Ukiah's Annexation

                                                                                          written 14 June, 2026

                                                                                      published 21 June, 2026

            

            Last week I attended the recent presentation of the proposed annexation for Ukiah.  It was a modest turnout, less than 75 people.  The City staff opened with several requests that everyone be respectful and not interrupt, shout down, or disparage other speakers.  I went to learn about the subject, and to experience the mood of the crowd, many of whom have been adamantly opposed to annexation since the first effort was presented over a year ago.

            The City of Ukiah has ground water rights to the abundant geologic water reserves under the City.  Adjacent water districts to the north and south didn't, and struggled to serve their customers during drought years.  Under pressure from the State to address regional ground water resiliency, the Ukiah Valley Water Authority was formed 2 years ago, joining the City of Ukiah with the Willow, Millview, and Redwood Valley water systems.  The current coordinated water system means everyone has access to sufficient water.   

            For decades, the City of Ukiah has owned and operated the only sewer plant in the valley, servicing the customers within the city limits, while contracting for treatment of sewage from customers outside the city limits.  

            Nine years ago, the City of Ukiah fire department signed a joint powers agreement with the Ukiah Valley Fire Protection District to become the Ukiah Valley Fire Authority, covering the needs of the entire Ukiah valley.

            The parcels proposed for annexation are already served by the expanded water and sewer districts.  The annexation will bring in revenues from those areas to help support services they already receive.  This also shifts some responsibilities from the County budget to the City budget, specifically road maintenance, police protection, and planning decisions.  While the County will lose some revenue, it also loses some obligations.

            The revenues from the annexed areas are: property taxes, sales taxes, and Transient Occupancy Tax (TOT).  The annexation plan spreads revenue changes over time, accruing short term City loses to ease the County pain, modifying the fiscal shock.

            Property taxes are a large part of the County income.  The County will keep 100% of the existing property tax income, but portions of the future increases will be shifted to the City, starting at about 3% the first year, increasing each year to a cap of 50% 15 years from now.  Property tax rates are set by the State, and fixed at a 2% per year increase, which will be unaffected by the annexation.

            Sales taxes are a minor part of the County income, but a significant portion of the City income.  That revenue will be shifted over 5 years, with little citizen impact.  TOT taxes mostly affect travelers, not local residents.

            Despite those reassurances, many attendees voiced concerns annexation would increase their taxes.  Others feared unrestrained development, but were told zoning for the area will stay the same and County and City development procedures are similar.  Some were just resistant to any change, yearning for the "good old days".  A common unstated assumption was that government of any kind is a problem to be avoided.

            In my opinion, good government balances the social needs of the whole with the needs of individuals.  Without a doubt, bad government is appalling, just look how one man's inflated ego has damaged our entire economy through his ill-advised war of choice in the Middle East.  But local government is more accessible.  Here in Ukiah, we can personally know all of the decision makers in the City, and we each have direct impact through election of the entire City Council.  Even the County is too big for that level of connection.  If the people of this small city can't come together for a workable solution, how can we expect much from our larger society?

            We have massive threats to our way of life.  Despite presidential denial, climate change is real.  This summer is projected to be a bad fire season.  Fire insurance is getting more expensive, if even available.  Water determines where life flourishes, and the rain patterns that deliver that water are changing.  The county economy was built on a resource extraction, but most of those resources have been depleted. 

            Make no mistake, we are all in this together, like it or not.  Only fools think they exist completely independently.  At the very least, we all breath oxygen that none of us make ourselves.  Local resilience is becoming more important every year. 

            It's trite but true.  United we stand, divided we fall.

 

 

Our Energy Choice

                                                                                            written 7 June, 2026

                                                                                      published 14 June, 2026

  

            Energy systems have two basic elements: the hardware needed, and the energy source.  

            A standard nuclear reactor can produce 24 gigawatts hours of power each day.  The solar powered equivalent is a 6 gigawatt array and a 20 gigawatt hour battery.  Big numbers, but larger solar and battery projects already exist, and are under construction, around the world.  

            Hardware costs for a large nuclear reactor range between $9-$20B, and construction can take a decade.  The solar and storage energy equivalent can cost $9B for the array and another $5B for the battery, in the same cost range as the reactor, while construction times can be much shorter.

            The solar array takes more land than a reactor, but the land can have multiple uses.  Agrivoltaic, combining an array with agriculture, benefits from the shade provided by the array.  Land around a reactor must keep people away, to protect the facility against attack and to protect civilians in case of a radiation event.

            The real economic difference between the two energy systems is the cost of the energy source.  Solar energy is free and nuclear fuel is not.

            The most economical uranium ore contains less than 0.1 percent uranium.  Producing a pound of uranium generates a ton of tailings, usually left near the mine site.  This slightly radioactive, toxic material, contaminates mine workers, local ground water, and areas downwind.  All uncompensated costs.

            Uranium is primarily two isotopes.  99 percent is relatively stable U-238, and only 0.7 percent is radioactive U-235.  Reactor fuel must be enriched to 5 percent U-235.  Each pound of enriched reactor fuel generates seven pounds of "depleted" uranium.  There is no commercial use for this material, now stockpiled at taxpayer expense.

            Large reactors hold 100 tons of enriched uranium.  Because the fission process quickly degrades the economic functioning of the reactor, 25 tons are replaced each year, yet only 5 percent of the fissionable U-235 has been consumed.  This "spent fuel" is extremely radioactive, lethal to life for hundreds of thousands of years.  There is no safe, long-term storage for this material.

            Therefore, each year, a single reactor produces 25 tons of the most long-lasting toxic material even seen on the planet, an additional 175 tons of "depleted" uranium, and 250,000 tons of toxic tailings scattered around the countryside.  

            Adding to the problem, our primary suppliers of enriched uranium fuel are China and Russia.  

            As our president kills domestic solar and pushes new nuclear construction, new domestic uranium enrichment facilities are being construction.  But in the interim, they are considering reprocessing the 92,000 tons of highly radioactive "spent fuel", to recover the useful U-235, creating thousands of tons of radioactive liquids, with no means of safe disposal.

            Domestic civilian reprocessing has been tried three times.  The first, in West Valley, New York, opened in 1966.  It was uneconomical, went bankrupt, and closed 6 years later.  For 46 years, the State of New York has used public funds in the ongoing cleanup of the most toxic site in the state. 

            The second effort, the Midwest Fuel Recovery Plant in Tennessee, opened in 1974 and closed one day later.  The site is still contaminated today.  In 1977, the third effort, the Barnwell facility in South Carolina, was never even completed, because the entire operation was uneconomical.

            New reactor designs are being built, which promise to be cheaper, but none are currently in operation.  Some use higher temperatures, different cooling systems, and different fuels.  One fuel is tri-structural isotropic (TRISO), millimeter size pebbles of reactor fuel fabricated with protective layers to prevent meltdown under high temperatures.  This costs ten times more than conventional reactor fuels.  Another fuel is high-assay low-enriched uranium (HALEU), uranium enriched to 20 percent U-235 for greater power in small modular reactors.  Bomb material is enriched to 90 percent.

            America has 40,000 pounds of plutonium, resulting from dismantled nuclear bombs under the START treaty.  This was produced at the Hanford, Washington facility, which was shut down in 1971.  The cleanup there continues to this day.  Plutonium is naturally radioactive.  As little as 11 pounds will make a bomb.  It can be mixed into fuel for high temperature reactors.  But there are concerns about making plutonium a marketable commodity in the energy business.

            All this is to avoid collecting the free energy from the sun.  Nuclear energy is not about energy.  It is about centralized control and financial power.  But the world is shifting.  We are the ones being left behind, going bankrupt.

Crying Wolf

                                                                                          written 31 May, 2026

                                                                                        published 7 June, 2026

            Everyone knows the story about the "boy who cried wolf".  Because he was bored, or wanted attention, he falsely claimed a wolf was attacking the flock of sheep he was supposed to watch.  The villagers rushed to defend him, only to realize there was no wolf.  After this happened several times, the people of the village began to distrust the boy, so when a wolf did appear, the boy got eaten.

            Similarly, the president every so often declares an "agreement with Iran has been reached".  So far, this keeps Wall Street and the oil markets relatively calm.  The stock market drooped when the war first started, but is now higher than ever as some still profit from disaster.  Crude oil prices are about 50 percent higher than before the war, but holding relatively steady, taking a slight price dip whenever an "immanent agreement" is announced, before creeping higher again.  Gasoline prices get everyone's attention, but there is still gas to be pumped.

            But whatever the president announces, Iran soon sets him straight.  There is no deal.  The Strait is still closed.  

            As the closure drags on, shortages of fuel and raw materials are being felt around the world, with disproportionate impact.  Asian nations from Japan to the Philippines, being hit hardest, have implemented a four-day work week, reduced speed limits, and curtail private driving while pushing for working from home.  Thirty nations from Norway to Zambia, are spending billions on fuel subsidies, with many declaring "states of national emergency", reducing air conditioning and subsidizing public transport. 

            None of this addresses the underlying cause: the stalemate with Iran.  Now into the fourth month, there are no indications it will end any time soon.  Once the stored oil reserves are depleted, which is now well under way, prices are expected to jump at least another 50 percent, perhaps even double.  America we will probably start seeing this by July, which will impact the midterm elections.

            The president has created an insoluble disaster.  No other countries will help force a change, because he has alienated them.  Resumption of war risks further long-lasting destruction of regional oil production.  Negotiation is time consuming and requires respect between participants, but he is impatient and inclined to bully people.  Voters are losing confidence in White House happy talk, as demonstrated by his declining poll numbers. 

            But the president doesn't let impending economic and political destruction slow him down.  This week we saw self-serving corruption of unprecedented scale.  The president sued himself for $10B over leaked tax returns, then came to an arranged settlement with himself, magnanimously dropping the lawsuit in exchanged for a $1.8B tax payer funded slush fund, to be distributed in secret by five men he picks, with no public record of who gets how much.  The original judge is now considering this as a fraud.  Additionally, he and his family are immune from tax audits for life.  What an exemplary statesman!

            But this may be a bridge too far even for Congressional Republicans, who are resisting signing on.  The Republican led Senate decided to leave town rather than vote.  The president's revenge attacks on any Republican insufficiently loyal to him has already created several lame duck Senators, now able to vote their personal ethics rather than submit to the bully-in-chief.  The House has similar problems.

            Regular readers know I am appalled by our president, seeing him as corrupt, incompetent, and demented.  But I have to give him credit where it is due.  He has accelerated the global shift away from fossil fuels into renewable energy.  Of course, this was never his intention, but that has been the effect of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, for which he is totally responsible.  

            The entire planet now has a pocket book experience of the perils of depending on fossil fuels, totally independent of the fact that they are killing life on Earth.  When the core energy system of your economy can be affected by one insane individual, the incentive to change is dramatic.  This is not to say that the renewable shift is complete, or anywhere near sufficient, but the tide has inexorably turned.  There is nothing the president can do, short of global thermonuclear war, that will stop what in now in motion.

            Even though the U.S. is racing backward as fast as possible, and China is the global energy provider of the future, we may avoid toasting off the planet for profit, thanks to our president.