[Wind Power. Creative Commons photo by Bryan Siders]
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, along with San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums, and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed joined Better Place CEO Shai Agassi in announcing a plan for a sustainable transportation model for California.Shai Agassi founded Better Place in October of 2007 with $200 million in venture capital. The vision of Better Place is to reduce global dependency on oil by creating a market-based transportation infrastructure that supports electric vehicles and renewable energy.
Within the first six months of its founding, Better Place forged cooperative agreements with business and government in Israel and Denmark, most recently announcing a deal to bring Better Place to Australia. And with today’s announcement the electric car infrastructure model is set to come to California, starting in the San Francisco Bay Area.
While an overwhelming amount of media attention has been focused (rightfully so) on the past week’s financial meltdown on Wall Street and beyond, another looming crisis is getting center-stage focus this week in Sacramento, California: peak oil.
A slew of speakers and experts in everything from geology and energy to finance and business is meeting through tomorrow to address what could one day make the Lehman Brothers collapse look like a picnic in the park: declining oil production coupled with rising demand and prices on a global scale. The 2008 Sacramento Peak Oil Conference kicked off yesterday.
In less than three weeks, Sacramento plays host to the world’s largest conference on one of the most important societal issues of our time - Peak Oil. In late September, the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas - USA (ASPO-USA) is convening its 2008 Peak Oil Conference at the Hyatt Regency in Sacramento, California. The conference title - The Peak Oil Energy Challenge - The Future Starts Now! - says it all; it’s time for us to take control of our energy future and start dealing with our oil and energy predicaments.
I imagine ASPO-USA chose Sacramento since California is leading the nation in laws for renewable energy and combating global warming, thereby providing a model for other states. Perhaps if Peak Oil mitigation can get some traction in the California, it can also speed up action on the federal level which tends to be slower than molasses.
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California officials are reviving a long-unused water bank program to help ensure the thirsty southern part of the state has alternative supplies if winter snow and rain don’t replenish natural reservoirs.
Under the program, last used in 1992, the state can buy back water allocations from farmers in the Sacramento Valley who don’t need their supplies, then sell that water to agencies around Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego and other dry regions.
Scientists in California are setting out to create a new kind of agriculture: farming for carbon capture on degraded land in the Sacramento-San Joaquin River Delta.
The concept works like this: researchers will plant things like cattails and tules (a type of rush that grows in freshwater marshes) in parts of the delta that have been subsiding and giving off greenhouse gases thanks to unsustainable agricultural practices in the area. Over time, the marsh plants will reproduce, die, decompose and rebuild the region’s peat soils … all while also soaking up carbon dioxide and creating new, sustainable wetlands.
For those of us in California who follow governmental action on climate change, the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB 32) was a watershed moment. Signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger in 2006 (see photo at left), the bill established a comprehensive program of both regulatory and market-based mechanisms to achieve reductions in greenhouse gases of 30% by 2020. So we celebrated!
And then, we waited. The next step depended on the California Air Resources Board (CARB), which was tasked with developing those regulations and mechanisms needed to actually achieve the reductions, called a Scoping Plan.
Now, the wait is over (at least, THAT wait is over): CARB recently released its draft Scoping Plan, which is now open for public comment. The Plan includes a variety of measures that will touch every area of our economy. A few key points include:
Here’s a little bit of good, common-sense news to celebrate this Independence Day: city officials in drought-stricken Sacramento have decided against fining a local couple for not watering their lawn. Guess the ongoing news coverage embarrassed the right people into doing the right thing.
A little background: after California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger declared emergency drought conditions in the state early last month, homeowners Matt George and Anne Hartridge decided that lavishing grass with a precious liquid wasn’t the right way to deal with the crisis. So they stopped watering their lawn. Naturally, the grass responded by turning a crisp, dead brown. And, naturally, some disapproving lawn-lover complained.
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