H.R. 4979: Advanced Nuclear Technology Development Act of 2016

We support passage of the Advanced Nuclear Technology Development Act of 2016 [H.R. 4979].

H.R. 4979 was introduced earlier this month by Congressmen Bob Latta (R-Ohio) and Jerry McNerney (D-Calif.). The legislation is designed to foster civilian research and development of advanced nuclear energy technologies, improve licensing and enable commercial deployment.

NRC

The bill adopts a straightforward approach to making Nuclear Regulatory Commission fees more equitable. It would continue to require the industry to pay for all agency activity attributable to a licensee or a class of licensees, but disallow collection of fees associated with the agency’s corporate support. This approach would require the NRC to justify corporate support costs to Congress in order to receive appropriations and, in turn, prompt the NRC to control its budget and reduce or eliminate wasteful spending.

The NRC’s budget is approximately $1 billion per year despite significant declines in its workload, including recent premature plant shut downs. The NRC collects 90 percent of its budget from licensees, but the budget has not correspondingly declined, and the remaining licensees are responsible for paying higher annual fees. 

With recent premature shutdowns—and additional reactors decommissioning in the coming years—the current fee structure virtually guarantees that remaining licensees will continue to bear even higher annual fees. And it is effectively impossible to determine whether the fees charged are justified.  (NEI, 4/29/2016)

California Sustainable Groundwater Management Act

The California Department of Water Resources recently wrapped up the public comment period for its draft regulations on Groundwater Sustainability Plans under the 2014 Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (“SGMA”).  The finalized regulations, due June 1, will have a significant impact on the developing role of Groundwater Sustainability Agencies and on just how much control is left at the local level.

Water districts and counties especially should be following these regulations closely and should talk to experts about how best to meet their interests while complying with the new requirements. Likewise, groundwater users should be making sure that their local authorities stay on top of SGMA developments.

In September 2014, Governor Jerry Brown signed into law a three-bill suite collectively known as the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The signing of SGMA made California the last of the Western states to enact a comprehensive regulatory scheme for its groundwater resources.

SGMA requires groundwater basins to be managed sustainably at the local level. It provides for the creation of local Groundwater Sustainability Agencies (“GSAs”) with various financial and enforcement powers, tasked with developing and implementing Groundwater Sustainability Plans (“GSPs”) for the basins or sub-basins under their jurisdiction. GSPs must be in place by 2020 or 2022, and must achieve sustainability by 2040 or 2042. At the state level, the Department of Water Resources (“DWR”) supplies technical recommendations and monitors technical sufficiency, and the State Water Resources Control Board (“SWRCB”) exercises the police power to step in if local agencies fail.

GSAs may be existing local agencies or may be newly created for the purpose of SGMA compliance. Existing local water agencies can first elect to be the GSA, but not every groundwater user is under the jurisdiction of an existing local water agency. Counties are made the default GSA for remaining areas, and allowed to opt-out if they so choose. If no other agency then forms a GSA for the left-out areas, groundwater users in those areas must report directly to SWRCB, which can charge fees for having to assume management responsibility.

SGMA defines sustainable groundwater management as the “management and use of groundwater in a manner that can be maintained during the planning and implementation horizon without causing undesirable results.” Six “undesirable results” are enumerated, forming the key criteria for a GSP’s success: (i) chronic lowering of groundwater levels indicating a significant and unreasonable depletion of supply; (ii) significant and unreasonable reduction of groundwater storage; (iii) significant and unreasonable seawater intrusion; (iv) significant and unreasonable degraded water quality; (v) significant and unreasonable land subsidence; and (vi) surface water depletions that have significant and unreasonable adverse impacts on beneficial uses of the surface water

Several milestones in the implementation of SGMA have already been achieved. These include the initial prioritization of basins, completed by Jan. 1, 2015; regulations for modifying groundwater basin boundaries, completed by Jan. 1, 2016; and the identification of “critically overdrafted” basins, completed in January 2016. DWR’s GSP and Alternatives regulations are due June 1, 2016. DWR regulations regarding water available for replenishment and best management practices are both due Jan. 1, 2017. An interim update to Bulletin 118, which delineates groundwater basins based on the latest hydrological and geological data, is due in January 2017 with a comprehensive update due in 2020. (Martens Law, 4/27/2016)

Final 5 Presidential Candidates On Energy

Donald Trump has no voting record on energy policy but his tweets, sound bites and rallies reveal some of his positions.  He wants to bring coal back 100%, and that he is in favor of nuclear power. He likes natural gas and is of the drill-baby-drill philosophy, does not believe in global warming, dismisses renewables, and would like to significantly reduce the influence of the EPA. 

Hillary Clinton supports President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, led the President’s 2012 establishment of a global initiative to reduce green-house gases and other climate-affecting pollutants, and has an aggressive plan for renewable energy to supply power at some level to every U.S. home within ten years.

Clinton favors non-fossil fuels over fossil fuels. Clinton wants to ban offshore drilling, implement a windfall profits tax on oil companies, work to strengthen national pipeline safety regulations, invest heavily in grid and energy infrastructure, is against the Keystone XL pipeline, supports natural gas over coal, supports making renewable tax credits permanent, and wants to spend $30 billion to help coal communities transition away from coal production.

Clinton generally supports nuclear energy. She does not want to close nuclear power plants, in particular the New York Indian Point and other nuclear power plants in that state, as her opponent does. Clinton has said that “rapidly shutting down our nation’s nuclear power fleet puts ideology ahead of science and would make it harder and more costly to build a clean energy future. Clinton opposes the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository and supports the Blue Ribbon Commission’s recommendations for our nuclear future, generally continuing President Obama’s policies on nuclear power.

John Kasich who, as Ohio Governor and a nine-term member of Congress, has voted on energy issues many times, although his major committees were Budget and Armed Services. He acknowledges global warming as a problem, but froze Ohio’s Renewable Portfolio Standard when he became Governor in 2010. He supports free market fixes to most environmental problems. He originally wanted to frack for natural gas in state parks, but never followed through on it. Kasich has supported some clean water and air quality initiatives, supports higher taxes on fracking for natural gas, but supports the Keystone XL pipeline.

He strongly supports coal which produces over 50% of Ohio’s electricity, but is mum on nuclear power even though it is the state’s third largest source, just behind natural gas.

Ted Cruz stands for fossil fuels and against renewables. He considers climate change to be a hoax. Cruz is in favor of drilling and mining anywhere and everywhere, even in parks, and is against all regulations. He is mute on nuclear, but wants to abolish the Department of Energy

Bernie Sanders wants to ban fracking completely, as well as all offshore drilling, Arctic drilling, natural gas exports, and mountaintop coal mining. The fossil fuel subsidy that Sanders does support is the highly-regarded Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program that assists low income families with their heating bills.

Sanders is for a 100% renewable energy future.

Sanders is vehemently against nuclear power. He wants to stop all nuclear license renewals and shut all nuclear power plants as fast as possible Like Clinton, Sanders opposes the Yucca Mountain nuclear repository.  (Forbes, 4/18/2016)

Peabody Coal Company Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

Peabody Energy, the world’s largest private-sector coal company, has filed for bankruptcy.  It’s the fourth major U.S. coal company to go bankrupt in the last year.  This energy sector has been hit hard by the natural gas boom. 

In a statement, the company said that with the Chapter 11 filing, it intends to reduce its debt level, improve its cash flow, and “position the company for long-term success, while continuing to operate under the protection of the court process.” 

Peabody is more than $6 billion in debt. Last month, the company missed a $71 million interest payment and its credit rating was downgraded to a “D” by Standard and Poor’s. Recently, Peabody had been attempting to sell off mines in New Mexico and Colorado in order to stay afloat, but the company’s statement notes that those planned sales have been terminated. (Peabody’s Australian arm is not part of the bankruptcy filing.)

Peabody had “self-bonded” to cover $1.4 billion in mine reclamation and cleanup costs.  Peabody has announced that it intends to continue to work with the applicable state governments and federal agencies to meet its reclamation obligations.  (Grist, 4/13/2016)

Coal Companies In Trouble

A worsening financial crisis for the nation’s biggest coal companies is threatening their existence, as Peabody Energy, the world’s largest publicly traded coal company, has been forced to appeal to creditors for an extra time to pay its debts. Two of the four other biggest U.S. coal companies have declared bankruptcy in the past six months.

Several coal giants are struggling to make payments on debts for ill-timed multibillion-dollar acquisitions of their rivals in recent years. On top of that, they have been financially squeezed by competition from cheap natural gas and declining U.S. and Chinese demand for coal.

Peabody alone has cleanup obligations of nearly $1.4 billion guaranteed by self-bonding, according to statements filed by the company last year with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Arch Coal and Alpha — the nation’s second- and fourth-largest coal companies — have self-guaranteed liabilities exceeding $485 million and $640 million, respectively, in reclamation costs.

The coal giants are currently in no condition to spend those amounts. Arch and Alpha filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection last year. Peabody stock prices have fallen by more than 97 percent over the past year, and the coal behemoth’s market value at Thursday’s closing price was less than $44.3 million. Barclays Capital said the company’s debt-to-capital ratio was a towering 88 percent.

Alpha bought rival Massey Energy for $7 billion. Arch Coal bought International Coal for $3.4 billion. Peabody paid $5.1 billion for Macarthur Coal. And Walter Energy bought Western Coal for $3.3 billion.

In 2011, when the merger wave picked up speed, natural gas prices were at a healthy $4 a thousand cubic feet, there was an international commodity boom and China’s economy was speeding ahead. Now commodity prices have slumped, China has slowed and natural gas prices hover around $2 a thousand cubic feet. (Wash Post, 4/1/2016)

Exelon Merges With PEPCO

The Washington District of Columbia Public Service Commission (PSC) approved a $6.8 billion merger between Pepco Holdings and Exelon today, creating the largest publicly-held utility in the country.

The PSC supported the deal after initially rejecting it because it would deposit $72.8 million in a “customer investment fund”, set aside $11.25 million for energy efficiency and conservation programs targeted toward low-income residents and carve out $21.55 million for pilot projects such as modernizing the electric distribution grid.

Exelon first proposed its takeover of Pepco in April of 2014.  The D.C. Public Service Commission at first had dealt a major setback to the giant utility marriage last August when it denied Chicago-based Exelon’s proposed $6.4 billion takeover of Pepco Holdings.

The PSC’s approval had been the final hurdle to the merger, which had been approved by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the Justice Department, and the states of Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey.

The all-cash transaction is based on a $27.25 share price that represents a 24.7 percent premium to Pepco Holdings’ closing price of $21.85 on April 25, 2014, when the deal was announced.  That valued the deal at about $6.8 billion based on the number of outstanding shares reported in Pepco’s most recent securities filing. The deal has been approved by the boards of directors at both companies and must still be endorsed by Pepco shareholders. Exelon also agreed to provide up to $100 million — or about $50 a customer — to give Pepco customers benefits such as rate credits, assistance for low income customers and energy efficiency measures.

The proposal was part of a larger trend of utilities undertaking strategies that lower their exposure in competitive power markets in favor of owning regulated utilities that have more predictable, if lower, revenue streams.  The transaction should help lower Exelon’s overall business risk profile considerably by increasing its ownership in regulated monopolies and decreasing, on a percentage basis, the contributions from its less regulated merchant nuclear operations.  (Wash Post, 3/23/2016)

El Dorado County Hazardous Waste

Vermont Yankee Fuel Pad Hearing

To move fuel from the fuel pool to dry casks, Entergy must build a concrete pad for the dry casks. To build this pad, they need a Certificate of Public Good from the Vermont Public Service Board.  The hearing is this week: Docket 8300.  Docket and all the prefiled testimony.  The hearings are Tuesday February 23 and Wednesday February 24.  They are listed on the Eventspage of the Public Service Board. 

While the hearings are public (people can attend), the public usually cannot speak.  To speak at a hearing, you have to have your testimony approved as "relevant" by the Public Service Board.  Many factors make up "relevance." For example, following the links within the docket above, you will see that the first "prefiled testimony" under each name is usually a description of the person's qualifications (resume).

SAFSTOR Matters Video

Martin Cohn of Entergy hosts a TV show on the decommissioning process.  Once a month, he interviews someone  about the SAFSTOR process, and "SAFSTOR Matters" appears on community TV.

In the most recent video, Cohn and Joe Lynch of Entergy discuss the status of the decommissioning, including the new fuel pad.  Worth watching, for some straightforward, low-key explanations.  You can see previous videos in the series at the SAFSTOR Matters page of Brattleboro Community TV.  (Energy Collective, 2/23/2015)

Connect:  

Authored by:

Meredith Angwin

Former project manager at Electric Power Research Institute. Chemist, writer, grandmother, and proponent of nuclear energy.

Save Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant

PRESIDENT'S CORNER

By Norris McDonald

Michael Shellenberger recently invited me to attend a 'Save Diablo Canyon' presentation to "get the facts about risk of premature closure." The presentation was in San Luis Obispo and I drove from Long Beach up the Pacific Coast Highway to get there.  The 4 1/2 drive was well worth it.

Not only did Michael put on a great presentation, approximately 200 people showed up to hear it.  Evidently PG&E has become less than enthusiastic about operating the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.  Michael rallied the workers and unions at this meeting to press upper management to commit to supporting this invaluable facility.

For many years, I wanted to get engaged with the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant.  I have toured 12 plants all over the USA and the world.  But after the nuclear power plant renaissance fizzled, I significantly cut back my pro-nuclear work. Specifically, I wanted to get involved in the plant relicensing, as I did with other facilities, but the old mojo just was not there.  I moved to California a little over a year ago and Diablo just was not on my radar screen.  And then Shellenberger contacted me.

Michael's presentation was full of specifics about the facility and the energy situation in California. His due diligence is thorough and anyone attending the presentation, which included numerous slides and charts, would be completely up to date on the current status of the facility. The bottom line is that Michael was a catalyst for the plant workers and unions to organize more enthusiastic support for the plant.  Specific instructions on organizing, publicity generation, internal advocacy and more were provided by Michael.  There was strategizing over dinner and over beers.  It was an impressive afternoon, evening and morning.

Group Photo at Save Diablo Canyon Presentation

I had plenty of time to process all of the information on the drive back down Pacific Coast Highway. I expressed to Michael that I felt a bit ambivalent about a company that was not 100% behind the operation of its power plant.

I accepted Michael's invitation to join Friends of Diablo Canyon Governing Board.  I also accepted his offer to serve on the Advisory Board of his new group Environmental Progress.

Stay tuned.  We will see where this goes.

Save Diablo Canyon. org

California Natural Gas Leak Reportedly Plugged

Southern California Gas Company has announced that a blowout at a natural gas well that gushed uncontrollably for 16 weeks and drove thousands of residents from their Los Angeles homes has been plugged.

The well still needs to be permanently sealed with cement and inspected by state regulators.  This marks the first time the leak has been under control since it was reported Oct. 23.

The leak is expected to cost the company, a division of Sempra Energy, at least $250 million, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

That figure could climb much higher because it only accounts for costs of capping the well and relocating about 6,400 families. It does not include potential damages from more than two dozen lawsuits, penalties from government agencies and expenses to mitigate pollution.

The upscale Porter Ranch community in the San Fernando Valley could begin to return to normalcy after schools were closed and about 6,000 families were uprooted as they complained of headaches, nausea, nosebleeds and other symptoms as an intermittent stench wafted through the area.

While the gas was invisible, public health officials blamed their woes on an odorant added to gas so it can be detected and have said they don't expect long-term health impacts.

The leak at the largest underground gas storage reservoir in the West was declared an emergency by the governor. At its peak, the leak was estimated to contribute about a quarter of the state's climate-altering methane emissions, leading some to call it the worst environmental disaster since the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The blowout happened in a 60-year-old well that was built to pump oil from porous rock a mile-and-a-half below the Santa Susana Mountains. After the oil ran dry in the 1970s, the field of 115 wells was reused to store natural gas.

When demand and prices were low, gas was injected at high pressure in the ground. It was piped out during cold months or to fuel gas-run electricity plants during energy spikes.

SoCalGas has paid to relocate residents in hotels, apartments and houses.  Some folks have said they don't want to move back, and many are concerned about what the incident has done to the value of their homes. The company is facing more than two dozen lawsuits, some of which seek class-action status.  (AP, 1/11/2016)

Does the Clean Water Act Regulate Discharges of Pollutants to Hydrologically Connected Groundwater?

The Clean Water Act (“CWA”) prohibits the discharge of pollutants into “waters of the United States” without a valid National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) permit. The statute offers notoriously scant guidance as to what “waters of the United States” actually means. As a result, whether the CWA applies to a given water body is often the subject of controversy and confusion. The EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Clean Water Rule—currently beset by political, legal and legislative challenges—attempts to clarify this important term. But the Clean Water Rule is silent on an important question that continues to divide federal courts: does the CWA apply to releases of pollutants into groundwater that eventually migrate into waters of the United States?

Federal district courts have held that the CWA governs discharges into groundwater that is hydrologically connected to jurisdictional waters of the United States and would permit CWA jurisdiction over groundwater discharges in far more limited circumstances. Still other courts view the CWA as inapplicable to groundwater, no matter its ultimate connection to surface water bodies. (Marten Law)

Nuclear Industry Recommendations For Obama Clean Power Plan

In comments filed today with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Nuclear Energy Institute recommends that the agency provide states with maximum flexibility to preserve existing nuclear energy facilities and take care not to worsen distortions in electricity markets that are placing some reactors at risk of premature closure. The Institute made these broad recommendations and more specific recommendations below on the agency's Federal Implementation Plan and model trading rules for the Clean Power Plan. 

Preserving and extending the operation of existing nuclear power plants is essential to achieving meaningful, sustainable carbon reductions from the U.S. electric sector. States should use the tools and techniques available under the Clean Power Plan to preserve nuclear power plants, which produce 63% of America's carbon-free electricity. Given this, as it finalizes the federal plan and the model rules, EPA should strive to achieve two broad objectives:

1)    Provide states flexibility to use the tools and techniques available under the Clean Power Plan to preserve existing nuclear energy capacity and promote cost-effective compliance; and 
2)    Prevent further electricity market distortion that is placing existing reactors at risk, or do not pick technology winners and losers when there is no factual or justifiable basis for doing so.

Specifically, NEI believes EPA should:

 

• Develop and finalize rate-based and mass-based model rules, to provide states maximum possible flexibility based on their particular circumstances.
• Ensure state plans demonstrate reasonable assurance that they will preserve existing carbon-free generating capacity, particularly the nuclear energy capacity on which the Clean Power Plan depends. 
• The mass-based compliance option incorporating existing and new reactors is the only compliance pathway in the Clean Power Plan that preserves existing nuclear power plants. In those states that choose not to cover both new and existing sources, the Clean Power Plan should ensure that states use the tools available under a mass-based approach, including structuring allowance allocation, to preserve existing reactors.
• Treat all forms of zero-carbon generation comparably, with respect to plan implementation elements like the CEIP and credit for allowance trades between mass- and rate-based plans.
• Ensure that state plans provide market signals and incentives for companies to maintain existing nuclear power plants and undertake the capital investment necessary to renew reactor licenses for additional 20-year increments. Absent second license renewals, carbon reductions achieved between 2022 and 2030 may not be sustainable beyond 2030.

States have several options to recognize the carbon-free value of nuclear power plants, and thereby ensure that they continue to produce electricity. Illinois, for example, is considering a low-carbon portfolio standard that would preserve nuclear plants that provide 91% of its carbon-free electricity.  Similarly, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo has instructed the state Public Service Commission develop a clean energy standard that would achieve the same effect – continued operation of nuclear power plants that provide 60% of the state's carbon-free electricity.  (NEI)

Flint, Michigan Water Crisis

Nearly two years ago, Flint Michigan, which is about 70 miles from the Great Lakes, decided to save money by switching it's water supply from Lake Huron (which they were paying the city of Detroit for), to the Flint River, a notorious tributary that runs through town known to locals for its filth.

The switch was made during a financial state of emergency and was supposed to be temporary while a new state-run supply line to Lake Huron was ready for connection. The project was estimated to take about two years.  Soon after the switch, the water started to look, smell and taste funny. Residents said it often looked dirty.

It was actually iron. The Flint River is highly corrosive: 19 times more so than the Lake Huron supply, according to researchers from Virginia Tech.

According to a class-action lawsuit, the state Department of Environmental Quality wasn't treating the Flint River water with an anti-corrosive agent, in violation of federal law. Therefore, the water was eroding the iron water mains, turning water brown.

But what residents couldn't see was far worse. About half of the service lines to homes in Flint are made of lead and because the water wasn't properly treated, lead began leaching into the water supply, in addition to the iron.

This had been the status quo for nearly two years, and until September, city and state officials told worried residents that everything was fine. Former Flint Mayor Dayne Walling even drank it on local TV to make the point.

But in August, a group of skeptical researchers from Virginia Tech came up and did in-home testing and found elevated levels of lead in the drinking water and made those findings public. State officials insisted their own research was more accurate.

Later it became publicly known that federal law had not been followed. A 2011 study on the Flint River found it would have to be treated with an anti-corrosive agent for it to be considered as a safe source for drinking water.

Adding that agent would have cost about $100 a day, and experts say 90% of the problems with Flint's water would have been avoided.

But Flint residents say they were kept in the dark for 18 months until a local doctor took things into her own hands.  In the pediatric ward of Flint's Hurley Medical Center, Dr. Mona Hanna-Attisha was seeing more and more worried parents fretting over rashes and hair loss.  No one believed state and local officials when they said that this icky brown water was safe.

At first, the state publicly denounced her work, saying she was causing near hysteria. They spent a week attacking her before reversing their narrative and admitting she was right.  They were being told by the DEQ that there wasn't a problem.

In October, the city reverted to using Detroit's Lake Huron water supply, but the damage was done to the lead pipes.  Even with properly treated water flowing in, Virginia Tech researchers still detected lead levels -- albeit lower ones -- in water in Flint homes.

The state is now handing out filters and bottled water.

In 2011, Flint was declared to be in a financial state of emergency, and the state took budgetary control. Therefore, all the decisions made during the water crisis were at the state level, which state officials confirmed, not by the City Council or the mayor.

When the governor appointed an emergency financial manager (in 2011), that person came here ... to simply do one thing and one thing only, and that's cut the budget.

Lead poisoning is irreversible.  It drops your IQ, it affects your behavior, it's been linked to criminality, it has multigenerational impacts. There is no safe level of lead in a child.

A state-appointed task force preliminarily found that fault lies with the state DEQ, and on December 29.  Last week, three months after high lead levels were detected in Flint children, Michigan Governor Rick Snyder declared a state of emergency over the issue.

The U.S. Attorney in Michigan and the federal Environmental Protection Agency are also investigating why the state chose to ignore federal law and go without the anti-corrosive agent, as the lawsuit contends. 

Residents, the former mayor, the current mayor, Congressman Kildee, city workers -- they all blame the governor's office and the state Department of Environmental Quality for what happened to Flint.  (CNN, 1/19/2016)

2015 Hottest Year on Record

The heat record set in 2014 was shattered by the high temperatures in 2015, making last year the hottest year ever recorded, based on data going back to 1880, according to the NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 

Specifically, the year was 0.23 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than 2014, according to NASA. The measurement recorded by NOAA was slightly worse: 0.29 degrees Fahrenheit hotter than 2014. According to NOAA, 2015 was 1.62 degrees Fahrenheit above the 20th century average.

NASA and NOAA both keep independent global surface temperature datasets, measuring temperatures over both the land and the oceans using thermometers, ocean buoys and ship readings. The datasets do not always agree perfectly, but they showed relatively little disagreement this year.

2015’s record heat — enhanced, especially in later months of the year, by a strong El Niño event that released warmth from the Pacific Ocean — was apparent long before the official declaration of the current record.

Every month in 2015 except for January and April was the hottest of that month on record globally, according to NOAA. In other words, September of 2015 was the hottest September in 136 years, as was October of 2015, November of 2015, and so on.  (Wash Post, 1/20/2016)

Methane Leak In Aliso Canyon California

An enormous amount of  methane gas is currently erupting from an energy facility in Aliso Canyon, California, at a rate of 110,000 pounds per hour. The gas has led to the evacuation 1,700 homes so far. Many residents have already filed lawsuits against the company that owns the facility, the Southern California Gas Company.

Footage taken on December 17 shows a geyser of methane gas spewing from the Earth, visible by a specialized infrared camera operated by an Earthworks ITC-certified thermographer. The Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) released the footage last week.

In early December, the Southern California Gas Company (SCGC) said that plugging the leak, which sprang in mid-October, would take at least three more months. Right now, the single leak accounts for a quarter of the state's entire methane emissions.

SCGC's efforts to stop the flow of gas by pumping fluids directly down the well have not yet been successful, so they have shifted their focus to stopping the leak through a relief well.  They are also exploring other options to stop the leak. The relief well process is on schedule to be completed by late February or late March.

Part of the problem in stopping the leak lies in the base of the well, which sits 8,000 feet underground. Pumping fluids down into the well, usually the normal recourse, just isn’t working. Workers have been ”unable to establish a stable enough column of fluid to keep the force of gas from coming up from the reservoir” The company is now constructing a relief well that will connect to the leaking well, and hopefully provide a way to reduce pressure so the leak can be plugged.

Methane, the main component of natural gas, is 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to climate change impact. About one-fourth of the anthropogenic global warming we’re experiencing today is due to methane emissions, according to the Environmental Defense Fund. Leaks like the current one in California, it turns out, are a major contributor.So far, over 150 million pounds of methane have been released by the leak, which connects to an enormous underground containment system. The cause of the leak is still unknown.  Research has also revealed that more than 38 percent of the pipes in Southern California Gas Company’s territory are more than 50 years old, and 16 percent are made from corrosion- and leak-prone materials.

Right now, relief efforts have drilled only 3,800 feet down—less than half of the way to the base of the well. At that rate, the torrent of methane pouring into California won’t be stopped any time soon. (Motherboard, 12/26/2015)

Electric Vehicles Can't Compete With Internal Combustion Engines

The 2015 car-sale data are in: Americans bought a record 17.5 million passenger vehicles in the United States, of which 113,588 — 0.6 percent — were either plug-in hybrids or all-electrics, according to insideevs.com. That was about 10,000 fewer than in 2014.

Automakers have sold 404,176 electrics (EVs) since they hit the market in 2010. That is 0.16 percent of the 250 million-plus U.S. passenger vehicle fleet. Assuming all are still on the road, carmakers must sell 300,000 this year and next to reach 1 million, or 0.3 percent of the fleet, by 2018.

The limiting factor is, was and will be for years the value proposition: Given the cost of advanced batteries, which has not come down as swiftly as EV boosters assumed, most EVs are still very expensive. Gas savings, however, can’t offset the higher purchase price, even when you factor in the $7,500 federal tax credit EV buyers get.  Unless and until that’s solved, the raison d’etre of electric cars, and of federal policies to favor them — making a significant dent in carbon emissions — will be null and void.

Take the 2016 Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid that can go 50 miles or so on battery power before a gas motor kicks in. The Volt’s annual fuel cost (gas and electricity) is $250 less than the yearly gas tab for a comparable Mazda 3, according to the Energy Department.  However, the Volt’s list price (with all the options and after the tax credit) is $3,525 more than a similarly equipped Mazda 3’s. Do the math: The Volt’s gas savings will offset the price differential in 14 years.  Two-dollar-a-gallon gas isn’t doing anything to help the EV value proposition.

Tesla? Priced north of $100,000.  Tesla did sell 50,580 vehicles worldwide in 2015.  Tesla owes its survival to subsidies.   This Silicon Valley start-up has gotten $4.9 billion in state and federal support over the past decade, according to a May 30 Los Angeles Times report.   The Times’s figure doesn’t include the tax breaks and other incentives for EV buyers in Norway, whose inhabitants had purchased 8,700 Tesla Model S’s as of October — roughly 10 percent of Model S sales worldwide since its introduction — according to the Norwegian Embassy in Washington.

In September 2012, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the U.S. government was on course to subsidize EV production and sales to the tune of $7.5 billion through 2019.  We might have gotten more carbon reduction, sooner, if the government had spent that much money on things other than tax breaks for retrofitting coal plants to burn natural gas or nuclear power. (Wash Post, 1/6/2016)

Natural Gas Spot Price in 2015 Lowest Since 1999

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on Natural Gas Intelligence

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Natural gas spot prices in 2015 at the Henry Hub in Louisiana, a national benchmark, averaged $2.61 per million British thermal unit (MMBtu), the lowest annual average level since 1999. Daily prices fell below $2/MMBtu this year for the first time since 2012. Henry Hub spot prices began the year relatively low and fell throughout 2015, as production and storage inventories hit record levels and fourth-quarter temperatures were much warmer than normal.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, based on Natural Gas Intelligence

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Natural gas prices at key regional trading hubs ended the year lower than their starting point. At northeastern locations, where natural gas transmission infrastructure is often constrained, prices spiked in the early months of 2015, which were colder than normal compared to much of the United States. Prices at the Algonquin Citygate, which serves Boston, and at Transcontinental Pipeline's Zone 6, which serves New York City, began the year much higher than the Henry Hub spot prices in early 2015, but then fell below the national benchmark for much of the rest of the year. The annual average spot price at Henry Hub of $2.61/MMBtu was $1.78/MMBtu, or 41%, lower than the 2014 average.

Despite declining prices, total natural gas production, measured in terms of dry gas volume, averaged an estimated 74.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in 2015, 6.3% greater than in 2014. This increase occurred even as the number of natural gas-directed drilling rigs decreased. As of December 18, there were 168 natural gas-directed rigs in operation, only about half the number of rigs at the beginning of 2015, according to data from Baker Hughes Inc. However, the remaining rigs are among the most productive, and producers have continued to make gains in drilling efficiency.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Natural Gas Monthly

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Low prices and strong production led to increase use of natural gas for electric power generation, which is projected to be about 26.5 Bcf/d in 2015, exceeding the 24.9 Bcf/d level in 2012. Natural gas surpassed coal as the leading source of electricity generation on a monthly basis for the first time in April, and again in each of the four months from July through October.

In the residential and commercial sectors, which use natural gas primarily for heating, consumption in 2015 declined 6.7% and 4.4%, respectively, from the previous year largely because of warmer weather. Natural gas consumption in the residential and commercial sectors was particularly high in 2014 because of cold temperatures in the first and fourth quarters. Although 2015 had a cold start, temperatures in the fourth quarter were warmer than normal throughout most of the United States.

Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration, Weekly Natural Gas Storage Report

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Growth in production also allowed for strong builds in working natural gas inventory. Inventories surpassed 4,000 Bcf for the first time, reaching 4,009 Bcf in the week ending November 20.

With much of the growth in natural gas production in the Marcellus and Utica shale regions in the Midwest, several major pipeline projects came online in 2015 to transport natural gas from these plays to consumers. In August 2015, the Rockies Express Pipeline (REX) reversal was completed. REX, one of the longest natural gas pipelines in the United States, began service in 2009 to bring Rockies gas eastward. As Marcellus production increased, however, demand in the East for natural gas produced in the Rockies declined. The REX reversal added westbound capacity to enable the transport of natural gas produced in the Marcellus and Utica Shale regions to consuming markets in the Midwest. Several other new pipeline projects began to take natural gas produced in the Marcellus and Utica regions to consumer areas on the East Coast, Midwest, and Gulf Coast area. (DOE-EIA)