Peter Henderson

The biggest greenhouse gas emitter in California isn't in California.

A string of PacifiCorp power plants are the biggest emitters of carbon dioxide included in the state's 2008 inventory of carbon sources tied to state use.

California aims to start a cap-and-trade system for carbon pollution in 2012, if it is not preempted by a federal plan, and emissions reports by big power plants and the like represent a step toward that goal.

In-state and out-of-state power plants are roughly equal in the amount of carbon dioxide they produce, and together account for about a quarter of the state's emissions. A weak economy has raised the stakes for California's energy plans, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently vetoed legislative renewable power goals that would have limited out-of-state supply. Instead he set a target with an administrative order that was less restrictive.

The biggest in-state California sources of CO2 were Chevron, Shell and BP refineries, accounting for under 5 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent each in a chart of top emitters released by the California Air Resources Board. (One PacifiCorp plant in Wyoming had emissions over 15 million metric tones.)

The biggest source of emissions in California, though, is transport, and the 38 percent of emissions from that is not included in refineries' totals. The Air Resources Board plans to give an update of its cap-and-trade program on Tuesday. 

(Reuters picture by Kim White of Chevron refinery)

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's spokesman insists it was just an innocent coincidence.

San Francisco state representative Tom Ammiano, tongue firmly in cheek, says it was "a very creative way of exercising veto power."

The facts are clear: A letter on the governor's website  explaining his veto of a bill to help finance the port of San Francisco is three paragraphs long. The letters that begin the four lines of the second paragraph and the three lines of the third spell out an obscene comment. See below:

Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear called it a "weird coincidence."
"There are other messages that say things like 'ear' and 'soap'," he said.

Websites like Gawker were incredulous, especially since Ammiano and the governor have a bit of a history. The representative shouted "You lie!" and other messages at Schwarzenegger when the governor crashed a recent Democratic Party gala, left-leaning Calitics website reported.

Ammiano took the veto incident as just part of California politics and focused on his plan for Wednesday: a hearing on his bill to legalize and tax marijuana to help shore up the creaky state budget.

The veto message is posted on the governor's website.

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Photo credit: Reuters/Phil McCarten (Schwarzenegger speaking at the Women's Conference in California on Oct. 27)

Here's some advice for Californians who think Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger's climate change policy goes too far: just be happy you're not his kid.

Before he became a body builder, before he was the Terminator, and before he turned into the Governator, it turns out that Arnold was the youngest in a family that had no running water and relied on an outhouse. That's what he told fourth graders who innocently asked about how he spoke to his kids.

"I have major fights with my kids," he responded, quickly segueing into the difference between post-World War European poverty and the Golden State.

"We had kind of a system where we carried the water from 200 yards away from the well, to our house upstairs to the second floor where we lived, and then my father would wash himself first, and then my mother would wash herself, and then my brother would wash himself in the same water, and then I would wash myself, and it was all dirty, because I was the youngest. So that's how I grew up because conservation was big in Europe. Especially since I grew up after the Second World War. There was no food, there was little electricity, there were blackouts left and right, there was nothing. After the war was worse than during the war. So we had absolutely nothing," he said.

And while the Governor now has solar panels to heat the water in his pool and jacuzzi, a hydrogen-powered Hummer, and he recycles, it seems conservation is still BIG -- and mandatory -- in the Terminator household.

He recalled watching his kids take a stool into the shower to sit and enjoy the hot water -- for a long time.

"I'm sitting outside timing it now, and it's 15 minutes, and still they are in the shower. So I open the shower door and turn off the hot water and then all of a sudden they start screaming, because it is cold," he said, adding that he had created rules: no shower longer than 5 minutes -- or else.

Here's the three-minute history of Arnold's conservation conversion, at a Commonwealth Club event in San Francisco:

Click here to listen to the speech.

(Photo by Reuters/MAX WHITTAKER)

The seven seas get a single U.S. approach in a draft federal plan for oceans released on Thursday (and dated Sept. 10, when it was given to the prez). The report is a response to President Obama's request for a plan and says a new National Ocean Council should use ecosystem management to take on the task. Previous efforts have been focused on solving individual problems -- saving fisheries, stopping water pollution -- which did not always match.

"This is the first time they have declared their intention to adopt a new way of managing the oceans, one that puts a priority on the health of the marine ecosystem, from which all the other benefits flow," said Chris Mann, director of the Pew Charitable Trust's campaign for healthy oceans.

Goals include addressing changing conditions in the Arctic, reacting to climate change and ocean acidification and land practices that affect water.

But wait -- until they come up with details, it might not amount to a hill of beans.

Photo credit: Reuters/ (Fishing boats and other vessels form the words "Acid Ocean"  in Alaska,  September 2009)

Stephan Dolezalek, Managing Director of VantagePoint Venture Partners and Tom Werner, Chief Executive of solar power company SunPower, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco and shared their views on global warming, investment and cleantech.

Dolezalek sees industrialization in developing countries as a more predictable impetus for investment than global warming.

Werner sees global warming as a stimulus for new business and a tool for adaptation.

What are your thoughts?  Is global warming an economic stimulus, an unreliable driver for investment, neither or both?

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman, pictures by Kim White)

Ken Oshman, the Chief Executive of Echelon, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco to speak about revenue forecasts and smart meters.

The following is Oshman's thoughts on how the sector may consolidate as the market picks up.

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman)

Bill Weihl, Google's Green Energy Czar, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Energy Summit in San Francisco and talked about Google's solar thermal project, infrastructure costs and where he sees the energy mix heading in 20 years.

Here he chats about emerging clean tech hubs and what the United States should do about investing in renewables.

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman)

Scott Lang, the Chief Executive of Silver Spring Networks, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco to talk about building and expanding within green tech sector.

Here Lang discusses how his company's technology for reporting power consumption to utilities also finds problems quickly.

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman)

John Woolard, the chief executive of solar thermal energy company BrightSource, sat down at Reuters' Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco to talk about energy efficiency, project financing and the future  of carbon-free power.

His advice: build fast!

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman)

Netbook makers say the small laptop computers are perfect for Goldilocks - not too big, not too small, just right. But Nvidia wonders if smaller Internet-connected smartbooks might make the netbooks line look like a fairy tale.

"I wonder if the netbook is not enough satisfaction for a PC, not enough battery life to be mobile? I kind of feel like the netbook is a 'tweener'," Chief Executive Jen-Hsun Huang said on Monday on the sidelines of a conference on the Stanford University campus, later adding that he thought netbooks would be replaced by “smartbooks.”

That would be great for Nvidia Corp, since it is making ARM-based chips for smartbooks while its rival Intel Corp's Atom powers most netbooks. The bet on lower-power ARM chips is that consumers will privilege battery life over computing power.

But Nvidia's chief spoke in the face of big headwinds: Mobile phone maker Nokia said it would enter the low-cost, low-power PC market with a "booklet" using Intel's Atom chip.

Nvidia so far has announced only one device based on its ARM-technology Tegra chip-- Microsoft's Zune HD -- but Huang has said 50 more designs, 35 of which are "smartbooks," will be announced in the second half of 2009 or in early 2010.

Nvidia also sells an Ion chipset that can be paired with Intel’s Atom in netbooks.

(Reporting by Clare Baldwin)