January 2010 - Sustainactive

Urgent Clean Power Meet: Thu Feb 4, 6p, Global Exchange, 2017 Mission, 2nd Floor, 16th BART
by Eric Brooks 30 Jan '10

30 Jan '10

Hi all, San Francisco's huge local clean energy project, CleanPowerSF, just entered crucially important contract negotiations which we -must- influence. For the basics on CleanPowerSF see http://our-city.org/campaigns/CleanPowerSF.html Because the next few weeks will be absolutely crucial to successfully establishing CleanPowerSF and other Community Choice projects all throughout California, a strategy meeting has been called to discuss both CleanPowerSF, and the PG&E ballot measure attacking both Community Choice & Public Power statewide (see http://our-city.org/campaigns ). The Meeting Is: - This Thursday, February 4, 6pm - Global Exchange, 2017 Mission, 2nd Floor, Near 16th BART (16th & Mission in SF) - I'll bring chips, hommus, and good beer - Bring goodies yourself if you can Please RSVP to me at brookse32(a)aim.com so I know who is coming. peace Eric B 415-756-8844

1 0

BIG Clean Energy Update: CleanPowerSF
by Eric Brooks 27 Jan '10

27 Jan '10

Hi All, We are now in a -very- crucial endgame for the survival of California Community Choice projects, beginning with the strongest one, in San Francisco, now called CleanPowerSF (see http://our-city.org/campaigns/CleanPowerSF.html ). The Good News! The CleanPowerSF request for bids went out, 5 bids were received, and just last week, the bid review panel chose the winning bid! And the -best- news is that the winning bidder is -not- Shell Energy North America (as we feared might happen). The winning bidder is a new company formed specifically to implement California Community Choice projects named Power Choice. The Not So Good News The not so good news is that, just as Paul Fenn and many of us predicted, though we were able to make the request for bids much stronger, because that request did not -mandate- specific percentages of local renewables and efficiency, Power Choice's initial bid is to meet the entire project goal of 51% clean energy by simply purchasing existing renewable energy resources from the market that are already present or soon to be present on the grid. This means that Power Choice's initial bid does not require the construction of any local renewables or efficiency whatsoever, and this defeats the entire purpose of Community Choice. The other bad news is that LAFCo lead council Nancy Miller is still being allowed to control the City staff and consulting process and she intends to hire only Navigant to work with staff on the contract negotiations with Power Choice; while leaving Community Choice creators Local Power completely out of the negotiations. Navigant is the same company that designed Marin County's request for bids to have no mandated renewables and efficiency at all, and this is why Marin's contract with Shell Energy is only for buying renewable energy on the market, with no local construction and installation projects whatsoever. If we allow the LAFCo to shut Local Power out of the process, we will get exactly the same result as Marin. The Silver Lining! However, we all fought hard enough that we made the CleanPowerSF request for bids sufficiently strong, that Power Choice had to win the bid by showing it has the capability to in fact build all of the renewables and efficiency we insisted upon in the original CleanPowerSF Implementation Plan; and this means that if we are -really- tenacious and demanding during the imminent contract negotiations for the project, we can get Power Choice to build most, ideally all, of the projects that the original plan requires. One of the Power Choice executives has already approached me about engaging in talks with community and environmental organizers about the contract. We are also now working closely with a statewide coalition to help stop PG&E's statewide ballot measure that will kill all of the California Community Choice projects by forcing each to a 2/3rds public vote on local ballots before going forward. Let me know if you have questions and/or want to get more directly involved in the campaign to get the SFPUC, LAFCo and Power Choice to forge a great contract for Community Choice. peace Eric Brooks 415-756-8844

1 0

Report: Tallow (Animal Fat) Biodiesel Will Increase GHG Emissions
by Eric Brooks 22 Jan '10

22 Jan '10

Hi all, See attached a new report from Great Britain showing that among other serious problems, tallow (animal fat) based biodiesel will increase greenhouse gas emissions. The greenhouse gas finding can be found on page 9 of the report. cheers Eric

1 0