[Sustain] Update: SFPUC Passes Sham CT Resolution -Worse- For Bayview & The Planet

[Eric Brooks]

Hi all,

Yesterday's round in the Combustion Turbine (CT) battle was lost to the
Mayor. The SFPUC Commissioners unanimously caved and voted to pass a
resolution that ok's a sham deal just set up by Mayor Newsom that will
make fossil fuel emissions and planet heating CO2 emissions worse for
THREE decades longer than with the current Mirant plant, and spend
hundreds of millions of public and rate payer dollars on 30 more years
of fossil fuel investments when those hundreds of millions could instead
be spent solely on clean renewable energy to replace Mirant within just
a few years. The JPower CT deal will extend fossil fuel electricity use
and grid dominance in San Francisco 30 years longer - directly competing
with the Community Choice renewable energy project by gobbling up 200
megawatts of energy capacity and linked grid transmission line capacity
that could have been given exclusively to the Community Choice renewables.

So we have more work to do. Michela Alioto-Pier, likely side by side
with Ross Mirkarimi, will hold hearings soon to develop a 100% clean
energy alternative to Mirant and the CTs. We can help them get the
Supervisors to vote for a clean energy solution. Lets roll up our
sleeves and get to it.

Here are the deeper details on why this CT deal is so bad..

Why The Deal Is Far Worse For The Bayview

1) Lower Smoke Stacks That Are Closer To The Neighborhood: The CT plant
will have -much- lower smokestacks that will be four blocks closer to
Bayview. This means that carbon particulates and smog generating
chemicals will disperse much more directly and quickly to the Bayview,
than the pollution that comes from Mirant.

2) At Least 13 More Years Of Pollution When Mirant Would Close On Its
Own In 3 Years, Or Even Sooner!: Only the Mayor's office, the amazingly
deceptive SFPUC staff, and Cal ISO could be so cynically clever as to
convince us that the Bayview will get -less- toxic exposure if we set up
a polluting power plant deal with JPower for at least 13 more years of
fossil fuel generation in the Bayview, when Mirant's highly polluting
diesels will be forced by the Clean Air Act, strong local activism, and
lawsuits to close by 2009 or sooner. And the 206 megawatt Mirant natural
gas turbine will be made obsolete by both the 360 megawatts of local
renewables and efficiency that will be installed under the Community
Choice energy project by 2011, and the 400 megawatt Transbay Cable which
will be built by 2009. And if we don't waste hundreds of millions of
ratepayer and taxpayer dollars on the CTs and instead spend that revenue
on building even -more- renewables faster, those renewables will allow
us to close Mirant's gas generator even sooner. Don't forget that clean
water regulations will demand the closure of Mirant's natural gas plant
by 2009. If we have enough renewables online by then, we can use those
clean water regulations to sue for the immediate closure of Mirant!

3) Another Possible Toxic Gentrification Project Like The
Lennar/Redevelopment Project: Mayor Newsom's office has been working
hard behind closed doors to work out a deal with Mirant that will get
their agreement to close. So we are about to enter into a for-profit
real estate deal with Mirant on a currently polluted power plant site;
and Health Dept. Director Mitch Katz was at the Board of Supervisors
this week with the SFPUC staff claiming that this CT project deal will
result in -zero- pollution... Sound familiar?

4) Fewer Jobs: Vastly fewer jobs will be created with the small scale
four acre installation of three existing CT gas turbines, when we could
instead immediately move to construct and install solar panels, wind
mills, and efficiency projects all over the Bayview and the City. Under
legislation being created by the Ella Baker Center and other groups, a
-lot- of those jobs would come to the Bayview.

Why The Deal Is Worse For Workers, Other Oppressed Neighborhoods, And
The Planet

1) JPower Is NON-Union.

2) Polluting Other Workers And Neighborhoods: The JPower deal will
install a Combustion Turbine at the SFO airport that will be allowed to
run for commercial purposes until at least 2038! The pollution from that
turbine will fill the lungs of workers at the airport and low income
residents in neighborhoods near the airport.

3) JPower is in Burma! SFPUC Commissioner Normandy revealed yesterday
that JPower has operations in Burma. The Board of Supervisors -just-
passed a resolution directing the City to refuse business with any
company doing business in Burma.

4) More Global Warming: Because the JPower CT project will run at least
10 years longer in the Bayview than Mirant, and for at least 30 years at
the airport, the Planet will get decades more climate crisis amplifying
CO2 and leaking methane (natural gas) much of it from inefficient and
dangerous Liquid Natural Gas imported from overseas. The airport is
about to install solar panels on its roofs. Why does it need a natural
gas turbine..?

5) Less Solar And Wind: The 200 megawatts of CT fossil fuel power that
will be in place for -decades- longer than Mirant, will reduce the need
to switch immediately to a renewable energy infrastructure.

6) Higher Cost Energy: The world's supply of natural gas has peaked, and
the price of natural gas will skyrocket and never go back down. So the
CT project will rob us of millions more public dollars as it moves
forward. Millions that could be spent on stable priced renewable energy
instead.

7) The Worst Possible Message To A Fossil Fuel Addicted World: The
entire world looks to San Francisco for innovative examples on energy
and social justice. We would send the worst possible message to the
world by building a fossil fuel power plant in our own city limits, at
the very beginning of what must be a renewable energy century...

The fight is not over. We can, and will, stop this travesty in the Board
of Supervisors.

I'll send an email soon about organizing.

Please continue to join in!

peace

Eric Brooks
Our City & the SF Green Party
http://our-city.org
415-756-8844