50.24$US/1 Barrel
58.20$US/1 Barrel
53.60$US/1 Barrel
70.45$US/1 Barrel
75.61$US/1 Barrel
75.71$US/1 Barrel
77.66$US/1 Barrel
68.52$US/1 Barrel
68.37$US/1 Barrel
66.57$US/1 Barrel
51.81$US/1 Barrel
57.57$US/1 Barrel
55.28$US/1 Barrel
62.57$US/1 Barrel
64.72$US/1 Barrel
60.50$US/1 Barrel
62.00$US/1 Barrel
54.25$US/1 Barrel
59.25$US/1 Barrel
60.75$US/1 Barrel
485.00$US/MT
378.00$US/MT
705.00$US/MT
585.00$US/MT
508.00$US/MT
467.00$US/MT
368.00$US/MT
395.25$US/MT
678.00$US/MT
832.75$US/MT
SEATTLE (Oil Monster): California officials agreed today to extend operations at three natural gas plants on the Southern California coast in an effort to shore up California’s straining power grid and avoid rolling blackouts.
The controversial and unanimous vote that keeps the plants open came from the State Water Resources Control Board, which oversees the phaseout of natural gas facilities that suck in seawater and kill marine life.
Seawater-cooled units at three power plants in Long Beach, Huntington Beach and Oxnard will be kept in reserve for three more years to feed energy into the state’s grid during power emergencies, such as the 10-day heatwave last August and September that led to statewide power alerts. The plants had been slated to cease operations of those units by the end of 2020, but received a three-year extension amid rolling blackouts that summer.
Now that extension has been extended again — through 2026. A fourth, the Scattergood Generating Station in Playa Del Rey, will receive a five-year extension to fill regional supply gaps though 2029.
The decision about the fossil fuel plants comes despite the state’s mandate for 100% renewable and zero-carbon electricity by 2045.
Natural gas plants are a large source of greenhouse gases, which warm the planet, toxic gases like ammonia and formaldehyde, and nitrogen oxides, which contribute to Southern California’s extreme smog. Nationally, natural gas plants account for about a third of all carbon emissions from energy production.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom last year called for state agencies such as the Department of Water Resources to prop up the grid — including with fossil fuels, which drew the ire of environmentalists and nearby communities.
The state agreed to pay the plants’ operating companies about $1.2 billion from 2024 through the end of 2026 to stand by during energy events, such as heatwaves.
“These resources would only be turned on to address extreme events or for maintenance runs” at the direction of the state’s grid operator, said Delphine Hou, deputy director of the Department of Water Resources, at a meeting of the California Energy Commission last week.
The decision outraged many local residents, especially those in the largely Latino community of Oxnard, where many work outdoors in farm fields. The city supported the previous extension with the understanding that the plant’s owner would pay up to $25 million to demolish it.
After the vote, several angry people yelled at the water board members, “You failed our community.”
During the five-hour session that drew more than 60 people commenting, Kyle De La Torre, an Oxnard resident with the Central Coast Alliance United for a Sustainable Economy, urged the board to reject the extension. He said the smell is so strong that he gets a migraine when he passes the plant and worries about a school and homes nearby.
“When it comes to keeping the power plant, please don’t see us as just a number, or just a location on a map. We are humans just like you are. We deserve a safe and clear and clean environment just like you do,” he said.
Dave Shukla, co-founder of the Long Beach Alliance for Clean Energy, said he lives near the AES Alamitos plant. “I have wasted countless hours of my life over the past 25 years to cleaning up the dark soot that this plant emits directly onto our home,” he said.
Water board staff acknowledged that those living near the plants will continue to experience “air, noise, and aesthetic impacts.”
But Hou told the energy commission last week that because the seawater-cooling plants won’t be operating on “a day-to-day basis like they are today, it’s very likely there’ll be a reduction in air emissions and once-through cooling water use,” which is the process of sucking in large volumes of seawater that kills fish and other marine life. The state policy phasing out the process dates back to 2010.
Newer generating units at the Huntington Beach and Long Beach plants use alternative cooling technologies, instead of seawater, so they are not subject to the phaseout. They would have remained operating regardless of today’s vote, since they are under contract for another 17.5 years — and not just for emergency use, according to AES.
Courtesy: www.calmatters.org