The Community Alliance for Sensible Energy was designed to both oppose the Sunrise Powerlink and to find and endorse sensible 21^st Century solutions for the energy supply to our local area, San Diego County, and Southern California.

Summary:

Reasons the Sunrise Powerlink Isn’t For Us

Mary Aldern, CASE executive director, Ranchita, California, May 5, 2006

Below are listed some important facts that support our mission, much of which comes from Bill Powers, Professional Engineer and chair of the Border Power Plants Working Group.  www.borderpowerplants.org

1. There appears to be a desire on the part of California electric utilities, especially SDGE, to import large amounts of power from the Mexico, Arizona and potentially Wyoming to the greater Southern California/Los Angeles area.  SDGE also has set a laudable goal of generating 20% of its peak power from renewable sources by 2010.  

            However, SDGE is using its interest in accessing “lower cost generation sources” (which are in some cases power plants owned by SDGE’s parent company Sempra Energy) and achieving the 20% by 2010 renewable energy goal as the reasons why the Sunrise Powerlink must be built.   In fact there are a number of ways to move renewable energy from Imperial Valley to the coast.  

            For example one transmission pathway, called “the Green Path,” is already partially built, is far less environmentally destructive than the Sunrise Powerlink, is more direct, and is significantly less expensive. Commissioner Michael Peevey, the CPUC President, has publicly indicated that this redundancy between the Sunrise Powerlink and Green Path proposals exists and that there is no need for both (California Energy Circuit editorial, 2/24/06).

All proposed renewable energy from Imperial Valley can also be imported using existing lines (comments on Draft 2005 IEPR, UCAN/ BPPWG).

2. The Sunrise Powerlink appears to be designed to carry a much larger load of energy; it is clearly stated in SDG&E’s CPCN application to the CPUC that, “the proposed 500kV line will be designed for thermal powerflow capability greater than 2,000 MW in anticipation of future needs, contradicting Jim Avery, vice-president of electricity at SDG&E, who assuredly stated that the Sunrise Powerlink capacity is 1,000 MW all the way from El Centro to Scripps Ranch (North County Times, April 23, 2006).

An October 2005 Arizona Public Service (APS) transmission map of the proposed Wyoming-to-Southern California Transwest Express 500 kV project (APS submittal, CPUC Sunrise Powerlink CPCN application process) shows large powerflows potentially coming from coal fired plants in Wyoming reaching Los Angeles via a number of pathways, one of which would be the Sunrise Powerlink.  The APS map underscores the full range of implications that Sunrise represents: a major conduit for any power in the West or Baja Mexico, whether coal, nuclear, natural gas, or renewables, intended to supply Los Angeles and San Diego.

3. The Stirling Energy Systems proposed Imperial County solar energy plant, to which the Sunrise Powerlink is supposedly primarily devoted, “does not appear to be commercially viable any time soon (B. Powers).” At best, the proposed Stirling Solar Energy Plant may not be ready until the year 2017 (California Energy Commission).

Contrary to company statements, the Stirling Energy Dish still appears to be in its experimental phase (Wall Street Journal, 11/17/05), with only a total of 6 demo prototypes having been built, at a government energy lab, to date, and an initial “test installation” of the world’s first 40 currently being planned for the Mojave Desert north of Los Angeles (Design News, 1/9/06). One research issue at hand is how the burning hot desert dishes will be continually cooled; 4.4 gallons per dish, per MWh, and how they need to be washed free of desert sand in order to work. A 1,200 foot test-well has already been drilled into the fragile desert water-table in Ocotillo Wells, and residents there fear that this well will bring real community ecological problems in the future. Another issue is wind; the dishes are rated on their trunk for winds up to 50 mph, a familiar wind speed in desert storms.

The number of large parabolic dishes proposed is an amazing 36,000, and even Sempra has acknowledged that it’s a gamble on the dishes, which have not yet been proven commercially feasible (Wall Street Journal, 11/17/05). These large industrial issues must also factor into our consumer overall estimated cost and payback of our own future alternative energy supply, in addition to the expensive cost of massive transmission, from the remote location, so far from its designated end-users.

The Stirling project does not produce a solid reason to sacrifice the many world class conservation and private properties in our county; the California Energy Commission itself recently stated, in January, 2006, that “a minimum overall (renewable energy) contract failure rate of 20 to 30 percent should generally be expected for large solicitations conducted over multiple years. Failure rates much higher than these levels are supported by historical experience. Ongoing monitoring of contract failure is recommended” (CEC-300-2006-004). In reality, the Green Path and existing transmission, specifically the 500 kV Southwest Powerlink along I-8, will be available to move renewable energy from any project SDGE may wish to experiment with in Imperial County without constructing Sunrise Powerlink. More information about the Stirling project is viewable at: http://www.stirlingenergy.com/.      

                                                                                                                                  4. The Sunrise Powerlink is blatantly unnecessary to move renewables at this time. The more obvious immediate reason, then, to push the Sunrise Powerlink at this time, is the time-gap it produces, (approximately seven years, between the year 2010, the estimated completion of the transmission line, and 2017, the year at which the federal 20% renewables mandate actually legally comes into effect), and its large capacity to move non-renewable energy throughout the night when the (imaginary) solar plant would not produce. Jim Avery, again the vice-president of electricity at SDG&E, has already stated that he would “get contracts to fill the line,” logically including the energy that San Diego is not required to buy anymore after our “2001 energy crisis” 10-year contract with Sempra expires, coincidentally, in the year 2011.

So, instead of continuing to send energy to us at a high price, Sempra will send it over a high-priced transmission line, criss-crossing our county, over our cherished beautiful remote areas, to another energy market, while leaving us with the possibility of an environmentally questionable solar plant far from our market, possibly leaving us tied to the non-renewables once again.                                            5. Jim Avery misleadingly told a group of El Centro residents that he could “contractually and verbally” commit that he would work only with renewables over the Sunrise Powerlink (Imperial Valley Press, 3/29/06), however, at the pre-hearing conference on the Sunrise Powerlink in Ramona, (1/31/06), it was pointed out by Mr. Gregory Barnes, Sempra’s lawyer, that it is not up to SDG&E to decide what energy goes where; it is only up to the California Independent Systems Operator. This CAISO does not have the same mission as SDG&E, Sempra Energy, or the ratepayers of San Diego. Jim Avery’s assurance, then, is certainly not a reason to allow the Sunrise Powerlink to be built here.

6. There is good reason to believe that the impact from Sunrise Powerlink to our county and Southern California would be much, much more significant and detrimental than it is designed to appear. Again from the SDG&E SPL CPCN application to the CPUC, the utility states, “a combination of new rights-of-way and construction of access roads in conjunction with the expansion of some existing rights-of-way will also be required for the proposed transmission line.” And from a presentation by Jim Avery in July 2005 to the California Energy Commission, an SDG&E map clearly indicates a desire to link the “new central San Diego substation” to the “Serrano Valley” transmission line in Riverside/Orange Counties, to complete the powerflow to Los Angeles and other parts of Southern California beyond our county border…one of “SDG&E’s” “anticipated future needs.”

            In fact, in the SDG&E application goes on to say,

Transformation capability at the new Central substation will be comprised of two 500/230 kV transformer banks, each rated at  1120 MVA. Initially, one 500 kV line with series compensation, two 230 kV lines, and the required supporting protection, metering and communication facilities will be installed. The substation fenced area will have room for additional 500 kV and 230 kV transmission lines and supporting equipment; to accommodate potential growth.

In other words, the secretive 2,240 MW initial capacity is in itself quite modest compared to the actual central substation’s designed capacity to accommodate even more 500kV and 230 kV lines! It is quite possible, from this central substation design, that any, every, and other variations of route are a real future possibility! This substation is a virtual Pandora’s Box.

7. On the SDG&E website, a nice-looking teacher named Amanda Butler endorsed the Sunrise Powerlink by stating that “SDG&E must do what it takes to ensure the lights stay on tomorrow,” because “without electricity, I can’t prepare my students for the future.” However, in a front-page article from North County’s “Today’s Local News” Copley newspaper (5/4/06), former Senator Dede Alpert and State Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O’Connell are quoted in strong support of something quite the opposite; pro-active, “Green Schools.”

A Green School is an educational facility, such as San Pasqual Union School (just built, in only one year), that meets highly energy efficient building standards endorsed by Schwarzenegger’s Green Action Team in 2004. Alpert states, “I think none of us will forget the energy crisis in San Diego. It showed the need to make changes and be much smarter.... We can spend money on textbooks and computers instead of increasing costs of energy with the Green Schools that are better built for better performance.” In fact, according to the article, this type of school has seen a 20% improvement in mathematics scores and a 26% improvement in reading scores, due to improved natural lighting.

            Matt Petersen, president and CEO of Global Green USA is also quoted in the article in a strangely familiar mantra, “We cannot build the schools of yesterday when we have the technology to build the schools of tomorrow.”

            Perhaps Ms. Amanda Butler, also known as Amanda Crider, wife of SDG&E’s Sunrise Powerlink Public Relations Director Scott Crider, would not worry so much about keeping the lights on if California were to spend a fraction of the $1.4 billion dollars that SDG&E is asking for to build better schools instead of Sunrise Powerlink.     In fact, this is exactly what Alpert, O’Connell, and Petersen are hoping for… California State Senate Bill 69, to quickly “green” schools throughout the state, for only one tenth of the cost as the Sunrise Powerlink. Just think if school energy projects could have the whole amount, what students could learn! That would be true pay-back.

8. Read more about what San Diego regional community and government leaders actually had in mind to meet our precious county’s future energy needs and security, by seeing the San Diego Regional Energy Strategy 2030, at the Border Power Plants Working Group home page, http://www.borderpowerplants.org/.

            It was determined that San Diego in-basin generation of both modern and green energy was quite high on the regional priority list, complete with time line and economic analysis. Companies like Duke Energy do have plans to rebuild new, efficient, energy generators in San Diego County, but SDGE is trying to stop this, presumably so SDG&E can stop buying energy from any source other than its own.

            Also, SDGE claims additional power lines help insure against terrorist attacks disrupting delivery of power, but locally generated power is much safer from terrorist attacks as it doesn't rely on large scale, long distance transmission lines, and so is less subject to disruption due to natural or unnatural disasters…and, it is more cost effective. Of course, micro- generation, like roof top solar, is perhaps even safer.

In reality, SDG&E’s Sunrise Powerlink falls sorrowfully short of the economic, environmental and community criteria, needs and values of San Diego County.

For additional information, go to www.peoplespowerlink.org.

You can contact us, CASE, via hikermomma1@yahoo.com