Three missing letters in the Chron's peaker editorialThe San Francisco Chronicle came out today against the plan to build three combustion turbines, known as "peaker" plans, at the foot of Potrero Hill.
But while the editorial quoted both sides in what I agree is a complicated issue, the editors ignored one of the most alient points: The campaign agains the peakers is being funded largely by the Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
Three missing letters, people: PG&E.
PG&E is underwriting the "Close It Coalition," which sounds like a group aiming to close an existing power plant. The problem, peaker proponents say, is that the Mirant power plant that's now pumping carbon and particulates into the air can't be closed down unless the power it produces is replaced, locally. That's what the state regulators are mandating That means significant new generation within city limits. And it means generating capacity that can run at night, when solar panels aren't firing.
PG&E doesn't want the peakers (which would produce about a third less pollution than the Mirant plant does) because they would be owned by the city; that's a step toward public power. The utility isn't worried about pollution or green power; this is a company that owns a nuclear power plant (on an earthquake fault). It's a company that is building its own fossil-fuel plants up and down the state.
No: for the major funder of the no-peakers effort, this is about preserving a power monopoly. Beginning and end of story.
I am dubious about the peakers, too. It's hard to support new fossil-fuel plants in San Francisco. But when you look at who's behind the anti-peaker campaign, the story gets a lot more complicated.
You wouldn't know that from reading the Chron's editorial.
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Comments (6)
The anti Peakers campaign is being 'funded' by the blood and sweat of 20 legitimate environmental and social justice groups that haven't got a god damned thing to do with PG&E.
Below are the groups and individuals that have joined in coalition to oppose the peakers. Many of them have been fighting this inane plant for several years, all while PG&E barges in like a bull in a china shop, with a high cost glossy mailer side show once in a while. Just because PG&E spends a bunch of money on stupid counterproductive nonsense like this every couple of years doesn't mean it is running anything. In fact, those of us doing the -honest- job of fighting the peaker plants have told PG&E to to stay the hell away from us.
Here are the supporters of the real campaign to stop the plants.
Sierra Club
Ella Baker Center For Human Rights
Greenaction For Health And Environmental Justice
SPUR (San Francisco Planning And Urban Research)
Global Exchange
Green For All
Environmental Defense
The San Francisco Green Party
The San Francisco Bayview Newspaper
Huntersview Mothers Committee For Health And
Environmental Justice
Women’s Energy Matters
Latino Issues Forum
Center On Race, Poverty And The Environment
Greenwood Earth Alliance
Environmental Justice Air Quality Coalition
Defend Bayview-Hunters Point
Idriss Stelley Foundation
San Francisco Green Party Sustainability Working Group
Our City
Brightline Defense Project
Maurice Campbell
Dr. Ahimsa Porter Sumchai
Espanola Jackson
Patrick Monk, RN
Posted by Eric Brooks | May 13, 2008 12:16 AM
Eric,
SPUR has nothing to do with PG&E? Really? Really?
Also, who's paying Brightline Defense Project's legal bills?
Let's see, they've been filing suit as a representative of ... ... whom? The SF Chapter of the A. Philip Randolph Institute, yes? The same nonprofit org that receives tens of thousands of dollars a year from ... ... PG&E.
Here's some detail on that relationship:
http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/2007/10/pge_dropping_the_dime.html
The connections are closer than you like to admit.
Posted by factcheck | May 13, 2008 09:38 AM
Factcheck,
Our peaker plant lawsuit, which was dismissed in March, had 4 representative plaintiffs. And no one paid our legal bills--we provide pro bono legal services on a variety of issues including excessive force, housing discrimination, and employment discrimination.
As our first serious foray into environmental justice the peaker power plant issue has been a crash course on all aspects of policy and politics in San Francisco. At some point this admittedly complicated issue must become a serious policy discussion, and I think it finally has.
The continued debate about PG&E's interest or attempts to influence the City's ultimate decision distracts from what truly has been the most important catalyst for turning the City around on this issue: the hundreds of hours of work that the groups mentioned by Eric above have done and are doing so that we can all win and possibly create a power plant-free Southeast San Francisco.
Joshua Arce
Brightline Defense Project
Posted by Joshua Arce | May 13, 2008 10:41 AM
PG&E Is Neither Funding, Nor Connected With, The Anti Peaker Coalition That SPUR Very Recently Joined With.
If SPUR has a connection to PG&E, I am unaware of it. Even if it does, the numerous groups which many years ago laid the foundation for, and comprise, this coalition are -not- connected with PG&E - in fact a great many of us despise PG&E and are actively working to kick PG&E out of the City. Therefore our effort is unequivocally not a PG&E effort, and your strident attempts to paint it as one are both cynical and questionable.
Also see Joshua Arce's response from Brightline Defense Project.
Fact Checker, you need to get your facts straight before you publish them.
cheers
Eric
Posted by Eric Brooks | May 13, 2008 12:00 PM
joshua,
thanks for the info - it is somewhat helpful, but it doesn't refute your client APRI's close relationship to PG&E.
on the matter of the peakers, i'll just wait over here.
when you and your colleagues are ready to seriously discuss the ENGINEERING policy that is requiring reliable power generation inside the city limits, and not just the political maneuvering, i will be happy to debate.
otherwise, you are simply spinning your wheels while the biggest polluting power plant in the city continues to poison our neighborhood.
Posted by factcheck | May 13, 2008 12:02 PM
APRI Not In Anti-Plant Coalition
Again, get your facts straight. Those of us who formed the coalition to stop the peakers knew full well that APRI was compromised by considerable PG&E funding and that is precisely why you will not find APRI on our coalition list. We purposely did not invite APRI into the coalition. Period.
And we only invited Brightline Defense Project into the coalition once APRI was no longer Brightline's client and once it also became clear to us that Brightline knew nothing of APRI's previous PG&E funding and further, had not received any funding from PG&E itself.
Eric Brooks
Posted by Eric Brooks | May 13, 2008 01:23 PM