissions cuts than the US has ever achieved. To reach it, coal power would have to wane into a footnote, replaced by renewables like solar and wind. \u003ccite>(Alex Wong/Getty Images)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Solar adopters \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://energyathaas.wordpress.com/2021/06/01/rooftop-solar-inequity/#:~:text=California%27s%20distributed%20solar%20policy%20hurts%20the%20poor.&text=As%20numerous%20EI%20blogs%20and,pumps%20kilowatts%20into%20the%20grid.\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">skew whiter and higher-income\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> compared to California’s demographics, although their median incomes are dropping gradually. However, most renters — 45% of California residents — don’t even have a chance to go solar, he said. People who invested in solar should pay their fair share. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It made sense for early adopters to receive a high subsidy rate. But the price of solar installation has dropped [by] more than 50% in the past several years. And the solar subsidies have tripled in that same time,” Toney said. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Some environmental justice advocates are pushing for a grid participation fee that would be reduced for homeowners with lower incomes, along with lower subsidies for future solar customers, in alignment with the reduced cost of actually installing solar, plus more incentives to install battery storage and funding to help lower-income homeowners install solar. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We think it’s important that the cost of greening the grid does not mean that low-income families, that communities of color are cut off from solar because the prices are too doggone high,” he said. “We have to find a solution that provides the greatest amount of clean energy at the most economical prices. The fact is, utilities are awful at doing that in a cost-effective manner.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">On the environmental front, respected national organizations are split — with the Natural Resources Defense Council siding with the investor-owned utilities in the name of equity, and the Sierra Club lining up with the solar installers to keep things the same, so as not to jeopardize the state’s ambitious climate goals. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"content": "\u003cdiv class=\"post-body\">\u003cp>The Public Utilities Commission proposal that went public in December would cut the rates that customers can get when they sell their excess solar power back to utilities. The proposal would also impose a new monthly fee to connect solar customers to the grid. Plus, it would set aside $600 million to help lower-income communities go solar and add battery storage for peak evening hours after the sun goes down, when electrical usage is still high.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">There are two competing visions for what solar power generation will look like in California. Solar installers want it distributed, in small arrays on rooftops across the state. Utilities want to invest in large-scale arrays developed out in the desert and built by union labor. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Many environmentalists ask, why don’t we have both? \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“It is going to be a tall order to build out all the resources we need to hit our climate targets. And California needs a thriving rooftop solar industry,” said Kate Ramsay, an attorney with the Sierra Club, one of the many parties that weighed in to ask state regulators to keep the subsidies. She says the fact that this discussion is going on at all means that California’s green energy industry is thriving and mature. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“We have greened many parts of our grid,” she said. “Now a lot of parties are trying to focus on decarbonizing those peak hours in the late afternoons and evenings, when we’re firing up our gas plants, particularly on the hottest days of the summer.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cfigure id=\"attachment_1978645\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\" style=\"max-width: 800px\">\u003ca href=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-scaled.jpg\">\u003cimg loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1978645\" src=\"https://ww2.kqed.org/app/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-800x600.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"800\" height=\"600\" srcset=\"https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-800x600.jpg 800w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-1020x765.jpg 1020w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-160x120.jpg 160w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/sites/35/2022/03/Ben-Giustino-1920x1440.jpg 1920w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 800px) 100vw, 800px\">\u003c/a>\u003cfigcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Ben Giustino, owner of A1 Sun, shows off a packet of rooftop solar panels at his Berkeley business in February 2022. \u003ccite>(Raquel Maria Dillon)\u003c/cite>\u003c/figcaption>\u003c/figure>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Rooftop solar systems won’t solve that peak problem, unless more homeowners invest in battery storage. The proposed changes include incentives to install batteries. But they’ll also mean it’ll take longer for the savings on power bills to pay off after a home gets panels. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Ben Giustino, with A1 Sun, the Berkeley company that installed the Coopers’ panels and battery, says solar installers are in limbo, waiting for the PUC to reevaluate its proposal and wondering what to tell their customers and sales leads in the meantime. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Giustino’s father founded the company, which makes Ben the second generation in his family to work in solar. It’s a family-owned business, complete with a dog named Sunshine. He and his colleagues are riled up about what the Public Utilities Commission might do to their industry. But he says one thing he’s learned from watching his dad over the years is that solar is a threat to the status quo, which benefits investor-owned utilities. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“People call it the solar coaster. It’s a disruptive technology. And so there’s a lot of larger powers that don’t really necessarily know what to do with it or like it because it challenges their way of doing business,” Giustino said. He thinks the proposal before the Public Utilities Commission was bought and paid for by investor-owned utilities and jeopardizes the future of clean energy in California. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’s rooftops that can be used” to generate power, he said. “That benefits the homeowners, it benefits the grid, it reduces CO2 emissions. So the main gist of what investor-owned utilities are trying to do is pull the rug out from the competition so they can maintain monopoly.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">The California Solar and Storage Association, which represents installers and the 75,000 Californians who work in the solar industry, says the \u003c/span>\u003ca href=\"https://calssa.org/press-releases/2022/2/23/calssa-statement-on-california-energy-commissions-announcement-on-californias-clean-energy-progress\">\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">proposed changes to subsidies\u003c/span>\u003c/a>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\"> would cost thousands of jobs statewide. Giustino says they would jeopardize a dozen jobs at his company. But worse, he says, cutting subsidies and adding fees would make solar power a niche industry, like it was when his dad got into the business — only for tinkerers, off-grid homesteaders and devoted environmentalists. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“There’s still lots of people here who are probably going to install solar just because it’s the right thing to do,” he said. “But if you look across the state and across the industry, there’s no doubt that people will stop installing solar if it stops making financial sense for them.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Since the proposal came out in December, it’s been busy at A1 Sun. Potential customers want to complete their solar projects and get grandfathered in before regulators make a decision. But even customers who already have rooftop arrays will lose their current rates eventually. Exactly when depends on what California utility regulators decide to do. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Under the much-criticized proposal that the PUC is reevaluating, Luverta Cooper will be grandfathered in and able to sell power for solar credits at current rates for the next 15 years, and then at dramatically lower rates. But Veronica Young is quick to admit that part of what inspired her and her family to go solar was that “we truly hate PG&E” because the company isn’t managing the environment and wildfire risk well.\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“PG&E has not done what they should have,” she said. “And because of that, the customer is being punished. We’re the ones paying the lawsuits that they lost.” \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Young and her mother don’t buy the arguments about equity, even though the family is African American. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“Veronica did not grow up poor, but I did. And so I do understand that part of it,” Cooper said. “I have family who couldn’t afford to do this, and I understand those issues, but I don’t feel like I need to be made responsible for what others are doing. I’m taking responsibility for my own situation.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">Cooper says she and her husband worked hard to buy this house back in 1984, so she could provide her daughter with all the privileges of a middle-class upbringing. She intends to keep her home updated so she can pass it on to her daughter and share the generational wealth she’s accumulated. \u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003cspan style=\"font-weight: 400\">“A lot of the people who do solar aren’t exactly truly rich,” Young said. “I think they’re like us, who are [a] middle-class family who want to get off from paying unpredictable energy bills.”\u003c/span>\u003c/p>\n\u003cp>\u003c/p>\u003c/div>",
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"info": "What kind of no sabo word is Hyphenación? For us, it’s about living within a hyphenation. Like being a third-gen Mexican-American from the Texas border now living that Bay Area Chicano life. Like Xorje! Each week we bring together a couple of hyphenated Latinos to talk all about personal life choices: family, careers, relationships, belonging … everything is on the table. ",
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"info": "Our flagship program, helmed by Kai Ryssdal, examines what the day in money delivered, through stories, conversations, newsworthy numbers and more. Updated Monday through Friday at about 3:30 p.m. PT.",
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"info": "The MindShift podcast explores the innovations in education that are shaping how kids learn. Hosts Ki Sung and Katrina Schwartz introduce listeners to educators, researchers, parents and students who are developing effective ways to improve how kids learn. We cover topics like how fed-up administrators are developing surprising tactics to deal with classroom disruptions; how listening to podcasts are helping kids develop reading skills; the consequences of overparenting; and why interdisciplinary learning can engage students on all ends of the traditional achievement spectrum. This podcast is part of the MindShift education site, a division of KQED News. KQED is an NPR/PBS member station based in San Francisco. You can also visit the MindShift website for episodes and supplemental blog posts or tweet us \u003ca href=\"https://twitter.com/MindShiftKQED\">@MindShiftKQED\u003c/a> or visit us at \u003ca href=\"/mindshift\">MindShift.KQED.org\u003c/a>",
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"info": "For decades, the process for how police police themselves has been inconsistent – if not opaque. In some states, like California, these proceedings were completely hidden. After a new police transparency law unsealed scores of internal affairs files, our reporters set out to examine these cases and the shadow world of police discipline. On Our Watch brings listeners into the rooms where officers are questioned and witnesses are interrogated to find out who this system is really protecting. Is it the officers, or the public they've sworn to serve?",
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"tagline": "Politics from a personal perspective",
"info": "Political Breakdown is a new series that explores the political intersection of California and the nation. Each week hosts Scott Shafer and Marisa Lagos are joined with a new special guest to unpack politics -- with personality — and offer an insider’s glimpse at how politics happens.",
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"possible": {
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"title": "Possible",
"info": "Possible is hosted by entrepreneur Reid Hoffman and writer Aria Finger. Together in Possible, Hoffman and Finger lead enlightening discussions about building a brighter collective future. The show features interviews with visionary guests like Trevor Noah, Sam Altman and Janette Sadik-Khan. Possible paints an optimistic portrait of the world we can create through science, policy, business, art and our shared humanity. It asks: What if everything goes right for once? How can we get there? Each episode also includes a short fiction story generated by advanced AI GPT-4, serving as a thought-provoking springboard to speculate how humanity could leverage technology for good.",
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"pri-the-world": {
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"title": "PRI's The World: Latest Edition",
"info": "Each weekday, host Marco Werman and his team of producers bring you the world's most interesting stories in an hour of radio that reminds us just how small our planet really is.",
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"imageSrc": "https://cdn.kqed.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/The-World-Podcast-Tile-360x360-1.jpg",
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},
"radiolab": {
"id": "radiolab",
"title": "Radiolab",
"info": "A two-time Peabody Award-winner, Radiolab is an investigation told through sounds and stories, and centered around one big idea. In the Radiolab world, information sounds like music and science and culture collide. Hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, the show is designed for listeners who demand skepticism, but appreciate wonder. WNYC Studios is the producer of other leading podcasts including Freakonomics Radio, Death, Sex & Money, On the Media and many more.",
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},
"reveal": {
"id": "reveal",
"title": "Reveal",
"info": "Created by The Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX, Reveal is public radios first one-hour weekly radio show and podcast dedicated to investigative reporting. Credible, fact based and without a partisan agenda, Reveal combines the power and artistry of driveway moment storytelling with data-rich reporting on critically important issues. The result is stories that inform and inspire, arming our listeners with information to right injustices, hold the powerful accountable and improve lives.Reveal is hosted by Al Letson and showcases the award-winning work of CIR and newsrooms large and small across the nation. In a radio and podcast market crowded with choices, Reveal focuses on important and often surprising stories that illuminate the world for our listeners.",
"airtime": "SAT 4pm-5pm",
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"officialWebsiteLink": "https://www.revealnews.org/episodes/",
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},
"rightnowish": {
"id": "rightnowish",
"title": "Rightnowish",
"tagline": "Art is where you find it",
"info": "Rightnowish digs into life in the Bay Area right now… ish. Journalist Pendarvis Harshaw takes us to galleries painted on the sides of liquor stores in West Oakland. We'll dance in warehouses in the Bayview, make smoothies with kids in South Berkeley, and listen to classical music in a 1984 Cutlass Supreme in Richmond. Every week, Pen talks to movers and shakers about how the Bay Area shapes what they create, and how they shape the place we call home.",
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