The background:

The whole peaker plan is being pushed on the city by Cal-ISO, the board of former utility execs that run the state’s energy grid. The PUC and Cal-ISO have gone back and forth about whether or not other measures – like the 400 megawatt Trans Bay Cable and the CCA plan for 350 megawatts of renewables and efficiency measures – will obviate the need for the peakers. Cal-ISO says no. Others say the PUC is framing the question all wrong and the city needs to get the state to accept a new, more environmentally friendly Energy Action Plan. Chris Daly thinks Sacramento shouldn’t be calling the shots and what we really need to do is unify and rally against out-of-towners deciding the city’s energy future.

The data:

There are still some questions about the science. Back in October, a rep from the local air district testified to the PUC that the new peakers, if run at capacity, would pollute more than Mirant pollutes now, and that most of the pollution comes from the three diesel units there. (You can see his PDFs here.) I’m still trying to tease out hard numbers on that one, but I did get actual data from Cal-ISO on how much Mirant ran last year. (See page two of this PDF.) The proposed peakers are licensed to run 12,000 hours (3,000 hours per unit) and the PUC contends the numbers break down like so:

So if the Mayor and Co. are really so hyped up about air pollution they’d do well to encourage more public transportation and much less driving -- and they should reconsider their plan for another highway into the Bayview. (There have been suggestions that closing Mirant is really about opening up a new chunk of real estate for development. See $2 million handshake above.)

Then you gotta wonder what would happen if Al Gore’s right and sea level booms. Even if we got a one-meter rise, the effects of which the Bay Conservation and Development Commission estimates here, both power plants (to be sited on the waterfront, atop Bay fill) could end up underwater. Of course, if that happens we’re going to have lots of other assets to worry about, but still, as a BCDC employee said to me last week, city planners thinking about where to put things “should, at this point, be addressing sea level rise” when it comes to CEQA and drafting Environmental Impact Reports. Power plants greater than 50 megawatts get their CEQA approval from the California Energy Commission, which prepared an EIR substitute for the city peaker. I wasn’t able to find the words “sea level rise” anywhere in their final report.

The Govt. Audit and Oversight Committee will be hearing legislation on the peakers next Monday, May 5, as a precursor to the entire Board approving a contract to move forward, shelving the plan, or exploring more options -- all of which I laid out in a story last week.

In the meantime, the anti crowd, lead by Brightline Defense, has announced a City Hall rally for 9 am next Monday and penned a letter to the Mayor.

LEADING ENVIRONMENTAL ORGANIZATIONS CALL FOR SAN FRANCISCO TO REJECT PROPOSED NEW POWER PLANTS

On May 5, 2008 The San Francisco Board Of Supervisors Will Consider A $250 Million Contract To Build
New Power Plants In Its Bayview-Hunters Point and Potrero Neighborhoods

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif., April 28, 2008 -- Today sixteen leading environmental and public interest organizations, ranging in scope from national to neighborhood-specific, announced their opposition to proposed new combustion turbine power plants in Southeast San Francisco.

Leading the call for San Francisco to turn the page on dependency on fossil fuel generation and commit to a renewable energy future are the Sierra Club, the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, Van Jones and Green for All, Environmental Defense Fund, and the Center on Race, Poverty & the Environment, joining Bayview-Hunters Point groups Greenaction, Huntersview Mothers Committee for Health and Environmental Justice and others.

Four new power plants were proposed in 2004 as replacements for San Francisco's aging Potrero Power Plant, though state regulators now concede that some or all of the marginally cleaner new power plants are no longer required to secure approval of closure of the old power plant.

Today's letter urges Mayor Gavin Newsom and the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to go one step further to "abandon [San Francisco's] plan to build new fossil fuel-burning power plants amongst its environmental justice communities" and create "a truly revolutionary plan for a renewable energy future for San Francisco and the planet."

Response to the press release from Joe Boss, public power advocate and member of Peaker task force:

We need to support the SFPUC's CT project.
I understand that Brightline defense is working closely with PG&E through
the Close-it Coalition, whose goal is to keep the City out of the
Electricity business. What I don't understand is how and organization that
has an attorney as it's Executive could so blatantly incorrectly assert
that ".state regulators now concede that some or all of the marginally
cleaner new power plants are no longer required to secure approval of
closure of the old power plant." I believe it would be proper for Brightline
to explain to those groups who signed a well intended letter, that the only
way to shut down the Mirant Potrero Power Plant before it undergoes a
retrofit to replace the Bay water cooling with a very polluting cooling
tower configuration, is to install the very scalable and clean CT's.

Those are the facts. False assertions and conjectures will lead to the
continued operation of the very expensive Mirant plant. And most importantly
will rob the City and its citizens the promise of making solar, wind and
tidal power reliable.

Brightline fires back:

Dear Mr. Boss:

Let me first clarify: Brightline Defense Project is in no way affiliated with Closeit Coalition or PG&E.

Second, Cal-ISO committed as far back as October 8, 2007 that "The Trans Bay Cable project will eliminate at least some of the need for local generation," and even dispelled the long-held misunderstanding that San Francisco needs "in-city generation" to replace the Potrero Plant, referencing generation "not necessarily in the city limits of San Francisco but electrically connected within the same constrained load pocket." (Source: Engineering News-Record, "S. F. Extension Cable Will Unplug Powerplant," http://enr.construction.com/news/powerIndus/archives/071008a.asp)

This is important because Cal-ISO is offering its opinion that, as a starting point, the City can build less generation, outside of its environmental justice communities of Bayview-Hunters Point and Potrero. That position has since been confirmed in follow-up communications with Gregg Fishman of Cal-ISO and Nancy Saracino, Cal-ISO general counsel.

The organizations that signed yesterday's letter have not only researched the power plant issue independently, but collectively engaged in the drafting of a unified message that urges the City to go one step further than Cal-ISO's offer to let the City build less peakers: tell Cal-ISO we're building no peakers.

With the 400 megawatt Trans Bay Cable and a reasonable investment in distributed generation, renewable resources, demand response, and energy efficiency we have the opportunity to close the Potrero Plant, table the CT power plant proposal, and truly commit to a renewable energy future for San Francisco. In fact, you probably recall discussions amongst the Potrero Power Plant Task Force that either the Trans Bay Cable or the new power plants were required to replace Potrero, but not both .

Your suggestion that not building new power plants in Southeast San Francisco "will rob the City and its citizens [of] the promise of making solar, wind and tidal power reliable" is misguided. By abandoning the fossil fuel-burning combustion turbine (CT) power plant proposal the City saves approximately $60 million during a time when we're facing a $335 million budget shortfall, the ratepayers and taxpayers of California are spared approximately $180 million, and the City's CTs can be sold for $60 million.

The City is therefore able to spend $60 million earned from the sale of the CTs and can further commit as much of the $60 million budget savings as it sees fit to the very resources you mention, finally putting San Francisco on the path to becoming the greenest City in the country. Unfortunately, the power plants that you advocate in your email are not the answer.

I encourage you to reconsider your support for the unnecessary fossil-fuel burning CT power plants when the Potrero Power Plant Task Force meets this Thursday.

Joshua Arce, Executive Director
Brightline Defense Project

Local Green chimes in:

I would also add to the analysis below, that since the Dept. of Water Resources purchase guarantee will only extend to 2015, San Francisco rate payers and tax payers will be on the hook long afterward for ten of millions -more- dollars to pay off the full cost of the proposed CT project; tens of millions that could instead be spent on renewables and efficiency.

Seen in this context Mr. Boss, your assertion that building a fossil fuel plant to promote renewable energy, becomes even more absurd than it already is on its face.

I seem to remember an officer during the Vietnam occupation saying that we needed to burn a village to save it. Your comments fit well into that category of logic.

Please join us in the 21st century.

Eric Brooks
San Francisco Green Party, Sustainability Working Group