Stupidity - World's largest solar plant opens in California desert

U.S. Department of Interior Secretary Sally Jewell, right, and Georges Antoun, COO of First Solar,
tour the 550-megawatt Desert Sunlight Solar Farm near Desert Center on Monday. (Photo: Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

The project is not bad . . . only dumb

• Solar is exactly the way to go.  But this project is a joke.  The world's largest solar plant powers as "massive" 160,000 homes in a state with nearly 40,000,000 people.  Simply, there is no way to build enough of these plants to power the People's Republic. The way to go is to put solar panels on each individual home.

(The Desert Sun)  -  Riverside County is now home to the world's largest solar power plant.

Interior Secretary Sally Jewell joined state officials near Desert Center on Monday to commission the 550-megawatt Desert Sunlight solar project, which generates enough electricity to power 160,000 average California homes. Desert Sunlight received a federal loan of nearly $1.5 billion, and Jewell called the project's completion an example of the loan guarantee program's tremendous importance.

"When you are stepping out with new technology, when you are trying something that has been untested before, a loan guarantee program from an organization like the Department of Energy is what provides you, as a lender, that certainty that you can step up and support the project," Jewell told The Desert Sun.

Conservative lawmakers have derided the loan guarantee program, arguing that it's wasted billions of taxpayer dollars. Critics have pointed to the program's $535 million loan guarantee for Solyndra, a Fremont-based solar panel manufacturer that filed for bankruptcy in 2011.

But the Department of Energy reported last year that it expects to make a profit of $5 billion to $6 billion from the program. The department funded five traditional, large-scale solar farms, and Desert Sunlight marks the last of those projects to go online.

"They're all rock-solid, money is good, living up to every kind of condition we put in the loan documents in terms of performance, in terms of commercial operation," Peter Davidson, executive director of the Department of Energy's loan programs office, said in an interview last week.

The loan guarantee program did more than fund five solar photovoltaic projects, Davidson added: It helped launch the large-scale solar industry. In 2009, there were no traditional solar farms in the United States larger than 100 megawatts. Now, 17 such projects have been financed, according to a Department of Energy report released Monday.

Solar panels "existed before as a technology, but that technology hadn't been deployed at a large scale," Davidson said. "Once we've done that, the government steps aside to let the private markets take over."

Desert Sunlight employed an average of 440 people during more than three years of construction, and it now has about 15 full-time employees. Money provided by the project's owners — as part of an agreement negotiated with Riverside County — is also being used to fund $400,000 in improvements to the community center in nearby Desert Center.

"The debate's over — we're going to be moving to more renewable energy," Riverside County Supervisor John Benoit said. "We are ideally situated, here in eastern Riverside County, to host this kind of development in the future."

This is the future
There are solar panel companies right now using the current tax system to install solar panels on individual homes at no cost to the home owner.  My son works for one of these companies.  The panels are installed reducing a person's power bill from about $300 a month to $60.
.
Normally big corporations get the tax breaks to build huge solar and conventional power plants and then charge the public high power rates.  Under this system the average family gets to put the savings of solar power directly in their pockets in the form of reduced monthly bills.

Another Democrat tax increase for "road repairs"

Assembly Speaker Toni "Woof" Atkins

Yet Another Leftist Slush Fund

Assembly Speaker Toni Atkins proposed a plan Wednesday for funding road maintenance with $1.8 billion in fees on California drivers.

The fees would total roughly $52 annually for most people behind the wheel, according to preliminary details released by the speaker's office.

"California's roads and transportation infrastructure simply aren't in the shape they need to be in order to keep people and goods moving," said Atkins (D-San Diego), who announced the proposal during a forum on transportation policies in Sacramento.

Atkins' proposal would require a two-thirds vote for legislative approval because it creates a new fee. That means she would need support from Republicans who are often skeptical about raising additional revenue but have expressed interest in funding infrastructure projects reports the L.A. Times.

"Transportation has traditionally been a bipartisan issue, and I believe we can pass this plan and provide a new funding stream in a fair and comprehensive way," she said.

The new fee, called a "road user charge that could be tacked on to insurance bills,"  or vehicle registration charges. The $1.8 billion generated annually would be used in two different ways, according to Atkins' office.

Roughly $800 million would go directly to road improvements. The additional $1 billion would free up money in the general fund and allow truck weight fees to be spent on maintenance, their original purpose before they were redirected to help cover debt costs.

Billions spent on a bullet train to nowhere,
but little spent on roads that people actually use.

$2 million price tag for an election with one candidate

Then-Assembly Republican leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Bakersfield,
and Assemblywoman Sharon Runner.

It's Just Tax Money

• The Los Angeles County portion of the bill runs to $1.4 million.  San Bernardino has not said with their cost is.

(Santa Clarita Valley Signal)  -  A special election with a price tag of more than $1 million is on for March, even though only one candidate filed to put her name on the ballot, state and county elections officials said.

The name of Republican Sharon Runner will be the only one to appear on on the certified list of candidates sent out by the California Secretary of State’s office.

The special primary election for the 21st Senate District seat vacated by Congressman Steve Knight is scheduled March 17, according to state and county elections officials.

“It’s mandated we still have an election, even though there’s one candidate,” said Regina Ip, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County Office of Registrar-Recorder/County Clerk.

The special election carries about a $1.4 million price tag in Los Angeles County alone, Ip said. 

Election officials in San Bernardino County could not be reached for information on the cost of the election for them.

The 21st district covers most of the Santa Clarita and Victor valleys as well as the Antelope Valley south of the Kern County line. The district also stretches into San Bernardino County.

Part of the rationale for continuing with the election is that someone could mount a write-in campaign for the seat.

As of Thursday, Ip said, nobody had pulled papers in L.A. County to run as a write-in candidate.

Whether there’s a write-in candidate or not, the same general rules for the special election apply. 

Should Runner, a former state Senator and Assemblywoman, win more than 50 percent of the vote in the primary election, she will be deemed elected.

Write-in candidates can only run in the primary election. They could advance to a special general election if they are one of the top two vote-getters and no candidate receives a majority of the vote.

The 21st Senate District seat was left vacant after Knight, R-Palmdale, resigned earlier this month to take his new seat in Congress.

Although a number of candidates had expressed possible interest in running in the special election to fill the remaining two years of Knight’s term, Runner was the only one to do so.

Runner served in the 36th Assembly District from 2002 to 2008 and then in the 17th Senate District from 2011 to 2012. She opted not to seek re-election in 2012 after undergoing a double lung transplant as part of the treatment for limited scleroderma, or CREST syndrome, which is an autoimmune condition.

The 21st Senate District takes in the Antelope Valley and Santa Clarita in
Los Angeles County and Victor Valley in San Bernardino County.

California drought: Sierra snowpack at record lows

Frank Gehrke, chief of snow surveys for the California Department of Water Resources, left, leads his group out to measure snow levels near Echo Summit.

Too Many People

• The political hacks from both parties want to keep importing endless millions of new water sucking people into California.  More water sucking farms. More water sucking businesses.  More water sucking housing tracts and golf courses.  
• There is no real thought given as to where all this "magic" new water is supposed to come from.  So rather than changing policies on growth people turn to raping what is left of California's natural beauty for short term gain.
• I am not becoming a leftist in my old age, but what is wrong with zero population growth???  Anyone who drove the nearly wide open 405 freeway 30 years ago knows what has happened to the quality of life in our People's Republic.  

(San Jose Mercury News)  -  As California caps what may be its driest January on record, Frank Gehrke will lead a bevy of surveyors on Thursday to a predetermined spot on Echo Summit in an exercise that has become a monthly downer in the documentation of the state's historic drought.

As a thirsty state anxiously stands by for the results, the crew will drive some aluminum rods into the snow to measure how deep it is then weigh the white powder to calculate its water content.

At least that's how the monthly winter ritual will play out on the nightly news. But the photo-op belies the complexity of the coordinated effort to size up the state's snowpack around the clock.

Today, snow sensors scattered through the Sierra, satellite imagery and aerial flybys augment the 106-year-old "manual survey." The technology helps to provide a clearer update of California's water conditions that water agencies depend on to perform the increasingly crucial job of managing our diminishing water supply for the rest of the year.

Bidwell Marina at Lake Oroville

"I think they'd be amazed," Gehrke, chief of California's Cooperative Snow Surveys Program, said of his predecessors. "The capabilities are much greater than anyone could have imagined back then."

What won't amaze Gehrke this year is the predictability of Thursday's results. This year, the Sierra snowpack -- which usually provides 30 percent of California's water -- is critically low, less than 30 percent of normal for this time of year, the snow sensors show. December's storms began filling up reservoirs, but they were too warm to turn rain into an abundance of snow.

The public sees only one of the many manual surveys done last week and this week, when a small army is fanning out to over 200 sites across the Sierra range to extract "snow cores." The teams are part of a cooperative of 53 municipalities, public utilities, federal agencies, water districts, irrigation districts and private companies with vested interests in predicting the spring melt of mountain snow into California rivers and reservoirs.

The snow cores the teams collect and weigh will reveal the amount of frozen water held in the mountains. Their main tool, a hollow metal cylinder, differs little from what their predecessors used over a century ago to sample the snow. "The manual snow surveys program are still the backbone of our water supply forecasting," Gehrke said.

Like dozens of other water providers, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission, the Bay Area's primary water supplier, relies on the snowpack data to predict the amount of snow melt that will flow into Hetch Hetchy Reservoir.


Read More . . . .

Folsom Lake near Sacramento

The problem in NOT lack of rain
You cannot keep importing endless millions of water using people
into California which is mostly a desert.

The Cheap Date That Was California’s 2014 Race for Governor

By John Myers
KQED News

It’s a headline you almost never see in California politics, and probably won’t see again for a very long time: a landslide win in a statewide election where campaign spending hit a record low.

In an era where political campaigns burn cash like a Winnebago guzzles gas, this was a contest won by a campaign that sipped its cash like a Toyota Prius.

Final documents filed both by Gov. Jerry Brown and his Republican challenger, Neel Kashkari, show the two men spent almost $13.3 million … combined … on their race for the top job in the nation’s most populous state.

Kashkari accounted for slightly more of that spending than the victorious incumbent governor, spending $7.13 million to Brown’s $6.15 million (a small amount of that total was spent in 2013). Official campaign finance documents were filed by both men over the course of the past 24 hours.

And it turned out to not be much of a race in the final analysis, with Brown coasting to a 20-percentage-point win on Election Day.

Almost half of Kashkari’s campaign cash, $3.1 million, came from the GOP newcomer himself. Brown, who also raised money for a campaign to pass two ballot measures, is still sitting on about $23.4 million between that campaign’s bank account and the one for his re-election. What he’ll do with that money remains the source of a great deal of speculation.

The race was never one that dominated the airwaves, which have become a mainstay of competitive California elections. In fact, campaign records show that Kashkari spent most of his money — more than $4 million — just to win the second spot on the fall ballot in the primary campaign against GOP challenger Tim Donnelly.

It can be said that the campaign mirrored Gov. Jerry Brown both personally and politically: frugal, spartan, simple. But there’s no mistaking this for what it really was: a surprisingly cheap race.

How cheap? A review of campaign finance records and news accounts finds the last time a race for governor cost this little was in 1978, when Jerry Brown won a second term by defeating Republican Evelle Younger. That race was characterized in reports from the era as costing “less than $14 million.”

The chart above shows spending in each regular four-year gubernatorial cycle from 1978 through 2014. The total spending gradually rose for California campaigns from 1986 ($22.5 million) through 1994 ($46.1 million).

The race of 2002 was the first big cash bonanza, where Gov. Gray Davis alone spent $78 million. And no race (and maybe no race ever again) will look like the one in 2010, where GOP challenger Meg Whitman spent $178.5 million — most of it her own money — along with almost $37 million spent by Brown.

So what did it cost to get the votes? Take the total votes cast and the money spent, and you find the 2014 gubernatorial race cost about $1.81 per vote. That, too, is an amazing piece of data … considering news stories from 1986 calculated the race that year (Gov. George Deukmejian beating Democrat Tom Bradley) at $3.04 per vote.

But comparing the 2014 gubernatorial spending with that from 1978 isn’t really fair… to 1978. After all, adjusting for inflation, the final race of the ’70s would have been equal to almost $51 million in campaign spending today.

No, a better comparison would be other 2014 races — like the heated contest in Orange County for the 34th state Senate. Total cost, when you tally candidates and independent expenditures: about $11.1 million, close to the Brown-Kashkari battle. And we may see even bigger spending on the statewide level once final campaign reports are filed from the intense fight for state superintendent of public instruction.

Bottom line: This was an anomaly of a gubernatorial race, something pointed out late last year in just how few votes were cast (which also broke a record that went back to, wait for it, 1978). The reasons for it? Well, maybe we’ll get some insight on Saturday, when political consultants from both the Brown and Kashkari camp participate in a Q&A election post-mortem at UC Berkeley.

California wild salmon harvest continues to dwindle with drought

Saving California

• As a Conservative John Muir conservationist I believe we need to protect our environment and food supply.  It disgusts me to see both parties put temporary gain ahead of long term planning.

(Los Angeles Times)  -  It’s still a little too early to tell for sure, but the news on the California wild salmon front is not good. A combination of low water levels in streams because of the drought and high summer temperatures resulted in a massive die-off of young salmon in Northern California.

This week the California Department of Fish and Game, in cooperation with its federal counterparts, will begin releasing young hatchery trout into tributaries of the Sacramento River. That’s something that happens almost every year, but this time the number of young salmon being released is three times the average.

More than 600,000 Chinook salmon fry are being released below Keswick Dam on the Sacramento River after biologists say warm water killed 95% of the existing salmon eggs this summer.

“We have never seen anything like this,” says Jordan Traverso of the Department of Fish and Game. “We’ve been experiencing bad years because of the drought, so we were prepared. In this particular instance, without hatchery production, there would be very, very few naturally spawned winter-run salmon in 2017.”

California salmon have had a rough several years. Long a staple fishery, the number of fish caught plummeted because of a devil’s brew of issues including water allocation, drought and ocean conditions that reduced the amount of krill — similar to baby shrimp — that the salmon feed on.

The catch, which peaked at around 7 million pounds in 2003, dropped to a little more than 1 million in 2006 and for all intents and purposes vanished entirely from 2008 to 2010.

Read More . . . .

Just Because
Just because a businessman wants to farm in a desert or build water sucking homes and golf courses does not mean he has the right to drain dry the natural rivers and lakes of California leaving us a dry dust bowl.

California to spend millions against e-cigarettes

Follow The Money

• As a non-smoker I say screw all this crap.  But e-cigarettes are way too new for scientific studies to have been held on their dangers.  
• So I say follow the money.  The People's Republic spends millions on TV and radio ads for Obamacare, anti-smoking and other programs.  The media machine that controls what passes for news on our TV desperately wants that cold, hard cash.  The fear of the state pulling their ads from a TV station could easily influence what stories make it on the news.   

California plans to launch a statewide campaign warning citizens about the health risks of electronic cigarettes.

The campaign, which will include television and radio advertising, follows a report released on Wednesday by California health officials declaring electronic cigarettes a public health risk. The report urged lawmakers to regulate them like traditional cigarettes.

“We really, really believe strongly people of California need to know what is in e-cigarettes and the harm that they can cause,” said Dr. Ron Chapman, state health officer and director, California Department of Public Health. He added studies show e-cigarettes release a mix of more than 10 toxic chemicals, such as benzene and acetaldehyde, that can cause cancer reports the Wall Street Journal.

California is the biggest state to plan a public-education campaign warning about the dangers of e-cigarettes. Alaska is the only other state to have one.

Dr. Chapman said the California health department released its report on Wednesday in response to e-cigarettes’ growing profile and what he characterized as misinformation about their safety. The number of stores selling e-cigarettes in California quadrupled between 2011 and 2013, and now exceeds 7,000 retailers, according to the state.

E-cigarette advocates criticized the California report, saying it repeated false claims that would confuse people and discourage smokers from switching to e-cigarettes, which are widely accepted as less harmful than traditional cigarettes.

The insanity of liberalism:
Pot is OK

Democrats to tax you for each mile you drive

New Democrat Taxes

• The device in Oregon tracks mileage and gasoline consumption. They send the information electronically from the car to private contractors, which provides motorists with a monthly bill.

(San Jose Mercury News)  -  State officials have begun to seriously study a plan to replace California's gas tax with a fee for each mile motorists drive.

"We're going to have to find another way to finance the upkeep of the roads," Gov. Jerry Brown said earlier this month in rolling out his 2015 budget, noting that California has a $59 billion backlog of maintenance needs on state highways and bridges.

Brown gave no specifics. But last fall he signed a law that set up a commission to study a "road usage charge" and establish a pilot program by Jan. 1, 2017. The 15-member commission had its first meeting on Friday in Sacramento.

The idea is far from reality, but it's raising a hornet's nest of practical and political questions, from how government would track the miles to what happens when people drive out of state or on private roads.

But it is gaining momentum. This year, Oregon is beginning a test program in which 5,000 volunteers will pay 1.5 cents per mile driven, and be refunded each month what they paid under the state's 30-cent gasoline tax. Colorado and Washington state also are studying similar pilot programs.

"I think there's a long way to go before this is implemented. But we have a real problem when it comes to infrastructure in California," said U.S. Rep. Mark DeSaulnier, D-Richmond, who wrote the bill when he was a state senator. "We have to do something."

Silicon Valley is getting involved early.

The chairman of the California Transportation Commission, which chose the 15 members of the study panel, is Carl Guardino, CEO of the Silicon Valley Leadership Group.

Guardino said he wants the new commission, formally called the California Road Charge Pilot Program Technical Advisory Committee, to explore every angle, and receive wide public and media scrutiny.

Meanwhile, Oregon's transportation department announced this month it has signed a contract with a San Jose company, Azuga, that makes GPS tracking devices that plug in below a vehicle's dashboard.

The devices Oregon intends to employ track mileage and gasoline consumption. They send the information electronically from the car to private contractors like Azuga, which provides motorists with a monthly bill.

Read More . . . .

Free Condoms in San Francisco County Jail

Free Condoms For Everyone

(NPR)  -  There's an inconspicuous metal box mounted on the wall of the gym at San Francisco County Jail No. 4.

When Kate Monico Klein turns a knob, the machine releases a condom in a small cardboard packet. Machines like this one — dispensing free condoms — are installed in all of the county's male jails.

"We set [the machine] off to the side, so that people would have a minor amount of privacy," explains Monico Klein, director of HIV services for Jail Health, a division of the county's health department.

San Francisco has been distributing condoms to inmates in county jails for decades, but a new California law requires condoms to be made available to all state prisoners. California is the second state after Vermont to do so, even though sex between prisoners is unlawful here.

"I get about 10 of them every time," says Jail No. 4 inmate Robert Greve, with a laugh. He has been in and out of prison in several states, but this is the first time Greve has been locked up somewhere that provided condoms.

"Condoms are very good to have around, I think, you know? Because it's a lifesaving device," he says. "A lot of people don't care about their health, I think."

Let's Go To Prison

15 state community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees

Foothill College in Los Altos Hills will offer 4 year degrees.

Shock - California Does Something Smart!

• It is about time to crack the monopoly of the Cal State and UC system.  Personally, many of my teachers at L.A. valley College were better than my Cal State teachers.

(San Francisco Chronicle)  -  Jubilant education officials chose 15 community colleges on Tuesday — including two in the Bay Area — to be California’s first to offer bachelor’s degrees in high-need fields as part of a pilot program meant to boost the economy and help students avoid costly for-profit programs.

Sometime before fall 2017, colleges up and down the state will offer bachelor’s degrees for about $10,000 in such fields as automotive technology, bio-manufacturing, emergency services, airframe manufacturing and mortuary science — fields that are hiring but which need better-skilled workers, college officials said.

Foothill College in Los Altos Hills will offer dental hygiene, and Skyline College in San Bruno will offer respiratory care — and students are already excited about it.

“It’s time for us to advance in our profession,” said Heather Esparza, who helps sick babies breathe as a respiratory therapist at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. She has a string of life-and-death responsibilities and is licensed to teach doctors and nurses about resuscitating the sickest children — yet there is a hole in her own education.

“My New Year’s resolution was to get my bachelor’s degree,” Esparza said. “There’s a lot more to learn. I can’t wait.”

Brice Harris, the state’s community college chancellor, called it a “historic day in the history of our community college system,” as the system’s Board of Governors prepared to approve the 15 schools. Each will offer one bachelor’s program in areas of health, science and technology not already offered at the California State University or the University of California.

California joins 21 other states where community colleges offer bachelor’s degrees. The pilot program will run until 2023 and shakes up California’s Master Plan for Higher Education. For 54 years, the Master Plan has defined separate roles for the state’s three higher-education systems, with community colleges able to offer only two-year associate’s degrees or vocational certificates.

But as health, science and technology jobs demand more schooling, students have run into trouble: The only programs open to them are often for-profit schools where quality is uncertain and price tags are high.

“There aren’t enough public schools with cheap tuition to provide this kind of education, and students are being moved to private schools with very high tuition,” said Joseph Bielanski Jr., who serves on the Board of Governors.

So the new program “is a major step in keeping California’s higher-education system affordable and accessible while also keeping our state economically competitive in the future,” said Sen. Marty Block, D-San Diego, who wrote the bill signed into law in September.

Block, a former community college trustee whose earlier two efforts to create such a law never made it out of the Legislature, said he kept trying because studies show that California needs 1 million more workers with bachelor’s degrees by 2025.

Under the law, each college can offer a four-year degree program in one field and charge $84 per unit of upper-division course work. Lower-division courses will still cost $46 a unit.

Of the state’s 112 colleges, 34 competed to be in the program and submitted detailed applications in the fall. Those included the Bay Area’s Napa (respiratory therapy), Solano (bio-manufacturing), Laney in Oakland (sustainable facilities management) and Ohlone in Fremont (respiratory care).

In San Diego County, Oceanside's MiraCosta College plans to offer
a bio-manufacturing degree by 2017, which would include biotherapeutics,
diagnostics, supplies and industrial products. 

Source: NBC San Diego