UPDATE, MAY 21, 5:23 P.M.: The energy director of a Washington, D.C.-based consumer advocacy group calls Gregory Jaczko's resignation as chairman of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) "a terrifying example of industries trying to wreak havoc on those who regulate them-and winning."

"Jaczko sought to create tougher rules for the nuclear industry in the wake of Japan's Fukushima disaster last year. But the nuclear industry wanted Jaczko gone from Day One. Jaczko stood alone," writes Tyson Slocum of Public Citizen.
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Brandon Ferguson

More than 100 years after the invention of the first electric car, Fullerton is home to a first-of-its-kind alternative energy fuel station. The Propel Clean Mobility Center, located at 1124 E. Chapman Ave., opened last Wednesday and is partially funded by grants from the California Energy Commission and the U.S. Energy Department. The Los Angeles Times is reporting this is the first of 200 clean mobility centers slated for the state. More >>

In the first prosecution since federal Marine Life Protected Areas were established off the California coast, a Riverside County diver was ordered to give up his gear, spend seven days in jail, pay more than $20,000 in fines and promise to stay out of MLPAs for poaching lobster from Laguna Beach waters. Marbel A. Para was spared being steamed in water and his own juices before parts of him were ripped off and dunked in drawn butter, however.
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Two retired natural gas-powered generators at the AES plant on Pacific Coast Highway in Huntington Beach were fired back up this weekend to help with summer demand as the region struggles with the sudden loss of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station. With SONGS down, Orange, Los Angeles and San Diego counties would be more vulnerable to summer blackouts if AES remained offline, according to Southern California's energy grid operator.
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UCI.edu

Jay Famiglietti

The water crisis documentary Last Call at the Oasis won an "Outstanding Achievement in Filmmaking" award at the just-concluded Newport Beach Film Festival.

Surely helping propel Academy Award winning filmmaker Jessica Yu's production, which opens in Irvine Friday, is UC Irvine hydrologist Jay Famiglietti, who appears on camera to cold you-know-what on California's water future.
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UPDATE, APRIL 30, 10:01 A.M.: About 100 people marched to the gate of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station Sunday to demand the facility be shut down.

They were led by Irvine Mayor Larry Agran, who said nuclear power is an unsafe option for communities surrounding such plants.

Video from the rally follows after the jump . . .
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UPDATE, APRIL 25, 10:53 A.M.: As expected, the Irvine City Council Tuesday night called for the shutdown of the nuclear power plant 22 miles away, the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS).

Among the more than 200 people who turned out for the agenda item was Arnie Gundersen, a former nuclear engineer who traveled from Vermont to tell the Irvine council plant operator Southern California Edison made design changes that make SONGS unsafe and that a new national "no nukes" movement has been born.
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After witnessing a polar bear mother protect her two cubs--in 3D--from dangers posed by ever-changing elements in the Arctic wilderness, To the Arctic narrator Meryl Streep suggests that mankind do a better job of mothering the region's wildlife by doing what we can to slow down glaciers and ice fields melting due to global warming.

That message was projected on the large IMAX screen at Irvine Spectrum Saturday, where Laguna Beach filmmaker Greg MacGillivray unveiled his fascinating nature movie, which opens April 20 in time for Earth Day, to its largest crowds so far. 
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Wagner

As part of a "Create Jobs; Not Lawsuits" campaign in California, Orange County state Assemblyman Don Wagner today blasted what he sees as Proposition 65's abuse of businesses by greedy plaintiff's lawyers.

The voter-approved 1986 proposition called, "The Safe Drinking Water and Toxic Enforcement Act," allows for private bounty hunters to sue business owners and keep for themselves tens of millions of dollars in settlements each year.

The situation alarms Wagner, a corporate lawyer himself and the Republican vice chairman of the Assembly's judiciary committee.
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Southern California Edison, operator of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS), announced more unusual wear has been discovered on steam-generator tubes in the Unit 2 reactor and that it's consistent with the degradation that has left Unit 3 closed since January. While such wear is typical over the life of steam generators, the discoveries are distressing because the tubes are only two years old.
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