We think you're near Los Angeles

Currently in Los Angeles

Location: Los Angeles Current temperature: 59°F: Current condition: Clear See Extended Forecast

San Francisco energy policy disconnects from San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi's

Ann Garrison's photo
SF Energy Policy Examiner
 Long awaited news in San Francisco this morning, 11.09.2009:   
 
"San Francisco Requests Bids for an Alternative to PG&E: Local Power-Assisted RFP Seeks New 51% Green Power Supply for Residents & Businesses, 360 MW of Local Green Power
 
San Francisco, CA, November 09, 2009 --(PR.com)-- The San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC) today released a Request for Proposals authorized by City leaders to implement the Community Choice Aggregation Program, known as CleanPowerSF. . .   Co-drafted by the San Francisco Local Agency Formation Commission (LAFCo) with technical assistance of Local Power, Inc. following a decade of preparation, the RFP invites bids to provide a new electricity service to San Franciscans that consists of 51% renewable energy and demand technologies by 2017, and provides municipal financing for development of at least 360 Megawatts of new solar photovoltaics, smart grid, local wind, cogeneration, energy efficiency technologies and other local green power." 
 
And, in San Francisco's clean energy legislation, unlike the federal government's, nuclear power is not green.
 
So, the City's new energy policy conflicts with that of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the City's 8th District Congressional Representative, for the past 23 years. 
 
Pelosi is one of the nation's leading advocates of nuclear power, who, in 2007, described herself as born again nuclear and supported that year's failed attempt to overturn California's ban on new nuclear plant construction.  
 
In 2008, she traveled to South Asia to negotiate the U.S.-India Nuclear Pact, without noting India's uranium  mining tragedies in Jagudoland, or the fierce resistance to uranium mining by the tribal peoples of the West Khasi Hills, in Meghalaya Province, and, in other Indian provinces., and, without persuading India to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or promise to stop testing nuclear weapons.
 
From India Pelosi traveled on to Ganzhou Province, the former Tibet, to embrace the Dalai Lama and chastise China for its human rights record.   Never mind that she knew, long before then, about the torture in U.S. detention centers.   And, never mind Sun Xiaodi, also from Ganzhou Provice, and, winner of the 2005 Nuclear Free Future Award, for relentless whistleblowing on the horrific Longjiang Uranium Mine. 
 
This year, after recovering from stomach cancer consequent to his years labor as a uranium miner. Sun Xiaodi was, sentenced to two years hard labor, for whistleblowing, and, for using dangerous slogans like "nuclear pollution" and "human rights violation."
 
Back home, Pelosi has continued to champion energy independence, meaning not only nuclear and coal, America's most abundant domestic fuel, but also oil, and, natural gas, the fossil fuel she famously describes as "a clean, cheap alternative to fossil fuels.”  Nancy favors more domestic digging and drilling, so we won't have to count on all those sinister foreign sources we have to keep bombing and torturing to secure their oil and gas and other resources. 
 
Nevertheless, just to make sure the corporate food supply, and Lockheed Martin profits, are as secure as she can possibly make them, Pelosi faithfully lines her Democrats up behind each of the Supplemental War Appropriations Bills that President Obama now presents to Congress every few months, just as George Bush did----to prevent shock waves that might reverberate if he were to present the annual war bill all at once, in one big number. 

This highlights Pelosi's most glaring disconnect with her hometown's new clean energy policy:

How many Stealth bombers, Predator drones, attack helicopters, cluster bombs, Cruise missiles, Massive Ordinance Air Blast bombs, nuclear powered subs and aircraft carriers, and nuclear warheads, can we manufacture with solar, wind, or tidal power?

The MQ-9 Reaper drone has a 950-shaft-horsepower (712 kW) turboprop engine, far more powerful than the Predator's 115 hp (86 kW) piston engine.  The increase in power allows the Reaper to carry 15 times more ordnance and cruise at three times the speed of the MQ-1 Predator drone.  Hard to build with clean power, but nuclear will do.    Hard to fuel with anything but kerosene based jet fuel, or, maybe CTL, coal-to-liquid transportation fuel, which produces twice the greenhouse gas.  The U.S. military is already the world's largest consumer of CTL, purchased from the world's largest CTL producer, the SASOL Corporation of South Africa. 

Advertisement

, SF Energy Policy Examiner

Ann Garrison grew up around a radioactive toxic mess called the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, in a gorgeous place, Washington's Olympic Peninsula, by way of Western Oklahoma, another gorgeous place. She's a compulsive writer who sometimes signs as AnnieGetYourGang. ...

Comments

  • Richmondman 2 years ago

    Glad to see you have eliminated any pretense of being open-minded about other viewpoints.

Add a new comment

Join the conversation! Log in here or create a new account if you've never registered before.

More information about text formats

Got something to say?

Examiner.com is looking for writers, photographers, and videographers to join the fastest growing group of local insiders. If you are interested in growing your online rep apply to be an Examiner today!

Don't miss...