[pct-l] Sunrise Power Project

[bobby carter]

cross PCT=yes
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Donna Saufley" <dsaufley at sprynet.com>
To: <pct-l at mailman.backcountry.net>
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2008 9:53 AM
Subject: [pct-l] Sunrise Power Project


> The article doesn't say whether the alternative route that was approved 
> also
> crosses the PCT; the trail is not mentioned at all.   It does sound as
> though it will cross the trail as the route roughly parallels the 
> US/Mexico
> border.
>
>
>
> www.latimes.com/business/printedition/la-fi-sunrise19-2008dec19,0,7158534.st
> ory
>
>
>
> ENERGY
>
> State PUC approves $1.9-billion Sunrise Powerlink
>
> The ratepayer-funded electrical transmission project aims to boost the use
> of clean sources.
>
> By Marc Lifsher December 19, 2008
>
>
>
> Reporting from Sacramento -- Regulators gave a San Diego utility the
> go-ahead Thursday to build a $1.9-billion transmission line that it says 
> is
> needed to move nonpolluting geothermal, wind and solar power from inland
> deserts to energy-hungry coastal cities.
>
> The California Public Utilities Commission, meeting in San Francisco, 
> voted
> 4-1 to approve a proposed decision by President Michael Peevey to allow 
> San
> Diego Gas & Electric Co. to use ratepayer funds to string 123 miles of new
> high-voltage lines. Massive steel towers would carry the electricity from
> Imperial County through environmentally sensitive areas of the San Diego
> County backcountry and the Cleveland National Forest.
>
> The commission's lone dissenter, Dian Grueneich, couldn't persuade her
> colleagues to support an alternative decision. It would have authorized 
> the
> line, known as the Sunrise Powerlink, but only if SDG&E, a unit of San
> Diego-based Sempra Energy, complied with strict requirements that it be
> filled with electrons from "green" sources.
>
> Once operational, the line will play "a critical role in California's
> efforts to achieve energy independence" and help the state meet its goal 
> to
> generate a third of its power from non-fossil-fuel sources by 2020, Gov.
> Arnold Schwarzenegger said.
>
> Developers, who want to invest millions of dollars in power plants to
> generate alternative energy, say they won't be able to secure financing
> without a commitment from the state that the line will be available to 
> carry
> their electricity to market.
>
> The Sunrise plan, which has been before the commission for three years, 
> has
> solid backing from state, local and ethnic chambers of commerce, many San
> Diego County governments and labor unions. But it has garnered equally
> strong opposition from environmental groups, consumer advocates and rural
> communities that lie along the line's path, roughly paralleling the
> U.S.-Mexico border.
>
> Opponents, who denounce Sunrise as too costly and unneeded, vow to file
> lawsuits challenging the Public Utility Commission's decision.
>
> "The commissioners issued a $2-billion, politically driven decision today
> that disregarded the facts," said Michael Shames, executive director of 
> the
> Utility Consumers Action Network. "It will be up to the appellate courts 
> to
> force the PUC to face the facts that make the Sunrise project a whopping
> Christmas present for Sempra but a lump of coal for all of the state's
> ratepayers."
>
> Other Sunrise foes said the commission's decision could have been worse 
> for
> the environment if SDG&E's initial power line route had been approved. The
> utility originally wanted to run the line through Anza-Borrego Desert 
> State
> Park, a vast preserve that spans portions of Riverside, San Diego and
> Imperial counties, considered a jewel of the California system.
>
> In the face of criticism from the Sierra Club and the California Parks
> Foundation, SDG&E recently dropped the Anza-Borrego route and embraced a
> more costly path farther south.
>
> In October, the utility came out on the losing end of an administrative 
> law
> judge's proposed decision that the line wasn't needed to satisfy San Diego
> County's short-term power requirements.
>
> Commissioner Grueneich, a veteran environmental activist, offered SDG&E a
> compromise: The company could build on the southern route if it could
> provide the PUC with a firm, legal commitment that the line's 1,000
> megawatts of capacity would be filled completely with energy from 
> renewable,
> nonpolluting sources.
>
> Grueneich said she feared that the company would use Sunrise to carry
> electricity produced by coal or natural-gas-fired power plants in other
> states or nearby Baja California, Mexico.
>
> Both SDG&E and Peevey, who authored his own, ultimately successful 
> proposed
> decision, countered that Grueneich's conditions could prove too burdensome
> to the utility and its alternative energy suppliers.
>
> The commission, Peevey said, would monitor SDG&E to make sure it lives up 
> to
> a nonbinding promise to send no coal-based electricity through the Sunrise
> line. The company also said it would meet the state's 33% alternative 
> energy
> goal by the 2020 deadline.
>
> "I fully expect the company to follow through on its commitments," Peevey
> said.
>
> But SDG&E's word wasn't good enough for Grueneich.
>
> "We have an obligation to ensure that San Diego Gas & Electric's 
> ratepayers
> and not just its shareholders see a return on their investment," she said.
>
> "I am not willing to risk $2 billion in ratepayer money to the invisible
> hand of the market."
>
> <mailto:marc.lifsher at latimes.com> marc.lifsher at latimes.com
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Pct-l mailing list
> Pct-l at backcountry.net
> http://mailman.backcountry.net/mailman/listinfo/pct-l
>