The biggest news of the week is the announcement that the California Public Utilities Commission chief is leaving, five years before the end of her term. President Marybel Batjer tells staff in an email about her upcoming departure.

The job of creating a carbon emissions-free supply of lithium from the shores of the Salton Sea is daunting but hopes keep rising that it can be commercially removed from brine powering the geothermal plants in the south, according to the Lithium Valley Commission. Success would be good news locally and globally.

The Department of Water Resources installs 120 MW of new gas plants in Yuba City and Roseville. The facilities, costing $196 million, are installed to meet peak demand when solar power diminishes.

SoCalGas plans to settle the litigation arising from the damage from the months-long methane leak from Aliso Canyon for $1.8 billion, six years after the massive spewing of emissions.

To curb greenhouse gas emissions a bill is signed into law targeting the second largest industrial emission source after oil and gas, the cement sector.  Sen. Josh Becker’s legislation seeks to reduce emissions from the making of cement 40% below 2019 emission levels by the end of 2035.

A repowered wind farm in the Altamont Pass in Alameda and Contra Costa counties provides more efficient clean power to East Bay Community Energy. The 57.5 MW of new turbines is another step towards the community aggregator’s 100% clean energy target set for 2030.

Wildfires and summer capacity get the California grid operator’s immediate attention, but so too does progress towards expanding the regional imbalance market into the bigger day ahead market.

And more…