Dan Walters: Greens like idea of renewable energy, balk at the reality
By Dan Walters - dwalters@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
12:00 am PDT Wednesday, April 23, 2008
An environmental coalition called Californians for Solar and Clean
Energy has submitted more than 700,000 signatures for an initiative
measure that would compel the state's utilities to use renewable
sources for 40 percent of their electric power supplies by 2020 and 50
percent by 2025, a sharp increase in what the state's current policy
requires.
The underlying notion is to reduce our reliance on carbon-generating
fuels such as coal and natural gas and thus contribute to the fight
against global warming.
Fair enough. If global warming is the threat to human life that we're
being told it is, and reducing human-caused carbon emissions is the
critical factor, then it will require big changes in the way we live,
including how we generate and use energy.
As the coalition's name implies, solar is its preferred form of
renewable energy =96 tapping the rays of the sun to create electricity
through photovoltaic panels =96 although geothermal energy, utilizing
heat from the Earth's core, is another source. And, as it happens,
California is blessed with copious amounts of both sun****ne and
geothermal heat.
Merely generating energy from renewable, nonpolluting sources is one
thing. Transmitting it from generation sites to where people live is
another, and environmental groups that tout renewable energy often
oppose transmission lines that would carry the power to homes and
businesses, as a long-running battle over a project called "Sunrise
Powerlink" illustrates.
San Diego Gas & Electric Co. wants to build the 150-mile-long high-
voltage line from solar and geothermal plants in Imperial County to
urban users along the coast, but environmentalists and property owners
along the proposed route are lining up against it in anticipation of a
Public Utilities Commission decision in August.
Environmental groups are especially unhappy with sending the power
through Anza-Borrego State Park, even though it would follow an
existing power line corridor, while local landowners and governments
stiffly oppose alternative routes that bypass the park.
The environmental groups' opposition follows an odd pattern of
sup****ting green policies in a macro sense, only to oppose specific
projects that would implement their larger vision.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who's proclaimed himself leader of
California's =96 and perhaps humankind's =96 anti-global warming crusade,
appears to be getting a little frustrated with his supposed allies'
attitude toward specific projects.
"One energy expert the other day said that the California Mojave
Desert =85 is one of the best spots on planet Earth for solar power
plants," Schwarzenegger said in a speech to a recent climate change
conference at Yale University. "Pacific Gas and Electric wants to put
three huge solar plants right there. And the whole world =96 the
Germans, the French, the Canadians, the Japanese =96 they all want to
come out to California and put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert
and in other places. The only thing is that the problem is getting
that new energy to the power grid because of environmental hurdles.
"San Diego Gas & Electric wants to develop solar geothermal fields in
Imperial Valley and build 150 miles of transmission lines to go and
take this power right into San Diego, but it faces opposition even
though it would replace an old carbon-based power plant. So the point
I'm making is it's not just businesses that have slowed things down,
it's not just Republicans that have slowed things down, it's also
Democrats and also environmental activists sometimes that slow things
down. =85 I don't know whether this is ironic or absurd. But, I mean, if
we cannot put solar power plants in the Mojave Desert, I don't know
where the hell we can put it."
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