Category: 2017

BY GAREN YEGPARIAN

Interestingly, two places with heavy Armenian populations, Yerevan and Glendale are the loci and foci of rising power generation debates.  Glendale’s timeline is one of several months while Yerevan’s is not clear cut, but further out.

The “Jewel City” wants to build a new, natural gas (methane, CH4) fired, electricity generating facility at its Grayson location.  The stated aim is to replace four smaller, old, gas plants that run on technology that is much less efficient and more polluting.  On the face of it, this seems to make a lot of sense.

But, as always, there’s more to the picture.  The new plant would significantly increase the city’s generating capacity to a level far beyond its projected electricity needs (almost 80% more by one estimate).  Plus the fuel used is one which is on its way out.  California law requires that by 2030, 50% of electricity be generated from renewable sources, meaning solar, wind, hydropower, etc.  A bill was proposed this year which would have raised that threshold to 100% by 2045.  While it didn’t pass in the legislature and get signed by the governor this time, no one doubts that it will be reintroduced and enacted into law in the very near future.  Hawaii already has set its 100% renewable target.

Where would the new status quo leave that brand–new, $500 million plant?  No one can say for sure.  Surely Glendale’s leadership is not clueless.  Why embark on such a path?  The underlying reason is the city’s finances.  Cash is badly needed and the significant excess electricity produced would be sold.  At least that’s what the unstated hope and intent seem to be.  “But, but, but…” you’re probably thinking, “who would buy electricity from a non-renewable source once that 100% renewable mandate is place?”  And, it gets worse.  California has done so well building renewable generating capacity that in recent months it has already been forced to give away electricity during days when lots of solar and wind power was generated, creating a glut of power.  In fact, on a few occasions, Californians even had to PAY other states to take the excess.  In case you’re not aware, Glendale is in California.

Add to all this that the new Grayson plant will be spewing greenhouse gas (carbon dioxide, CO2) and unavoidably some other pollutants.  So Glendalians will be socked twice, in the wallet and the lungs, while their neighbors in Burbank, Los Angeles, and Pasadena will bear the toxic burden with them.  And, in case that’s not enough “dirt” for you, the project site has a known, major, asbestos problem, plus several feet of soil will have to be removed in what is an EPA designated Superfund site (this is the type of place that is so polluted that tens or hundreds of millions of dollars must be spent to clean up)!

You can speak up against this by going to to make comments about the EIR (Environmental Impact Report) of the Grayson project.  The deadline to do so is 5:00 pm on November 3.

Meanwhile, Yerevan is considering building a new nuclear power plant to replace the aging (41-year old) Medzamor/Metzamor facility.  As it stands, restarting Medzamor after it was shut down during the Karabakh movement was tolerable only because of the absence of alternatives and the desperate need for power.  A new nuke, while probably better designed (the current one is like the Chernobyl plant that had its meltdown in 1986), would still be sitting atop the Armenian Highland’s many earthquake faults.  It would still make an appetizing bombing target for our genocidal eastern and western neighbors. It would take years to build. And, perhaps “best” of all, would run in excess of $5 billion!

Five billion dollars!  If we can get that kind of money, it would buy a lot of solar panels and/or windmills.  That would be a much better way to satisfy our homeland’s energy needs.  It would not be subject to earthquakes, meltdowns, or Turks.  Solar and wind generated electricity would be more distributed, reducing transmission losses.  An industry installing and maintaining them could burgeon.  While a long shot, perhaps local manufacturing of solar panels and or windmills might be created which could then engage in exporting their products to neighboring countries.

One figure I found online puts Medzamor’s annual output at 2,265 GW·h (gigawatt hours).  So I decided to do some math for comparison.  A 12 kW solar system, in Los Angeles, after the city’s Department of Water and Power rebate, costs $25,788.  Given labor cost differences, I think it is reasonable to assume that the same setup in the Republic of Armenia is not going to cost any more.  Assuming that only two hundred days per year are sunny, and only for six hours per day, then it would cost $4,056,237,500, i.e. just over four billion dollars to install as much solar electric generating capacity as the current nuclear power plant.  That’s only 80% of the replacement cost of the nuclear power plant, and remember, labor costs will be lower, meaning even more capacity could be installed.  In fairness, I should note that at least initially, getting solar panels to Armenia may be costly.

Once again, we must engage in heavy advocacy and lobbying work to drive policy makers in Yerevan towards the environmentally, technologically, and national-security-wise preferable electricity generating options.  Our homeland’s future depends on it. Get busy talking this up with your contacts in the Republic of Armenia, and while you’re at it, don’t forget Glendale’s potential boondoggle.

BONN, Germany (Deutsche Welle) – Germany’s CDU party has received donations from a state-run Azerbaijani company, a German media consortium reported. The affair again highlights links between conservative politicians and the Central Asian dictatorship.

A district chapter of Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Party (CDU) received €28,000 ($33,114) from the state-run Azerbaijani oil and gas company Socar in contravention of German rules on party donations, a consortium of public broadcasters NDR, WDR and daily Süddeutsche Zeitung reported.

The case again calls into question connections between certain conservative politicians and the South Caucasian republic, whose leader, President Ilham Aliyev, has been criticized by human rights organizations.

According to the report, two payments, one of €3,000 and one of €25,000, were deposited by Socar’s Germany-based branch on the account of the CDU’s district association in Frankfurt at the end of February 2012.

No fine for the CDU

The affair had caused a four-year-long legal dispute with the parliamentary administration authority behind the scenes, the report said, since German law prohibits parties from receiving donations from non-EU countries.

Although the district CDU branch accepted the donation without question, auditors at party headquarters in Berlin notified the Administration of the German Bundestag, which decided as early as autumn 2013 that the gift was not allowable under the law. The CDU then gave up the donation to be immediately impounded, the report said.

However, despite having broken the law, the party will not have to pay a fine, largely owing to a ruling made by an administrative court in April that self-denunciation in such cases can not only mitigate penalties, but even avert them altogether.

Mysterious links

The affair has raised several questions about links between the conservative CDU/CSU bloc and Azerbaijan, and what objectives the country could be pursuing with its donations.

The German CEO of Socar, Anders Egen Mamedov, was quoted by the paper as saying that the company’s contacts with political officials was taking place “against the background of the geopolitical importance of Azerbaijan and Socar,” including with regard to the pipeline network through seven countries that is currently under construction.

The massive gas pipeline project was chosen over the Nabucco-West pipeline in 2013 with the support of the then EU commissioner for energy, the German CDU politician Günther Oettinger.

Mamedov said Socar also made donations to sports and cultural associations in Germany. He declined to give details or speak about possible donations to other German of European parties to the paper.

Lobbying activities

The Süddeutsche also pointed to CDU parliamentarian Karin Strenz, who according to the paper did not disclose her work for an Azerbaijan-financed lobbying firm within three months as asked. The company is owned by former CSU politician Eduard Lintner, who has been doing lobbying work for Azerbaijan since 2009.

In another possible indication of her sympathies with the authoritarian country, in June 2015 Strenz voted against a resolution by the Council of Europe to call on Azerbaijan to release its political prisoners — the only German MP to do so, according to an earlier report in the paper.

Azerbaijan was described in a resolution by the European Parliament in September 2015 as “having suffered the greatest decline in democratic governance in all of Eurasia over the past 10 years.”

WASHINGTON ­– On Wednesday, U.S. Senators John McCain (R-AZ), Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Bob Menendez (D-NJ), member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, led a bipartisan letter to President Trump today calling on the administration to urge Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan to stop harassing American diplomats, to respect human rights, and to uphold democratic values in Turkey.

Citing several recent actions including the arbitrary arrest of several U.S. Consulate employees in Istanbul, the detention of top Amnesty International officials, the sentencing by a Turkish court of Wall Street Journal reporter Ayla Albayrak, and the brutal attack by Turkish security personnel of peaceful demonstrators protesting Erdogan’s visit to Washington, D.C., the senators urged President Trump to demand the Erdogan government respect human rights and the rule of law.

“Erdogan and his allies have corroded Turkey’s democracy by mounting an assault on the rule of law, using sweeping state of emergency authorities to stifle fundamental rights including free speech, undermining the independence of the judiciary, and quashing any expressions of opposition,” wrote the senators. “We urge you to send a clear message to President Erdogan that the United States will not tolerate this type of behavior and that any cooperation must be based on a shared commitment to human rights and rule of law.”

The letter was co-signed by Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD), John Boozman (R-AR), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Marco Rubio (R-FL), Richard Durbin (D-IL), John Cornyn (R-TX), Chris Coons (D-DE), Martin Heinrich (R-NM), Edward Markey (D-MA), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), and Bernard Sanders (I-VT).

The letter could be read here.

NEW YORK—A group of Diaspora Armenian artists, scholars, and writers issued a statement calling on the Armenian authorities to adopt the law on domestic violence proposed by the Armenia’s Ministry of Justice.

The more than 50 signatories include artist and activist Serj Tankian, actor and playwright Eric Bogosian, novelists Chris Bohjalian, Micheline Aharonian Marcom, and Nancy Kricorian, artist and author Vahe Berberian, photographer Scout Tufankjian, and journalist David Barsamian.

Below is the statement and the list of signatories.

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We, a group of Diaspora Armenian writers, artists, and scholars, urge the adoption, in a timely manner, of the law proposed by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Armenia “On the Prevention of Domestic Violence and the Protection of Victims of Domestic Violence.”

Nancy Agabian, New York

Micheline Aharonian Marcom, California

Nora Armani, New York

Maria Armoudian, Auckland, New Zealand

Anna Astvatsaturian-Turcotte, Maine

Talin Avakian, New York

Stephanie Ayanian, Pennsylvania

Vicken Babkenian, Sydney, Australia

David Barsamian, Colorado

Vahe Berberian, California

Eric Bogosian, New York

Chris Bohjalian, Vermont

Talar Chahinian, California

Ara Dabandjian, California

Veken Gueyikian, New York

Elke Hartmann, Berlin, Germany

Kim Hekimian, New York

Chris Janigian, Rhode Island

Tamar Kaprelian, New York

Matthew Karanian, California

Suzanne Khardalian, Stockholm, Sweden

Mary Kouyoumdjian, New York

Nancy Kricorian, New York

Marc Mamigonian, Massachusetts

Lalai Manjikian, Montreal, Canada

Jennifer Manoukian, California

Christina Maranci, Massachusetts

Bared Maronian, Florida

Armen T. Marsoobian, Connecticut

Marian Mesrobian MacCurdy, Massachusetts

Sato Moughalian, New York

Khatchig Mouradian, New York

Eric Nazarian, California

Sibil Pektorosoglu, Istanbul, Turkey

Kariné Poghosyan, New York

Carolyn Rapkievian, Maryland

Elyse Semerdjian, Washington

Hovann Simonian, Lausanne, Switzerland

Jason Sohigian, Massachusetts

Anoush Fraser Terjanian, New York

Vahé Tachjian, Berlin, Germany

Serj Tankian, Calif.

Scout Tufankjian, New York

Henry Theriault, Massachusetts

Hrag Vartanian, New York

Nicole Vartanian, New York

Sarah-Leah Whitson, New York