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Energy crisis today
Energy crisis today
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Will the Lights Go Out In California? In today’s society, our state and national government doesn’t hold much trust from its citizens. From the terrorist attacks on September 11th, we have been fed shoddy information about prior knowledge, instigations, and about warnings that our government ignored. Now, California is faced with an alarming tragedy caused by its government and political officials. California’s governor, Gray Davis, declared a “stage 3” state of emergency amid an energy crisis termed as being one of “third-world dimensions. (Economist, 2005) This isn’t the first energy crisis in our country. Several other states have been on the brink of disaster, but have managed to pull themselves out with minor injuries. How is the problem in California different than in other states? The deregulation of the state’s utilities is the answer. Upon signing the deregulation policies, California allowed for wholesale electricity and put a freeze on retail rates. (The Economist, 2001) In an article titled, “A state of gloom”, a publication called “The Economist” states that this “Catastrophe has been looming for some time now. The residents of California have been experiencing “brown outs” since being declared a state of emergency in January. Not only is this a nuisance to the residents, it can prove to be quite costly as well. Each time the power is shut off and turned back on, it causes a surge. These surges have been known for “frying” appliances, computers, as well as starting fires. Because of the way the deregulation policies were written, California was unable to raise rates to its electrical consumers. The residents of California were not conserving energy because it was not costing them any more money to do so. The utilities claimed that they needed a 30% rate increase in order to survive the despair. What they got, was less than anticipated. A 10% temporary rate increase was approved by the legislature, however that was only in affect for three months. The utility companies in California are forced to pay more for the electricity than they are allowed to collect from their consumers. In turn, they are building up debts to banks and electrical suppliers which they are unable to repay. The supply of electricity has fallen, the demand has risen, yet the consumers are still paying the same prices due to the price freeze enacted by the government. This is a perfect example of a system destined to fail.
Martin, John. “The Blast in Centralia No. 5: A mine disaster No One Stopped.” Public Administration: Concepts and Cases. Stillman, Richard Joseph. Boston, MA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. 31-44.
It is evident that the electric car faced significant opposition in California during its short life. In terms of political forces, the EV1 was opposed in principle by the United States federal government, who actually joined automakers in a lawsuit against California for implementing the regulations that inspired the development of the electric car in the first place. The US government also discouraged the popularity of the electric car by offering staggeringly high tax incentives to purchasers of large gas-guzzling vehicles such as the Hummer. The California Air Resources Board, or CARB, started the initial incentive to develop the electric car with its zero-emissions regulations for automakers, but in the end CARB was clearly seen to cave under industry pressure and give their support to the development of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles instead.
The power plant is expected to bring more jobs to San Jose during the construction phase. “This project also promises to save customers in California up to $1.8 billion dollars by 2010” (Levey 1) . There certainly is a very high demand in power with the growing technology industry. The state of California fears that if the power plant is not built there will be a shortage of power in the state. “If the San Jose City Council decides not to rezone land for the project, the state could take the unprecedented step of overriding a community's opposition to a new power plant. California has faced persistent power shortages this year. And state analysts already have recommended approving the project” (Levey 1) . If Calpine get approval to begin constructing the power plant, San Jose will have several problems in the future.
would go a long way towards improving the reliability of the power grid and reduce the likelihood of a future blackout. Doyle’s plan was named H.R. 3004 and was introduced on September 23, 2003. Unfortunately, H.R. 3004 has been stalled for months, and the House leadership has suddenly refused to consider it.
Low-income households spend more on housing due to the increased home prices. As a result, they have to spend less money on other essential spending. In terms of local cost of living, California’s poverty level is the highest nationwide and about 9% higher than the average . This is primarily resulted from the high housing costs.
...es the Yosemite Falls and the sequoia trees. One of the state’s problems is the appetite for water. The once fertile Owens valley is now dry and its waters tapped by Los Angeles. In the Imperial Valley, the eradication of water is controlled by the All-American Canal which gets its water from the Colorado River. In Central Valley the poor distribution is the water problem that is an imbalance lessened by the vast Central Valley project. California had cutbacks in federally funded water in the 1970sand 80s which led to California cities buying water from areas that had a surplus of water. But California failed to make a long-term to plan and the federal government stopped the funding of water to the state in 2003. But with all this being said and done, California remains to be a unique state with a lot of entertainment, history, agriculture and a productive economy.
Before the 1970s, environmental policy was not the more publicized issue that it is today. After the Santa Barbara oil spill in 1969, the environmental movement really took off. The federal government took the situation into their hands and paid more attention to environmental policy than they had been doing in the past. While the states still have quite a bit of power when it com...
Hazards pose risk to everyone. Our acceptance of the risks associated with hazards dictates where and how we live. As humans, we accept a certain amount of risk when choosing to live our daily lives. From time to time, a hazard becomes an emergent situation. Tornadoes in the Midwest, hurricanes along the Gulf Coast or earthquakes in California are all hazards that residents in those regions accept and live with. This paper will examine one hazard that caused a disaster requiring a response from emergency management personnel. Specifically, the hazard more closely examined here is an earthquake. With the recent twenty year anniversary covered by many media outlets, the January 17, 1994, Northridge, California earthquake to date is the most expensive earthquake in American history.
The 2006 documentary about Who Killed the Electric Car shows the determination of several California citizens whose willpower was to keep the electric car alive and running. The first existence of the electric car under General Motors (GM) dates back to 1996 when they launched the EV1 electric vehicle. And although several consumers took to this new form of transportation, a car that was powered by an electric motor in place of the basic gasoline engine, GM decided to take back its newest technology and removed all existing EV1’s from off of the streets. With several upset consumers who were concerned as to both what GM and the government were up to and how they could get their cars back. Overall, the fact behind why the electric car became such a superior commodity and then vanished was the question being asked. The electric vehicle was destroyed during 2004 and 2005 because a car of this statue was far ahead of its time and greater parts of consumers were not about “going green.” Today the electric car has begun to revive itself because of the existence of global warming, and the efficiency of the electric car is rising. In other words, the electric car has been brought back to life, and many automobile manufacturers are gaining interest.
Solyndra, of course, believed that their product was the best on the market and had plans to be the top manufacturer of solar energy roofs, especially in their home state of California. At the time Solyndra was being developed, California was in the process of instating new building requirements. These requirements went into effect in Janu...
The recent surge in the cost of heating oil, diesel fuel, and gasoline in the United States has had significant impact on many sectors of the U.S. economy, but most importantly it has had quite a devastating affect on the trucking industry. This is important due to the fact that nearly “70% of U.S. communities rely solely on trucking for their supplies” (“ATA” 23). If the government continues it’s trend of non-intervention and refuses to place pressure on OPEC, the prices will continue to soar well over the two-dollar mark, and cause the trucking industry as a whole to shut down bringing the U.S. economy to a grinding halt.
reason for the financial crisis, which is not the case. Only 4 percent of California's budget is spent
Whenever there is a great deal of power, you will find a great deal of attention, greed and controversy. In the political arena, parties will strive for stability and control to maintain their power. So, is this recall really a street-smart reaction by Republicans, or is there a connection between California's recent foibles and a Republican conspiracy to regain stability and control? My congratulations go out to Mr. Bush for once. Perhaps he actually does know what he's doing. Perhaps he can push his personal agenda and look totally innocent. Knowing how much California would suffer financially, he couldn't have had any connection to the demise of Enron and WorldCom, could he? No ... certainly he didn't plan this crisis to rid California of its apparent cause, Gray Davis, did he?
California was one of the states that were mostly hit hard by the economic collapse of the 1930s where its economy had grown considerably in the 1920s. The 1920s represented a period in California that was punctuated by massive economic growth and a period of boom and bust where people were employed and lived better lives. It came as great shock when these good times were followed by the great depression which represented an economic decline which shook not only California but also the world as well. The period of the 1920s represented an economic boom in California represented by industries expanding and new ones being created. This meant that jobs were created hence the overall rate of unemployment in the state was low as compared to other states in America. Despite the growth in its economy, there was the unequal distribution of wealth whereby the economy concentrated too much of its wealth on profits and too little on wages. This meant that people could not afford the very products they were producing and the large unsold products weakened the economy and made it
The state’s common pool resource was and still continues to be water. This delicate resource in the American west is in danger of disappearing, and for the millions of people living in large cities are desperate to continue to use it. But the issue of common pool resources is not one that is recent but is one that has been plaguing California since its founding. When California’s population started to grow around the turn of the twentieth century, the town official within the state started to run into some common pool resource issues, water. Cities, such as San Francisco and Los Angeles, used whatever power they had to own and control what little water the California environment produced. The cities are large and successful municipalities today because of what they had to do to control the water all those years ago. The city used tactics, such as buying out the land, petitioning the government, and, sometimes, illegal actions, to win the waters of California and their success back then highly shows in their success