Pacific Gas and Electric Company has attempted to recast itself in
recent years as a green-friendly utility. It has backed climate change
legislation and has run extensive marketing campaigns, highlighting its
investments in renewable energy. Two months ago, the utility made
headlines when it publicly withdrew from the US Chamber of Commerce
over the chamber’s backward views on global warming. But PG&E’s
attempt to build two new fossil-fuel-powered plants in the East Bay
that critics say are unnecessary is raising questions over whether the
utility’s eco-friendly image is more hype than reality.
PG&E is requesting state approval for two natural gas-powered
plants in Antioch and Oakley. The utility maintains that it needs the
1,550 megawatts of power the plants will produce to meet future demand.
But some environmental groups say PG&E has plenty of
fossil-fuel-based energy already, and the two new plants will worsen
California’s greenhouse gas emissions. They also argue that PG&E
should be concentrating on meeting the state’s 20 percent
renewable-energy standard for 2010 — and not embarking on new
carbon-based projects.
The San Francisco-based environmental group Pacific Environment
filed an official protest late last month with the California Public
Utilities Commission over PG&E’s proposals. The protest points out
that from 2003 to 2007, while the utility was bragging about how
green-friendly it has become, the actual percentage of renewable power
it has used declined from 12.4 percent to 11.3 percent. “They’re very
savvy at public relations,” said Rory Cox, California program director
for Pacific Environment. “The reality is the renewable content of their
energy portfolio has gone down.”
PG&E’s applications with the state include the 930-megawatt
Marsh Landing Generating Station, just north of Antioch, to be operated
by Mirant Energy. The other power plant would be owned by PG&E and
be known as the Oakley Generating Station. It would produce 624
megawatts of power. Both facilities would use state-of-the-art
technologies that don’t require massive amounts of water for
cooling.
In an interview, PG&E spokesman Blair Jones did not dispute the
utility’s renewable energy shortfall over the past several years. But
he maintained that PG&E has signed enough contracts to buy
renewables to meet the statewide 20 percent requirement in the future
— although he would not specify when. He also said that PG&E
needs reliable natural-gas power to offset the intermittency of wind
and solar power, which are dependent on whether the wind blows and the
sun shines. “To meet California’s growing need for energy, it’s
important that we have a variety of sources, including reliable ones
— 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” he said.
Jones said that the two new East Bay power plants will allow the
utility to retire older fossil-fuel facilities, and pointed to two old
Contra Costa County natural-gas units that are to be taken out of
commission soon. But those two facilities are slated for retirement
regardless of whether the two new power plants are built, and have been
barely producing energy in recent years. According to the environmental
group’s protest, one of the units ran at just 1 percent of capacity in
2007, and the other, at 3 percent that year.
Again, Jones did not dispute the group’s numbers, which came from
the California Energy Commission. And when asked what other power
plants PG&E plans to retire with the advent of the new East Bay
facilities, he would not answer directly, saying only that “in general,
it will help lead to the replacement of older power-generating
facilities.” He declined to answer further questions about how PG&E
could meet its 20 percent state requirement if it keeps building new
fossil-fuel plants and doesn’t identify old ones for retirement.
Environmental groups contend that PG&E simply doesn’t need the
new plants. They note that the utility recently opened a new
530-megawatt natural-gas-powered facility in Antioch called the Gateway
Generating Station. Moreover, the groups note that PG&E and other
companies have embarked on a massive, $15 billion construction spree of
natural-gas plants around the state since 1999. “The buildup of natural
gas … occurred just as the state was required to implement its
renewables policy,” Pacific Environment’s protest notes.
In addition, a 2003 study conducted by Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory concluded that California should be decommissioning natural
gas plants, not building new ones, if the state is going to meet its 33
percent renewable energy requirement by 2030. The study said the state
should reduce its natural gas power by at least 8,000 megawatts over
the next two decades. Two months ago, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
signed an executive order mandating the 33 percent requirement by 2020,
making the retirement of natural gas facilities even more urgent.
“Building any new natural gas capacity undermines California’s green
energy goals,” Pacific Environment’s protest adds. “Even repowering
existing plants would amount to pushing aside the state’s green energy
targets.”
Environmentalists also are concerned about adding another power
plant to already-overburdened Contra Costa County. According to the
California Energy Commission, the county already produces more
megawatts of power than the other eight Bay Area counties combined.
Contra Costa County is home to fourteen power plants that produce 5,638
megawatts of power. The next closest is Santa Clara County at 1,279
megawatts. Alameda County produces 616 megawatts. The total for the
nine-county Bay Area is 10,008 megawatts.
Contra Costa County also has more than its share of oil refineries,
chemical manufacturing facilities, and other major polluters. As a
result, the county accounts for more than one-third of the total sulfur
dioxide emissions in the Bay Area and is one of the highest emitters of
carbon monoxide, according to the Bay Area Air Quality Management
District. The county also has five times the number of facilities that
emit air pollutants per square mile than the state average, according
to the PG&E protest.
There’s also ample evidence that the county’s overabundance of
industrial pollution has exacted its toll on residents, especially
among minorities. For example, childhood asthma rates in the county are
twice the national average, while black kids countywide are five times
more likely to be hospitalized for the disease than white kids,
according to the county health department. County death rates for
cancer and respiratory diseases also are higher than the statewide
average.
As a result, Pacific Environment contends that PG&E violated it
own protocols and the CPUC’s requirement to analyze the environment
justice impacts of its proposed power plants. PG&E spokesman Jones
said the utility would officially respond to the protest this week.
