( – promoted by SFBrianCL)

Photo credit: Sacramento Bee/ Brian Baer

Arnold’s in a hurry to get somewhere, to get things done…in China.  Well, That’s all well and good, but who is paying for this little post-election duldrums trip to China?  Well, not the taxpayers, as you might expect.  Apparently, the “California Protocol Foundation” is paying for this little jaunt to the Reddest of Red States:

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s office on Friday released the names of the business delegation traveling to China with him next month, but it’s still not clear how much the trip will cost taxpayers or anonymous donors being asked to help pay the bills.

Schwarzenegger, his wife, Maria Shriver, more than two dozen members of the governor’s administration and about 80 business leaders will travel to China for a weeklong trade mission that begins Nov. 14.

Many costs for Schwarzenegger and his aides will be paid by the tax-exempt California Protocol Foundation, which is soliciting contributions of up to $50,000 from business donors.

But the foundation, run under the auspices of the California Chamber of Commerce, isn’t legally required to disclose its donors and is keeping its contributor list secret. (Sac Bee 11/13/05)

$50,000! Without anybody knowing, without the ability to discuss this cash flow to the governor?  it is quite ridiculous for business special interests to have this type of access to the governor.  

How much longer do we have to hear him talk about cleaning up Sacramento and then watch him take special interest money while he thinks nobody is looking.  If he wants to make real reform in Sacramento, perhaps he should look in the mirror first.

Although Prop. 80 may have failed, the CPUC is still pushing to move more of California’s electrical supply to renewables. There’s been a lot of discussion about wind and rooftop photovoltaics. What hasn’t been so widely discussed, but which is apparently in the works is a renewed push for industrial-sized solar plants:

Stirling Energy Systems Inc., of Phoenix, hopes to construct 20,000 solar dishes covering four square miles of the Mohave Desert near Victorville

They’re talking about 500 megawatts at the first plant, and an additional 300-900 megawatts at a second.

The cost is estimated to be high for these first plants, and to then fall to:

less than 10 cents a kilowatt hour, which is about what it costs to make electricity at modern, gas-fired power plants at today’s fuel prices

It will be interesting to see where this goes, and whether we can fulfill a large fraction of peak demand without turning the entire desert into a mirror.