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Day: December 2, 2019
KISS YOUR FUEL GOOD BYE: The Navajo Generating Station Coal Plant Officially Powers Down. Will Renewables Replace It? | Greentech Media
The Navajo Generating Station Coal Plant Officially Powers Down.
Will Renewables Replace It?
One of the nation’s largest coal plants permanently powered down this week after the owners determined it would be uneconomical to continue operating the facility as natural gas and renewable energy prices continue to drop.
The Navajo Generating Station (NGS) officially shut off at 12:09 p.m. on November 18 when long-time employee Fred Larson opened the Unit 2 breakers, according to the plant operator, Arizona utility Salt River Project (SRP). The plant had been operating since the mid-1970s on land leased from the Navajo Nation, located east of Page, Arizona.
The closure raises questions about the future of SRP’s energy mix and the extent to which renewables will meet the utility’s energy needs. It also presents a new set of challenges and opportunities for the Navajo Nation, which hosted the coal plant for more than 40 years and relied on it for revenue. When the decision to close NGS was made two years ago, over 500 employees were working at the plant — more than 90 percent of whom are Navajo.
The head of SRP framed the closure as a difficult but necessary decision based on “shifting economics” within the energy industry.
“NGS will always be remembered as a coal-fired workhorse whose employees made it one of the safest and most reliable power plants in the nation,” said SRP CEO and General Manager Mike Hummel.
In 2017, the owners of NGS decided to shutter the 2,250-megawatt coal plant after its lease with the Navajo Nation was scheduled to expire in late December.
SALT RIVER PROJECT – SRP owns 42.9 percent of NGS, with another 24.3 percent owned by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Other partial owners include Arizona Public Service, NV Energy and Tucson Electric Power.
Over the next three years, contractors will carry out demolition and reclamation duties at the NGS site as they have at many other coal plant sites across the country. The U.S. Energy Information Administration found that between 2010 and the first quarter of 2019, U.S. power companies announced the retirement of more than 546 coal-fired power units, totaling roughly 102 gigawatts of generating capacity. An additional 17 gigawatts of coal-fired capacity is expected to retire by 2025.
Natural gas and a massive solar-charged battery
According to an SRP spokesperson, the public power entity is primarily replacing its share of NGS’ generating capacity with natural gas from the Mesquite and Gila River power plants as well as some additional new solar resources.
Last week, ahead of the Navajo coal plant retirement, SRP announced the purchase of two new solar and battery storage plants, making it one of the largest investors in energy storage in the country.
The Sonoran Energy Center will comprise a 250-megawatt solar array coupled with a 1-gigawatt-hour energy storage system located in Arizona’s Little Rainbow Valley. The Storey Energy Center will be an approximately 88-megawatt solar and energy storage system, located south of Coolidge.
“These integrated solar and storage plants will allow SRP to meet its summer peak demand, reduce carbon emissions, and provide clean energy to our customers while optimizing energy output using state-of-the-art battery technology,” Hummel said in a statement.
The projects were chosen as part of a recent “all-source” solicitation for 600 megawatts of capacity that will help SRP hit its goal of adding 1,000 megawatts of new solar to its system by 2025 and meet customer needs going forward.
Both plants are scheduled to come online by June 2023 and will be owned and operated by subsidiaries of NextEra Energy Resources.
SRP, which is governed by its own elected board, has been criticized for not moving as fast as other Arizona utilities in adopting renewable energy resources. Recent announcements mark a shift in focus. Executives announced last year that SRP would add more solar and batteries to its grid in an effort to save money and reduce reliance on natural gas. At the time it had only 200 megawatts of solar power.
SRP also has a goal to reduce the amount of carbon emissions it generates per megawatt-hour by more than 60 percent by 2035 and by 90 percent in 2050.
Still, natural gas will make up the bulk of the missing capacity from the retired Navajo Generating Station. SRP purchased one block of the Gila River Power Station in 2016 and two 550-megawatt natural-gas generating units at Gila Station in 2017. The Mesquite plant purchase was made in 2012.
The good news for renewables is that SRP currently has a significant amount of baseload capacity available to help the grid remain reliable, which means that it can add a lot more solar before it starts to face some of the long-term problems utilities face when adopting a large amount of renewables, according Colin Smith, a senior analyst at Wood Mackenzie Power & Renewables.
“SRP absolutely will be able to add more solar to the grid without disrupting their overall generation load,” he said.
“The biggest question, I think, is about lost jobs,” Smith added. “Solar, realistically, is only going to provide some short-term construction jobs as opposed to long-term jobs for engineers and people working at the coal plant.”
The human cost
The jobs impact from the NGS closure will disproportionately affect members of the Navajo Nation, who made up the vast majority of the coal plant’s workforce.
Clean energy entrepreneur Brett Isaac, who is Navajo and whose family still lives in the territory, is hopeful that renewable energy development will be able to create significant opportunities and lasting impact for his community.
A founder of Navajo Power, a Public Benefit Corporation developing clean energy projects on tribal lands, Isaac said he and his team are taking an inclusive approach to energy planning and designing their projects to generate long-term revenue streams for the tribe.
The two-year-old company is currently focused on deploying solar projects larger than 100 megawatts but over time plans to build a robust distributed energy business, which is more labor-intensive. The Navajo Power team believes it could develop up to 10 gigawatts of renewable energy on the Navajo Nation in Arizona and New Mexico, which would be a boon for the community and support a shift to new technology jobs.
Navajo Power has already secured land for its projects and is working to complete environmental reviews and establish offtake agreements for the large solar projects it plans to build. But the process of building support has been a challenge.
Convincing utilities, corporations and states that used to buy power from the Navajo Nation to sign new offtake agreements for projects located on tribal lands has been tough in the wake of the NGS closure. Engendering confidence within the Navajo Nation has been difficult as well.
Dealings with the “energy [industry have] been traumatic [for] indigenous communities,” said Isaac. “We don’t want to replicate things that have happened in the past [so] they lose their faith in the industry and…[become] resistant to the transition.”
He noted that the NGS coal plant closure has had a “human cost.” It took more than a year for NGS owners to finalize negotiations around closing the plant, putting plant workers and their families in a prolonged state of limbo.
In addition to employment issues, operating budgets for the Navajo Nation and the Hopi Tribe have relied on royalties from the Generating Station and from coal mines on their lands.
The Kayenta Coal Mine, which rolled its last trainload of coal to NGS in late August, used to purchase $9.9 million worth of electricity each year from the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority. The same month, the Peabody-owned mine laid off the last 265 of its workers, many of them members of the Hopi and Navajo tribes.
The transition
SRP and other NGS owners took several steps to limit the impact on tribal communities, according to SRP spokesperson Scott Harelson.
On the job front, SRP offered all 433 regular employees the opportunity to “redeploy” at other SRP facilities; nearly 300 accepted. SRP and other stakeholders in Arizona are also supporting a Re-Employment Center that will offer career training, certification programs and other job-seeker assistance.
In addition, the owners signed a 35-year extension lease with the Navajo Nation for plant retirement activities after 2019 and long-term monitoring. Arrangements were also made to allow for the ongoing operation of the transmission system on the Navajo Nation.
“Under the extension lease, the NGS owners will make lease payments totaling approximately $110 million to the Navajo Nation,” according to SRP.
The Navajo Nation will also take ownership of the remaining NGS assets, including a warehouse, lake pump system and railroad. The closure agreement also gave the tribe rights to transmission capacity at NGS. SRP said a federal government pledge to provide 500 megawatts of transmission capacity from the NGS system is valued at more than $80 million.
But according to Isaac, the Navajo Nation is still recovering decades’ worth of decisions that limited economic development and revenue generation in the region. Unemployment rates remain high, and roughly 15,000 homes on the Navajo Nation still don’t have power.
“And yet they have big 500-kilovolt power lines running over their homes,” he said.
A community-backed move to renewables
Attitudes around energy are shifting on the Navajo Nation. Communities that once opposed renewable energy development, viewing it as a threat to their coal jobs, now understand that alternative energy resources present new opportunities in a shifting energy landscape.
SRP is already working with the Navajo Nation to develop renewable energy on Navajo land and has partnered with the Navajo Tribal Utility Authority on the Kayenta I and Kayenta II solar power plants — the first large-scale solar projects in the territory — totaling approximately 60 megawatts of capacity.
Meanwhile, Navajo grassroots groups are tracking progress on the coal plant cleanup effort and continuing to urge Navajo Nation leaders to move away from the polluting resource. Navajo Nation President Jonathan Nez appears to be heeding those calls.
Last Friday, the president refused to financially back bonds needed by the tribal energy company Navajo Transitional Energy Co. for three newly acquired coal mines located outside the reservation. Nez said the company was not transparent in its dealings and that the deal would put the tribe in a tricky financial position in the wake of coal plant closures and mining company bankruptcies.
The following day, Nez visited Navajo Power’s clean energy site and pledged to help the company get permits for its projects and find an offtaker for the power they generate.
“The leader appreciated that Navajo Power went through getting the proper consents from the community…and [is] going about it in a way that’s not trying to overstep or create conflict,” said Isaac.
While clean-energy advocates are looking to write a new chapter for Arizona following the NGS shutdown, there are some things they can learn from coal’s legacy, he added.
“Coal miners and plant operators have pride in what they’re doing,” Isaac said. “Solar can learn from that and create champions within the community — only this time, they can own the process while contributing to a cleaner environment.”
WOW – MISINFORMATION at Its Finest . . . 5G Cell Phone Radiation: How the Telecom Companies Are Losing the Battle to Impose 5G Against the Will of the People – SGT Report
WOW – MISINFORMATION at Its Finest . . .
We are told –
5G Cell Phone Radiation: How the Telecom Companies Are Losing the Battle to Impose 5G Against the Will of the People . . .
The above statement is NOT TRUE . . .
You will read how Misinformation is bundled in many facts – we must break this down
further.
The Telecom Companies are NOT LOSING – The Telecom corporations are military
contractors subject to military specifications . . . WHILE MANY COUNTRIES and
cities SAY they are opposing the 5G Deployment – country’s and cities have
NO jurisdiction. NONE. Meaning the “deployment” is CONTINUING, in-spite of
the opposition. In fact, communities that have called for 5G moratoriums have 5G
deployed already.
Being against 5G for many is trendy! And since the frequencies are
life altering, ‘words’ must be said to make it appear 5G deployments can be stopped.
Important to note: Our communities, everywhere, are run by advisory boards. The
advisory broads create the illusion of citizen participation and transparency while the
reports generated from these boards are written by the International Bankers, the U.N.,
the IMF and more.
These advisory board reports are embedded into your local community policies.
The citizens are unaware this is the method of stealth and
deception created by the corporate networks to bring in sustainable development
goals. We are told everything wireless is benefiting sustainable goals for future
generations. Wireless technology infrastructure is being “deployed” for sustainable
smart “kill” cities, to mobilize the wireless surveillance connecting to 5G (the smart
city foundation), then to AI, and more.
The public has been DELPHIED, yet again. Meaning, policies have been predetermined
and put in place – whether the public agrees or not.
Sadly, we have been trapped within a political construct – which is a closed loop
political corporate system, and we have no authority. Think EARTH, Inc.
The article below is misleading information, very misleading, because
it is not ACCURATE. While the effects of these frequencies, as stated, are
correct the seeming “victory” status over preventing the roll-out is NOT CORRECT.
We already know that 5G is a deadly Military “deployment” by those that
CONTROL worldwide policy, WHICH INCLUDES MASSIVE ELIMINATION OF
PEOPLE, and more.
Remember, an Executive Order was signed on 1/18/2018 to expedite the rollout
of broadband (5G) in the United States, by Trump. The Executive Order
discussed how policies would be put in place to prohibit any restrictions that
would impede this rollout across the country. No restrictions to prevent the
rollout are allowed. In fact, the executive order specifically addressed how
every farm house would be connected to 5G, everywhere, even on and over
tribal lands.
Of course, we ALL must do ALL that we can to oppose
this deadly technology, and educate the many that have no clue.
Understanding the reality is most important.
We must go forward armed with
the facts.
It’s Reality, NOT Misinformation
that WILL Determine what Our Futures Will Be . . .
5G Cell Phone Radiation: How the Telecom Companies Are Losing the Battle to Impose 5G Against the Will of the People
by Claire Edwards, Global Research:
Some updates were added today, November 29.
The telecommunications companies and the mainstream media would have you believe that the race to roll out 5G is unstoppable. That you are nothing and no one in the face of a lethal multi-trillion-dollar agenda imposed by some of the most powerful entities on the planet.
They thought that if they called their new, alleged “communications technology”, adapted from the military Active Denial Technology, “5G” or fifth generation, the public would just assume that it was more of the same as 4G, 3G or 2G. And if they could characterise the rollout as a race, the public would not have enough time to find out what a killer technology 5G is. How wrong they were! Not only has the public found out, but now they know how lethal previous generations of wireless technology – to be used concurrently with 5G – are as well.
Below is the evidence from a number of different countries that the pushback is huge and growing. The telcos have lost the propaganda war, despite their control of the mainstream media, from which not a whisper of the dangers of 5G is heard, and of social media and Youtube, who have been desperately deleting millions of accounts to silence the naysayers.
As this article went to press, support arrived from an unexpected source. In an impassioned speech before the United Nations General Assembly on 24 September 2019, UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson stated that digital authoritarianism is not the stuff of dystopian fantasy but of an emerging reality. He described the Internet of Things, “smart” cities and AI as a giant, dark thundercloud lowering ever more oppressively over the human race, a gathering force reshaping the future of humanity over which the human race has no control and from which, in future, there may be nowhere to hide.
He asked if algorithms could be trusted with our lives and hopes and whether machines should be allowed to doom us to a cold and heartless future in an Orwellian world designed for censorship, repression and control. He recalled the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and endorsed its ideals of upholding freedom of opinion and expression, the privacy of home and correspondence, and the right to seek and impart information and ideas.
He exhorted the academic committees, company boards and industry standards groups who are writing the rulebooks of the future, making ethical judgements, and choosing what will or will not be rendered possible to find the right balance between freedom and control, between innovation and regulation, between private enterprise and government oversight. He insisted that the ethical judgements inherent in the design of new technology must be made transparent to all and that joint efforts must be made to agree a common set of global principles to shape the norms and standards that will guide the development of emerging technology.
What follows is a citizen journalist’s list of the actions taken to halt 5G and reports and complaints that have discredited this Machiavellian attempt to foist a disastrous technology on the world in 2019. It is not an exhaustive list and I extend my apologies to all those whose efforts I may have overlooked here and much gratitude to all who have contributed to making this pushback so successful.
However, we cannot afford to be complacent and, in particular, we must work to stop the use of the Earth orbits and the stratosphere to beam 5G down to Earth, for this puts the ionosphere and the entire planet at risk. We must also work to ensure that the use of street lights with blue light for this anti-life agenda is rapidly reversed.
The effort to stop 5G is still gathering momentum and we must continue to work together and tirelessly to protect all life on Earth and the planet itself until this demented plan is relegated to the history books as the most Mephistophelian scheme in the history of humankind.
| 1 | US2018 | Scientist Says 1 in 2 children born in 2025 will be autistic – something is clearly causing this health crisis of historic proportions. “If you take the data that the CDC has provided since 1975 and plot it, you can see that it’s an exponential growth curve. You can extend the line. … My feeling is that things are worse than the line. So I think that 1 in 2 in 2025 is not an unreasonable prediction.” |
| 2 | USA24 June 18 | Author Naomi Wolf reports EMF reactions, cloud anomalies and their correlation with irritable and stressed behaviour in New York. |
| 3 | Taiwan28 Dec 18 | Taiwan’s five wireless carriers say that they will not rush to roll out 5G services in the absence of a profitable business model to sell the revolutionary technology, in spite of all the use cases that have been suggested. |
| 4 | Switzerland2018 | The government appoints a group of experts to probe the risks involved with introducing 5G, whose findings should be published by the end of 2019. The Swiss Federation of Doctors also urges caution, maintaining that “as long as there is no scientific proof that raising the radiation limits will not impact health, one must refrain from raising them.” |
| 5 | Austria4 January 19 | After 5G is officially switched on in Vienna in November 2018, former UN staff member reports Vienna’s first EMF injuries. |
| 6 | Austria11 January | Court of Auditors slams corrupt “smart” meter contract award for defrauding electricity and gas customers. Concerns about data protection and about power disruption were ignored, energy savings were exaggerated and customers were assured that they would have no extra costs, but left to pick up a 1 billion euro bill for the installation. |
| 7 | Europe13 January | Journalist group Investigate Europe publishes “The ICNIRP Cartel: Who’s Who in the EMF Research World, an interactive graphic”, exposing conflicts of interest among ICNIRP members. |
| 8 | USA14 January | Congresswomen Eshoo and Speier introduce BillHR530 to block FCC cell tower pre-emption and preserve local government control and invalidate the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) 26 September 2018 ruling to accelerate the deployment of 5G small cells throughout the US. |
| 9 | USA14 January | Russia Today (RT) Americaairs the first of 7 reports on the dangers of 5G: 5G Wireless: A Dangerous ‘Experiment on Humanity’. “Is there a catch?”, asks the presenter. “Just a small one”, comes the reply, “It just might kill you”. The segment is viewed 1.8 million times. |
| 10 | European Commission14 January | The Scientific Committee on Health, Environmental and Emerging Risks (SCHEER) rates the potential effects on wildlife of increases in electromagnetic radiation from 5G a maximum 3 in terms of scale, urgency and interactions with other ecosystems and species, stating that “The lack of clear evidence to inform the development of exposure guidelines to 5G technology leaves open the possibility of unintended biological consequences”. |
| 11 | Italy16 January | The Lazio regional administrative court decrees that the ministries of environment, health and education have six months to launch information campaigns on the risks associated with the use of mobile phones. |
| 12 | USA25 January | The Illinois Supreme Court rules that a woman can sue Six Flags Great America for fingerprinting her child without telling her how the data would be used in violation of the state’s biometric law. “This is no mere ‘technicality,’” Chief Justice Lloyd Karmeier writes in the opinion. “The injury is real and significant.” |
| 13 | Italy30 January | An Italian Court in the city of Monza rules the acoustic neuroma brain tumour of an airport employee to be an occupational disease caused by exposure to the radiation from a cell phone he used for over 10 years for his work. |
| 14 | USA6 February | US Senator Blumenthal definitively establishes that no safety studies have been done on 5G. |
| 15 | USAFebruary | At least 21 US cities/regions pass ordinances restricting “small cell” installation, and many are charging “recertification fees” to make it unprofitable for the wireless industry. |
| 16 | USA9 February | Sierra Club California Conservation Committee adopts resolution to ask the National Sierra Club to take an oppose position to the deployment of 5G and small cell technology without local input and environmental review. The Sierra Club was founded in 1892 and is the oldest and largest grassroots environmental organization in the US. |
| 17 | Switzerland18 February | Study: Radiation From Smartphones May Impair Memory In Teens. A research team at the Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute says that radio frequency electromagnetic fields (RF-EMF) may negatively affect an adolescent’s brain from cellphone exposure, causing potentially harmful effects on his or her memory performance. The authors say having the device close to one’s head lead to the greatest amount of radiation exposure. |
| 18 | UN22 February | The Planetary Association for Clean Energy (PACE) submits a statement to the UN revealing that allowable international “radiation limits will have to be increased by 30 to 40%” in order to make 5G deployment technologically feasible and calls 5G “an experiment on humanity that constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” in violation of more than 15 international treaties and agreements. |
| 19 | ICNIRP3 March | Eric Van Rongen, Chair of ICNIRP [self-proclaimed international commission on non-ionizing radiation protection, but actually just a German NGO], the organisation whose non-transparent pronouncements on the international limits at which phones can emit radiofrequency are strangely adopted by UN bodies, calls 5G “a public health experiment”, stating that “It will be necessary to gain more information about the exposure and any health problems that might come from an effect of that exposure”. |
| 20 | UK3 March | The Daily Telegraph asks, Do smartphones cause cancer? World Health Organisation to assess brain tumour link. |
| 21 | USA7 March | A class action lawsuit is filed against the FCC by 62 entities and municipalities across the USA. aimed at first slowing down and then vacating the FCC “order and declaratory ruling purporting to streamline the deployment of wireless facilities by pre-empting local government authority”. |
| 22 | Netherlands9 March | Utrecht City Council decides unanimously to postpone decision-making on 4G and 5G infrastructure on new lamp posts until the risks to health and privacy are better understood. |
| 23 | France10 March | Popular French astrophysicist and philosopher Aurélien Barrau causes a storm In France when he announces on Twitter “5G kills … We have already killed 70% of the living (with almost no global warming). Do we want to choose life or the speed of the telephone network?” |
| 24 | Guernsey11 March | Call to halt 5G technology in Guernsey due to health fears, ITV News. |
| 25 | UK17 March | Insurers announce premature death trend. British insurer Legal & General CEO says: “There’s been a long discussion about whether this is a blip or a trend, and sadly it’s looking like a trend.” |
| 26 | Germany20 March | Without invoking the precautionary principle, the Federal Office for Radiation Protection (BfS) admits that the effects of the higher frequencies of 5G are not yet well researched and advises that 5G should be developed cautiously. It states that consideration needs to be given to whether people will be exposed to much higher radiation. |
| 27 | UK23 March | Sacha Stone publishes documentary 5G Apocalypse: The Extinction Event. (565,354 views as at 3 October 2019). |
| 28 | USA24 March | Portland, Oregon city officials state clear opposition to the installation of 5G networks around the city, supported by the mayor and two commissioners. |
| 29 | Italy28 March | Florence applies the precautionary principle, refusing permissions for 5G and referring to “the ambiguity and the uncertainty of supranational bodies and private bodies (like ICNIRP)”, which “have very different positions from each other, despite the huge evidence of published studies”. |
| 30 | Italy28 March | One Roman district votes against 5G trials, with others expected to follow. Other motions to Stop 5G are expected in the four regional councils, one provincial council and other municipal councils of Italy. |
| 31 | Russia28 March | The Russian Ministry of Defence refuses to transfer frequencies for 5G, which effectively delays any 5G rollout there for several years. |
| 32 | USA28 March | New Jersey Congressman Andy Kim sends a letter, noting that, “Current regulations governing radiofrequency (RF) safety were put in place in 1996 and have not yet been reassessed for newer generation technologies.” |
| 33 | Belgium31 March | Belgian Environment Minister announces that Brussels is halting the 5G rollout, saying, “The people of Brussels are not guinea pigs whose health I can sell at a profit.” It turns out that there is now no methodology to effectively measure the radiation of MIMO antennas, which have the characteristic of varying field in time, space and intensity, unlike antennas used for 2G, 3G and 4G, which emit radiation of constant intensity and space. Celine Fremault therefore asserted that, as this technical obstacle was not resolved, she would not go further in the legislative process. |
| 34 | USAApril | The Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance association reports that millennials – the first generation to grow up using cell phones – are experiencing an unprecedented decline in their health when they reach their late 20s. |
| 35 | EUApril | An EU report admits that 5G is a massive experiment, lamenting that “it is not possible to accurately simulate or measure 5G emissions in the real world” and stating that “complex interference effects … may result, especially in dense urban areas.” |
| 36 | International2 April | Avid traveller, 33, dies on a Los Angeles to Melbourne flight she had flown many times before – as friends say they’re at a ‘complete loss’ as to what killed the ‘happy and healthy’ tech executive. Aviation health & safety in the digital age – radio-frequency (RF) exposure from mobile devices and in flight WiFi : A new human factor? |
| 37 | Germany4 April | 54,600 Germans sign a petition to force the German Bundestag to debate 5G. |
| 38 | Netherlands4 April | Members of Parliament in the Netherlands insist that radiation research must be carried out before any approval of the 5G network. |
| 39 | USA4 April | The California Supreme Court publishes an opinionsupporting municipal authority to make regulations on so-called ‘small cell’ PROW (public right of way) towers and uses of the public’s right-of-way. This opinion affirms the 2016 appellate court ruling. |
| 40 | USA5 April | The California Supreme Court Justices unanimously uphold a 2011 San Francisco ordinance requiring telecommunications companies to get permits before placing antennas on city infrastructure. |
| 41 | Switzerland9 April | The Canton of Vaud adopts a resolution calling for a moratorium on 5G antennas until the publication of a report on 5G by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment. |
| 42 | Switzerland10 April | Geneva adopts a motion for a moratorium on 5G, calling on the Council of State to request WHO to monitor independent scientific studies to determine the harmful effects of 5G. |
| 43 | France11 April | French lawmaker Jean-Paul Lecoq raises the wide range of risks posed by the 5G deployment in the National Assembly. |
| 44 | USA15 April | Oregon Representative Peter A. DeFazio, House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman, writes a letter to FCC Chairman Ajit Pai and acting FDA Commissioner Sharpless regarding the status of the government’s research into the potential health effects of RF radiation and its relation to the FCC’s guidelines for safe human RF exposure levels. |
| 45 | USA16 April | New York Congressman Thomas Suozzi sends a letter to the FCC seeking answers about the technology. “Small cell towers are being installed in residential neighborhoods in close proximity to houses throughout my district. ,,, My constituents are worried that should this technology be proven hazardous in the future, the health of their families and value of their properties would be at serious risk.” |
| 46 | Switzerland17 April | The Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN) sends a 7-page information letter to all cantonal governments for the purpose of “calming the situation”. It claims that the new 5G adaptive (directional) antennas would mean much lower exposures for the population: “The beam cone is now aligned directly to the user and in all other radiation directions the radiation is lower [sic].” |
| 47 | Switzerland17 April | The Swiss government announces the introduction of a monitoring system to assuage concerns about the potential health impact of fifth-generation (5G) mobile frequency emissions and smooth the cutting-edge technology’s rollout. The move comes as some Swiss cantons baulk at authorizing new antennas needed to support 5G services after a spectrum auction in February that raised 380 million Swiss francs ($377 million). |
| 48 | US22 April | Energy sector says 5G network could exponentially increase energy consumption. Two recent studies (by UTC and the Electric Power Research Institute) unearth possible problems with 5G technologies, including but not limited to, cyberthreats to the electric grid, lack of infrastructure to accommodate the network of small cells and sensors needed to expand 5G access, lack of private networks, and potential health concerns since 5G microwave bands are 10 times the frequency of previous mobile devices. 5G portends more devices, which increases power demand, which increases the need for more spectrum among utilities. |
| 49 | InternationalApril 2019 | The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) announces that reassessment of the classification of non-ionising radiation (radiofrequency) in the list of agents carcinogenic to humanity is to be given a high priority. |
| 50 | USA26 April | The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and NASA clash with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), which oversees US wireless networks, saying that next-generation mobile technology could interfere with crucial satellite-based Earth observations. |
| 51 | France26 April | French farmers sue the state over mystery cow deaths they blame on electromagnetic fields. A group of French cattle farmers is suing the state over the mysterious death of hundreds of cows, which they believe are the victims of harmful electromagnetic fields. Several studies have shown that livestock, particularly cattle, are affected by even low-level electromagnetic fields |
| 52 | Swiss ReMay | Insurance company Swiss Re’s report on New Emerging Risk Insightsstates that “Existing concerns regarding potential negative health effects from electromagnetic fields (EMF) are only likely to increase. An uptick in liability claims could be a potential long-term consequence. … interruption and subversion of the 5G platform could trigger catastrophic, cumulative damage.” |
| 53 | Denmark4 May | A legal opinion by a Danish law firm states that rolling out 5G is illegal under EU and international law: It is the conclusion of this legal opinion that establishing and activating a 5G-network, as it is currently described, would be in contravention of current human and environmental laws enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, EU regulations, and the Bern- and Bonn-conventions. … This also applies when the radiation remains within the limits recommended by ICNIRP and currently used in Denmark as well as broadly within the EU. |
| 54 | Denmark4 May | Danish group Landsindsamlingen mod5G announces it is suing the Danish state for having planned the implementation of the new 5G mobile network throughout Denmark by the year 2020 without conducting any kind of health test in relation to the long-term exposure of people or consideration of the harmful effects on the unborn, children and nature. |
| 55 | International4 May | Meteorologists warn that the introduction of 5G mobile phone networks could seriously affect weather forecasters’ ability to predict major storms by disrupting the delicate satellite instruments they use to monitor changes in the atmosphere. The result will be impaired forecasts, poorer warnings about major storms, and loss of life, they say. |
| 56 | Germany9 May | Minister for the Environment believes continued digitalisation will fuel future environmental problems. “Information technology’s impact on the environment and nature has been underestimated. It will further increase consumption of energy and raw materials and lead to greater consumption and increased traffic”. |
| 57 | France15 May | French health authority ANSES warns in a 400-page report that LED lights in your house can cause irreversible damage to the eyes and lead to a vision-robbing condition. |
| 58 | Italy20 May | Montecitori Palace, Rome, Italy Stop 5G: a parliamentary motion commits the Government to the moratorium. |
| 59 | USA22 May | The US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) criticize FCC plans for opening a 24 GHz spectrum band to 5G telecommunications providers, stating that US weather forecasting capabilities would be set back decades. The matter is on the agenda for international treaty negotiations at the International Telecommunication Union’s World Radio Conference (WRC) in the fall of 2019, but with respect to 24 GHz, the Department of State has already submitted the FCC’s out-of-band emission limits as the US position during preliminary negotiations. |
| 60 | USA25 May | Apple is selling your iTunes listening data despite its privacy claims, a lawsuit alleges. Apple Inc. was sued by customers who claim the company is unlawfully disclosing and selling information about people’s iTunes purchases as well as their personal data, contrary to the company’s promise in advertising that “What happens on your iPhone stays on your iPhone.” |
| 61 | USA29 May | The US state of Louisiana unanimously votes to stop 5G, calling for study of effects on health and environment before 5G is launched (Resolution 145). |
| 62 | France31 May | An LED lamp post is destroyed in France. |
| 63 | USAJune 2019 | Ongoing lawsuits against the US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) over the constitutional overreach in the rollout of 5G:
|
| 64 | EuropeJune | EMFOff publishes an exposé of corruption at the World Health Organization: The WHO Cover-Up That is Costing Us the Earth. Video and PDF document. |
| 65 | CanadaJune | In Toronto, the Canadian Civil Liberties Association files a court application to stop (Alphabet/Google subsidiary) Sidewalk Labs’ “smart city” project as “unconstitutional” because it would allow “historically unprecedented, non-consensual, inappropriate mass-capture surveillance and commoditization of personal data.” |
| 66 | AustraliaJune | Step-by-Step Action Plan: We say No to 5G in Australia: devised by barrister Raymond Broomhall, who has stopped 25K antenna projects across Australia. |
| 67 | IrelandJune | Councillor Clare Colloran Molloy, with support from other councillors, raises concerns to Clare County Council about dangers of 5G. |
| 68 | Switzerland4 June | The Canton of Fribourg introduces a licensing requirement for 5G antennas in order to give those affected a chance to object. |
| 69 | Russia6 June | A man living in the Tver region saws down a cell tower because he believes the radiation from it is destroying the vegetable, berry and fruit crops growing on his land located nearby. |
| 70 | Switzerland10 June | A telephone antenna is destroyed by an explosion in Vaud, Switzerland. |
| 71 | UK11 June | Glastonbury Town Council opposes the introduction of 5G technology in Glastonbury until further information has been obtained on the health effects on residents, adopting the following motion: “This council has a social responsibility to protect the public and environment from exposure to harm, albeit unpredictable in the current state of scientific knowledge, and therefore opposes the roll-out of 5G in the Parish of Glastonbury – based on the precautionary principle – until further information is revealed from a newly convened 5G advisory committee (working group).” |
| 72 | UK11 June | Shadow Minister (Environment, Food and Rural Affairs) David Drew asks the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, what discussions he has had with the providers of 5G on whether they have made any provision for personal liability on health and safety grounds and whether any provision has been made for white zones. He also asks the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what investigations the Government has commissioned on the health and safety implications of the 5G rollout. |
| 73 | USA12 June | 5G installer discusses the consequences of 5G. Current radiofrequency emitted by cell towers uses relatively low power (1.5-2.8 MHz), which at short range superheats the water molecules in your brain, eyes and testicles. It dissipates over distance as it has a long wave trough. 5G will be up close, in offices, outside homes, everywhere, including in the back of self-driving cars. It broadcasts in GHz not MHz — 30 GHz is 15,000 times more powerful than current previous levels. |
| 74 | Ireland18 June | A motion calling on Clare County Council to oppose the rollout of 5G on health grounds is backed by the elected representatives. |
| 75 | USA18 June | Pennsylvania lawmakers cancel a vote on proposed legislation to facilitate infrastructure next-generation 5G wireless services. It is the third defeat for the Verizon- and AT&T-backed legislation. |
| 76 | US20 June |
| The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that US suicide rates are at the highest level since World War II. Life expectancy, perhaps the broadest measure of a nation’s health, has fallen for three straight years, the first three-year drop since 1915 to 1918. |
MICRO GRIDS: Lessons Learned From California’s Pioneering Microgrids | Greentech Media
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/lessons-learned-from-californias-pioneering-microgrids
Open the above link to read some of the interesting comments . . .
May 13, 2019
Lessons Learned From California’s Pioneering Microgrids
California is several years into a push to help commercialize microgrids in the state. Now, officials are taking stock of the performance of the first generation of microgrids supported under the effort.
Read more “MICRO GRIDS: Lessons Learned From California’s Pioneering Microgrids | Greentech Media”
MICRO GRIDS – UK energy storage – making the planning process easier . . .
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/uk-energy-storage-making-the-planning-77920/
UK energy storage – making the planning process easier
Summary: The UK’s energy storage industry is making huge strides – and the regulatory regime is having to catch up fast. This blog explores the latest proposals from the UK Government as to how energy storage schemes can be consented in the planning process.
The planning system in England and Wales is playing catch-up
Read more “MICRO GRIDS – UK energy storage – making the planning process easier . . .”
MICRO GRIDS: California Initiates Microgrid “Rule-making”
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/california-initiates-microgrid-16516/
October 2, 2019
California Initiates Microgrid Rulemaking Proceeding
Interest in microgrids is on the rise in the United States as over half of states explore ways to modernize the grid and promote distributed energy resources (DER), including innovative renewable energy, storage, and demand response technologies. However, microgrids are not defined by law or regulation in most states and are more complex than other types of DER because they involve both the generation and distribution of energy. This raises several policy questions, including who should pay for microgrid development and use and whether microgrid operators that technically distribute energy to retail customers should be classified as public utilities and subject to regulations ordinarily imposed on such entities. California is currently exploring the potential benefits of microgrids and the role of state regulation.
In September 2018, California enacted a new law, Senate Bill (SB) 1339, that requires the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to develop regulations, standards, and guidelines by December 1, 2020, to facilitate the commercialization of microgrids for customers of large electric utilities. To that end, SB 1339 directs the CPUC to address the following key issues: (1) how microgrids operate and their value; (2) improving the electrical grid with microgrids; (3) how microgrids can play a role in implementing policy goals; (4) how microgrids can support California’s policies to integrate a high concentration of distributed energy resources on the electrical grid; (5) how microgrids operate in the current California regulatory framework; and (6) microgrid technical challenges. SB 1339 builds on years of stakeholder research on whether microgrids may help California meet its future energy goals and increase the resilience of the energy grid, in part due to the increasing potential for extended outages/grid denergization due to extreme weather events and wildfires.
On September 19, the CPUC initiated a rulemaking to implement SB 1339. The CPUC invited comments on the regulatory actions prescribed by SB 1339, including development of guidelines to determine what impact studies are necessary for microgrids to connect to the distribution system operated by California electric utilities and separate rates and tariffs to support microgrids. The preliminary scoping memo for the rulemaking also solicits comments on how to ensure that actions taken by the CPUC to fulfill the requirements of SB 1339 do not discourage development of utility microgrids and are consistent with relevant state policy goals and existing CPUC responsibilities and policies. Comments and reply comments on the preliminary scoping memo must be submitted by October 21, 2019, and November 4, 2019, respectively. The approach California ultimately develops through the CPUC rulemaking may inform other states seeking to explore the potential for microgrids to increase renewable energy integration and provide opportunities for greater grid resiliency.
MICRO GRID and THE GRID – Easily establish bi-directional communication between systems . . .
MICRO GRID and THE GRID – Easily establish bi-directional communication between systems . . .
Enable smart grid IIoT analytics, accurately recreate dynamic datasets, and leverage data across platforms.
RTI Stream for InfluxDB is a full featured, open source, time-series database (historian) that employs RTI Server as the communications hub for operational technology (OT) and Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) data from any source. RTI Stream provides a fully scalable, cost-effective, field proven solution that can be deployed on premise or in a public or private cloud. RTI Stream is integrated fully with the RTI Platform.
When RTI Stream is integrated into [/products/rti-generation-asset-manager]RTI Platform Generation Asset Manager (RTI GAM), the resulting application provides a single source of real-time operational intelligence with the ability to visualize the current state of generation assets as well as time-series data.
RTI Stream features:
- Collect data from virtually any utility device or system
- Supports a wide array of protocols including ICCP, Modbus, DNP3, OCP, and many more
- Recreate historical, time series data and efficiently store that data with compression algorithms
- Integrate smart grid applications with real-time and historical data
- Utilize data for analytics tools like Hadoop, AWS, TIBCO, IBM, and Oracle
- Easily scale from 100s of points to 1,000,000s of points
Establish communication pathways using a point-and-click interface.
RTI Configuration Manager allows architecture engineers to:
- Reduce the complexity of integrations
- Easily establish bi-directional communication between systems
- Rapidly modify and create new transactional data flows
[//www.livedatautilities.com]
Power Generation
LiveData Utilities delivers turnkey ISO ICCP services and HTML5-based RTI Generation Asset Manager™. We can help your organization better understand and control your generation assets.
Power Transmission
LiveData Utilities regularly integrates EMS data and substation data to OMS, SCADA, and ISO/RTO control systems. Our solutions offer the ability to capture, transform, and deliver data.
Power Distribution
RTI Platform is used by distribution operators to integrate OT systems such as OMS, Advanced DMS and SCADA systems, and device automation, using standard protocols (ICCP, DNP3, Modbus, etc.) throughout the grid.
LiveData for Distribution
United Nations: Closing the infrastructure gap | Inter-agency Task Force on Financing for Development
Closing the infrastructure gap
The Addis Agenda recognizes that investing in sustainable and resilient infrastructure, including transport, energy, water and sanitation for all, is a pre-requisite for achieving many of the SDGs. Demographic changes, migration, climate change and urbanisation increase the need for infrastructure development, especially in developing economies. Transportation infrastructure, such as roads, railways, ports, airports, is of central importance for economic development. In Land-Locked Developing Countries (LLDCs), it is particularly important as it enables trade. Energy-related infrastructure, in particular renewable infrastructure and an expansion of the electricity grid, is necessary to reach the climate goals. Climate resilience investments are particularly needed in Small Island Developing States (SIDS). Sustainable water infrastructure will improve people’s lives by providing access to water and help management of scarce resources in a sustainable manner.
World Bank: Power Outages and NO More Diesel for Backup Power Generators . .
World Bank
Power Outages
and
No More Diesel
for Backup Power – Generators
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-018-0151-8?WT.feed_name=subjects_environmental-impact
Abstract
Many with access to electricity in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) are subject to frequent outages due
Read more “World Bank: Power Outages and NO More Diesel for Backup Power Generators . .”
World Bank Report – Closing the Electricity Supply-Demand Gap
Deborah Tavares – MIS-quoted in the Gazette
Deborah Tavares – MIS-quoted in the Gazette . . . of course
She recalls telling the reporter that PG&E is Rothschild and intentionally created the fires.
PG&E likely, was pulsing the smart meters (which cause fires).
Also, the use of weather controlling technologies that created the atmospheric weather conditions (heavy chemtrailed) with combustible heavy metals sprayed overhead increasing FIRE IGNITION.
OBVIOUSLY, the CONtrolled media would NEVER print what Deborah really said.
MICRO GRID the DEFINITION
Microgrid
Localized group of electricity sources and loads that normally operates connected to and synchronous with the traditional wide area synchronous grid, but can also disconnect to islanded operation