EnviroPolitics Blog

In face of a state energy supply crunch, California’s last nuclear power plant gets a life extension

FILE - An aerial photo of the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant, south of Los Osos, in Avila Beach, Calif., is seen on June 20, 2010. Federal regulators on Thursday, March 2, 2023, granted California's largest utility an unusual exemption that could allow the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant to continue running after the expiration of its operating licenses, a key piece of a contentious proposal that could keep the reactors producing electricity for years to come. (Joe Johnston/The Tribune via AP, File)

By Michael R. Blood, AP, March 2, 2023

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Government regulators Thursday granted California’s largest utility an unusual exemption that could allow the state’s last nuclear power plant to continue running after the expiration of its federal operating licenses, a key piece of a contentious propposal to keep the reactors producing electricity for years to come.

The twin-reactor Diablo Canyon plant is scheduled to shut down by 2025. But the federal exemption will permit operator Pacific Gas & Electric to keep producing power while the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reviews an expected application from the utility to extend the plant’s operating run by up to two decades.

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After a rocky start with battery electric buses, SEPTA will test hydrogen fuel-cell buses in Philly next year

Kevin Baker, a maintenance technician, refuels a hydrogen fuel-cell transit bus in Canton, Ohio, in 2021. The technology is increasingly seen as a potential fighter of emissions that contribute to climate change. Photo credit: Tony Dejak / AP

By Thomas Fitzgerald, Philadelphia Inquirer

Before too long, you may be riding a bus that generates its own electricity and emits nothing but water vapor from the tailpipe.

SEPTA is spending $17 million on 10 fuel-cell electric transit buses that run on compressed hydrogen gas as part of the agency’s transition to a zero-emissions fleet.

“A lot of the advantage comes back to just the additional range that hydrogen affords the vehicle,” said Tyler Ladd, director of power engineering for SEPTA.

A fully charged electric battery bus can travel 150 to 200 miles, depending on the temperature and how hilly a route is, Ladd said. A tank of hydrogen, converted to electricity by fuel cells on board, will carry a bus 300 miles or more, he said.

It also takes 12 to 15 minutes to gas up a bus with hydrogen vs. a couple of hours to charge the batteries, he said. Battery charging also requires transit systems to build generating stations.

Almost all of the agency’s 1,447 buses are hybrids. Just 120 burn only diesel.

Battery-powered electric buses had been SEPTA’s preferred option for cleaner energy. But its first 25 all-electric coaches, bought in 2016, had to be pulled from the road in February 2020 after cracks were discovered in their frames.

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Ex-Philly councilman gets 3.5-year prison term

Bobby Henon served on City Council for a decade prior to his conviction on bribery and fraud charges.

Former Philadelphia City Councilman Bobby Henon arrives at the federal courthouse in Philadelphia Wednesday morning for sentencing in his bribery case. Alejandro A. Alvarez / Staff Photographer

From the Philadelphia Inquirer

Former Philadelphia City Councilmember Bobby Henon was sentenced Wednesday to 3½ years in prison following his 2021 bribery conviction.

Henon has until April 17 to report to start his prison term.

Prosecutors had urged the judge to impose a sentence of roughly eight to 10 years, in line with federal sentencing guidelines. Henon’s lawyers argued for a “minimal” prison term.

Former labor leader John J. Dougherty, who was also convicted at Henon’s trial, goes back on trial next month, this time for embezzlement charges. Dougherty also faces charges he extorted a union contractor who tried to fire his nephew from a job site.

Here’s everything you need to know about Henon and Dougherty’s bribery convictions.

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#BILLYPENNGRAM – February 28 2023

#BILLYPENNGRAM OF THE DAY
Birdman
(Photo by @jonesyji)

Want to see your photo here? Tag #billypenngram on Instagram

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Sunny California? Not this weekend

*Heavy snowfall near Pine Mountain Club, Calif., on Friday. Credit…Jenna Schoenefeld for The New York Times*

By JOHN ANTCZAK, AMY TAXIN and ED WHITE, ASSOCIATED PRESS

LOS ANGELES (AP) — A powerful winter storm that lashed California with heavy rain and frigid temperatures shifted its focus Saturday to wind and heavy snow, although forecasters said the risk of life-threatening flash floods in the Los Angeles area has passed.

The National Weather Service said blizzard conditions were expected at higher elevations, with wind gusts of up to 100 mph (160 kph) and several feet of snow in isolated areas.

“There’s already been reports of 2 to 3 feet (60 to 90 centimeters) across some of the higher peaks, and we’re looking at an additional foot, maybe two, of additional snowfall through the rest of the day,” said meteorologist Zach Taylor.

Overnight lows fell below freezing in some areas while downtown San Francisco approached record-cold temperatures. A drop to 38 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) would have been the coldest since 2009, but it didn’t get colder than 41 Fahrenheit (5 degrees Celsius), according to the National Weather Service.

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Scientists: Exposing animals to diluted samples of fracking water causes lasting harm

*Pump jacks at the Belridge Oil Field and hydraulic fracking site in Kern County, California. Credit: Citizens of the Planet/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images*

By Liza Gross, Inside Climate News February 21, 2023

Extracting fossil fuels from underground reservoirs requires so much water a Chevron scientist once referred to its operations in California’s Kern River Oilfield “as a water company that skims oil.”

Fracking operations use roughly 1.5 million to 16 million gallons per well to release oil and gas from shale, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. All that water returns to the surface as wastewater called flowback and produced water, or FPW, contaminated by a complex jumble of hazardous substances in fluids injected to enhance production, salts, metals and other harmful elements once sequestered deep underground, along with their toxic breakdown products.

Concerns that spills could damage sensitive ecosystems skyrocketed with the rapid expansion of fracking across the United States and Canada almost two decades ago, as technological advances allowed energy companies to exploit previously inaccessible shale oil and gas reserves.

Those concerns are well founded new research shows. Exposing animals that play a critical role in freshwater food webs to diluted samples of flowback and produced water from fracked wells causes lasting harm, scientists reported earlier this month in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Science & Technology.

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