California high court: PG&E can’t be sued for wildfire-avoidance outages

Editor’s note: Western Energy News is taking a break for the Thanksgiving holiday. We’ll be back Nov. 27.

UTILITIES: California’s Supreme Court rules Pacific Gas & Electric customers cannot sue the utility for losses incurred during public safety power shutoffs aimed at reducing wildfire hazard. (Los Angeles Times)

COAL: Federal researchers find Canada coal mines are discharging unprecedented levels of selenium and nitrate pollution into Montana’s Kootenay River watershed. (Montana Free Press)

OIL & GAS: 

• Colorado’s Supreme Court rules a county cannot terminate oil and gas leases simply because the operator halted production to make repairs, a decision expected to ripple across the industry. (Colorado Politics)
• ConocoPhillips plans to spend $900 million and employ 1,800 people this construction season on its Willow drilling project in Alaska. (Anchorage Daily News)
• Alaska’s congressional delegation introduces legislation that would reverse the Biden administration’s oil and gas drilling ban on 13 million acres of Alaska’s North Slope. (news release)

ELECTRIFICATION: A California city looks to electrify an entire block’s buildings and permanently shut down the natural gas line. (Smart Cities Dive)

CLEAN ENERGY: The U.S. Energy Department awards a New Mexico university $900,000 to help develop and train a clean energy and efficiency workforce. (news release)

ELECTRIC VEHICLES: Los Angeles launches an effort to install electric vehicle fast-charging networks in underserved neighborhoods and increase rebates for used EV purchases. (L.A. Focus)

GRID: High winds and heavy snow batter utility lines in southcentral Alaska, leaving about 17,000 households without power. (Alaska Public Media)

TRANSPORTATION: Preliminary data show a weeklong major freeway closure in downtown Los Angeles prompted an uptick in public transit ridership. (Los Angeles Times)

BATTERIES: A California battery manufacturer proposes establishing a 850,000 square foot production facility near Sacramento that would employ up to 1,000 people. (Sacramento Bee)

SOLAR: Rocky Mountain Power awards a Wyoming nonprofit more than $100,000 to help install a solar array on its facility. (Laramie Boomerang)

EQUITY: The U.S. EPA awards Colorado organizations $4 million for environmental justice programs, including bilingual climate education projects and energy efficiency upgrades for low-income households. (CPR)

CARBON CAPTURE: Environmentalists and safety advocates push back on a proposal to open up U.S. Forest Service land for carbon sequestration. (NPR)

HYDROPOWER:

• Navajo Nation advocates push back on proposed pumped hydropower storage projects on Black Mesa, a historic coal mining region in the northern part of the state, saying it could damage cultural sites and strain water supplies. (KUNC)
• Colorado River experts say a series of management missteps led reservoir levels to plummet, leaving Glen Canyon Dam nearly unable to produce hydropower. (Colorado Sun)
• Pacific Gas & Electric proposes to surrender and decommission defunct hydroelectric dams in California to benefit endangered fish. (news release)