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nce upon a time, I bought the environmentalist diatribe against nuclear power.  Once upon a time, I was that kind of fool. I’ve learned a lot since then, and while I can’t verify everything in the email below, it does show just how extensive the Greenie misinformation campaign has been.  The email is from DuPree Moore and ran originally in Greenie Watch.

From 1968 to 1973, I was an engineering officer aboard U. S. nuclear submarines. The chief engineer would routinely sneak back into the engineering spaces and trip some piece of equipment off the line. These were not computer simulations. The equipment really would be in an emergency condition. We would be sitting in the reactor control room, and suddenly alarms would go off. We would have to figure out what had happened, and recover from it. The equipment is designed to survive such accidents. After many decades of operation under those conditions, the Navy has had zero deaths from nuclear power. You are more likely to drown in your bathtub than to die from operating a nuclear reactor.

A coal-fired electric power generating plant uses 120 railroad cars full of coal every day. A nuclear plant uses one semi truckload of nuclear fuel rods every few years. All the spent fuel from every nuclear reactor in the United States could be stored on one football field, a pile nine feet tall. Recycle it as the French do, and the pile shrinks to three inches. In 500 years it will be less toxic than coal ash.

It is preposterous to talk about nuclear waste remaining toxic for tens of thousands of years. It is preposterous to talk about tens of thousands of deaths from a nuclear accident. Those analyses are based upon a laughable error. If one person eats 200 aspirin, he will die. These people figure that if 200 people eat one aspirin each, there will be one death. If two million people are exposed to a dose rate of one aspirin per person, there will be 20,000 deaths. In fact one aspirin is beneficial, and low levels of radiation are beneficial. Geographical areas with higher background radiation have lower levels of cancer.

Chernobyl proved just how safe nuclear power is. There was no containment vessel. All radiation was released to the environment. There were less than 200 deaths, all among on-site personnel. An exhaustive international inquiry under the UN found no documented health damage beyond the immediate vicinity (except for a slight increase in thyroid cancer among children, which can be completely prevented by taking inexpensive iodine supplements in the event of a nuclear accident). The area around Chernobyl has been declared a radioactive dead zone at radiation levels about the same as downtown Warsaw, Poland, and five times lower than Grand Central Station in New York City. Plants and animals flourish in the region, showing no ill effects. It is stark raving mad.

Three-Mile Island nuclear accident caused zero deaths, zero injuries, and zero radiation release to the environment. And it was not a close call. It might have been a close call from having much more extensive equipment damage, but the worst possible accident would still have been kept entirely within the containment vessel. There would have been zero deaths, zero injuries, and zero radiation released to the environment. If terrorists flew an airplane into a nuclear reactor, it would not rupture the containment vessel.

During the 1970′s there was an anti-nuclear campaign, similar to the global warming campaign today. It was based on grossly inaccurate information, but it prevailed politically to impose onerous regulations which killed nuclear power as a source of electricity. I have seen a comparison of two nuclear power plants in the United States which began construction at about the same time. One finished up before the new regulations went into effect. It came in on budget, and generates to this day the cheapest, safest, and cleanest electricity on this planet. The second reactor ran afoul of the new regulations. It ran into massive cost overruns, and never was completed.

Lawrence Solomon was part of the anti-nuclear campaign during the 1970′s. Today he has done some excellent research disproving the global warming theory, especially disproving the assertions of a scientific consensus about it; but to this day he is wrong about nuclear power. To this day he says, “Nuclear reactors run flat-out 24/7″, and cannot be adjusted to match power demand. He is simply wrong. The reactor remains critical 24/7, but a reactor can be critical at zero power. The power output automatically matches the power demand. I have personally operated nuclear reactors, and I know for a fact what I am talking about. That is the kind of misinformation which has destroyed nuclear power, the greatest scientific advance in the history of the world.

And that’s the way it is … not the way Greenpeace and others say it is.

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esterday, a group of unelected know-it-all bureaucrats decided it’s not enough that California residents alread are crushed under the second-highest tax burden in the nation, they will impose a massive new tax so they might tip at global warming windmills and force us into their choices for our cars.

The LA Times happily established the motivation for this newest attack on Californians’ wallets:

California took aim Thursday at the oil industry and its impact on global warming, adopting the world’s first regulation to limit greenhouse gas emissions from the fuel that runs cars and trucks.

Oil built this economy; oil fueled the state; oil made fortunes that created universities and endowed charities, but oil is the bogeyman of the Warmies and must be killed at all cost because they think tiny increases in a negligible atmospheric gas are going to kill us all. So CARB, the California Air Resources Board, voted 9 to 1 to pass a complex new rule that will drive up the cost of gasoline and, they hope, penalize hapless car drivers into reducing their fuel consumption by a quarter in the next decade.

And, of course, they hope this false economy will finally create huge consumer demand for electric and hydrogen-fueled vehicles and, as the LAT hopefully put it, “jump-start a host of futuristic biofuels” from algae, woodchips and other stuff that’s been around forever and has yet to produce energy anywhere near as efficiently as good ol’ God-given crude.

Still, CARB, which calls itself “ARB” in a bold move to reduce electron waste, said:

“The new standard means we can begin to break our century-old dependence on petroleum and provide California with greater energy security” said ARB Chairman Mary D. Nichols. “The drive to force the market toward greater use of alternative fuels will be a boon to the state’s economy and public health – it reduces air pollution, creates new jobs and continues California’s leadership in the fight against global warming.”

Nichols is a long-time California greenie, and one of its most powerful. She started the Los Angeles office of the nation’s richest, most powerful environmental law firm, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and started her many stints on CARB in 1974, when Jerry Brown appointed her its chair. She also was an Assistant Sec at EPA under Clinton. In other words, she’s been forcing environmentalism onto the public for 25 years, and doing quite well at it. The CARB release continues:

According to ARB analyses, to produce the more than 1.5 billion gallons of biofuels needed, over 25 new biofuel facilities will have to be built and will create more than 3,000 new jobs, mostly in the state’s rural areas. Production of fuels within the state will also keep consumer dollars local by reducing the need to make fuel purchases from beyond its borders.

CARB doesn’t bother to tell us how many perfectly good jobs in oil will be displaced by this Quixotic scheme, nor does it deal with the 8,000 pound gorilla in this little matter: water. Many of the rural areas they hope to bring these jobs to already have unemployment rates over 40 percent because water deliveries have been cut back so much farmers can’t grow crops. Where does Nichols expect to find the water to grow the biofuel stock, and where, oh where, does she think she’s going to find the hundreds of gallons of water needed to process each gallon of biofuel?

But they plow on. Forcing the cost of transportation up so they can force us into the cars they want us to drive, or better yet, onto the buses they don’t ride in themselves.

This state is going to Hades in hyperdrive. I’d move, but the LAT tells me 35 states are watching CARB’s action with gleeful anticipation, hoping to follow in California’s path at their earliest convenience. Watch out! California may be coming to a neighborhood near you soon.

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eing fortunate residents of Earth, we do have quite a lot to celebrate today … and I do wish Earth Day were a celebration instead of a dreadful day full of dire recitations of the evil man, particularly capitalist man, does to the planet and political grandstanding about saving the earth. As if the Earth could be saved by new-comer pipsqueaks like us … and as if the Earth needed saving in the first place.

But grandstand they will.  In his long-awaited Earth Day proclamation, Obama called for us to protect the nation’s natural resources like, you know, oil, because it “not only fulfills a sacred obligation to our children and grandchildren, but also provides an opportunity to stimulate economic growth.”  He apparently has missed the lesson on how much economic growth oil has stimulated.

Similarly, the eco-loons at Al’s multi-million dollar Repower America.org, made their “green equals jobs” pitch via an email:

We’ve been running ads and talking to people across the country to raise awareness about the carbon pollution loophole. And by adopting our call, President Obama has demonstrated that he understands that a cap on carbon pollution will lead to rapid growth in clean energy investment and create millions of jobs. With unemployment at 8.5%, we know there is no time to waste.

But without swift action from Congress, these jobs will be allowed to go elsewhere, as other nations continue to outpace us on progress towards a clean energy economy.

Not mentioned in this cheery little Earth Day tome is the inconvenient truth that for every new job created by new, high-priced alternative energy, there are many more jobs taken away. Start with the jobs of people who work exploring for oil, extracting oil, refining oil, delivering oil, marketing oil, and figuring out how many billions of dollars in taxes are due the government for those sales of oil. Then add the millions of jobs that will be lost as businesses fold due to rising energy prices brought on by alternative technologies that are not yet ready for prime time.  And the jobs that will be lost because lost oil tax revenues plus billion-dollar alternative energy incentives inescapably will result in crushingly higher taxes on everyone (expect Obama’s favorite class, the under-achieving).

It will be a net loss in jobs, believe me. Slapping together solar panels will not replace those jobs, nor will building windmills off the Hyannis Port coast … nor will, even, defending those windmills against lawsuits brought by the Kennedys.

So celebrate Earth Day as it should be celebrated: Thank God for giving us such a wonderful place to live, and commit to being a better steward of the resources He gave us … which means fighting deep green lunacy vigorously, and adopting light green practices like conservation religiously.

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ext Thursday, Interior Sec. Salazar will be in San Francisco on the final stop of his four-city tour to solicit comment on offshore oil leases. We know where Obama stands on the matter – if offshore drilling can be made completely safe, he doesn’t oppose it unless it would further the imminent destruction of the planet by global warming, which of course he figures it does.

Salazar’s tour comes as the fed agency that administers the offshore oil and natural gas leasing program, the Minerals Management Service (MMS), considers the size, timing, and location of the areas to be considered for federal leasing. MMS bases its recommendations in part on the public comments, and the enviros are pulling out the stops. Here’s a bit of an email I got from Endangered (yawn) Earth:

Offshore drilling has the potential to have a negative impact on species already in peril.

The Endangered Species Coalition is encouraging our members and activists to attend the hearing and testify on behalf of threatened and endangered species. …

Secretary Salazar will be at these hearings. We understand it is short notice but if at all possible please attend …. Your message can be simple:

“Offshore drilling poses risks to a number of endangered species. But these risks cannot be properly addressed while the Bush Administration’s Consultation rules and polar bear exemptions remain in place. Hundreds of thousands of public comments were received opposing the changes but were ignored by the last administration, please listen to these comments and overturn these rules. I urge you to act quickly and use the opportunity given to you by the U.S. Congress and President Obama to restore protection.” …

Also, in a show of solidarity we are asking people to wear white for the Polar Bear!

Dressing in white.  How cute.

If you remember the polar bear fiasco, the Bush admin approved listing the bear as threatened even though its populations are growing and the threat to the polar icecap was unproved (and since shown to be unfounded, as the winter freeze-up this year was record-breaking.) But Bush added some rules that allow oil exploration, so the enviros are using the Salazar hearings, which are about offshore oil, not Alaska oil, to protest extraction of any hydrocarbons anywhere, for whatever reason.

What a good idea that is! According to the feds, the U.S. has enough oil and natural gas to fuel more than 65 million cars for 60 years and enough natural gas to heat 60 million homes for 160 years. In fact, the U.S. government estimates that there are 30 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil on federal lands currently closed to development. So what better idea can we come up with than leaving all of it unexploited?

Although a five-year plan approving increased offshore drilling was released in January, Salazar has directed Interior Department scientists to produce new reports and has extended the public comment period to September, to allow for this little comment-fest. He’s hoping that comments will give the admin cover as it works to deprive us of the easiest route to greater energy independence – which happens to be exactly the route a large majority of Americans endorse. How loony is that?

Fortunately, you can comment without having to go to San Francisco and risk confrontation with gays who are angry you exist and enviros dressed in white in solidarity with polar bears who would just as soon put them out of existence because they’re probably pretty tasty.

Just go to Energy Tomorrow’s Take Action on Access page and spend about three seconds sending out your letter (click the email icon)  or your tweet, Facebook post, YouTube clip or whatever, they’re all there,  encouraging MMS and Congress to allow greater access to domestic energy reserves. And please link to and forward this post – let’s get some letters generated!

And if you want to dress in black in solidarity with crude, that’s OK, too.

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t’s as if the economy were robust, spewing out money to burn.  It’s like everyone agreed there was an imminent threat of global environmental collapse because of human activity.  It’s as if everyone was eagerly awaiting higher costs to everything.

It’s as if the Dems didn’t have a brain in their heads:

House Democratic leaders unveiled a sweeping plan to fight climate change and boost renewable energy this morning, including mandates for renewable electricity nationwide and a market-based system for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The plan … is a “discussion draft” authored by Rep. Henry Waxman (D- Beverly Hills), the committee chairman, and Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), who chairs the House Select Committee for Energy Independence and Global Warming. Among the bill’s provisions:

* A nationwide mandate for renewable energy — such as wind, solar and biomass — in electric power generation, starting at 6% in 2012 and rising to 25% by 2025.

Shall we discuss the cost of developing that infrastructure out of thin air?  Or the plausibility of the entire concept?  Or the need, considering our coal, oil and natural gas reserves, our hydroelectric capabilities and potential, a nuclear industry just waiting to re-emerge?  (All quotes from the LA Times, BTW.)

* A “cap-and-trade” program to restrict greenhouse gas emissions by requiring utilities and other emitters to hold “allowances” for the carbon dioxide they send into the atmosphere. The level of allowances would shrink annually to reduce carbon emissions to 3% below 2005 levels by 2012, to 20% below 2005 levels by 2020 and to 83% below 2005 levels by 2050.

Shall we discuss this a bit?  I did with the American Petroleum Institute earlier today, and here’s what the good folks there told me:

API hasn’t taken a position on the topic of cap-and-trade per se, but we have been very outspoken about the potential costs of the cap-and-trade proposal in the administration’s 2010 budget.

Based on the administration’s initial estimate, it appeared the proposal would generate $646 billion in revenues.  Our calculations indicate that about 60% of that would come from oil and natural gas, which equates to about $400 billion. Later administration estimates indicated that the revenues could be three times the $646 billion figure, so it appears the burden on this industry – and on consumers – could be much higher than originally anticipated.

You’d think that before madcap schemes are introduced for discussion, someone somewhere might have a handle on how much destruction the proposal will cause family budgets across America.  But really – $646 billion or three times that amount; do we really need either?

* A national standard, akin to California’s, limiting carbon dioxide emissions from vehicles and a new low-carbon fuel standard to further support bio-fuels and low-emission alternatives to gasoline.

Can we discuss this?  Is this really what the automobile industry needs right now?  Perhaps it would be better to get them back on their feet again before cutting them off at the ankles.

Remember, no alternative technologies are ready for market without cap and trade to penalize existing technologies.  They cannot produce enough energy, and they cannot produce it cheaply enough. Cap and trade is just a fancy name for government tromping all over the free market in the name of “saving the planet.”

The planet doesn’t need saving.  The economy does.  And the free market’s on life support.

P.S.: The LA Times report quoted several environmentalist, most of whom were positively giddy about the day’s development.  I sent the reporter this email:

Just read your story and was amazed to find that apparently there wasn’t a single source from industry anywhere for you to get a quote from. Really? Just representatives of environmental groups?

Guess what?  No response.

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s the pres-elect readies his trillion-dollar tax us to death incentive program with all its government inducements to the greening-up of America, perhaps a member or two of his brain trust should read this:

Home builders slapped on solar panels and added other ecofriendly enhancements as energy prices soared last year, hoping greener homes would lure reluctant buyers.

But since July, the cost of oil has plunged from $147 a barrel to about $36, while home prices continued to fall. Together, these headwinds have stalled low-energy housing developments around the country.

“The program doesn’t necessarily pencil out at the moment,” said Scott Kramer, a forward planner for Scottsdale, Ariz.-based Meritage Homes Corp., which builds homes in Texas, Arizona, California, Nevada, Colorado, and Florida.

“People don’t seem to be willing to pay for it.”

In 2007, Meritage packed $20,000 worth of solar panels, high performance insulation, low-leakage air ducts, and other systems in its first green community in Vacaville, Calif. The “Encore” homes promised to slash electric bills up to half, and buyers snapped them up even though Meritage offered them at a higher price than competitors.

Sales figures in July showed the Encore development sold 1.55 homes per week, compared with 0.88 per week for similar homes in the same city, Kramer said.

But that advantage disappeared in the second half of the year. Meritage and its closest competitor both sold about one home every two weeks according to sales data for November, and Meritage slashed prices that month. Though Meritage continues to build Encore homes in Vacaville, it’s reevaluating whether to move forward with plans to start new green communities.

UBS analyst David Goldberg said most major builders will continue to invest in green developments. But they’ll likely need to find cheaper ways of doing it. “If it cost more to put solar panels on there, are you still exploring it? I’d say, maybe not,” Goldberg said. (Boston Globe)

Being green and stopping global warming (heh!) are luxuries and this is not a luxuriant time.  People are making tough, pragmatic choices like “the Bahamas or dinner and a movie … let’s do dinner and a movie.”  It’s not a time for $20,000 in solar panels if the payoff is five years away … and it’s not the time for trillion dollar boondoggles.

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ow that Steven Chu, alternative energy guru, is about to be ensconsed in the Dept. of Energy and PEOTUS Obama is proclaiming alternative energy programs as the salvation of the national economy, it might do us well to pause a moment and consider just how horribly fleeced we are going to be by a raft of upcoming dishonest and inept government-sponsored alternative energy initiatives.

Add this LA Times story to the thick bibliography of stories about failed or deceitful government energy programs:

When members of the Los Angeles City Council agreed last month to put an ambitious solar energy plan on the March 3 ballot, they talked effusively about their desire for cleaner air and “green” technology jobs — the kind that could boost the economy during a recession.

What they didn’t discuss was an analysis by a city-hired consulting firm that called the solar plan “extremely risky” and considerably more expensive than was being portrayed by the Department of Water and Power.

Measure B, which calls for unionized DWP workers to install solar panels on rooftops and parking lots across the city, sailed onto the ballot with a unanimous vote. But days earlier, the council’s top policy advisor was so troubled by the proposal that, in an e-mail to Council President Eric Garcetti, he recommended that the council delay it until a future election.

After receiving the analysis from the consulting firm, Chief Legislative Analyst Gerry Miller warned Garcetti that the solar measure could result in “substantial increases” to the electricity bills of DWP customers.

Neither Miller nor Garcetti made those findings part of the public record. Since then, Miller’s office has rebuffed requests from The Times for a copy of the consulting firm’s analysis, saying the state’s public records law allows city officials to withhold any document that would reveal the “deliberative process” between the council and its chief legislative analyst.

The underpinnings of the $700 billion Obama wet dream stimulus program is the same as the DWP solar program’s underpinnings:  Political grandstanding, overly rosy assumptions, a lack of transparency, an avoidance of the facts, and a willingness to spend other people’s money for their career gratification.

Garcetti blew off requests from the LAT to see the consultant report because “they were among several opinions that he solicited informally on the ballot measure.”  Huh?  Was public funding used for the report?  You betcha.  Turn it over Garcetti.

Oh, by the way, he also mentioned that solar companies that stood to line their pockets with the DWP solar contract disputed the consultant’s findings.  Big surprise there.  So release all the studies and let us poor, pathetically stupid people draw our own conclusions.

DWP, which is already planning to impose a rate increase of 24%, says the solar program shouldn’t add much  more than 4% more to customer bills.  And here silly old me thought that if you plugged into free energy from the sun, your energy bills would go down.  If that’s not the way it works in sunny LA, be very, very concerned about expensive “stimulus” programs forthcoming from Obama’s Energy Dept.

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ur home electric bill last month was $1,000. That’s what two central AC units (even high-efficiency ones), laundry, hot water, flat-screen TVs and computers will do to you. (Not to mention the old refrigerator in the garage!) So I liked the sound of this energy solution – even if Mr. As Long As It’s Clean and Safe may not be too dazzled with it:

Nuclear power plants smaller than a garden shed and able to power 20,000 homes will be on sale within five years, say scientists at Los Alamos, the US government laboratory which developed the first atomic bomb.

The miniature reactors will be factory-sealed, contain no weapons-grade material, have no moving parts and will be nearly impossible to steal because they will be encased in concrete and buried underground.

The US government has licensed the technology to Hyperion, a New Mexico-based company which said last week that it has taken its first firm orders and plans to start mass production within five years. …

The reactors, only a few metres in diameter, will be delivered on the back of a lorry to be buried underground. They must be refuelled every 7 to 10 years. Because the reactor is based on a 50-year-old design that has proved safe for students to use, few countries are expected to object to plants on their territory. An application to build the plants will be submitted to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission next year.(The Guardian)

Hyperion claims to have 100 “firm” orders and says the $25 million mini-reactors should be able to produce power for as little as 10 cents a kilowatt.

Of course, it would take about 150 of them to power up OC, so there are obvious drawbacks. But in rural areas they could offer an interesting alternative, and in developing countries, they offer a cleaner alternative than coal. But doing the math, they cost $2,500 per household served; even if amortized over the planned 50-year life of the units, that $50/year would be a prohibitive cost in many economies – but nothing a little foreign assistance couldn’t achieve.

Standing in the way of emerging, hopeful technologies like this is one Barack H. Obama, who pandered to the green vote and stated his opposition to any nuclear reactor unless it can be shown to be safe (Hyperion says they’re safe, but Obama no doubt knows better.) and clean (Safe disposal deep under mountains doesn’t count).

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e hear Obama again and again rebutting accusations that his energy plan is pie in the sky by claiming that he’s for clean coal, as he did again in tonight’s debate.

I’ve seen coal. It’s not clean. So what is Obama talking about? Well, here’s what the Dept. of Energy says about it:

The Clean Coal Power Initiative is providing government co-financing for new coal technologies that can help utilities meet the President’s Clear Skies Initiative to cut sulfur, nitrogen and mercury pollutants from power plants by nearly 70 percent by the year 2018. Also, some of the early projects are showing ways to reduce greenhouse emissions by boosting the efficiency by which coal plants convert coal to electricity or other energy forms.

Hmm. That’s ten years away. Doesn’t that make clean coal eligible for the Dem’s 10-year preclusion? You know, like they preclude offshore oil as an energy solution because it will, in their fervid rhetoric, take ten years to exploit.

In other words, Obama is saying he’s for coal as long as it doesn’t get used during his eight-year administration.

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n California, we have Proposition 7 on the ballot in November, which would require the state’s utilities to use 50% alternative energy by 2025, up from our already difficult to achieve goal of 20 percent by 2010.

Nearly all of the money given in support of Prop 7 has come from one man, Peter Sperling, who’s given $7.5 million of mostly Daddy’s Money (Daddy founded the University of Phoenix). Sperling is another of those tedious heirs with a cause. Quite an heir, actually, America’s 301st richest individual.

The SacBee story tells us nothing more than the University of Phoenix hook; Forbes (linked above) tells us a bit more:

Father, John: Cambridge-educated humanities professor at San Jose U. Left academia to start for-profit University of Phoenix 1970s. Became Apollo Group; public 1994. Today enrolls more than 300,000 students in more than 100 programs for associate, bachelor’s, master’s degrees online or in classroom. Peter serves as senior vice president. Company faced numerous lawsuits; allegedly violated Higher Education Act by paying its recruiters based on number of students they enrolled; fined $10 million. Securities fraud: estimated $270 million damage award against company for misleading investors recently overturned. (emphasis added)

Sperling, who is so very concerned about California’s carbon footprint, owns more than 30 homes, says Ballotpedia:

In November 2002, Sperling paid $32 million for a home in San Francisco (right) -the record price at that time for a San Francisco home. The home was later placed on the market for $65 million, after approximately $18 million was spent to improve it. As of 2007, no one had lived in the home. News reports indicate that Sperling owns more than 30 homes throughout the world.

Speaking of carbon footprints, what do you suppose the carbon footprints of these Peter Sperling enterprises might be?

Sperling is also the Chairman and a founder of Communication Services, Inc., a Phoenix, AZ-based full-service communication engineering and construction firm serving the U.S. Coast Guard, FBI, Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. commercial wireless industry. In addition, Sperling is Chairman of Ecliptic Enterprises, a Pasadena, CA-based provider of integrated space imaging and telemetry and payload deployment systems for NASA, JPL, the NRO and the commercial satellite industry, and he is also a principal in Daedalus Real Estate Advisors, a developer of commercial office and industrial property.

(OK, it’s not all Daddy’s money; that’s why I added the “mostly” above.)

Despite the dubiousness of Sperling’s efforts to force Californians to be more carbon-light than he is himself, SacBee appears to be as close to Sperling as Gwen Ifell is to Obama. Here’s how the article described opponents of the bill:

The state’s biggest utility companies, PG&E and Edison International, are opposing the measure and have donated more than $27.5 million to the cause. Sempra, an energy company, has contributed another $104,000.

You cannot live in California and not know that every major environmental group in the Golden State is vehemently opposed to Prop 7, including the California League of Conservation Voters, the Environmental Defense Fund, the Natural Resources Defense Council, the Sierra Club California and Union of Concerned Scientists. Also opposed are solar manufacturers by the dozens. Their point:

An unprecedented and diverse coalition of solar, wind and renewable energy companies, consumer, taxpayer, senior, labor, small businesses, local governments and environmental organizations all oppose Proposition 7 on the November ballot. Prop. 7 was placed on the ballot by an Arizona billionaire with no expertise in renewable power issues. The measure purports to increase the percent of renewable power utilities must purchase. However, it is so poorly drafted that renewable energy and environmental experts warn Prop. 7 will not achieve its goals and, instead, will actually “slam the brakes” on renewable energy development in California, result in significant increases in our electric bills and could result in another energy crisis. Prop. 7.

By making the utilities the only stated opponents, the SacBee article will drive many to support Prop. 7. Is the SacBee guilty of incredibly shoddy or incredibly biased reporting? It’s got to be one or the other.

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