If you drive down PCH in Huntington Beach you will pass the only power plant in Orange County. Located at Newland and PCH, across the street from the beach.
The plant in Huntington Beach was purchased from Southern California Edison in 1998 and has been in operation since 1958. It uses conventional GM steam turbines among others.
The trick to surviving in a relationship is to firmly maintain your boundaries, or, as we would put it, be aware of and insist on getting your needs met…
Huntington Beach is leading the nation in many green areas, including clean energy. In just a few weeks, the city government’s largest buildings, City Hall and Central Library, will have full solar installations in the parking lot.
This project is the result of several years of energy savings for the city, including a review of the energy costs for the city government, broken down below:
As you can see the street lights in the city are, by far, the most expensive. After that comes City Hall and Central Library, which combined cost the city nearly 1$ million/year.
In response the city used Obama’s stimulus money to fund a solar feasibility project. The results showed a positive return for the city and they put out a contract:
“SunEdison was selected as the winning bidder for the solar project…(and the city) entered into a 20-year, 2.3 Megawatt Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) contract, with SunEdison providing, owning, and operating the equipment. The city purchases the solar power at a flat rate from SunEdison.”
“According to the terms of this agreement the city is not liable for any capital costs or maintenance. Additionally, the city benefits from shaded parking.”
The handbook covers every career in America and discusses interesting things, like day-in-the-life, growth potential, education needed, salary ranges.
For a young whippersnapper it was perfect. I would browse everything from doctor to trash man to college professor.
Today, I found several images that reflect interesting labor trends in America. Here they are, enjoy, and Happy Labor Day!
Ethnicity
80%+ of the work force is White, while persons of Hispanic origin are projected to increase, by 2018, their share of the labor force from 14.3 percent to 17.6 percent.
Age
Largest group of the workforce, 23.3%, are those age 45-54, followed closely by those aged 35-44, 22.7%.
New Jobs
Most new jobs in America are projected to come from healthcare and scientific/technical professions.
Fastest Growing Jobs
Largest Group of New Jobs
Clearly, thousands of jobs, nearly all the jobs, will be healthcare.
Fastest Decline
Bye, bye manufacturing….
Education
Get an associate’s after high school, or a master’s after undergrad and you will be much better off.
Good Producing Jobs
We don’t produce goods anymore, just houses.
Change in Employment
We are definitely becoming more of a service society…not sure that is a good thing.
Down the street on Magnolia, just a few blocks form the beach, is the ASCON Landfill Site. This 38-acre parcel of land is a toxic waste dump containing waste from construction and oil drilling.
It is considered a California Superfund site, meaning that it is one of the most toxic in the state. According to the California EPA, the area “operated as a landfill from 1938 through 1984…in its early years came from oil drilling operations, including waste drilling muds, waste water brines, and other drilling wastes.
Orange indicates 25-foot sludge lagoons. Red squares indicate buried pits.
“From 1957 to 1971, chromic acid, sulfuric acid, aluminum slag, fuel oils, styrene (a form of plastic), and other wastes were also disposed on the site. These liquid and semi-liquid wastes were deposited into open lagoons and pits.”
“From 1971 to 1984, some of the lagoons and pits were filled in or covered with solid waste materials (construction debris).”
This news has to be shocking for anyone living in Huntington Beach. Lagoons of sludge 25-feet deep, drilling wastes, pits of slag/acid/oils/sytrene, and then covered over with more waste.
Consider that across the street is Edison High School where thousands of kids, teachers, and parents spend their days, and on the other sides are houses and a popular park, Edison Community Park (another former landfill with methane gas leaks).
Lagoon #3 with sludge and abandoned equipmentAerial view.Main entrance off Hamilton St.
The news doesn’t get better.
An investigative report from the OC Weekly in 2004 discusses four children from the area who contracted a rare form of brain cancer.
“Something may be seriously amiss in southeast Huntington Beach…four children from that area died between February 2000 and June 2003 of a deadly brain cancer called brainstem glioma…an exceedingly rare cancer.”
“We know that a cluster of cancers in one geographic area doesn’t necessarily mean that there is something in the immediate environment that caused it…We also know that it is impossible to gather meaningful statistics with only four cases. The causes of most childhood brain tumors, including brainstem gliomas, are unknown. But we do know that exposure to certain chemicals can cause cancer.”
“It seems suspicious to us that four children who lived and played near this toxic waste dump contracted an extremely rare cancer. At the Ascon site, an oil worker became ill after contacting water running off the site. Ground squirrels living on the site appear, from the condition of their coats, to be in poor health…CalEPA recently found a 50-year-old tank of improperly stored flammable fuels that they didn’t know was there.”
“The objective of IRM is to enable assessment of the materials underneath the tarry waste of Lagoons 1 and 2. These waste materials beneath the tarry liquids are of unknown composition and geotechnical quality and have not been assessed with the tarry liquids present due to worker safety concerns.”
The project was completed in December 2010 after “58,000 tons of tarry materials and firming additive have been removed from Lagoons 1 and 2 at the Site, and transported to and disposed of at the designated disposal facility.”
Since then the city and the contractors have been testing the groundwater, stormwater, air quality, etc, and in March 2011, the project was considered complete.
This is a major milestone for the dump because several past attempts have resulted in complete failure. From the OC Grand Jury investigation (pdf):
“This site is named for two companies that tried, in vain, to clean up the site. Nesi acquired an option on the site and tried to pump it clean. That did not work and Nesi folded. An attempt was made by Ascon, an acronym for the asphalt and concrete that had been dumped on the site. Ascon was not successful, either.”
—
What happens next is unknown.
The government agency responsible for the clean-up will continue its slow progress. Further tests, including investigating the lower levels of Lagoons 1, 2 will be conducted. Then planning, public hearings, and finally another clean-up.
With so much waste on-site this will take decades.
At some point, the land will be clean enough for a private company to complete the process. The land is in such a valuable location that many developers will gladly take on the last steps of cleaning to reap the profits.
In the meantime, we all are stuck with a remnant of our industrial past.
—
For updates, visit the community website for the ASCON Landfill.
1X57 has a new look, both in the logo and the design of the website.
We’re focusing on content, and our own unique perspectives and passions, which manifests as the X factor (the je ne sais quoi) of 1X57. The X is edgier and more prominent, and our home page now promotes a range of content.
You can see what 1X57 looked like in versions 1.0 and 2.0 here.
NOTE: A big thanks to Joshua Bauder for his skillful execution on our new logo. We wanted something a little edgier, focusing on the X, and he delivered.
The results are astounding. Cars account for only 17% of all emissions. While 80% comes from home use, business, and food.
[box type=”shadow”]
2009 US Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Business — 35.6%
Electricity — 33%
Personal vehicles — 17.8%
Agriculture — 7%
Residential — 5%
US territories — 1%
* Business = factories, business vehicles, office buildings
** Residential = gas heating
*** Includes CO2 and all other gasses
[/box]
To put it another way. If you buy a recycled product or reduce your energy use, that has 2x greater impact than driving less does.
This means things like hang drying your clothes, buying recycled toilet paper, reusing floss, and turning off the A/C, are much more important than biking to work.
I know, I know, this just doesn’t seem right.
The numbers don’t lie…so next time you get in the car think, instead, about how you can reduce your energy use or buy a sustainably created product.
More on the Numbers
If you think about driving, most of the recommendations are for health concerns instead of pollution problems. Things like biking to work and reducing traffic congestion. Or, it is about geopolitics and our reliance on other countries for oil.
The thing is, most of the car industry is green and even innovative. There are smog checks, 40 mpg cars, engine filters galore, a huge used car industries (i.e. reuse), and awesome junkyards (recycle).
From the top, where the rich subsidize the innovations like electric cars. To the bottom, where the middle and poor buy used to save money. The entire industry appears to have itself aligned in an environmental way.
Compare that to the energy industry and green product market where that alignment isn’t quite there yet. Buying a used car saves money and helps the entire industry, and it is considered cool/smart. Whereas, buying recycled or hang drying your clothes makes you kind of extreme, and not all locations offer products.
Not to mention the incentives are tiny. The pennies and dimes I save in electricity use make me to question the extra effort. The only thing that keeps me going is “think of the kids”, lol.
This may be a good place for smart government. A good example would be the car industry, where those who drive a lot or purchase low MPG cars pay much more at the pump. They also pay more taxes and if you look at how much tax is loaded into each gallon, it’s a lot.
Perhaps there could be an extra tax on those who use more electricity. Make those who own big houses or a million appliances pay more. Use that money to fund clean energy projects.
I’m seeing this happen in a few regions but not at the scale where it needs to be. I say tax the hell out of wasters and over-users otherwise it makes all my reductions inconsequential.
Plus, it sure would be nice to get rid of these coal and gas power plants…
Sean Ceglinsky over at CBS Sports wrote an interesting article on UCLA’s receiver of the future, Jerry Rice Jr.
The son of hall of famer, Jerry Rice, who is widely considered the best receiver of all time, faces many of the same obstacles as his dad.
He is small, 5-foot-10, 185-pounds, and underrated which means he will have to overcome by sure willpower.
[testimonial]”Every time I get a chance, I try to make a play, that’s the way I was raised,” Rice Jr. said. “I’m out there competing, all of us receivers here at UCLA are pushing each other and we’re getting better as a group. Anything can happen in this game, so I’m always ready to play. My goal is to keep my head up and keep grinding. My time will come if I keep working hard.”[/testimonial]
That time may be a ways off considering there are 7 receivers ahead of him.
UCLA has always been at the top of the class in recruiting talented wide receivers. This year is no different with 3 returning seniors, 2 juniors, and 2 sophomores, including Shaquelle Evans, a top prospect transferring to UCLA.
Still, he has skills.
[testimonial]”Come on Jerry, make a play,” Neuheisel shouts toward the underclassman.
He uses a quick stutter step at the line of scrimmage to create some much-needed separation from the cornerback. A head-and-shoulders fake freezes the linebacker at the second level. An uncanny burst of speed follows as he blows by the safety. Seconds later, Rice Jr. is in the end zone, snatching the pass out of mid-air while keeping both feet in bounds for a touchdown.[/testimonial]
