Project No Project: White Oak Wind Energy Project

Another massive CA green energy taxpayer-subsidized boongoogle, this one in Santa Clarita/Saugus/Canyon Country/antelope valley/lancaster region of SoCAL. Status: unknown but probably will go through despite tough environ land-use delays/approval process.

Project No Project: White Oak Wind Energy Project
White Oak Wind Energy Project
STATUS: In progress with opposition
TYPE: Wind
OPPOSITION: Residents of Lake Hughes, Elizabeth Lake, and Leona Valley; Leona Valley Town Council, Lakes and Valleys Conservancy
PROSPECTS: Indeterminate

BACKGROUND: The White Oak Wind Energy Project is located six miles northwest of Lake Hughes, California. It is a project that includes 70 wind turbines and is estimated to cost a total of $630 million. The project will take 7 months build. The turbines have an operational lifetime of 25 and 30 years. The developer of the project is White Oak Wind Farm, LLC. which is a subsidiary of Advanced Development Services, LLC. These turbines will generate 210 megawatts of energy, enough to power about 245,000 homes in Los Angeles County.

Construction will create approximately 185 local jobs. Once the turbines are complete, 7 to 10 permanent jobs will exist to maintain the structures, and an additional 7 to 12 permanent indirect jobs will be created.

Local residents from Lake Hughes, Elizabeth Lake, and Leona Valley oppose the project. These residents have expressed concern regarding the “visual blight” of the project. They are also worried about the “spiderweb of power lines and towers” that would cross Leona Valley.

The Lakes and Valleys Conservancy has expressed concern for many endangered or threatened birds in the area. Most recently, a tri-colored blackbird brought biologists from all over the state. A member of the Leona Valley Town Council has suggested that residents take pictures of such important species to prove their existence and importance.

Currently, the White Oak Wind Energy Project’s application for a conditional-use permit is stalled because not enough information was provided in the document.

LINKS:

Antelope Valley Press: Accessed http://www.windaction.org/news/21038
http://www.windenergyparks.com/windprojects.php?project_id=1
http://www.windenergyparks.com/docs/project_16.pdf

Inland Energy Inc.

Apparantly CA is meeting it's renewable energy mandate by allowing hybrid plants to be built, which are combination gas/solar power plants,or hybrids.
The solar portion will contribute 9% of plants total energy production, a whopping 50 MW. We have heard all these fantasy plans of CA AB32 nuts that CA will wean itself off of evil GHG-belching fossil fuels, yet CA regulators allowed the PHPP plant to be put up which burns 90% 'evil' fossil-fuel natural gas, though the gas plant is latest ultra-modern low-carbon emmitting design.

Inland Energy Inc.

"In response to the looming shortage of electric generating capacity facing Southern California and to help generate local economic growth, the City of Palmdale unanimously voted on September 13, 2005 to develop a 570 megawatt (MW) “hybrid” power plant near Plant 42.'

'PHPP will be the nation’s first “hybrid” plant, combining the ultra high efficiency of the modern natural gas fired combined cycle technology with the proven renewable design of a solar thermal system, using parabolic trough mirrors to capture the sun’s energy and turn it into electricity. Much like a hybrid car, this approach combines the best features of two-state-of-the-art technologies to produce a design that is an improvement over either one as stand-alone technologies. The result will be the cleanest and most efficient fossil fuel fired plant in the world.'

'The City decided to use the solar thermal technology for the Project’s renewable component because the sun’s recoverable energy levels in the High Desert are among the highest in the world. This, coupled with the fact that high population concentrations (therefore high demand for energy) are found nearby, makes this one of the most valuable and unique renewable energy resources in the world. PHPP will produce up to 50 MW of electricity from the solar component alone, which will require 250 acres of mirrors.'

'The proposed Palmdale project would have a net electrical output of 570 megawatts (MW), with construction planned to begin in summer of 2009 and commercial operation planned by the 2nd quarter of 2011. Palmdale is designed to use solar technology to generate a portion of the project’s output and thereby support the State of California’s goals of increasing the percentage of renewable energy supplies. Primary equipment for the generating facility would include two natural gas-fired combustion turbine-generation (CTGs) rates at 155 MW each, two heat recovery steam generators (HRSFs), one steam turbine-generator (STG) rated at 260 MW, and 250 acres of parabolic solar-thermal collectors with associated heat transfer equipment.

The solar-thermal collectors would contribute up to 50 MW of the STG’s output'

Project No Project: Ivanpah Solar Power Project, Bright Source Energy, San Bernardino County

BOONDOGGLE CA GREEN ENERGY PROJECT #1. I CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO DESCRIBE ALL THE NEGATIVES OF THIS MASSIVE, WASTEFUL ,SCAM-RIDDEN ,OVER-HYPED GREEN ENERGY PROJECT SO I WILL BLAST THIS PROJECT LATER IN THE POST.

Project No Project: Ivanpah Solar Power Project, Bright Source Energy, San Bernardino County


STATUS: In progress

TYPE: Solar

OPPOSITION: Various environmentalist groups (not specified in source materials)

PROSPECTS: Indeterminate

BACKGROUND: BrightSource is currently developing its first solar power complex in California’s Mojave Desert. The $3 billion Ivanpah Solar Power Complex will be located in Ivanpah, approximately 50 miles northwest of Needles, California, and about five miles from the California-Nevada border. The complex will be a 6-square mile facility (4065 acres) within the 25,000-square mile Mojave Desert and will generate enough electricity to power 140,000 homes and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by more than 500,000 tons per year. According to BrightSource, the Ivanpah Solar Power Complex will nearly double the amount of solar thermal electricity produced today in the U.S.

According to a preliminary assessment, construction will require an average of 474 daily construction workers and a peak daily workforce of 959. Once completed, the project would provide a total of about $5.4 million (2007 dollars) in operational payroll at an average salary of $60,000 per year for an estimated 90 full-time employees.
The presence of Desert Tortoises in Ivanpah and regulatory requirements to mitigate environmental impacts are delaying the construction of the solar plant, as Bright Source is burdened with the task of relocating about 26 tortoises before gaining the permission to proceed with construction. Delays not only stall construction but might also endanger the company’s opportunity to use stimulus dollars to fund the project. A company spokesman said, “We want to take advantage of as many stimulus dollars as there are available to these packages, and there is a very important imperative and that is that the projects begin construction in 2010, to have that money available.”
LINKS: Bright Source Energy http://www.brightsourceenergy.com/projects/ivanpah; USC News http://news21.uscannenberg.org/index.php/clairewe/story/the_tortoise_and_the_sun_environmental_hurdles_of_the_largest_solar_project/; CalFinder http://solar.calfinder.com/blog/solar-politics/endangered-desert-tortoise-must-flee-the-advance-of-solar/; Preliminary Staff Assessment http://www.energy.ca.gov/2008publications/CEC-700-2008-013/CEC-700-2008-013-PSA.PDF

Gateway Pundit- green stimulus windfarm pork giveaway to Obama Dem supporter

Gateway Pundit

"Tom Carnahan, brother of Robin and Russ Carnahan, was gifted with $107 million in stimulus money for his wind farm project in Missouri."

"Fertilized with federal stimulus money, 100 new wind turbines have cropped up among the soybean fields of northwest Missouri, and they’re generating some high-voltage sparks in Missouri’s U.S. Senate race.That’s because the Lost Creek Wind Farm, which received $107 million in stimulus money, was developed by a company run by Tom Carnahan — the younger brother of Democratic Senate candidate Robin Carnahan and U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan. Vice President Joe Biden highlighted the project during a visit to Missouri in April 2009. Two weeks ago, the White House included it on a list of “100 Recovery Act Projects Changing America.” Since then, the wind farm has generated a steady breeze of criticism for Republicans. Missouri Republican Party Executive Director Lloyd Smith claimed the Carnahans “used their power and influence to bail out their own brother with more than $100 million in taxpayer dollars.”




Comment; To me, Wind energy is the most wasteful, graft-ridden, gov-subsidized and inefficient method of green energy. 107 million was likely only startup and DOWNPAYMENT ON THE COLOSSEL LOST CREEK BOONDOOGLE. WIND TOWERS COST AROUND 3 MILLION EACH TO CONSTRUCT, NOT INCLUDING COST Of TRANSMISSON LINES. The taxpayerS of MISSOURI will foot the bill for 80-90% of remaining future recurring costs of these wind turbines, and pay higher electric bills as wind farms have to be subsidized by Gov to complete with lower cost natural gas/coal/oil energy.

THOSE 100 WINDFARMS WILL ONLY PROVIDE POWER TO A FEW LOCAL FARMS AND SMALL TOWNS, PERHAPS POWER FOR 50,0000-100,000 INHABITANTS, AND THAT ONLY WHEN WIND IS BLOWING. BIG GOVERNMENT WASTEFUL GRAFT-RIDDEN BOONDOGGLE THEY ARE, AND THIS LOST CREEK GIVEAWAY IS JUST A PEEK AT WHAT WE CAM EXPECT FROM GOV SUBSIDIZED AND GREEN energy STIMUUS GIVEAWAYs to politically-connected politicians, even relatives of politicians in on the pork.

My replies to yet another boneheaded pro AB32 article by LAT's Steve Lopez

Fighting Prop. 23 one phone call at a time

Reply one:

AB32 appear to be a vaunted attempt by billionaire silicon valley green tech entreprenours, greedy money-stealing state bureaucrats & politicians, and the ultra left enviro-fascists to use global warming scaremongering/anti big oil rhetoric, to impose carbon use fees/taxes upon all CA families and businesses, which would be a massive carbon tax/revenue windfall for the state of CA which can then redirect and funnel this windfall revenue into favored silicon valley green tech companies, and also into the pockets of greedy tax-grabbing CA politicians.

It may also be a scheme to balance CA's budget by extorting carbon taxes upon all California citizens and small business owners, already burdened by the steepest taxes and environmental regulations in America. The big oil multi-nationals like Chevron/shell/BP will actually go along with AB32 and cap&trade as they are large enough to game the system to their benefit.

The promise of abundant green jobs is only a smokescreen - the federal massive stimulus funds devoted to green industries have resulted in virtually no domestic green jobs creation.

reply two:

Another latimes sob story about some poor down and out immigrant in some poor LA ghetto district being the victim of horrendous evil industrial polluters and evil monster oil companies, and texas oil companies at that. All these oil companies are concentrated in torrance/carson/south bay/LA Port area yet South Bay is a quite livable quality district. Manhatten beach and Hermosa beach are a few miles from chevron refinery and Scattergood power/waste water treatment facility, with it's 3 smokestacks. Yet MB has some of the highest priced beachfront homes in LA and it is an extremely high quality city to live in.

In case lopez has been living in a cave CA just passed LA/LB Port Clean Air legislation which greatly reduces port diesel emissions and mandates that all trucking companies use modern updated big rigs which run much cleaner that older polluting big rigs.

Actually the air quality in the South Bay may be cleaner than LA DWTN and in the IE. Palos Verde is only 2-3 miles from Wilmington's Tesoro oil facility but is one of LA's most expensive exclusive high rent districts

If you live in a typical LA barrio/Ghetto like Wilmington you are much more at risk of getting injured/maimed from gangbanger bullets than getting sick from asthma/cancer.

reply 3

Global warming is fraud science and the global warming eco-nuts are extreme nutbags. Cap and trade is dead at the national level and China pollutes at 10,000 times the rate of CA. Go ahead environmental wingnuts- make CA a job dead state with your job killer AB32. What CA does has no impact upon rest of world which will go ahead with max resource extraction and spew out those greenhouse gasses. Meahwhile CA will 'import' 10 million more illegals(carbon polluters) who may actually need blue collar jobs like workin on offshore oil rigs. Environmental extremism is good if one can ignore the 1000+ sq miles of polluting 3rd world ghettos spread all over the LA Basin, filled with inconvenient immigrants who may actually need work in blue collar/trades jobs in 'dirty'smokestack industries.Global climate warming is a massive scam based on misleading, even fraud science, like Piltdown man. So what if a few glaciers are melting and the oceans rise 1-2 ft in 100 years. Earth has had violent geologic/climatic upheavels all its history without man's impact--review the Little Ice Age.

Why CA AB32 global warming solutions act needs to be suspended/delayed/halted

Why CA AB32 global warming solutions act needs to be suspended/delayed/halted?

Why CA AB32 global warming act needs to be suspended/delayed/halted

The only thing CA leads in is not landmark green laws but in being a 15-20% high unemployment 3rd world bankrupt entity, a beggar state which has driven out productive tax-paying businesses and citizens and replaced them with a hoard of 3rd world uneducated welfare leeches, who pack the ghettos which encompass wide swathes of the greater LA basin region.

I say pull back/delay implementation of restrictive environmental job-killing acts such as AB32, and get CA moving again with high-paying blue-collar traditional power industry construction trades jobs. Put our vast numbers of unemployed/underemployed/idle construction workers into high-paying trades jobs such as the oil and traditional power energy industries can provide. We do not need anymore obama stimulus road construction projects, which only add to our already catastrophic debt loads, and all other large-scale infrastructure building projects will also add to our crushing debt.

The millions of promised green jobs are a mirage. The only 'green jobs' i see in CA are the 1/4 million immigrant(illegal) landscapers/gardeners driving around in beaten-up old polluting pickups. Putting 10,000-20,000 300 ft- high wind towers in the Mohave creates massive unsightly steel towers in the desert, besides killing birds. Installing solar panels can only be afforded by rich, well-off progressive limousine libs dwelling in exclusive seaside enclaves. CA cannot create enough jobs in home weatherization because of our mild weather and because property values will remain stagnant for another 5-10 years

California's global warming law’s economic impact is still hotly contested

California's global warming law’s economic impact is still hotly contested

AB 32, the four-year-old California Global Warming Solutions Act, has sharply divided environmental groups as well as trade and business associations.
The California Chamber of Commerce and the California Manufacturers & Technology Association released a report this week that states the climate law could cost the state 485,000 jobs during the next decade because companies would move to less regulated states.

AB 32 requires that the state’s greenhouse gas emissions be reduced to 1990 levels. It would also boost solar, wind and other sources of renewable energy, cut the carbon intensity of gasoline, promote electric cars, discourage sprawl and include energy-saving measures into home-building, manufacturing and other sectors of the economy, so says proponents.Opponents, however, say the law is, in fact, a “massive energy tax.”

“A Sacramento State University Study and other studies say there’s likely to be a cost of $50,000 per small business and up to $4,000 per family in increased costs related to housing, transportation, energy and food,” said Eric Eisenhammer, spokesman for the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.

Eisenhammer also criticized AB 32’s cap-and-trade program.

“It is a carbon tax,” Eisenhammer said. “It raises taxes on every productive business in California and ultimately will drive jobs away from California, which is already one of the most over-regulated states in the union.”

Eisenhammer said the cap-and-trade program will require businesses to reduce CO2 emissions, and if they are unable to meet the target reductions, they will have to buy a “carbon credit.” Businesses — some operating on thin profit margins as it is, Eisenhammer said — will have to pay to retrofit, pay for the credit or leave the state. AB 32 “will cost Californians billions in higher taxes and more expensive energy at a time of record-high unemployment and a severe recession” wrote Jon Coupal, president of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, on the initiative’s Web site. Coupal writes the CARB job creation estimate is “cold comfort for the 2.2 million workers currently on California’s unemployment rolls.” ...."

" AB 32 will cost more jobs than it creates, he says. “AB 32 does in fact create some green jobs,” he said. “But it also creates winners and losers. While the state will tax and regulate most business, it will subsidize and kick back some money to a few green enterprises. That’s where it’s creating jobs. But it’s a small number of jobs, and it’s killing the economy as a whole to do it... Because a reduction in "greenhouse gas emissions" would have no impact whatsoever upon global climate change, a delay in the implementation of AB 32 would have a net positive effect upon Californians' quality of life, both short- and long-term.
from another site

Information coming more acutely into public consciousness in the wake of the Climategate leaks and subsequent investigation into other anthropogenic global warming(AGW) alarmists' datasets and correspondences have demonstrated that the AGW hypothesis is really nothing more than an elaborate and rather pitiful fraud.

All legislation and regulation predicated upon the AGW fraud is therefore worthless, damaging, and possibly criminal (malfeasant). Were the state of California to implement the provisions of AB 32, the officers of the state government would be arguably culpable of criminal malfeasance in public office, and liable to arrest, indictment, prosecution, and both criminal penalties and civil damages.

It is therefore best for both the people of California and the agents of California's state government if AB 32 were not implemented.

Before the economic downturn, Californians naively approved the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (Assembly Bill 32) that mandates 2012 reductions of greenhouse gases through carbon taxes, alternative fuels and renewable replacements. All new climate laws increase the unit production costs and corresponding consumer prices of goods and services. A study by the Governor's Small Business Advocate reports that small businesses pay more than $134,000 each in annual California regulatory costs. Estimates are that the total cost of California regulations is about $493 billion annually – the equivalent of 3.8 million jobs. Environmental regulatory costs are a significant embedded cost in all of California’s products, services and enterprise.

What is clear in California, and globally, given recent climate frauds, is that partisan ideologies and cultish environmentalism have replaced prudent science and economic realities in climate policy. What is also clear is that environmentalism no longer offers any product or service in support of our future security and prosperity. Militant environmentalism and green-obsessed bureaucrats have become an “axis of antagonism” that we can no longer afford.

Biased LATimes writer Lopez attacks prop 23 while supporting CA job killer AB 32

California's Prop. 23, backed by oil giants with a lot to lose, needs to go down in flames

This is a partial, abbreviated synopsis of the above wingnut piece by ultra lefty LA Times writer Steve lopez, who is basically running a propaganda hit piece against 'big oil', tea partiers, and Texas energy companies. He is running political interference against prop 23, the pro-jobs measure which would roll back CA global-climate AB 32 job killer measure

Here is his rant:

"I don't mean to disturb your holiday weekend just when you're trying to scrub that grease off the barbecue grill. But I thought now was a good time to remind you that in two months, you'll have an important choice to make about the air you breathe.'

'In November, you'll be asked whether California should continue on the path to becoming one of the world's environmental leaders. Or give up the good fight and pray that the global warming deniers are right.'

'I'm talking about Proposition 23, which comes to us courtesy of some of the finest corporate citizens America has to offer. We begin with Texas oil giants Valero and Tesoro, which both have refineries in California and are together sinking millions into the campaign to rewrite environmental standards here.'

'Then there's a company owned by oil billionaires Charles and David Koch, which has kicked $1 million into the Prop. 23 kitty. Those two cowboys have earned themselves a reputation for sponsoring campaigns to debunk the need for renewable energy and also for backing groups that have trained "tea party" activists.'

My rebuttel:

Lopez says Valero/Tesoro are major polluters. That is a lie. Huntington beach has Valero energy extraction site right along Hunt Beach/Bolsa Chica shoreline. Hunt beach has 5 oil well platforms off HB coast. Hunt beach is a world famous surfing beach, and famed for it's wide white sandy beaches and clean cold pacific waves. HB/bolsa chica also has the Bolsa wetlands sensitive marshlands. I personally surf & swim in those waters 3-4 times a week and don't emerge from those waters soiled with oil or grimy soot.
Having Valero right at the HB coast does not affect the local shore/beach/marshland environment, and there is little or no oil pollution. Orange County & the energy companies make great efforts to mitigate and minimized effects of energy production infrastuctures upon OC shoreline environment.

Steve Lopez is a genuine left-wing ultra Dem hack who is running pro-Jerry Brown/ anti-Meg Whitman pieces, and slanted pro-AB32 articles in the LA Times. I am responding to his ultra-left rants in LAT comments section. At least LAT has the decency to allow opposing counter arguments to their slanted left-wing articles by their leftist moonbat writers.

Boxer uses deceit/outright lies about effects of offshore oil drilling on CA coastal environment

These are shots of Long beach oil island and of Huntington Beach. I regularly surf and swim in the HB water. HB has some of the finest waves in SoCal, is a SoCal surfing mecca, and also has a 30 mile stretch of white sandy beaches. It is nicknamed 'surf city'. Notice the oil platforms in these pics. There are 5 of them off HB coast. They do not affect beachgoers and surfers one bit. Schools of dolphins regularly troll for food near the beaches edge. HB admittedly is not a pristine eco-zone(it has oil extraction sites both on and offshore) but it does serve the recreational needs of several million summer visitors and the local OC residents.

Boxer attacks Fiorina's pro-oil drilling stance in Santa Barbara - latimes.com

This is a repeat post on Boxer's deceitful statement that offshore oil drilling will cost Santa Barabra 400,000 jobs. That is a masterful Hilterian/communist propaganda lie. I live in long beach and regularly engage in water sports activites in the long beach marina and even in the harbor itself. I have kayaked that harbor and paddled next to the close-in oil well islands, which are not platforms but are leveled rock piles sunk off the long beach harbor. These oil islands, as the pic shows, are disguised with palm trees and other greenery and are covered by outer building skins so they add an attractive decor to the harbor.

I have put up these pics of our beautiful Long beach/Hunt beach shoreline recreation areas to show Boxer that offshore oil wells do not degrade nor adversely affect the shoreline.

Deadly crash stirs off-road racing debate - latimes.com

Deadly crash stirs off-road racing debate - latimes.com

This tragedy deep in the SoCal high desert east of Apple Valley/Victorville(Lucerne is the location) has the environmental wackos all astir over off-road desert racing. I used to be an environmentalist and in the past would have denounced this. But now i have come to accept that certain segments of Californians need to be engaged with Mechanical stuff like motorized road racing, and have outdoor recreational places to indulge their passions.
CA has already restricted large portions of scenic desert,such as the Mohave Reserve, as off-limits to off-road recreation. There are large parts of the deep desert which are not environmentally sensitive areas. CA has large regions of desert devoid of much scenic value. Ever drive from LA along rte 40 to AZ. Or rte 15 to Las Vegas. There are 100's of square miles of open empty idle CA desert which are barren straggley sagebrush & dirt: flat, featureless, and baking hot.

This is ideal terrain for off-roaders, and i don't have a problem with that. I say allow the off-road crowd to indulge in their recreation in largely empty barren desert terrain. It is a good release of testosterone for a segment of our restless population. Sure we had a tragic off-road racing Accident with 8 fatalities, but Greater LA Region Alone has 1000+ traffic fatalities each year from road accidents, but we don't ban driving right!


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NOW OUR TWIN IMBECILE LEFTIST SENATORS FEINSTEIN AND BOXER ARE CALLING FOR INVESTIGATIONS INTO THIS TRAGEDY. THIS IS JUST A POLITICAL DIVERSIONARY STUNT. THEY KNOW AS MUCH ABOUT DESERT OFF-ROAD RACING AS A DESERT TURTLE. I SUSPECT IN THE CASE OF BOXER THERE IS A HIDDEN AGENDA-TO ELIMINATE DESERT RACING ALTOGETHER. SHE HAS ALREADY CONTACTED SOME ENVIROMENTAL GREEN FANATICS WITHIN THE BUREAU OF INTERIOR WHO ARE COMMITTED TO ELIMINATING OFF-ROAD RACING ON ALL FEDERAL LANDS.