SMUD cancels $1.45 billion hydro project Utility cites rising costs, new power technologies Estimates rose from about $800 million to $1.45 billion SMUD says it’s working on other power-generating options Sacramento Bee 2-6-16 BY MARK GLOVER mglover@sacbee.com      The Sacramento Municipal Utility District has canceled plans to build a $1.45 billion hydroelectric project at […]

Report: Fossil fuel, utility interests spend $3.1M on Ohio elections BRIEF,  From Utility Dive Weekly Newsletter  Nov. 4, 2016 AUTHOR  Robert Walton Dive Brief: •  Fossil fuel interests including utilities spent $3.1 million this year, through October, on issues and candidates leading up to next week’s election, Midwest Energy News reports.  •  Midwest Energy News […]

Sacramento Bee 9-10-16 BY DALE KASLER dkasler@sacbee.com California’s electrical grid is run from Folsom by the Independent System Operator, seen in 2012.  A federal appeals court ruling backed a federal order that penalized five electricity providers for state’s energy crisis in 2000 and 2001. More than 15 years after the last rolling blackout, California officials are […]

A University of California, Davis laboratory strives for efficiencies (Based on a personal visit 10-17–16) To accelerate development and commercialization of efficient heating, cooling, and energy distribution solutions through stakeholder engagement, innovation, R&D, education and outreach. That’s WCEC’s Mission Statement.  It reflects a nexus of university capacity, research and development, and industry effort in the search […]

Condensed from “City of Santa Monica News” 10-27–16 Santa Monica’s vote for a 2017 Zero Net Energy Ordinance is an update to its Green Building Ordinance, which is California’s first.  It affects single family homes.  There are also non-ZNE requirements that force multi-family and high rise structures to use between 10 and 15 percent less […]

Reliance on oil is costing states billions, group says Sacramento Bee 10-29-16 BY MARK GLOVER mglover@sacbee.com RICHARD VOGEL The Associated Press— Los Angeles is shrouded in early morning coastal fog in August. Southern California had a smoggy summer and hospitals reported an increase of people with breathing problems. An American Lung Association report blamed petroleum […]

A high-tech government facility adds its (first ever) geo heat pumps at Edwards AFB for its fuel processing lab. The first ever  geothermal heat pumps at Edwards Air Force Base has landed on the high desert near Rosamond, California.  This site of aviation history has been pivotal in the development of all kinds of high speed, high altitude aircraft, […]

An abandoned quarry lake saves the Metropolitan Nashville Airport Authority $430,000 per year for airport terminal cooling.   The former Hoover Quarry is a 43-acre lake located east of Donelson Pike and Nashville International Airport (BNA) Runway 2R/20L. The average depth of the quarry lake is 150 feet, containing approximately 1.5 billion gallons of water. At […]

  A hybrid geothermal borefield with supplemental boilers and cooling towers results in major energy reduction for a growing campus. On the western edge of Colorado on the river of the same name rests the City of Grand Junction at 4,600 feet.  The rapidly expanding Colorado Mesa College made a choice to grow toward university […]

Solar is available everywhere and wind (in more places than you thought) to supply distributed generation to power a more renewable grid. The image above shows solar PV panels, wind turbines, and high voltage transmission lines in the same photo.  We are on the path away from centralized generation plants feeding high voltage transmission in […]