{"id":1014,"date":"2012-09-23T17:12:38","date_gmt":"2012-09-23T17:12:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ncjolt.org\/?p=1014"},"modified":"2020-06-04T20:54:07","modified_gmt":"2020-06-04T20:54:07","slug":"san-francisco-makes-bold-move-towards-renewable-energy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/blogs\/san-francisco-makes-bold-move-towards-renewable-energy\/","title":{"rendered":"San Francisco Makes Bold Move Towards Renewable Energy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Friday, September 21, 2012, by Collier Johnson II
\nThis week, San Francisco, California made a bold step to a renewable energy future<\/a>.\u00a0 This Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, voted 8-3 to provide a renewable energy option to a majority of San Francisco residents.\u00a0 Ironically, the plan will involve a major contract with a company not necessarily known for renewable energy, the Shell Oil Company.\u00a0 Under the plan, the Shell Oil Company will buy energy generated from wind and solar sources out of state<\/a>, and sell it to San Franciscans.\u00a0 The goal of the program is to provide an option to residents to buy energy generated from 100% renewable sources.
\nThe plan will not be cheap.\u00a0 Sources indicate that residents will see an average increase in their monthly utility bills of around $20 with some residents seeing increases as much as $77<\/a>.\u00a0 But for those residents who want to end their reliance on non-renewable energy sources like oil, the increase will be well worth the extra cash.\u00a0 Unfortunately for those residents who do not want to spend the extra money, the city does not give them much of a choice, at least initially.\u00a0 The program will enroll about half of the city\u2019s population into the renewable energy program automatically.\u00a0 Analysts argue that the automatic enrollment is necessary because the city needs about 90,000 customers to make the program work.\u00a0 There is an option for people who do not want to participate.\u00a0 Residents automatically enrolled in the program will have 5 months to leave at no charge.\u00a0 After that, it will cost $5 to leave.\u00a0 At least some people are not happy with the automatic enrollment part of the program.\u00a0 \u201cIt smells of coercion,\u201d said Mark Farrell, one of the three members of the board of supervisors who voted against the plan. <\/a>\u00a0<\/p>\n

Residents will see an average increase in their monthly utility bills<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Although the vote earlier this week by the Board of Directors is a victory for proponents of the program, it is still just a first step. The plan has to go to the city\u2019s board for a vote and it is currently met with opposition by the city\u2019s Mayor, Ed Lee<\/a>.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In addition, the program is opposed by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company<\/a>, who currently provides utilities for the city of San Francisco and will see their market share decline as a result of this plan.\u00a0 Furthermore, the city is exposed to legal risks.\u00a0 Under California law<\/a>, individuals are allowed to protest government contracts leaving the contract between the city and Shell Oil open to legal implications.\u00a0 But perhaps the biggest challenge of all will come from the residents of San Francisco.\u00a0 Because the plan includes an option for residents who do not want to participate to opt out of the program, if too many residents opt out, the program will not work.\u00a0\u00a0 Given that we are still in a very deep recession, are the residents of San Francisco willing to pay more for clean energy?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Friday, September 21, 2012, by Collier Johnson II This week, San Francisco, California made a bold step to a renewable energy future.\u00a0 This Tuesday, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, voted 8-3 to provide a renewable energy option to a majority of San Francisco residents.\u00a0 Ironically, the plan will involve a major contract with a …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[51],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7692,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014\/revisions\/7692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.unc.edu\/ncjolt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}