John Dizard looks forward to the summer release of a remake of the state’s 2001 power crisis ©AFP Just to add a little extra to the entertainment value offered by the US to the rest of the world, we can look forward to the summer release of a remake of the 2001 California energy crisis. You may remember the original: the blackouts, political outrage and suddenly accelerated power-plant and transmission-line construction. The 2001 California show also had a great villain in Enron, the failed energy, telecoms and trading company. I worry that this time we will not have such a convincing bad guy, but 2016’s California Energy Crisis will have even more misery up on the screen, what with it being summer and air conditioning and gas pumps shut down. Harder to get to the beach. Also, the coming blackouts will have the benefit of even more “earned media” by becoming a topic in the November elections. More On this story View from the US The 2001 crisis had a range of origins, of which the most important was poorly drawn legislation. The proximate cause of the February-March blackouts in the area serviced by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company, mostly in northern California, was the cut-off of credit for power purchases after the parent company filed for bankruptcy protection in January. That was overcome by the state stepping in to provide credit for power purchases. This year’s rotating outages in the Los Angeles basin will be caused by a physical shortage of natural gas that can be delivered to local generators. This will be a consequence of the shutdown and draining of a leaky gas storage facility in Aliso Canyon, in the northern part of LA county. There were good safety, environmental and aesthetic reasons for the authorities to shut down the Aliso Canyon storage to check every well in the depleted and repurposed oilfield. However, elected officials overreacted with an extremely rigid law that makes it difficult, but not impossible, to ever reopen the facility. SoCal Gas, which owns the storage facility, appears from my reading of the reports to have been slow, rather than negligent or greedy, in spending enough money to keep the field in good repair. A coalition of the gas, generation and transmission owners and operators issued a report last month that said a total of 14 days of power outages was likely this summer, thanks to the Aliso Canyon shutdown. My contacts in the industry say that could be on the low side. Jim McIntosh, who was the operating manager of the California electric grid during the 2001 crisis, says: “They are probably going to take my record of 13 outages away from me. I think the [Aliso Canyon] technical report was optimistic. I just do not think it is in their favour to downplay this risk with the public.” His concern would be to avoid “cascading outages”, which means an intentional cut-off of power to a swath of the LA basin could coincide with another event, such as a wildfire that causes a transmission line to go down, or a generator unexpectedly coming offline. “If [the power curtailments] get above 1,000MW, I don’t know how they will do that. A cascading outage could last for days,” he says. Now when Mr McIntosh and those whose names are on the credit roll for this crisis use the term “the public”, we cannot forget that LA blackouts will include the homes and places of work of celebrities. You will be reminded that they feel discomfort and pain more than the rest of us do. Corporate America brings more focus to the prospective resolution of the Aliso Canyon 2016 energy crisis. Its general belief is that the California political class will stay on course with the shutdown for the first blackout, and maybe the second, but after the third rotating outage the balance of opinion might be to get the goddamn air conditioning working again. Then Aliso Canyon could be reopened to provide short-term gas storage for the swings and roundabouts of demand. Unfortunately, SoCal’s engineers will only use the inner tubing of each recommissioned well, not the full diameter, so there will be less capacity than there was before, in any event. At that time, if you and your team have a plan to present to the politicians in Sacramento, it might get passed. Berkshire Hathaway’s PacifiCorp utility in Oregon has been constructively suggesting that California should more formally join its grid management with those of other western states. I think they could well carry the day a year or two earlier than their worst-case projections. Environmental activists have been very strongly opposed to any solutions other than adding more renewable energy resources, except on vulnerable desert land. They have even commissioned their own engineering studies, one of which, the Powers report, I have read. While it makes a number of interesting points, the enviros’ study elides a few facts. Renewable “biogas” produced from sewage is credited with more than 800MW of power production. The real number is 27MW. Anyone can make a mistake. But it will take a whole state to allocate the blame. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016. You may share using our article tools. Please don’t cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. Source link

Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust has been fined for safety failings after a patient drowned during a canoeing activity event. Mansoor Elahi, 31, from Rochdale was an inpatient at Birch Hill Hospital when the incident occurred at Hollingworth Lake, Rochdale on 5 September 2013. Manchester Crown Court heard how Mr Elahi was participating in a pre-arranged rafted canoeing activity provided by an outdoor activities centre in partnership with Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust, when he removed his buoyancy aid and jumped into the water in an attempt to end his own life. An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive found that Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust had failed to carry out a risk assessment for the activity or to adequately assess Mr Elahi’s suitability to attend. Mr Elahi’s family said “Mansoor was a loving, caring and immensely pleasant son, husband, brother, uncle and friend. He never failed to make those around him happy and we feel that a massive piece of our life and soul has been taken away from us. “This immensely difficult time, which has now spanned over two years, has left us with no choice but to unfortunately lose trust in the mental health services at Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust. We cannot help but think that if it was not for these failings then we would still have Mansoor with us today. We hope and pray that some positive changes can come from these events so patients are no longer put at risk.” Speaking after the hearing, HSE Inspector Caroline Shorrock said: “The Trust failed to adequately assess Mr Elahi’s suitability to attend the rafted canoeing activity. Mr Elahi’s actions were entirely foreseeable as he had tried to enter the lake on a previous occasion. Had the Trust carried out a suitable assessment they would not have allowed a vulnerable person the opportunity to end his life.” Pennine Care NHS Foundation Trust of 225 Old Street, Ashton-under-Lyne, pleaded guilty to breaches of Regulation 3(1) of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulation 1999 and Section 3(1) of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 and was today (29 July 2016) fined £30,000 and ordered to pay costs of £51,223.88. Notes to Editors:  The Health and Safety Executive is Britain’s national regulator for workplace health and safety. It aims to reduce work-related death, injury and ill health. It does so through research, information and advice, promoting training, new or revised regulations and codes of practice, and working with local authority partners by inspection, investigation and enforcement hse.gov.uk More about the legislation referred to in this case can be found at: legislation.gov.uk/ Further HSE news releases are available at press.hse.gov.uk Journalists should approach HSE press office with any queries on regional press releases. Source link

©Laggan-Tormore The Laggan-Tormore project, west of the Shetlands, could help revive the UK’s hydrocarbons sector For the storm-hit oil and gas sector, the UK’s northern archipelago of Shetland looks like a sunlit haven between the turbulent waters of the North Sea and the Atlantic. On Monday, oil company Total will formally inaugurate a gas processing plant on Shetland that will process the output of its new £3.5bn Laggan Tormore field, west of the islands. More On this topic IN UK Business & Economy The presence of Amber Rudd, UK energy secretary, will be a demonstration of how important ministers feel Laggan Tormore could be in reviving the British oil and gas sector. Peak capacity from the field is estimated at 90,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day — 5 per cent of UK total offshore production — and Total says it expects to invest another £1bn in other fields made accessible by the Laggan Tormore infrastructure. Yet behind the good cheer, Shetlanders say their islands are far from immune to the oil price collapse. “We thought we were at the beginning of another oil boom — there was a colossal amount of work over the past few years,” said Drew Ratter, a local councillor and former chairman of the Shetland Charitable Trust, the islands’ oil fund. But Mr Ratter said the sector “went up like a rocket and down like a stick”, with low oil prices meaning field developers were regretting their investment. “The North Sea was not a cheap place to produce oil from and the Atlantic is significantly worse,” he said. “They are now completing projects [in the Shetland area] that in some cases they wish they’d never started.” BP is this month stationing a huge new floating production vessel in waters west of Shetland to extend the life of fields there for decades. But it has already put on hold its plans for a £500m gas plant in Shetland.  The oil slump is affecting traffic at the port in Lerwick, the Shetland capital. “A couple of years out we could see exploration was drying up,” said Sandra Laurenson, chief executive of the Lerwick Port Authority. “With the oil price collapsing there is unlikely to be any significant spend . . . in new field development.” For Shetland, an archipelago halfway to Norway with just 23,000 people, the oil era is credited with attracting needed immigrants, transforming island infrastructure and making full employment the norm. A past levy on oil landings negotiated by astute Shetlanders paid for generous leisure and welfare facilities as well as the £200m charitable trust. But Mr Ratter said the level of provision may not be sustainable. The council has been cutting spending along with other local authorities across Scotland whose budgets are under pressure. This could be worsened by falls in income from its own oil-related rents and harbour fees. There are also concerns that the benefits of energy development are not reaching the Shetlanders as much as they used to. Locals say it has become increasingly hard to get jobs with BP, which runs the huge Sullom Voe oil terminal among low green hills on the Shetland mainland. BP appears to be “treating Shetland like an offshore installation”, complains Gary Robinson, council political leader, with all workers required to stay in company accommodation. They are now completing projects [in the Shetland area] that in some cases they wish they’d never started. – Drew Ratter, former chairman of the Shetland Charitable Trust Total says more of the 80 permanent jobs at its gas plant are filled by locals, “the better for both the island and for Total”. Mr Robinson says islanders will be watching closely — “the jury is out on that one”. Despite the concerns, Shetland is suffering much less than Scotland’s oil capital of Aberdeen, where thousands of jobs have been shed. Cruise ships are coming in large numbers. Island fisheries and aquaculture are “doing well”, says Douglas Irvine, council economic development manager. Sea produce is worth about £350m a year to Shetland, far more than the £60m contributed by energy before the opening of Total’s gas plant. The council is keen to foster growth in tourism and renewable energy, though tapping the windswept archipelago’s most obvious resource would require an expensive connector to the Scottish mainland. Mr Robinson says oil and gas will be important to Shetland for decades to come but the downturn has been instructive. “It does emphasise the need for diversification,” he says. Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2016. You may share using our article tools. Please don’t cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web. Source link

Manchester-based independent travel company Travel Counsellors is set to invest £21 million in business operations next year to support its network of agents and boost its digital infrastructure. The investment will support new developments including the launch of a rewards scheme for Travel Counsellors; an advanced personalised marketing system; an updated, more user-friendly version of the in-house quote and booking system including a live chat feature; as well as bespoke training and development to support Travel Counsellors in becoming top performers. The multi-million pound investment plan was announced by Travel Counsellors’ CEO Steve Byrne at the company’s annual conference, held at Manchester Central. With guest speakers and performers including Vernon Kay, Jack Whitehall, Dame Kelly Holmes and Ronan Keating, the conference hosted 1,600 guests and over 220 suppliers including P&O Cruises and Cunard, Travelport, Royal Caribbean, Club Med and Celebrity Cruises. In addition, the company recently recorded its best sales year in history, with turnover rising by 22% to £166m for the year ending October 2015. Steve Byrne, CEO at Travel Counsellors, said: “We exist because we care. We have great people with special talents using smart technology to change lives for the better. “Customers buy based on the experiences they’ve had rather than on price, and we are committed to making people feel special during every interaction. “This has been a key factor behind our growth this year and I’m really proud to see that we’re being recognised by a number of prestigious awarding bodies on a national scale for our entrepreneurial success and focus on customer care. “Looking towards 2017, we’re committed to investing £21m to continue to scale up the business and develop our digital offering, whilst still keeping a very human touch.”