Two natural gas-fueled electric generating plants are being planned in San Diego to replace the generating capacity lost when the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station was mothballed.
Construction is set to begin on March 9 for the gas-fueled Pio Pico Energy Center in Otay Mesa. It will supply the electricity needs of up to 200,000 homes.
San Diego Gas & Electric Co. is seeking approval for a second plant with twice the capacity, also fueled by natural gas, which it wants to build in Carlsbad.
Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) has reached a settlement agreement with the principal funder of a lawsuit against Chevron in Ecuador that a US court has said is fraudulent.
Chevron, based in San Ramon, had brought claims against James Russell DeLeon in Gibraltar, where he lives, for his role in funding and advancing the lawsuit. DeLeon agreed to end his financial support for the Ecuador litigation and assigned his interests in the litigation to Chevron. Chevron agreed to release all claims against DeLeon.
DeLeon had told the Gibraltar court that he had invested $23 million in the case in exchange for an approximate 7% stake in the $9.5 billion Ecuadorian judgment against Chevron.
Attorneys for several environmental groups have sued to block delivery of crude oil to a Bakersfield terminal in 100-car “unit trains,” claiming the deliveries would harm air quality and pose a danger to the public.
The lawsuit was filed against the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, the Bakersfield Crude Terminal and Plains All American Pipeline LP by the Sierra Club, Communities for a Better Environment, the Center for Biological Diversity and other groups.
California Resources Corp., which was recently spun off from Occidental Petroleum Corp., has put its plans for a major well drilling project in Carson on hold because of low oil prices.
The company, which had been planning to drill up to 200 wells in the northeast corner of the city over a 15-year period, withdrew its application for approval.
The California Department of Conservation (DOC) released a Draft Environmental Impact Report on Jan. 14 regarding the use of oil and gas well stimulation treatments in California.
This began a 62-day public comment period, which will include six meetings around the state in February. Written comments must be submitted by March 16.
State Oil and Gas Supervisor Dr. Steven Bohlen said the draft EIR “finds that most of the significant environmental impacts identified can be reduced to the level of ‘less-than-significant,’ including potential impacts to groundwater and surface water, as well as the threat of seismic activity.”
Scientists from the California Council on Science and Technology (CCST) and Berkeley’s Lawrence National Laboratory released the first volume of an independent scientific assessment of well stimulation in California, including hydraulic fracturing.
Among its findings: fracked wells in California tend to be shallower and more vertical than in many other states, resulting in the use of less water but more concentrated chemicals.
The report, titled “An Independent Scientific Assessment of Well Stimulation Technologies in California: Well Stimulation Technologies and their Past, Present, and Potential Future Use in California”, was commissioned by the California Natural Resources Agency (CNRA) pursuant to Senate Bill 4.
It is available on the CCST website.
