Infrastructure

Bullet train: Denial is a river in Sacramento

The meeting Thursday of the board of the California High-Speed Rail Authority was a laugh riot, with authority officials dismissing state and federal setbacks as much ado about nothing. This is from the Mercury-News: “SACRAMENTO — Critics and many political

Morro Bay Power Plant shutdown saves fish, kills birds

Wayne Lusvardi December 5, 2013

Power plants keep closing in California. Earlier this year, Southern California Edison announced it permanently would shut down its San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. Then Dynergy Energy announced last month it would decommission the Morro Bay Power Plant whose three tall smokestacks

California’s disappearing farmland

Dave Roberts December 3, 2013

More than 370,000 acres of California’s irrigated farmland disappeared from 2006-10. Officials are concerned that hundreds of thousands of additional acres could be lost in the coming years, threatening California’s leading role in feeding the nation and indeed much

Grim LAT: Bullet train $25B short. Dim Sac Bee: What $25B? All soon to be well!

Chris Reed November 29, 2013

On Monday, a Sacramento judge dealt a devastating setback to the California bullet train. The most serious of several obstacles in two decisions released by Judge Michael Kenny was his ruling that the $68 billion project didn’t have a legal

Bullet train dead in water — yet state to proceed with eminent domain

Chris Reed November 27, 2013

Eminent domain is one of the greatest government assaults on individual rights that one sees on a regular basis in the United States. Even in its purer form, in which land is seized for projects with broad general public benefit,

End game on bullet train: No $, no project — and no prospects for $

Chris Reed November 26, 2013

Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny’s issued a double-whammy ruling Monday. He barred the use of bond funds for the state bullet-train project until it had adequate funding and complete environmental reviews for its first 300-mile segment. He also blocked

Will Gov. Brown’s ‘small is beautiful’ sink water plan?

Wayne Lusvardi November 20, 2013

During California Gov. Jerry Brown’s first term in office, 1975 to 1983, one of the central planks of his political platform was “small is beautiful.” Brown borrowed his platform from economist E.F. Schumacher’s 1973 book, “Small is Beautiful: Economics as

Attorney General’s Office: Bullet-train law not binding on Legislature

Chris Reed November 12, 2013

The bullet-train project doesn’t have a legal financing plan or adequate environmental rules, according to an Aug. 16 decision by Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny. The state Attorney General’s Office doesn’t dispute that part of Kenny’s ruling. Instead, it

Will Warren Buffett’s hydro prevent CA electricity crisis? — Part 2

Wayne Lusvardi November 11, 2013

This is Part 2 of a two-part series. Part 1 is here. In Part 1 of this series, I reported on how California is launching a regional “energy imbalancing market” to reduce the spike in the price of electricity each

Will Warren Buffett’s hydro prevent CA electricity crisis? — Part 1

Wayne Lusvardi November 8, 2013

This is the first of two articles. Part 2 is here. California is trying to create what officially is called an “energy imbalance market” to cut off an emerging daily two-hour energy-pricing crisis. The crisis isn’t so much a technical