Energy

N.M. State Land Office Earns Over A Quarter Of A Billion Dollars In Single Oil And Gas Lease Sale With 25% Royalty Rate Championed By Commissioner Garcia Richard

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New Mexico Land Commissioner Stephanie Garcia Richard in her office in Santa Fe, shortly after her statewide election in 2018, to her first term in office. Photo by Carol A. Clark/ladailypost.com

STATE News:

SANTA FE — For the second month in a row, the State Land Office has smashed the record for revenue earned from an oil and gas lease sale, bringing in $256 million in bonus payments at a public auction, New Mexico Commissioner of Public Lands Stephanie Garcia Richard announced today. It is the second auction the State Land Office has held since a new, 25% royalty rate for premium oil and gas leases Read More

Backup Power For White Rock Is In The Works

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COUNTY News:

With a mission to provide safe and reliable utility services, the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities (DPU) maintains a high standard that includes backup plans in case utility services go down. Even with the best laid plans, however, the unexpected can still throw a monkey wrench, and that is exactly what happened when a backup electric transformer suddenly expired at 3:10 a.m. on Friday, August 8.

A little history

White Rock has one electric substation with two transformers. The community’s entire load is normally provided through Transformer #2. In early August, however, Read More

County Update On Power Outage Knocking Out Electricity To 900+ Customers Today In White Rock

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The pole that held the cable that was snagged this morning was left leaning after power was restored to White Rock electric customers. Courtesy/LAC

DPU’s Electric Distribution crews followed up on power restoration by straightening the power pole. Courtesy/LAC

COUNTY News:

This morning’s, Aug. 14, power outage in White Rock knocked out electricity for more than 900 customers around 8:30 a.m. and was resolved an hour later.

The outage started when a delivery truck snagged a line on a power pole near Piñon School. While it was initially believed to be a power line that was snagged, Deputy Utility Read More

Fault Causes Early Morning Outage In Quemazon … Power Restored Around 7:40 A.M.

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COUNTY News:

An underground fault caused a power outage in the Quemazon neighborhood early this morning. The issue appears to have begun around 5 a.m., with some properties losing power as late as 7 a.m. today.

About 320 customers were without electricity while line crews from the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities (DPU) worked to restore power.

Full restoration was completed by around 7:40 a.m. today. Read More

NNSA Issues Finding Of No Significant Impact To Environment From LANL Transmission Line Upgrade Project

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LANL News:

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) announced its findings today that construction of the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) Electrical Power Capacity Upgrade Project (DOE/EA-2199) would yield no significant impact to the environment.

The transmission line installation project will cross lands managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) and the U.S. Forest Service, Santa Fe National Forest (SFNF).

The EA analyzed the construction and operation of a new 115 kilovolt (kV) power transmission line to upgrade LANL’s existing electrical infrastructure. Read More

LANL: New Approach Detects Adversarial Attacks In Multimodal AI Systems

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In this representation of the adversarial threat detection framework, vibrant filaments carry incoming text and image icons into a central node, while a faceted topological shield composed of glowing simplices deflects a dark, glitchy mass on the right. The composition emphasizes the contrast between clean data flows and adversarial interference. Credit/DALL-E by Manish Bhattarai

LANL News:

  • Topological signatures key to revealing attacks, identifying origins of threats

New vulnerabilities have emerged with the rapid advancement and adoption of multimodal foundational AI models, Read More

Transformer Failure Caused Morning Outage In White Rock

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COUNTY News:

A 1950s vintage electrical transformer failed at 3:20 a.m. today, Aug. 8, causing a power outage for the White Rock community.

Stephen Marez, deputy utility manager for the Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities (DPU), explained that there are two transformers in the White Rock electric substation.

The Unit 2 transformer is the primary one for the community’s daily electric load, while the Unit 1 transformer serves as a backup.

However, the White Rock electric load had been moved to Unit 1 in preparation for service work on Unit 2 when the failure occurred. The Unit 1 transformer Read More

Rep. Chris Chandler Emphasizes Need To Regulate AI During Two Day Meeting Of State Legislature’s Science, Technology & Telecommunications Committee Held In Los Alamos

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Dist. 43 Rep. Christine Chandler, left, leads a discussion on AI at the New Mexico State Legislature’s Science, Technology & Telecommunications Committee meeting Tuesday morning in Council Chambers at the Los Alamos County Municipal Building. Chandler emphasized that the legislature should take steps to regulate AI while not stifling its growth. ‘I think we should impose an obligation on developers to make sure the products they are marketing to other companies or individuals … kind of meet the good housekeeping seal of approval,’ Chandler said. Attending Tuesday’s meeting virtually, Read More

Tell DPU How You Really Feel About Electrification

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COUNTY News:

The Los Alamos Department of Public Utilities (DPU) wants to better understand community perspectives on electrification, or the gradual transition away from natural gas usage to electricity only.

An online survey on the topic was emailed to DPU’s utility customers today. The survey seeks feedback on DPU’s goal of achieving zero natural gas usage by 2070. A collaborative effort, the survey is being distributed by DPU while research and analysis is being conducted by the University of New Mexico (UNM) and New Mexico State University (NMSU).

Achieving the goal largely depends Read More

Council Approves New EV Chargers At Municipal Building

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Los Alamos County Department of Public Utilities Manager Philo Shelton, right, checks out one of the EV chargers in 2024 at the Municipal Building. Council unanimously approved to purchase and install three new EV chargers at the Municipal Building during its July 8 meeting. Courtesy/LAC

By KIRSTEN LASKEY
Los Alamos Daily Post
kirsten@ladailypost.com

Los Alamos County Council has approved purchasing and constructing new electric vehicle (EV) chargers; this approval is a bit of a milestone since the chargers are the first in the County’s EV expansion project to be installed.

The purchase Read More