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Anti-gas Newsom striving to save refinery:
Administration trying to find a buyer for refinery scheduled to close
How ironic it is to see Gov. Gavin Newsom — he who is known for banning gasoline and diesel-power cars — intervening to try to keep the Valero Benicia refinery from closing.
Newsom and his Sacramento crowd finally have awakened to the reality that they’ve been quite successful at convincing energy companies that they are unwelcome in California and it’s a waste their shareholders’ money investing here. Newsom’s people, looking at the dwindling refinery capacity in this car-dependent state, realized they cannot afford to lose another one and are helping to try and find a buyer.
Their anti-fossil fuel dictate assumes the public will embrace and can afford electric cars and that the generating capacity, storage capacity for when it’s dark and the wind isn’t blowing, and grid infrastructure can support an all-electric car fleet to say nothing of delivery trucks.
The state air board already backed off its planned ban on diesel-powered trucks and diesel-powered locomotives.
Californians, thanks to the unique fuel blend and high taxes, already pay at least $1 per gallon more than the national average for gas.
It’s the same when it comes to our electrical rates that again are among the highest in the nation. Government policy mandating unreliable renewable power lies at the heart of that.
I had to chuckle at the East Bay Times/San Jose Mercury story last week that celebrating what percentage of renewable power was used in 2023, 67%. The mainstream press continues to cheerlead for the “sustainable or renewable” policies when they, in fact, may be just the opposite.
Reliable, reasonably priced power should be the goal not jousting at climate windmills when any action taken here will have no effect on the global climate.
PG&E sent out an email to customers this week urging them to prepare for potential planned power outages. The company also put its spin on how it’s been working hard to alleviate the need for those by spending massively—out of our wallets—to under-ground high voltage lines and make other reliability improvements. The email looked like they were reasonable steps, but then I see my electric bill that sadly is in the third tier—always.
Do something positive about that.
Like other large papers, the San Francisco Chronicle employs staffers to crunch through publicly available data to provide easy information for readers. I was intrigued to see that one of its interactive charts focused on transfers from community colleges to four-year schools.
Las Positas College in Livermore has built a solid reputation as a school to knock out general requirements for two years at a bargain cost and then transfer to a four-year institution to finish degree work. I ran Las Positas’ number and was initially surprised by successful admittance rates to the major University of California campuses.
About one-quarter of Las Positas students applying to Cal and UCLA were accepted—both are known as tough places to get in, but my gut reaction was that the number was low for a college in Cal’s backyard. It was dramatically better at two other quality campuses with acceptance rates of 63% at UC San Diego and 67% at Davis.
When I drilled down at the overall number, Las Positas shined. The system-wide rate was 80% out 752 applications—the number likely skewed because students routinely apply to more than one campus and could have multiple acceptances.
Nonetheless, these are numbers that the Las Positas team can tout and be proud of—as they have done in their recent marketing campaign that I praised.
Keeping one refinery from ceasing operations is meaningless unless current regulations are changed/relaxed. The remaining facilities will eventually want to leave – and gas prices will necessarily rise.
Get rid of the special state gasoline blend, the gasoline car purchase ban, “cap and trade” requirements, mandatory refinery inventory/storage, and allow pipelines to be built to transport crude oil/refined products. None of this will happen until Democrats are voted out of office.