Bloomberg: Trump Said to Order Review of Oil Drilling off California Coast
President Donald Trump will open the door to new oil and natural gas drilling in Pacific waters off the coast of California with a directive Friday that sets up a certain clash with environmentalists.
Trump will order the Interior Department to review locations for offshore oil and gas exploration and consider selling drilling rights in territory that former President Barack Obama put off limits, according to people briefed on the order who spoke on the condition of anonymity before it is issued. That includes U.S. Pacific waters, as well as Arctic and Atlantic acreage left out of the five-year schedule of lease sales issued by Obama in November.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said Tuesday nothing is off the table. "We’re going to look at everything," Zinke said when asked about potential oil leases off the Pacific coast. "A new administration should look at the policies and make sure the policies are appropriate."
Reno Public Radio: Renewable Energy in Nevada Could Spur $3.3 Billion in Capital Investment
A bill in the state legislature is pushing Nevada’s utility companies into providing half of their power from renewable sources of energy.
Opponents of the measure say it could increase costs to consumers who might foot the bill for new infrastructure. And NV Energy, the state’s largest utility provider, has offered amendments that could potentially limit the reach of the bill in their favor.
Supporters, like Dylan Sullivan, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, say it would reduce the state’s dependence on fossil fuels.
Reno Public Radio’s Noah Glick spoke with Sullivan about a new report from his organization about renewables in the Silver State.
California Public Utility Commission memo: SGIP -- Reminder About Program Rules and User Behavior
SGIP participants are reminded that they are expected to follow program rules and eligibility requirements, and that failure to do so will result in warnings and/or infractions. Program Administrators will exercise their judgment in issuing warnings and assessing infractions. SGIP participants are reminded that Section 9 of the SGIP Handbook covers various possible behaviors that could result in infractions.
Nuclear Street: Toshiba to Create Four Subsidiaries
Westinghouse Electric Company parent Toshiba Corp. of Japan said Monday it would spit itself into four wholly owned subsidiaries by the end of the year in reaction to severe losses in its nuclear power division and as a way to “support maximization of their business value.”
Westinghouse filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on March 29. Toshiba has since said the filing could affect the company's four domestic nuclear power plant projects, including the Plant Vogtle expansion project in Georgia and the V.C. Summer expansion project in South Carolina. Both of those projects involve construction of two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors. An additional four AP1000 reactors are currently under construction in China.
Toshiba has said it lost $4.8 billion through the first three quarters of the 2016 fiscal year, including billions of dollars lost through Westinghouse. The company has also said “several billion” had been lost through Westinghouse's 2015 purchase of nuclear plant construction firm CBI Stone & Webster.
WorkBoat: Is Trump Warming to Wind Power?
There are some pretty good reasons to think that President Trump is warming up to wind power.
During the election, the narrative on wind wasn’t looking good. Trump had made many disparaging statements about unsightly turbines and fought development of an offshore project near his golf course in Scotland, and had promised a national energy policy that prioritized domestic fossil fuels over renewables.
He proceeded to appoint a climate skeptic to lead the EPA and an oil industry honcho to head up the State Department, and proposed deep cuts in spending at federal agencies involved in renewable energy as part of his “skinny budget” released in March.
Initial signs that Trump’s thinking on wind is shifting can be seen in the administration’s Interior Department offering up areas along the East Coast for offshore wind leases.