Monday
- See video about Electricity Finances and read Finances Slides
- Please read that the Senate vote prioritized the environment.
- The EPA was set up by Nixon in 1970. It was way way necessary. Its success is reflected in the greatly improved health of our environment and our people. Because of this success, do people care about the environment less? Please read this story on NPR.
- See video about Carbon Abatement and see supporting Carbon Abatement slides
- Read the updated McKinsey’s Carbon Abatement Curve or at least look at the graphs.
Wednesday’s Class
Before Class
How did California decouple revenue to the utilities from the amount of electricity that they produce… It’s a tricky question because the general market financially rewards producing more product, but we want people to be happy while consuming less electricity. The recommendations below are from Chris Read, who works for SLO county climate action plans.
- Energy profit/consumption decoupling: https://www.c2es.org/us-states-regions/policy-maps/decoupling/detail (this is as good a description as any, but googling “energy decoupling California” will give you a lot more)
- It would be good for students to have a sense of legislative direction re: RPS:http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/RPS_Homepage/. I encourage students to use the google machine to figure out how RPS is attached to the state’s climate goal (as codified in AB32 and SB32) and how related legislation helps (e.g., SB350) (related: should energy efficiency be counted as an energy resource?).
- Demand response is a bit outside what I do, but my colleagues say this is a good start:https://www.caiso.com/1893/1893e350393b0.html
From a local government perspective… the students can take a look at the County’s climate action plan (read the energy section only) so we can discuss what local governments can and can’t do (and do and don’t do well). http://www.slocounty.ca.gov/planning/CAP Please just read the executive summary.
- Please read just the summary from this article by Christopher Weare to understand the cause of the Cal Electricity Crisis and how to prevent it.
- Please know what Community Choice Aggregation is. You can read about it on Wikipedia, or see Lean Energy’s Description.
Friday:
- Please see video Efficiency and see efficiency slides
- Pease see Jerry Brown Speaks about Art Rosenfeld on how he changed the world toward energy efficiency. Read about it more if you like at his LBL website.