Sustainability - - A Focus On Carbon

Last Tuesday, the OPUC Commissioners held a regularly scheduled hearing. The main topic was Portland General Electric's (PGE) proposed acquisition of 175 aMW of wind. At the hearing, which I attended, renewable and environmental advocates were out in force. Dozens of citizens showed up wearing read t-shirts, some with 350.org, others from the Sierra Club. Others wore the color red in solidarity. Commissioner Bloom, the lone Republican on the three-member Commission, read prepared remarks that were extraordinary, being delivered from the Dias. He chastised PGE for an op-ed in the Oregonian the prior Friday in which the Company's head honchos essentially pleded with the public to come to help support their proposed acquisition before the Commission. I've seen the Commissioners take witnesses to task. What I hadn't seen was a thorough admonishment of a utility at the beginning of a hearing, reading from prepared remarks. Customer groups had filed testimony opposing P...

Recently, a friend sent me a copy of Bakke’s book, The Grid.  Two days ago, after getting a draft journal article off my desk, I took it off my stack and cracked its cover.  My hope is that the remainder of it is as good as its introduction and first chapter.  It's quite an accomplishment; and a very well written one.  She quickly gets to the heart of the challenge posed by integrating intermittent renewables (a tautology, once hydro is excluded) on p. 13.  She writes ”Power production isn’t just an industry, it’s an ecology.  And renewable resources are not just about the planetary good kept from public offer by corporations with other visions for their own profitable futures.  Making American power is about how technological, biological, and cultural systems work in concert to keep our lights on, our basements and roadways clear of flood water, and fresh fish on our tables. It’s delicate in all sorts of ways….it does the reader well to remember tha...