Don't Bite the Hand that Feeds You

PacifiCorp's Likely Influence on the nonprofits it could fund

Slightly more than a year ago, Robert Bryce published an important article, The Anti Industry Industry  on his Substack.  He documented the billions flowing each year to nonprofits that oppose nuclear power - and in some cases dispatchable natural-gas-fired generation.

One of our pet green iguanas in a bad mood in 2012. She was about 4 feet from the tip of her snout to the end of her tail.

PacifiCorp is a major supplier of mostly coal-fired power to California via the blandly-named Western Energy Imbalance Market (WEIM.) This Market has been lucrative for Berkshire Hathaway Energy (BHE) subsidiaries PacifiCorp and NV Energy (powered by natural gas.) Between November, 2014 and the end of December, 2023, this pair of subsidiaries have sold at wholesale more than $1.2 billion in electricity to mostly California entities. Page 6 of the May 8, 2024 CGNP Opposition to the WWGPI shows the WEIM tabulation.

CGNP has been making the case since 2017 that PacifiCorp is one of the commercial entities that would become much more profitable if Diablo Canyon Power Plant (DCPP) were needlessly closed.

One of the challenges CGNP has is to establish that PacifiCorp is bankrolling the DCPP opposition. One method that might be illustrative is to utilize the website search capability that is part of many of the "environmental" nonprofit's websites to look for PacifiCorp and the phrase "Western Energy Imbalance Market" via their search capabilities. CGNP's WWGPI opposition above shows some of the air and water pollution burdens associated with PacifiCorp's mostly coal-fired  generation fleet. A genuine environmental organization named the Clean Air Task Force (CATF) has been critical of PacifiCorp. See the 2018  CATF Toll from Coal website.   If an organization is environmental in name only, they would not criticize PacifiCorp's coal-fired generation. The "environmental" nonprofit's website would not mention PacifiCorp.  This article's title is the aphorism that summarizes that rule.

#1 at $838 million: The Rockefeller Brothers Fund

#2 at $524 million: The Environmental Defense Fund. PacifiCorp is mentioned. The Western Energy Imbalance Market is mentioned in a 2015 legal filing regarding oil pipelines as part of the title in the footnotes .  

#3 at $440 million: The World Resources Institute. None of these articles are critical of PacifiCorp's coal-fired generation fleet.

#4 at $425 million: ClimateWorks Foundation

#5 at $415 million: The Natural Resources Defense Council. These articles seem to have been written by the PacifiCorp public relations department.

#6 at $304 million: The Windward Foundation

#7 at $221 million: The Climate Imperative.  Neither site offers a search capability.

#8 at $199 million: The U.S. Energy Foundation

Here are three nonprofits located near DCPP  opposed to nuclear power that are not included in Robert Bryce's tabulation. The Alliance for Nuclear Responsibility, San Luis Obispo Mothers for Peace, and the World Business Academy.

Please share examples of environmental organizations in name only that you are familiar with in the comments below.

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