Power generation vs. power politics

When the power goes out, who ya gonna call? Power of Vision?

That group has organized to fight NRG Energy’s plan to build a far more efficient and reliable power plant in Carlsbad, and gradually retire its decades-old Encina Power Station on the city’s shoreline.

The site for the new plant, the Carlsbad Energy Center Project, is back from the water, between Interstate 5 and a train track. It’s also nigh useless for anything other than the new plant, landscaping to screen it and I-5 lanes if Caltrans ever widens the freeway through the rock to the west instead of the field to the east.

Carlsbad officials yearn for Encina’s demise. Yet they, Power of Vision and environmentalists abhor NRG’s site selection. They demand that the company spend multimillions to move the new facility site inland.

So they utterly disdain last week’s recommendation by the highly professional staff of the California Energy Commission (CEC) that the commissioners approve the energy center project so NRG can start building it.

Fine, upstanding folk that they are, the opponents couldn’t build a power plant to any regulatory standard at any price. They ignore the services the city could restore with $5 million to $6 million in revenue the plant guarantees. They disregard the sewer pumping station and the finally approved and much-needed desalination plant already allowed by the area’s zoning for multiple heavy industrial uses. They lack the impressive credentials and experience of commission staffers who formally attest to their findings and the power-plant expertise of NRG.

Amazingly, moreover, they apparently don’t grasp the implications of Encina’s continuing designation as a must-run facility by the agency that operates the state grid or of NRG’s ownership of all the property at issue.

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So when it comes to whom the public and the commissioners should believe, the choice isn’t hard.

In its Final Staff Assessment, CEC staff refutes critics’ repetitious allegations of the Carlsbad Energy Center Project’s faults. For examples:

- Its greenhouse gas emissions are toxic to people nearby.

Wrong.

- The new plant will produce more power with fewer emissions but probably run more often, so emissions aren’t really reduced.

The proper measure of GHG emissions is by system-wide impact, not by individual source. By that measure and mitigation, this plant’s impact will be insignificant.

- Because of construction dust, noise and birds, the new plant should be further from residential areas and well away from the ocean.

The alternative sites proposed by the city and others are away from the ocean. But their supporters neglect to mention the serious problems some or all of them present: No zoning for heavy industrial use. More trucks plying residential streets during construction. Closer to residential than the NRG site and farther from distribution points, water and utility connections.

A view-shed more impaired by the plant’s smokestacks, which birds aren’t likely to smash into wherever they’re situated.

Nor did the staff support the no-project alternative that the law requires it to consider. Programs offered at every level of government to reduce demand don’t and likely won’t meet future electricity needs, given the state’s projected rates of economic and population growth.

“Both new generation and new transmission facilities will be needed in the immediate future and beyond in order to maintain adequate supplies,” staff concludes.

In sum, none of the critics’ alternatives meet even their standards as well as NRG’s proposal to repower in place.

Worse for opponents, the commission’s vote against the new facility would only prolong Encina’s must-run status and its occupation of Carlsbad’s oceanfront.

Why? Because renewable but intermittent solar and wind generation need backup from reliable gas-fueled plants. Because renewables require water, which California lacks even more than power generation. Because a noisy segment of environmentalists now objects to solar arrays cluttering the desert - where better? - and to marring the scenery of windy ridgelines with windmills.

No doubt these critics also oppose to the Sunrise Powerlink Project proposed by San Diego Gas & Electric Co., as though most San Diegans would benefit from significant use of renewable energy without transmission lines to deliver it. Fortunately, the California Public Utilities Commission and the federal Bureau of Land Management approved the Powerlink. Surely the federal Department of Agriculture’s Forest Service soon will approve it, too.

Only what they want, only where they want it and only when they want it: That’s overzealous environmentalists’ credo, and they’re determined to impose it on the rest of us.

Tags: california energy commission, Carlsbad Energy Center Project, Encina Power Station, energy plants san diego, NRG Energy, SDNN

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 11:26 am and is filed under Columns, Politics Opinion . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.