January 7, 2003

SAN FRANCISCO CITY officials are hailing as a great victory the deal with Williams Energy, under which the city gets, free and clear, title to four small natural gas-fired power plants. The plants, known as "peakers" because they would be used only during periods of heavy electricity demand, are far cleaner than the pollution-spewing behemoths at Potrero Hill and in Bayview-Hunters Point. Adding them to the city's energy mix could make it possible to shut down the Hunters Point plant and halt the expansion of the Potrero plant.

The new peaker plants could also move the city one step closer to energy independence and public power.

However, there's a catch – a critical catch that could cause the whole plan to fall apart. The plants have to go somewhere – and already, city officials are talking about putting them in Bayview-Hunters Point, the neighborhood that has been forced to take the brunt of the city's toxic waste and polluting industry and sewage discharges for many, many, years. Activists in the southeast part of town are already furious about the idea, and for good reason. Why should the people who have suffered the noxious fumes from Pacific Gas and Electric Co. and Mirant Corp. power plants get stuck with all the new plants, too?

Granted, the new generators are far smaller than the Hunters Point plant and spew considerably lower levels of disease-causing particles and toxic gases into the air. And the available options for placing the plants are somewhat limited: they all have to go fairly near an existing high-voltage power line, and the only lines that currently run through the city are on the east side of town. So it's not practical (appealing as it might be) to try to put one of the peaker plants in Pacific Heights, and it would be very expensive to run a new line out to, say, the area near the zoo.

Still, as a matter of basic fairness, the Board of Supervisors should adopt a clear and simple policy for the new plants: the new generators don't fire up until the PG&E plant is scheduled for immediate shutdown – and none of them go in Bayview-Hunters Point. (As Bradley Angel suggests in an opinion on this page, the entire project should also be evaluated as part of a larger energy-conservation and alternative energy strategy for San Francisco. It should also be part of a comprehensive plan to get rid of PG&E and create a real full-scale public power authority in the city.)

There are a number of potential sites on the east side of town that might make sense for the new plants. The city's energy czar, Ed Smeloff, has already proposed building a cogeneration plant as part of the new Mission Bay project; maybe one or two of the peakers could also go there. One could certainly go downtown, near the existing PG&E substation at First and Folsom, and another near the Eighth and Mission substation. There are plenty of other potential sites to look at. The plants aren't very big; they're essentially the same as jet engine turbines. So they could easily fit in the basement of a building, or on a small lot, and they don't require copious amounts of cooling water. It might be possible to put one at the airport, or near PG&E's Martin substation in Daly City (although that also has environmental-justice problems.)

Before any of the plants are sited, the city needs to do an extensive environmental review – even "clean" fossil-fuel plants emit some forms of pollution. And the goal of the entire project should be to provide a transitional energy source that can replace the filthy Hunters Point and Potrero Hill plants until the city can generate enough renewable energy to meet all of its needs. It may turn out that these four little generators can be a huge first step in transforming the city's energy system from one based on dirty private power to one based on clean, sustainable public power. But any move to dump all the plants in the southeast would be an environmental and political disaster.