The Warning: San Diego Blackout

Yesterday, 5-Million Electric Customers in San Diego, Orange & Riverside Counties, plus parts of Arizona and Mexico were suddenly plunged into darkness for 12 hours. Anyone else see a problem with Investor Owned Utilities (IOUs) providing Centralized Electricity? If every building was upgraded and made efficient, then DISTRIBUTED RENEWABLE energy was rolled out in each neighborhood, we would never build another publicly funded carbon-power-plant, we would have no shortage of high paying jobs, and we would have no more black-outs.

If every building, starting with the oldest, were retrofitted for energy efficiency and then adapted with renewable energy generation to make it energy neutral, we could employ all the out of work construction contractors, and create a new, educated energy workforce.

We can change this economy, we can change the way we live, and the way we burn our resources to pay for it. When I travel the wealthy communities of San Diego I look to the roof-tops and see solar arrays, the wealthy know what is coming. Look at UCSD and the Private Universities around San Diego, they have used government incentives and private money to build out tons of renewable energy infrastructure, they know what is coming. Look at the homes of the Executive Board of SDG&E and SEMPRA Energy, their mansions all have Photovoltaic Solar Panels, they know what is coming.

The San Diego Blackout is a warning, telling us just how fragile our economy, nay our lives, actually are. Imagine if it had lasted 48 hours ... all your food would have spoiled. Imagine 72 hours, you wouldn't be able to charge your cell phone, or answer emails. Imagine 100 hours, you dog would have died due to heat exhaustion without air conditioning. Do you have kids? Imagine.

The wealthy among us are secure, they already have renewable energy, and batteries. Many of the rich have multiple homes, with back-up water supplies, and home gardens to provide food. I can't stress how the potential for unrest scares them. If last night's black-out had lasted a day or two, their would have been looting, riots, fires, and we don't have the police, the communications, the power to stop such social reactions. There are too many people living day-to-day, without jobs, without hope or a future. And this is the USA. What happens when the 3-Million People in Tia Juana realize that we have no power?

Because a single worker in Arizona tripped a switch, San Onofre Nuclear Generation Station (SONGS) shut down 2200-MegaWatts of capacity. We didn't even have traffic signals. What happens when we have the earthquake, the tidal wave, the fires, and the floods? Did you note that all the stores were closed yesterday? Did you have enough gas, food, water? When you have no power, you have no stores, no jobs, no communications. What happens when they call out the national guard and military to 'control' our population because we have no electricity?

We stand on the edge of a precipice, our leaders have failed to educate us to the dangers, and are afraid of the back-lash and panic if they do. The public is unwilling to make the difficult decisions, to pay the tax, to re-establish our economy, because they are used to cushy, wasteful practices and fear the hard work necessary to pay for our mistakes. The solutions we need are available, the technology exists to solve all our problems, if we are unified, if we work together and invest in our communities. Will that ever happen? Or, will we choose to continue to compete, to fight over the ruins of our former lives?

Did you listen to the radio yesterday, could you? Only one local station adapted to the power outage. AT&T and most of the Telecoms and Wireless communications stayed up, but they too need power. Did you have enough ice to keep your perishable food? Did you have batteries and flash-lights? How fun was it without air conditioning or TV? It was only 12 hours.

I want a Sustainable Future, now you know the danger, and you know what it is possible. Your choice, pay now or pay later.

Solar Bankruptcy

Bloomberg and HuffingtonPost both report that a major California Solar Company is filing Chapter 11 Bankruptcy.

 "Solyndra, a Silicon Valley solar energy firm, subsidized to the tune of $500 million and held as a 'gleaming example of green technology,' announced bankruptcy yesterday. 1,100 employees fired."

In May, 2010, President Obama visited Solyndra and told an audience of employees that the "incredible, cutting-edge solar panels" being manufactured there were "testament to American ingenuity and dynamism and the fact that we continue to have the best universities in the world, the best technology in the world, and most importantly the best workers in the world."

Solyndra Inc., a maker of solar modules that received a $535 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Energy Department, suspended operations and plans to file for bankruptcy, saying it couldn’t compete with larger rivals.

Solyndra produces cylindrical panels that convert sunlight into electricity using copper-indium-gallium-diselenide thin- film technology. Standard solar panels are flat. “Manufacturing and assembly costs associated with a Solyndra module aren’t particularly scalable,” Krop said.


Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, reiterated that. Recent bankruptcies of U.S. solar companies are a warning and “we should be doing everything possible to ensure the United States does not cede the renewable energy market to China and other countries,” he said in an e-mailed statement.
SpectraWatt Inc., a solar company backed by units of Intel Corp. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., filed for bankruptcy protection Aug. 19, and Evergreen Solar Inc. did so Aug. 15.

Watching our Government Work

This video of our California State Assembly at work makes me wonder how we ever get anything done.
Andrew from CCSE testifies upon the current state of public incentives and problems with the industry.
Watch minute 38-60 http://www.calchannel.com/channel/viewvideo/2883

Lawrence Lessig Keynote at Coffee Party Convention 2010

It has become apparent to me watching our local leaders and seeing the influence of the Utility Corporations, the Carbon-Energy Companies, the Building Industry, and Land Developers, that we are in an unsustainable economy, where the money has corrupted our systems of government against the common good.

Why are our kids dying from diabetes? Why are vegetables more expensive than hamburgers? Why do windmills require more research oversight than deep-water oil-rigs? How have the U.S. Banks privatized profit and socialized risk? How are these issues related, and what is the root of our problem?

Fair Elections Now and Fix Congress First have tired to change the system from the inside.

We all have individual issues, and we all have different individual goals, but despite our differences, it is our common enemy, the broken government system, that must unite us. Look back 100 years, and you see what progressives did to save us from the 'Fat-Cats' money. The 'people' have been replaced by those who fund our elections.

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. - Abe Lincoln, Gettysburg Address

The people must wage a civil-war to save democracy. If you believe in democracy, you must pick a side, and join in battle. What we have now is unsustainable.

Energy Upgrade California

Energy Upgrade California is a program designed to help jump-start the home energy efficiency remodels in California. The program mirrors a Federally proposed program called HomeSTAR, which was supposed to provide energy efficiency ratings for single family homes similar to the way EnergySTAR ratings work for appliances.

As a certified Building Performance Institute Home Energy and Safety Auditor, Michael Russell is available to inspect your home and consult with homeowners about the Energy Upgrade programs.

If you would like to know more about what options you have for retrofits and upgrades, see the interactive online home tour. You can find San Diego Contractors who are certified to apply for Energy Upgrade funds on the website. Below is a video provided by Energy Upgrade California.

SEE ON VIMEO

5-minute Program Video (English) from Energy Upgrade California on Vimeo.
This program is intended as a state wide marketing push to put construction contractors back to work. The average building upgrade costs about $12,000-$14,000, and you can expect a $1,000-$5,000 in rebates, incentives, and/or tax credits. These upgrades do not include plug-load appliances or renewable energy solutions such as solar-panels and solar-thermal water-heating, but these can be added to any project, and there are similar tax incentives, rebates, and credits available.

For a whole home energy audit, safety inspection, and efficiency plan, please consult with a BPI Certified home energy & safety analyst, like MICHAEL RUSSELL.

King Corn

Why is it that every documentary I watch scares me more than the last? Damn Liberals*.

King Corn is the 2007 story of how American Commercial Agriculture is killing the family farm and killing people in the process, and why the Depression Generation, terrified of hunger and hard work, has insured a land of plenty that is out of balance with nature. But the solution, the end of farm subsidies for quantity and their redirection for quality and sustainability, would destroy the fortunes of the federally socialized agriculture monopolies, the food finance and insurance industries, the grocery store chains, tractor makers, and the chemical fertilizer, genetically modified seed mono-crops, and pesticide companies.





We have paid farmers to fallow land, and we have paid them for overproduction. These manipulations of the food market have a perverse effect upon both our land use, and our diet. Perhaps, by subsidizing farmers into extinction, we have starved the world with cheap food, making farming in other countries unprofitable.

How many farmers can no longer feed themselves with the "food" they grow? I watched King Corn, and I can't buy food in the stores anymore. Corn-feed Beef is off my diet, nothing with corn syrup, or ethanol. Any food industry that will not let you film their factory production should not be trusted.

What if we guarantee commercial farms a buyout over the next decade at double their investment, and distribute the land to all the homeless and hungry people in America. Wouldn't that solve hunger, homelessness, unemployment, and cost no more than the farm subsidies we already pay? We are headed for a major correction, and as a nation we will can either switch to a resource based economy, or we will suffer the consequences. Watch King Corn, and see if you don't agree.

(* note: the use of satire is not sanctioned by the United Nations War Crimes Tribunal)

End of the Line

As I've shown in this blog, there is an extinction event happening on our planet, and the leading indicator is the death of the mega-fauna in our oceans. By 2050 we can expect an end to coral reefs, and bottom trawlers are destroying our costal habitats. Documenting the end of fishing as we have known it, "The End of the Line" exposes our failure to stop commercial fishing corporations from raping the seas and destroying the species we used to eat.

From TruthOut:
Charles Clover: The picture is that about a third of the world's wild fish stocks have collapsed - defined as being fished to below 10 per cent of their abundance in 1950 - and for the rest the trend is down with only one or two places in the world managing their fish sustainability. This has huge implications for food security in a world with more human beings in it and for the functioning of whole ecosystems.

MK: There is an amazing shot in the documentary of an enormous seabed trawler that smashes coral reefs and lower ocean level sea life to bits as it speeds along. So, the threat is not just to fish, but to the actual seabed, is that right?

CC: That is actually the first image in my book and shook me when I discovered about it: the image of a beam trawler smashing its way across the seabed. I transposed it to the plains of Africa and it became a shocking image. Towed gear does alter the habitat and kills animals on the bottom as well as catching fish and that image explains that. It was worked out that a beam trawler killed 16 pounds of marine creatures to produce one pound of marketable sole.

Watch the Question and Answer videos. Official 'End of the Line' Website.