Area this week. Wee startudded interview. But first, the pain at the pump is not going away. Even though the minor even though the bay area saw minor dips this week, according to tripoli, San Francisco is at 6. 13, oakland six dollars and one cent. Knowing how Consumer Prices are a driving issue for voters with the midterms in three weeks, today President Biden ordered the release and sale of another 15 Million Barrels of oil from the u. S. Strategic reserve. Its not politically motivated at all. Its motivated to make sure that i continue to push on what ive been pushing on. That is making sure theres enough oil being pumped by the companies so that we have the ability to be able to produce enough gas that we need here at home, oil we need here at home. Kristen joining us live now to discuss administrations latest move and the Ongoing Energy predicament is assistant professor of economics at uc davis, mark edgerton. Thanks for joining us. Great to be here. Kristen really quickly, as we get started, what is the Strategic Oil reserve . Why do we have it . That was formed in the 1970s, in response to the europe oil embargo when the arab nations cut off the u. S. From oil supplies. That led to really High Oil Prices and lines of gasoline kinds that that led to really High Oil Prices and lines at gasoline stations. So the u. S. Started stockpiling crude oil along with other major economies. The idea has been that we have a big stockpile to buffer us against either highpriced trucks or other supply disruptions. Reggie kristen we certainly have a shock right now. 15 Million Barrels is what we are talking about today. How much is that, in the grand scheme of things . How much does america use in one day . America uses about 20 millions of oil per day. Globally, we was around 100 millions of oil per day. Kristen so it is a drop in a bucket. It is not a drop in a bucket, it is half a percent of global rules apply in december. That will change prices some globally but its not going to cut oil prices and half or anything like that. Kristen the question is, how much and how quickly will that translate into something tangible . This is actually part of an ongoing series of releases from the Strategic Petroleum reserve thats been happening since the spring. The u. S. Treasury estimates this has caused gasoline prices to go down anywhere from 13 to . 40 or so . 13 to . 40 or so. Certainly helps. Kristen americans are certainly feeling the pinch. Lets look at how much prices have soared in the past year. We have some numbers appear to show our viewers the National Average today, 3. 85, a year ago, 3. 34, california, 5. 94 today, a year ago, only 4. 41. That is about a 15 increase nationwide. A 31 increase here in california. Explain to us why that is. The factors that caused the spike. Two big things have gone on. Coming out of covid, Global Supply of oil did not keep up with global demand. That led to Higher Oil Prices throughout the year. We also have the russian invasion in ukraine. Which injected uncertainty. Here in california this fall, weve had a unique set of circumstances where refineries in california went on maintenance or unexpected maintenance and reduced our ability to manufacture gasoline in california. Thats caused california gasoline prices to get even higher even faster than he was gasoline prices. Kristen can you talk about the impact of International Events . Opec opec nations are holding back even more despite president right and having gone and met with Saudi Arabian officials. Theres a couple of ways to look at this, it is an economic argument. They see recession coming and they dont want to be producing a ton of oil and having low oil prices in the coming years. Their government depends on having high old prices in order to fund their budgets. So they dont want to see Oil Prices Get low. The other way you could look at that think about this, potentially a geopolitical realignment, with all the calculus going on, opecs not something that i can speak to. Kristen theres a little bit of a geopolitical world nations going on here. Certainly part of that. You mentioned President Bidens move here with the 15 Million Barrels. Maybe that wont make a big difference in itself. A little difference. But is the messaging still impactful . Prompting other players to have other levers to pull to take some sort of action that would help . The president and the government are kind of in a bind. Theres not a lot you can do in a very short run, short of releasing this oil from the Strategic Petroleum reserve, to decrease oil prices and decrease gasoline prices. These are really determined by market forces. By longterm investments, paid off over decades. So theres not a ton you can do, short of doing Something Like a gas tax holiday or a Strategic Petroleum reserve release to lower prices overnight. The president is in a bit of a bind, if he wants to lower gasoline prices in the coming months. Kristen the Strategic Oil reserve, how much has it been drawn down already this past year under the administration . In california, we look at our water reservoirs, at some point you worry because it is too low i wonder if the reserve is at that point right now, or we are still fine. Sure, the Strategic Petroleum reserve, when biden came into office in january of 2020 was 638 Million Barrels of oil. Earlier this month, it was at 408 Million Barrels of oil. Which was i think the same as it was in the late 80s. This is way more than 90 days of net oil imports. That are required by law. The u. S. Is actually a Net Oil Exporter now. This is a whole lot of oil relative to what the country needs to get from the rest of the world. Kristen ok. Certainly drawing down the Strategic Petroleum reserve reduces our ability to respond to future shocks. But you can also look at this as a way for the u. S. To kind of help buffer all of us against really high will price really high will prices. With the administration is doing is it bought low and is now selling it at high prices. That would be what you would once. Kristen can you talk about how the situation may be moving us in terms of our goal of moving away from crude oil . Yeah, so, we are in a little bit of a sticky, awkward situation here. On the one hand in the short run, we need to have higher oil supplies to lower energy prices, but in the long run we are trying to shift away from fossil fuels. There is certainly a bit of tension here in these two very different goals. In the short run, you want producers to produce more but in the long run you are trying to phase out. So theres certainly a bit of awkwardness in terms of the goals the administration has. Kristen no doubt. So i guess the question as, how can we solve this problem is, how can we solve this problem long term, and hopefully quickly . Yeah, quickly, you know, youve got two big forces here, as youve said, the Energy Transition and this Energy Security question. And they need to kind of have stable prices, so people can make decisions. The u. S. Is doing what it can. Its got this inventory of petroleum. It is releasing that. But theres not a ton of really shortterm fixes. Kristen before i let you go, what do you foresee in the near future . This week prices came down a little. Do you see any other reason why it would go back up again, or do you think we are going on a downward trend now . What we are seeing is refinery capacity is coming back online in california, helping lower gasoline prices. Theres uncertainty about what oil prices will do internationally. So thats going to depend on what the opec cuts to relative to the degree to which the company goes into the country goes into recession. Kristen mark agerton, thank you so much for coming on the show and talking to us. Coming up next could canada pave the way for a solution to one of San Franciscos persistent whats it like having xfinity internet with supersonic wifi . Its fast. Like beyondgigspeed fast. Yeaaaaaaaaay with three times the bandwidth, and the power to connect hundreds of devices at once. Get the xfinity supersonic bundle with unlimited gig speed internet, wifi equipment included and a free 4k streaming box. All for 50 a month with a 2 year internet rate guarantee and no annual contract when you add Xfinity Mobile with unlimited data. Switch today kristen welcome back. Abc7 is committed to building about every area. We want to look at idea that may be a solution to one of San Franciscos biggest challenges. The idea to convert empty Downtown Office buildgsnt afrdable houng n ite don thereownsid would it really help solve the homeless problem . Joining us is noah arroyo, with the San Francisco chronicle. Exploring solutions to the citys problem. You were an article up about this. Politicians have really picked up the idea to try to run with it recently, right . Yeah, its been floating around since the beginning of the pandemic. Its an idea that will not die. Even though developers across the city are going to be very quick to say that this is too expensive to do here. Kristen what does it take exactly to convert a large usually Tall Building built for office use into smaller units that people can actually live in . It takes a lot of money. It takes a lot of money on planning and logistics and planning and logistics. Because of San Franciscos high cost of construction, this is one of the reasons we are not seeing it happening here. We decided to look at another city, calgary, in alberta, seeing what they are doing. They came up with a whole project, a whole initiative, 10 years, 1 billion, canadian dollars, to make this happen. Part of that was Funding Office conversions into housing. That is potentially what it could take. Kristen i think we have a photo that you shared with us, some renderings of what you are talking about, the project in calgary. As we show that, walk us through the scope of it what they have managed to complete. May be even walk us through the lessons we can draw from. The project is still underway. It is in the early stages, if im not mistaken, of actual construction. The planning has been very fast, very effective. In no small part because of the governments involving in calgary, canada. They did many things like reading a task force that would help the developer figure out how you jump through bureaucratic hurdles. Very difficult to jump through when you are changing a building used from congregate Office Settings to individual housing, apartments, 23 bedrooms that families could live in. Construction is just getting started. They are hoping to finish by the end of 2023. When they are done if everything goes to plan, than they are going to have balconies outside then they are going to have balconies outside. They will replace the entire exterior of the building. It will be a totally new housing development. Kristen lets say San Francisco could be quicker about cutting the red tape, the approval process, getting it done what about just developers, convincing them . Because each building is owned by somebody, its not like the city can just say, lets do this. They are resistant because of the high cost of conversions here, right . Absolutely. The way the market is now, it looks like it would take government intervention. What type of intervention, and at one point what point in the process . What is happening in calgary as the government is throwing money into these conversion projects. They are subsidizing them. Before they did that, the projects were not penciling out. Now, the projects are penciling out. So you have five that have been approved and that are going to be finished. In San Francisco, what we could consider potentially this is all for consideration is helping the Developers Get these projects are cancel out my contributing money. That is going to be a very politically charged conversation. Its going to be difficult to have. The question is whether the electorate and elected officials have the stomach for that. That could change things here and make projects pencil out. Kristen there is another question of a vibrant city with generally an equilibrium of people and businesses. If we tilt the balance toward housing and fewer job centers, what might be the unintended consequences . As the government was clear to point out to me in my reporting, there are very few places in the city where you can have office buildings. Where you have land that can be used for u for office buildings. It is concentrated downtown. If you take a building with office use and you change the used to housing, there is no converting it back. You could potentially lose the revenue that could come with having those buildings full of businesses. Its a difficult decision they are going to have to make. Lets say you do nothing. Our downtown area is full of buildings that are largely empty. I think the most recent metrics was somebody in the neighborhood of 40 occupancy. Thats not to say they are not leased out. But right now, for many months during the pandemic, because the area has been so vacated, all you have to do is walk around and you will see businesses are closed down, very little foot traffic. If that continues, what you see years on the line is a drop in real estate values. If that happens, it is a drop in tax revenue. Which means city halls budget is going to have to shrink. That affects Public Services to everybody. The reason we looked to calgary is because that situation, that hypothetical looking scary in the horizon, that is the same situation calgary found themselves with. Their response was, we are going to lose revenue anyway. So we either deal with the situation here, that the status quo will be maintained, or spend money on a longterm solution that changes the fabric of our downtown area and makes it less about business community. Kristen the economy goes in cycles. Lots of considerations. Thank you so much for coming on today. I encourage folks to check out your article in the chronicle. Thanks for having me. Kristen coming up next bay area stargazers, get ready, keep your eye on the sky later this week. We will have a preview vo a Medicare Advantage plan should come with all the benefits you want and zero compromises. With Anthem Blue Cross, it can. Just go to anthem. Com answers or call 8337974179 for a free oneonone medicare plan review. Ask about our zero dollar monthly premium plans that include dental, vision and hearing coverage along with transportation, a gym membership and zero dollar copay for prescriptions all for zero extra cost. Plus, you could be eligible for extra benefits to help you save even more. We have plans with up to twentythree hundred dollars a year to help you pay for over the Counter Health items, groceries, and Living Expenses like cell phone, electric or water bills. All on a single prepaid mastercard you can use at thousands of locations nationwide. Call Anthem Blue Cross at 8337974179 or visit anthem. Com answers and get a medicare plan with zero compromises for you and your wallet. This is your lucky day and the week. Two wonderful things to tell you about a meteor shower in the bay area this friday and amazing, breathtaking, unbelievable new images from Nasas James Webb space telescope. Joining us live to share some truly astronomical news is andrew f. Professor of astronomy at the university of San Francisco. Great to see you, andrew. Nice to be with you. Kristen lets start with the mindboggling new image from the james Webb Telescope launched last december. Its already sent back some gifs, and now this one. Show the picture and tell us what we are looking at. This is a wonderful image of a star nursery. A place where the raw material of the universe is being converted into stars and planets. Because this telescope sees not visible light but heat rays, heat rays penetrate the dust and dirt in these stellar nurseries answer was more and show us more red areas where baby stars are being born right now. We are seeing many more dots, many more stars on this picture, because the james Webb Telescope can look through dots and penetrate some of the smog of space and show amazing details in this region, where new stars are turning on. Kristen that is just amazing. So the gas and the dust is a sheer curtain, we got to see these new stars being created. Wow. Is that why they are called pillars of creation . Exactly. This is an area called the eagle nebula. We are seeing only a tiny part of the inside. Where this raw material is now being converted into planets and stars. Who knows of those planets may have television listeners. Kristen how far away is that area, by the way, from us . It is about 7000 lightyears away. Which means light would take 7000 years to get to us. We are seeing it as it was 7000 years ago, but that is like no time at all for the universe. Kristen wow, thats amazing. How does seeing this what does seeing this help scientists understand . We know the universe is not finished. That there is a great deal of creation going on right now, all around the milky way galaxy, our home in the larger sense. And we have always wanted to know how we came about, what exactly led to our planets being the way they are, the earth being habitable, by seeing other planets in the process of being created, other suns, we fill in the story of our own origin. Kristen all right. Also very exciting. I want to shift gears here a meteor shower that we see annually related to haleys comment will peak this week, tell us all about it. Comets is like they are the character pig pen in peanuts, they shut a lot of dirt behind them as they go through the solar system. And every year, we intersect the swarm of dirt left behind by halleys comet, that comes every 76 years, but we encounter its dirt stream every year. This is the time to do it. October 21. Friday morning will be the best time. But anytime in the next few days, if you happen to be in a dark location, take some time, let your eyes get adopted to the dark, look around the sky, and you are more likely than usual to see shooting stars. That is what is happening when the dirt burns up in the earths atmosphere. You can see the light from its representation its vaporization. Kristen so amazing that one,s garbage is our Beautiful Beauty comets garbage is our Beautiful Beauty that we feast our eyes on. Theres another comet shutting dirt around the same time, that is why this last week of october is a good time to look up. We wont be able to see it from San Francisco probably where the lights are too bright. You really need to be in a dark location and be patient. Something will have trouble being. You have to wait for the streaks to appear. There may only be 10 or 20 an hour. But if you take someone with you, with whom you like to be in the dark, you can enjoy some time looking up. Kristen that is a wonderful idea. I also suggest lawn chairs, blankets, hot chocolate, hows that . Those are my recommendations as well, dress warm for the night and be democratic, look all around the sky. It could happen anywhere in the sky. You want to be as able to look around. Use binoculars or telescopes using binoculars or telescopes will restrict your view. Kristen im getting all choked up because of this. My goodness. You said friday morning. But is there an optimal window . Friday after midnight is probably the best time. But its not that kind of thing, not like an eclipse which only happens for a few minutes. This is a large storm. You can see it thursday or saturday, sunday, next week. The thickest part of the swarm is friday after midnight. For most people, that is workday, that is friday morning after midnight thursday. If you want to wait until the weekend, your chances are pretty good at seeing a shooting star then. Kristen i love it. Thank you so much, andrew f. Always great talking with you and learning from you. You can get our live newscast, breaking news, weather and more with our abc7 bay area streaming app, available on apple tv, google tv, amazon fire tv, and roku. Just search abc 7 bay area and download i life is expensive. So why is omar snoozing like a baby . Because he made the smart choice to shop with ikea, with new benefits for ikea family members, including 5 off all eligible purchases instore. Every visit. Every day. Kristen thank you for joining us on getting answers today. We will be here every weekday at tonight, the breaking headline from President Biden. Major news on gas prices, and on your taxes tonight. Is there unexpected relief coming because of inflation . The tax adjustment now coming. And more than 70 million americans under freeze and frost warnings tonight, from the northeast right down here to florida. Tonight, the accidents on a major interstate. The visibility so poor, the Chain Reaction crashes turning dead deadly. Concerns tonight over crops. And the record lows already set here in florida. Rob marciano tracking it all. Tonight, that news on gas prices. President biden and his new plan to help lower prices at the releasing another 15 Million Barrels of oil from the