Mojave Solar: Can big power make it online?

Mojave Solar Project near Hinkley, California under construction.

GARY BRODEUR, STAFF WRITER
Victorville Daily Press

HINKLEY — One of the world’s largest solar-thermal projects is progressively going online this year, but not all of its power can be delivered unless more transmission lines are installed, experts say.

Nestled against the small community of Lockhart, about 20 miles northwest of Barstow on the edge of Harper Lake, the Mojave Solar project comes with a $1.6 billion price tag and a $1.2 billion loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Energy. Financial closing from the Federal Financing Bank helped start construction in 2011.

The project is the second of its type in the United States being built by Abengoa Solar, a Spain-based corporation. It will help fulfill the state’s mandate that 33 percent of electrical power supplied in California must come from renewable-energy sources by 2020.

“Mojave Solar will produce the clean energy equivalent to that needed to power approximately 90,000 households,” Abengoa Solar spokesman Luis Rejano Flores said in an email from corporate offices in Spain.

When completed, Mojave Solar will occupy 1,765 acres of mainly fallow alfalfa fields and use concentrating solar power, “a new parabolic trough technology that will be more efficient and cost effective” than previous solar-energy plants, the company says.

The installation at Mojave Solar’s two 140-megawatt “power islands” uses mirrors to concentrate the sun’s thermal energy in a low-profile configuration and drive conventional steam engines, the company says. It was intended to start transmitting power about mid-year but it is not yet in commercial operation, Flores said.

The project is engineered to transmit electricity to Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and prevent 437,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year when compared to a natural gas plant, according to corporate literature. It can store six hours’ worth of energy for use when there is no sunlight.

However, the Abengoa facility depends on a proposed Southern California Edison transmission project to become fully effective.

“They have an agreement to sell the power from their plant in Hinkley to PG&E, but it connects to the transmission grid on the SCE portion of the California ISO system,” said Charles Adamson, SCE’s manager of major projects. “Abengoa Mojave Solar cannot deliver all of its output to PG&E without the Coolwater-Lugo (Transmission Project).”

The California Independent System Operator manages the power-supply market and distributes electricity through high-voltage, long-distance power lines for 80 percent of the state and a small portion of Nevada. SCE’s Coolwater-Lugo project proposes to beef up existing transmission lines and electrical capacity from the Yermo area to Hesperia, where it is meeting resistance from some residents. It is still early in the permitting and approval process but is hoped to be approved for upgrade in 2016.

Abengoa Solar, with U.S. regional headquarters in Denver, also operates a similar 280-MW parabolic trough plant near Gila Bend, Arizona. Named Solana, it is the largest parabolic trough plant in the world, occupying 1,920 acres, the company says.

The Solana project received a $1.45 billion federal loan guarantee for construction, which was completed last year. It supplies power to 70,000 households through Arizona Public Service Co.

“Abengoa Solar will continue to provide clean energy, jobs and economic growth in California and the United States with both the Mojave and Solana projects,” the corporation says.

Solana created more than 2,000 construction jobs and 85 permanent jobs, Abengoa says, and Mojave Solar is creating more than 1,500 construction and permanent jobs. Corporate facilities include an operations and maintenance office in Victorville.

A spokesman for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., Denny Boyles, confirmed the facility is not yet online and that connecting to the grid is the developer’s responsibility. He added that PG&E is on track to meet and sustain the state mandate of having renewable-energy sources contribute at least a third of its electrical production portfolio by 2020 and beyond.

The Mojave Solar installation will generate about $169 million in tax revenues over its 25-year expected life, according to company projections — after its 280-MW output is fully connected to the grid.

Editor’s note: This is the first of two stories examining renewable energy plans in the High Desert. Today’s story focuses on Abengoa’s Mojave Solar facility near Hinkley. Sunday’s second part will focus on Southern California Edison’s proposed Coolwater-Lugo Transmission Project.

Imperial Valley's pact could help save the Salton Sea

Members of the Imperial Irrigation District board of directors, the Imperial County board of supervisors, and other officials commemorate the signing of memorandum of understanding at Red Hill Marina on Oct 24 at the Salton Sea. ( Jay Calderon/The Desert Sun)

Opinion

Written by The Editorial Board
Desert Sun

The pledge by three Imperial County entities to develop renewable energy projects to generate money for the restoration of the Salton Sea could be a big step. Progress is long overdue in a decades-long debate that has been incredibly frustrating for those of us who see the future of the shrinking sea as the region’s largest pending threat to public health and the environment.

Finally, the Imperial Irrigation District (IID), Imperial County and the Imperial County Air Pollution Control District are on the same page. Representatives last week signed a memorandum of understanding to work together on geothermal and other renewable energy projects, and to work with the state to build transmission lines to bring that power to California’s grid.

A preliminary IID study estimates these projects could generate $3 billion in revenue for restoration projects. That’s three times higher than an earlier estimate and the most significant potential investment we’ve seen yet.

With the closure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, there is a strong need for new sources of power in Southern California. It could be a huge opportunity.

As promising as it may sound, we’re skeptical. Power plants like this take huge capital investments and years to make it through the regulatory process. Even with the state’s mandate of generating at least a third of its power from renewable sources by 2020, the energy market is hard to predict.

Utilities are looking for the cheapest sources of energy available, as they should on behalf of their customers.

If the fracking program approved by the Legislature this year generates the mother lode of natural gas that has been predicted, building transmission lines to reach the remote southern end of the Salton Sea might not be the top priority.

The Quantification Settlement Agreement, the nation’s largest agriculture-to-urban water transfer from Imperial County to San Diego County, takes full effect at the end of 2017. At that point, mitigation flows will cease, which could expose more of the lake bed, allowing fine dust to become airborne in the desert wind and create a health hazard. There is a sense of urgency.

Whether the renewable project can come online and generate a revenue stream within the next four years is a big question.

Assemblyman V. Manuel Pérez’s determination is admirable. He is cosponsoring Senate Bill 760 with Sen. Rod Wright, a Democrat from Inglewood, which would elevate geothermal power in the state’s energy procurement process.

Another bill, AB 177, would direct retail sellers of electricity to adopt long-term strategies to reach even loftier goals for renewable energy — more than half the state’s power by 2030 and 80 percent by 2050.

Both bills are pending until the Legislature reconvenes in January.

Tapping into the sea’s vast potential of geothermal energy also fits with the new commitment to reduce greenhouse gases made by Gov. Jerry Brown, who signed a climate change pact Monday with the governors of Oregon and Washington and the environmental minister of British Columbia.

It is good that the Imperial County power brokers are now united in their Salton Sea strategy. That wasn’t always the case, Pérez said.

“That made it difficult, quite frankly, for folks like myself at the state level to advocate on behalf of our locals here,” he said.

Kevin Kelley, IID’s general manager, said he hopes this show of unity will push state legislators to finally address the plan that was devised by state water officials in 2007 but never voted on.

When lawmakers gather in two months in Sacramento, they should debate serious and swift solutions for the Salton Sea. The folks who live around the sea are committed. They have an aggressive plan of action, although it might be overly ambitious. We may not be able to wait for the geothermal genie to rise up and save us.

BLM Rebuffs Conservation Groups, Approves California Solar Project

Desert tortoise sporting a tracking device and a desert tortoise monitor/biologist.

Alyssa Carducci
Heartland Institute

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management released a final Environmental Impact Statement approving the development of 1,044 acres of desert tortoise habitat adjacent to Joshua Tree National Park in southern California for the construction of a large-scale solar power project.

BLM’s decision rebuffs conservation groups such as the Western Lands Project and the Wildlands Conservancy that seek to preserve desert tortoise habitat.

Dislodging Threatened Tortoises

The Desert Harvest solar power project, proposed by EDF Renewable Energy in San Diego, will produce as much power as a small conventional power plant during daylight hours when the sun is not obscured by clouds.

Conservationists point out the project will be prominently visible from many mountain ranges in Joshua Tree National Park. The power project will also dislodge and potentially cause the death of bighorn sheep and desert tortoises, which are listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act.

“We are opposed to the Obama administration's policy to site large, damaging, remote solar plants on public lands, where they destroy habitat and ecosystem function and require large transmission lines [and] corridors to get the power to urban centers,” Janine Blaeloch, director of Western Lands Project, said.

Western Lands Project, along with Basin and Range Watch and Solar Done Right, filed a protest against the project with BLM.

Developing Pristine Lands

Conservation groups generally support renewable power but say the industry should be able to produce power without destroying pristine lands harboring valuable plant and animal species.

“We don’t oppose solar energy, and we are not climate change skeptics,” said Kevin Emmerich, spokesperson for Basin and Range Watch. “We would just like to see solar energy built in a way that does not replace undeveloped land, wildlife habitat, and ancient Native American sites with solar panels.”

Emmerich said the Desert Harvest project is especially troublesome because it would be located between two important wildlife conservation areas and Joshua Tree National Park. The site is known for important microphyll woodlands, which provide habitat for several bird species, said Emmerich.

Other Lands Available

The Desert Harvest project will be near another large-scale solar project now under construction, the Desert Sunlight Project. Emmerich said construction of the Desert Sunlight Project is already creating negative environmental impacts for the local region, such as degraded air quality due to dust storms.
Emmerich said the Desert Harvest project could be moved to “degraded lands,” land already developed, damaged, or contaminated.

“The Environmental Protection Agency has identified 15 million acres of brownfields or degraded lands that would be suitable for renewable energy,” said Emmerich.

Blaeloch agreed with Emmerich on the siting of solar power projects.

“We are pushing for siting solar generating facilities and rooftop arrays in the built environment, on damaged land, and on the millions of acres of brownfields, degraded lands, landfills, etc., the EPA has identified as suitable for that purpose,” said Blaeloch.

SCE plans $750 million project to link solar plants to grid

Public input sought on new transmission corridor through Hesperia, Lucerne

Natasha Lindstrom
Victor Valley Daily Press

HESPERIA • Southern California Edison is planning a $750 million project to enable new renewable energy development in the Mojave Desert to connect to the power grid.

The proposed project would build a new substation near Newberry Springs and construct 67 miles of new transmission line between Edison’s Lugo and Pisgah substations — including 18 to 20 miles of a new transmission corridor that would border some 600 residents between Hesperia and Lucerne Valley.

Edison does not yet have estimates on the number of jobs the project would create.

While the project’s still in the early stages, Edison is turning to local residents for input on four possible routes for the line of large metal steel towers topping 100 feet, with a public workshop in Hesperia scheduled for March 3.

“Like most new transmission-type projects, a lot of people are concerned as to where it’s going to be located geographically as to where they live,” said Spear, adding that Edison has notified all the residents living along the potential transmission corridor routes. “We’re just wanting to be very up front with the public and go to them early and let them know what’s sort of on the preliminary drawing boards.”

An executive order signed by former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger requiring California utility companies to increase the percentage of renewable energy in the state’s electricity mix to 33 percent by 2020.

The next steps in the Lugo-Pisgah project will be for Edison to submit applications to the California Public Utilities Commission for approval, which Spear said will likely happen in the first quarter of 2012. It’ll take up to two years for the applications to be processed and the project’s build-out will taken another three. The tentative construction completion date is in 2017.

The public is invited to share their input and ask questions about the project at a public workshop 6 to 8 p.m. Thursday at the Percy Bakker Community Center, 9333 E Avenue in Hesperia.

For more information, Hesperia residents can call (760) 951-3281. Apple Valley and Lucerne Valley residents can call (760) 951-3237. Or visit sce.com/lugopisgah.

DWP drops plan to build 85-mile power transmission line across the desert

Environmental groups opposed the $800-million Green Path North Transmission Line because it would have crossed wilderness preserves and scenic ridgelines.

By Louis Sahagun
Los Angeles Times

Facing enormous costs and fierce opposition from environmental groups, the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power on Wednesday announced that it has dropped plans to build an 85-mile-long "green" power transmission line across desert wilderness preserves and scenic ridgelines.

Controversy surrounding the proposed Green Path North Transmission Line had tarnished Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's bid to portray himself as the leader of the "cleanest, greenest big city in America."

Villaraigosa was unavailable for comment. But interim DWP Chief S. David Freeman said the decision to pull the plug on the $800-million project "was the practical thing to do. Essentially, the utility came up with the idea, and the mayor ended it."

"Why get into a fight with a Joshua tree when you don't really need to?" Freeman added with a laugh.

David Myers, Wildlands Conservancy executive director, lauded the decision.

"This was an ill-conceived project, and it was corrected," Myers said. "Los Angeles realized it didn't make sense to spend nearly $1 billion on Green Path when the DWP already owns transmission lines throughout Southern California."

The DWP submitted a right-of-way grant application to the U.S. Forest Service in 2007 for the project, designed to bring electricity generated by solar, geothermal, wind and nuclear power to Los Angeles from the southeastern California deserts and Arizona.

Environmental and community groups were outraged by the DWP's plans to route high-voltage lines and 16-story towers through the Big Morongo Canyon Preserve north of Palm Springs, Pioneertown near Yucca Valley, Pipes Canyon Wilderness Preserve and a corner of the San Bernardino National Forest before linking with existing DWP power lines in Hesperia.

Home to bighorn sheep and chuckwallas, the preserves are internationally recognized birding hot spots embroidered with trails and streams that run under canopies of willow and cottonwood trees.

Opponents in the community of Oak Glen have inundated Los Angeles City Hall over the last three years with more than 50,000 e-mails, letters and postcards. The Wildlands Conservancy bought billboards on Interstate 10 that displayed scenic landscapes and a blunt message: "L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, it's not yours to destroy!"

Environmentalists celebrated the announcement Wednesday at events held in Oak Glen and Yucca Valley, where Joshua Tree resident and desert activist Elden Hughes said, "It's a huge victory, and the intelligent thing to do."

Freeman agreed and joked, "This decision should help in terms of billboard control because we hear the opponents are going to take down all those nasty signs along Interstate 10."

The announcement reflected a shift in policy toward developing renewable resources closer to the DWP's existing power corridors.

Freeman recently proposed construction of a gigantic array of photovoltaic cells over 80 square miles of the Owens Lake's dry lake bed and nearby flatlands that would generate up to 10% of all the power produced in California while simultaneously calming the region's fierce dust storms.

Desert monuments legislation faces a busy Congress and political obstacles in Washington

By JANET ZIMMERMAN and BEN GOAD
The Press-Enterprise

Sen. Dianne Feinstein worked for years to reconcile the competing interests of environmentalists, renewable energy developers and others before crafting her recent legislation to create two national monuments in the Mojave Desert.

But political obstacles and unresolved concerns about power-line routes remain.

The proposed monuments -- Mojave Trails in eastern San Bernardino County and Sand to Snow between Joshua Tree National Park and the San Bernardino National Forest -- would preserve about 1 million acres. Wind and solar energy projects would be prohibited.

At the same time, the bill allows for construction of transmission lines within the Mojave Trails monument to carry electricity from renewable sources once existing corridors reach capacity.

Environmentalists support the bill but said they will push to limit power lines to existing transmission corridors and developed rights of way.

Power providers say new routes are needed to ensure secure, reliable transmission and meet the state's goal of supplying 33 percent of California's power with solar, wind and other alternative sources by 2020.

"Unfortunately, we do have what can be viewed as competing societal objectives. We want to use more renewables because it has lower impact on the environment, yet more renewables are located far from people. You have to build transmission lines to them somewhere. There are tradeoffs that are going to have to be made," said Pedro Pizarro, executive vice president for power operations for Southern California Edison.

Beyond those arguments, and despite buy-in by most of the interest groups that would be affected by the monument designations, the legislation faces significant hurdles in Congress.

The sheer magnitude of the plan -- setting aside 1 million acres of public land, among other provisions -- may slow its progress, and it would have to compete for floor time with proposed overhauls of the nation's health care system and other heavyweight legislation.

Though in the earliest stages, the bill is finding resistance from Republicans.

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., has been a staunch critic of wildland conservancy bills in recent years.

"He'll oppose it," Coburn spokesman John Hart said, pointing to an existing maintenance backlog in areas overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. "We can't take care of the federal land we already have."

Additionally, Coburn is against making land off-limits to development, especially if it supports alternative energy projects, Hart said.

If not there, where?

"If you can't develop solar energy in the Mojave Desert, where can you develop it?" he asked.

The bill also would need to pass the House, and no member has come forward with plans to introduce it in the lower chamber.

Rep. Jerry Lewis, who represents portions of the High Desert that would be impacted by the bill, has commended Feinstein for working closely with those affected by the bill, but he has not taken a position on it.

"I am extremely concerned that it locks up tens of thousands of acres that are not suitable for protection, and prevents other uses such as mining, energy development or military maneuvers that might better serve our national interests," Lewis, R-Redlands, said in a statement released upon introduction of the bill.

Feinstein said the bill is necessary to preserve natural habitats that need protection while encouraging energy development in more appropriate places.

"We worked hard to build a consensus between local governments, state agencies, the Defense Department and the Interior Department, environmental groups, renewable energy companies, public utility companies, off-road vehicle enthusiasts, hunters and many others," she said.

New technologies

The bill would provide loan guarantees and grants to develop and test new technologies such as higher-capacity wires and cost-effective underground transmission that could reduce impacts to sensitive species and eliminate the visual blight of towers in pristine areas of the desert.

Some environmentalists questioned the need for new transmission, but Pizarro, of Edison, said a study by the state Public Utilities Commission identified the need for seven to 11 new transmission lines across the state to carry the power necessary to meet renewable energy goals.

Even if solar and wind farms are located on land that is not environmentally sensitive, power would still have to be moved to people who need it, and the monuments are in that path, he said.

It's not realistic for all transmission lines to be built along existing corridors or highways because a single quake or fire could take down the whole grid, he said.

Environmental groups say they will work to bar new transmission corridors from the monuments.

Chase Huntley is energy policy adviser for The Wilderness Society, a national organization founded in 1935 to protect wilderness.

"Our focus is on ensuring that in the bill language, that any needed new transmission lines are focused in appropriate places -- existing corridors and already developed rights of way," he said.

Earlier versions of the bill excluded expansions of existing transmission lines, a point the state worked hard to change, said Tony Brunello, a deputy secretary with the California Natural Resources Agency. It now allows power poles to be replaced with high-voltage towers, even though those create a larger footprint.

The state also wants Feinstein's bill to take into account a long-term plan it is developing for conservation and renewable energy development zones.

"It uses science to determine the most biologically sensitive areas and lay out the future of the desert rather than political boundaries," Brunello said.

A shortfall in Mojave protection bill

Sen. Dianne Feinstein's desert-protection proposal is leaving solar energy out in the cold.

Editorial
Los Angeles Times

From an aesthetic perspective, vast solar arrays stretching for thousands of acres across the desert aren't pretty. But what they do for the environment and for U.S. energy independence can be downright beautiful. Which is why, though we'd be happy to see about 1.5 million acres of the Mojave Desert preserved under a bill by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, it's disappointing that the California Democrat didn't include more meaningful support for renewable energy.

In her bill introduced Monday, Feinstein would create two national monuments covering more than 1 million acres of fragile desert ecosystem, including land that is home to such sensitive species as the bighorn sheep and desert tortoise. The bill would confer lesser protections on hundreds of thousands of additional Mojave acres and designate more than 300,000 acres for use by off-road vehicles.

Though the legislation also includes some provisions to aid solar-power development -- rights to construct transmission lines along existing utility corridors and a potentially quicker permitting process, for example -- it does nothing to set aside land for such development or help the solar industry obtain them. The state has pledged to generate a third of its power from renewable resources by 2020, and the rest of the nation also is looking to the desert as fertile land for power generation. That has touched off a land scramble to protect the interests of recreation, the military, endangered animals and renewable energy. Any bill that controls huge segments of Mojave land should be more comprehensive, making certain that the public need for nonpolluting energy also is met.

Fortunately, the interests of conservation and environment-friendly power generation aren't mutually exclusive. Much of the land that Feinstein aims to preserve is in the eastern portion of the Mojave, and the solar industry is more interested in areas of the western desert, where the sun burns hotter and there is easier access to transmission lines. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has been studying four parcels totaling 350,000 acres outside the proposed monument as possibly suitable for solar and wind projects, but is just beginning the process of environmental review, which could easily knock much of that acreage out of consideration. Solar industry leaders are concerned that one of the parcels might be too remote to be useful.

Environmental protection isn't just about land conservation anymore -- renewable energy is just as crucial. Feinstein's legislation should include a multi-agency approach to finding land in the Mojave to meet competing needs. It would be a strange day when we devoted 300,000 acres to dune buggies but nothing to the energy sources that would fight global warming, reduce air pollution and provide a key source of power.

L.A. may drop plans for controversial transmission line

The DWP's proposed 85-mile-long Green Path North line through unspoiled desert and wildlife preserves was opposed by community and environmental groups. The agency may focus on other routes.

By Phil Willon
Los Angeles Times

Los Angeles officials said the city may abandon plans to build a highly controversial "green" power transmission line through unspoiled desert and wildlife preserves on a route east of the San Bernardino Mountains, focusing instead on alternative pathways mostly along an interstate highway where high-voltage lines already exist.

The Department of Water and Power's proposed 85-mile-long Green Path North transmission line has faced fierce opposition from more than a dozen community and environmental groups, creating a political chink in Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's efforts to cast himself as the leader of the "cleanest, greenest big city in America."

The proposed transmission line, which is about to undergo federal and state environmental review, is designed to bring electricity generated by solar, geothermal, wind and nuclear power to Los Angeles from the southeastern California deserts and Arizona. Villaraigosa in July promised to end the city's reliance on high-polluting, coal-fired power plants and secure 40% of its energy from renewable sources by 2020.

At the very least, the city utility may shelve the agency's most controversial proposed route for the power corridor, which would cut through Big Morongo Wildlife Preserve north of Palm Springs, Pioneertown near Yucca Valley, Pipes Canyon Wilderness Preserve and a corner of the San Bernardino National Forest before connecting with existing DWP power lines in Hesperia.

"We've heard the concerns of the community and so we're seriously contemplating taking that off the table," DWP General Manager H. David Nahai said recently.

The Green Path North transmission line could be halted altogether -- or postponed -- because of opposition from environmental groups, concerns raised by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and the enormous costs, according to City Hall sources familiar with the project. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss the proposal.

The Villaraigosa administration appears to have shifted to a policy focused more on developing renewable energy sources closer to the DWP's existing power transmission lines, primarily those that stretch to Owens Valley and east toward Utah.

"We're constantly reviewing and evaluating all of our options," Nahai said.

Environmental groups and community activists were encouraged by Nahai's comments, but remain wary until the proposed transmission line through Yucca Valley is officially scuttled.

"I think that would be really good news if that were the case," said April Sall, conservation director with the Wildlands Conservancy in Oak Glen. "The Yucca Valley route would have really high environmental damage.

"If the DWP wants to validate its claims that they want a more environmental friendly face for L.A. and the DWP, this would be a step in the right direction."

Controversy over the transmission line erupted in December 2006 when the DWP identified the Yucca Valley route as its "preferred alternative," but the agency has since backed away from that statement, saying that there are seven viable routes.

The cost of building Green Path North could exceed a half-billion dollars, according to DWP estimates in 2006.

Nahai said he still firmly believes that the DWP will need new transmission capability to carry power from the Salton Sea and Imperial County, home to vast geothermal power reserves and prime terrain for solar power generation.

The DWP, the nation's largest municipal utility, already has plans for a 55-megawatt "solar farm" on 970 acres it owns near Niland, and the utility also has purchased more than 5,800 acres near the Salton Sea as possible sites for geothermal power plants.

The agency hopes to share a transmission pathway with Southern California Edison Co., which has existing transmission lines along Interstate 10, for most of the route to Los Angeles, Nahai said.

"Our preference would be, to the extent that we have transmission coming out of the Salton Sea, that that be done on a shared basis," he said.

For Green Path North, the first step in the environmental review process is expected to begin within a matter of months, during which a series of public hearings will be held throughout Southern California.

The process is being coordinated by the DWP, federal Bureau of Land Management and U.S. Forest Service, since the proposed routes traverse federally protected lands.

The DWP hopes to finish construction of Green Path North by 2014.

Plotting the path of renewable power lines

David R. Baker
San Francisco Chronicle




A new state report tries to tackle one of the touchiest issues in California's effort to expand renewable power, suggesting possible routes for new transmission lines to carry electricity from wind farms and solar plants.

Power lines often generate intense opposition from environmentalists and landowners. But without new lines, the solar power plants and wind farms planned throughout California won't be able to ship their electricity to the towns and cities that need it.

So several state agencies, electrical utilities, renewable power developers and environmental groups have joined together to figure out where to put new lines, hoping to prevent public fights. The effort, called the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative, released its latest report this week.

The report examines where transmission lines are needed most, will cost the least and will cause the least harm to the environment. It doesn't recommend exact routes, nor does it specify how many lines must be built.

Instead, it presents options, suggesting broad pathways for lines that can link planned renewable power projects to the grid. Most of the proposed lines are in the Southern California desert, while one stretches to the Oregon border.

In concept at least, two lines would run through eastern Contra Costa and Alameda counties, while another would link Tracy to the South Bay. Building all the lines would cost $15.7 billion, but not all of them would need to be built.

"It gives us a sense, based on the environmental input and the economic input, where we should be concentrating our efforts," said Jeffrey Byron, a member of the California Energy Commission, one of the state agencies involved. "We want to utilize existing wires and right-of-ways first, but we do know we're going to need new transmission lines."

Environment, economy

The initiative won't prevent all power-line battles, participants say. But it does attempt to strike a balance between environmental and economic concerns in a way that could become a model for the rest of the country. President Obama has made upgrading and expanding the country's electrical grid a key part of his energy plans.

"We're transforming the way we power the economy. That's an audacious thing to do," said Carl Zichella, regional director for the Sierra Club, who is working on the transmission initiative. "And there are some people whose point of view is limited to their backyards. I think they have a valid point of view, but they don't get a veto."

The report uses as its starting point Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's goal of getting 33 percent of California's electricity from renewable sources by the year 2020. It identifies places where large solar power plants, geothermal plants or wind farms have already been proposed, as well as areas where they are likely to be proposed in the future.

Together, those places could generate as much as 77,526 megawatts of electricity, more than all of California uses on a typical summer day. A megawatt is a snapshot figure, representing the amount of electricity flowing across the grid in an instant, and 1 megawatt is enough to power 750 homes.

Obstacles to transmission

The report examines possible routes for transmission lines to carry all that electricity. It also illustrates some of the obstacles. For example, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., has proposed creating a national monument in the Southern California desert that would overlap some of the renewable energy zones studied in the report.

If created, the Mojave Desert National Monument could block the development of 11,700 megawatts of renewable power, according to the report.

Groups seek $2.7 million for fighting power line

Critic calls intervenor claims 'great way to make a living'

By DAVE DOWNEY
North County Times

Opponents of San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s power line have petitioned the state to compensate them for $2.7 million in costs they say they incurred over three years battling the Sunrise Powerlink ---- costs that would be passed on to utility ratepayers.

The groups were "intervenors" in the Sunrise case under a program that allows opponents to take on a formal role in arguing merits of utility projects before the California Public Utilities Commission, the regulatory body that licenses electric, gas and telephone projects.

The state lets intervenors recoup their costs.

But critics say the reimbursement requests are excessive. And because of the prospect of making big money, they suggest the program encourages groups to routinely oppose utility projects, whether ill-conceived or not.

The intervenors counter that their bills are reasonable. They say their involvement helped hold down costs of the $2 billion transmission line, and prevented it from being built in Anza-Borrego Desert State Park and North County.

See highlights of the Sunrise Powerlink intervenor compensation requests

The most prominent intervenor, the San Diego consumer group Utility Consumers' Action Network (UCAN), asked for $1.2 million to cover fees for attorneys, experts, document preparation and travel from late 2005 through early 2009.

The commission also received requests for:

-- $797,673 from the environmental group Center for Biological Diversity.

-- $473,379 from the community group Rancho Penasquitos Concerned Citizens.

-- $257,617 from the Mussey Grade Road Alliance, represented by the husband and wife team of Joseph Mitchell and Diane Conklin of Ramona.

If granted, the consumer group's award would be the largest compensation given to an intervenor since at least 1996, according to commission records. And the environmental groups' compensation would be third-highest since then.

The current record of $866,884 was awarded to The Utility Reform Network, a San Francisco consumer group.

At the same time, the San Diego-based utility spent more than $125 million to promote its power line, and those costs will be passed on to ratepayers, said Jennifer Briscoe, a company spokeswoman.

The total includes costs associated with the 11,000-page environmental impact report prepared for the project, the company's legal bills, applications for various permits, and hosting dozens of public meetings and open houses around the region. Briscoe said the company hasn't finished tallying those expenses.

Good intentions

The intervenors billed ratepayers $300 to $480 per hour for attorneys and $75 to $270 an hour for "expert" witnesses.

And they are seeking more than $16,000 to cover the time they spent preparing their compensation claims.

The deadline for submitting claims was last week. SDG&E and the commission staff have until March 25 to file responses to the claims, and commissioners are expected to decide how much the groups will get sometime after that.

The Sunrise Powerlink is a 120-mile, high-voltage line that was given the green light by the state commission in December.

Construction is scheduled to start in 2010. The wires are to be strung from metallic towers up to 150 feet tall through southern San Diego County and southwestern Imperial County. The project was one of the most contentious and heavily studied in California history.

Designed for these types of projects, the state's intervenor program sought to empower small, poorly funded grass-roots organizations to credibly challenge corporate giants in the commission's complicated courtlike proceedings, said Susan Carothers, a commission spokeswoman.

"By hearing from different perspectives, the California PUC is better able to make informed decisions," Carothers said.

But critics say intervenors often take advantage of the program ---- and clearly did so in the Sunrise case.

"I can see how the original intent might have been a positive one," said Lani Lutar, president and chief executive officer of the San Diego County Taxpayers Association, in a telephone interview Wednesday. "But it seems to have gone out of control with unintended side effects. It has become an incentive to have these just-say-no nonprofit groups. Groups like UCAN now make it their mission to oppose every utility project that comes forward."

Scott Barnett, a San Diego-area tax watchdog who operates TaxpayersAdvocate.org, said the Sunrise reimbursement requests are unreasonably high.

"It seems like quite a racket to me," he said. "I need to get into the intervenor business, I think. It's a great way to make a living."

Both taxpayer groups favored the line.

Michael Shames, executive director for the Utility Consumers' Action Network, insisted his group does not routinely oppose projects for the sake of boosting coffers with intervenor-compensation dollars.

And he disagreed the program gives the wrong incentive.

"Intervenors don't earn even one dollar unless our opposition is sound, credible and effective," Shames said by e-mail. "The economic incentive is for us to be effective, not for us to just oppose."

The commission's Web site tells intervenors this: "You may request compensation for the time and expenses you incurred to participate in the proceeding as long as your participation made a 'substantial contribution' to the outcome of the proceeding."

Shames said his personal hourly rate of $330 and his group's $1.2 million claim is justified.

"Why is that appropriate? Because SDG&E made us do a tremendous amount of work ---- they filed the equivalent of three different applications with continuous modifications throughout," he said. "We spent the better part of three years in extensive litigation and totally disproved and discredited SDG&E's representations about the economic benefits of the line and the need to route it through Anza-Borrego."

Years of fighting

The battle aside, Barnett and Lutar, the taxpayer advocates, charged the four intervenors duplicated much of the work of the Division of Ratepayer Advocates, the arm of the commission responsible for representing ratepayer interests.

"It seems like we're paying twice for the, quote, independent perspective," said Andrew Poat, vice president of public policy for the San Diego Regional Economic Development Corp. and a backer of Sunrise Powerlink.

Scott Logan, a regulatory analyst for the division who handled the Sunrise case, said there was little duplication.

"We look at it as both a complement and supplement to DRA's work," Logan said.

Because the commission frowns on repetition, the intervenors ---- in their claims ---- stressed the unique accomplishments they say they made.

The consumer group said it held down project costs, the Sierra Club and Center for Biological Diversity said they shaped the environmental report and kept the line out of Anza-Borrego, and the Ramona group said it secured extra measures to prevent wires from starting wildfires.

Harvey Payne, an attorney for Rancho Penasquitos Concerned Citizens, said his group persuaded SDG&E to scrap the last 15 miles of the power line, sparing neighborhoods in Rancho Penasquitos and Carmel Valley.

And Payne maintains his group's request for almost a half-million dollars is justified.

"This was three years of constantly fighting SDG&E," he said. "This was approximately 1,000 hours of time over three years for me. This was my expert's time over three years. But, most importantly, we are saving the ratepayers at least $72 million."

Payne hired a retired transmission engineer for Pacific Gas & Electric Co., William Stephenson, to provide expertise.

When it came to intervenor costs, the environmental groups submitted the highest hourly rate: $480. That was to cover work by San Diego attorney Steven Siegel, whom they hired for their Sunrise opposition campaign.

Kieran Suckling, executive director for the Center for Biological Diversity in Tucson, said the $480-per-hour rate is "perfectly reasonable."

The commission's allowable range for attorney compensation is $150 to $535 per hour.

"He is a very experienced senior attorney, so we billed him out at a higher rate," Suckling said. "We feel like our success in the case came from having a senior attorney. Steve did a great job for us."

The environmental groups also are seeking $70 to $150 an hour for experts who provided information about endangered animals, such as the desert bighorn sheep that roams Anza-Borrego, and native plants.

Likewise, Conklin, of the Ramona group, defended her group's $257,617 bill.

"We were totally consumed by this," Conklin said. "We worked incredible hours. We didn't bill for all those hours. It sounds like a lot ---- a quarter of a million dollars ---- but we tried to be as reasonable as possible."

Could green kill the desert?

OPINION

If we're not careful, our rush to produce green energy could do irrevocable damage to some fragile California ecosystems

By Bruce M. Pavlik
Los Angeles Times

California's desert lands are in some ways a perfect fit with the renewable energy industries necessary to combat climate change. There's sun. There's wind. There's space.

But without careful planning and regulation, these "climate solutions" could irrevocably damage the planet they are intended to protect.

The biologically rich but arid desert ecosystems are remarkably fragile. Once topsoil and plant life have been disrupted for the placement of solar arrays, wind farms, power plants, transmission lines and CO2 scrubbers, restoration would be cost-prohibitive, if not technically impossible. And widespread desert construction -- even of projects aimed at environmental mitigation -- would devastate the very organisms and ecosystems best able to adjust to a warming world.

Nevertheless, there is a public land rush underway. The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is processing more than 180 permit applications from private companies to build solar and wind projects in the California deserts.

One such venture, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating System, will begin construction this year in a beautiful valley near the California-Nevada border in San Bernardino County. It will occupy 3,400 acres, and that doesn't include the land needed for transmission lines.

Most projects are even larger, averaging 8,000 acres, with a few exceeding 20,000 acres. The total public land under consideration for alternative energy production exceeds 1.45 million acres in this state alone.

The scale of some proposals borders on fantasy. One Columbia University scientist, Wallace Broecker, has proposed installing 60 million CO2 scrubbers, each a 50-foot-tall tower, throughout the world's deserts -- 17 million of them in the United States -- for the purpose of capturing greenhouse gases.

One appeal of locating projects in remote regions is that there isn't as much NIMBYism in those areas, so approvals can be easier to get. But there is another way. Why not install scrubbers in parking garages, skyscrapers, transit tunnels and other existing structures? Existing commercial and residential rooftops, landfills, marginal agricultural lands and mine sites could readily accommodate these green technologies, and we would be creating energy closer to where it is needed.

At this point in the evolution of our ecological psychology, we need to acknowledge the true costs of any energy development. When a dam is built, a river is lost. But people who turn on their tap and draw that water rarely think about the river that was destroyed to produce it. Similarly, if we choose to place our "ugly" industrial technologies in the wilderness, there will be less awareness of the damage, less incentive to conserve.

The out-of-sight-out-of-mind approach to solving such problems exacerbates parochial thinking and reduces the obligation of each citizen to contribute by consuming less, or by allowing solar panels to be installed on rooftops.

Besides, haven't we learned these lessons from the destruction of other valuable ecosystems? We now spend billions of dollars every year to repair levees and restore wetlands that never should have been "reclaimed" in the name of land development.

Although the government should be encouraging alternative energy, the cumulative effects of projects need to be analyzed across the entire desert landscape. Many are within or adjacent to designated wilderness, desert tortoise habitats, archaeological sites and the BLM's areas of critical environmental concern. Roads, rails and aqueducts already harm desert bighorn sheep and other sensitive species while spreading weeds, increasing fire frequency and degrading the life-giving qualities of the native vegetation.

Such large-scale effects cannot be addressed on a project-by-project basis, as is done through the existing environmental review process. We need effective, desert-wide planning that engages the major public and private stakeholders that determine the fate of California desert land.

The costs of industrializing the biologically rich California deserts will be measured in terms of species extinction, ecosystem degradation and the perpetuation of human self-deception.

We know better than to rush. A cautious, informed and integrated approach will secure sustainable, clean energy without sacrificing the future of these precious lands.

Bruce M. Pavlik is a professor of biology at Mills College, Oakland, and the author of "The California Deserts: An Ecological Rediscovery."

Southern California utilities eye Inland desert as energy goldmine

By LESLIE BERKMAN
The Press-Enterprise




Inland Southern California's desert backyard is ground zero in the state's efforts to cut back on polluting fossil-fuel-burning power plants and lead the nation's conversion to renewable energy.

For decades the region has been recognized for its rich renewable resources, from wind in the Coachella Valley and Tehachapi Mountains to the Salton Sea's underground reservoir of geothermal power to some of the most intense desert sunshine in the world.

Spurred by a state-imposed renewable energy requirement, now all of the major utilities in California -- Southern California Edison, Pacific Gas and Electric and San Diego Gas and Electric -- are scrambling to sign contracts to purchase electricity from new projects planned in the Imperial Valley and Mojave Desert.

"Because the California desert, particularly the Mojave Desert, is such a great place to develop solar and because of the proximity of large urban areas, there is probably more solar development going on in Southern California than anywhere else in the world," said Terry O'Brien, the California Energy Commission's deputy director of siting, transmission and environmental protection.

The task of transforming the state's energy structure to accommodate renewable power is huge and can't be done quickly. "We are transforming the electricity system in a way that hasn't been done before," said O'Brien.

Renewable energy provides about 12 percent of California's energy needs. State officials do not expect that investor-owned utilities will meet a legislated mandate to supply 20 percent of their customers' power needs with renewable energy by 2010.

"We should get close in 2012," said Dave Hawkins, lead renewable power engineer for the Independent Systems Operator, the agency responsible for maintaining the reliability of the state's energy grid.

Still, the push to renewable energy is intensifying with a state and national campaign to fight global warming and forge energy independence from foreign oil producers.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger issued an executive order calling for 33 percent renewable energy in California by 2020 and said he will sponsor legislation to make that target a legal requirement for public and private utilities.

Currently, municipal utilities are exempt from the state renewable energy portfolio mandate and have set their own goals.

Andy Horne, Imperial County's deputy chief executive for natural resources development, hopes jobs generated by a burst of renewable energy development will trim that county's 23 percent unemployment.

Horne said in the past he has seen corporate interest in renewable energy investment track with oil prices. Rising oil prices kindled interest in renewable energy that quickly dimmed when oil prices fell, making renewables less competitive with conventional coal and gas generation.

But this time as oil prices fall, the interest in renewable generation is holding strong because utilities must continue buying to comply with the law. "I think this is a different ball game," Horne said.

Economic Constraints

Meeting a 33 percent renewable goal by 2020 will require adding 20,000 megawatts of renewable power to the state grid -- enough to supply about 15 million homes.

That calls for the construction of $60 billion in generation facilities and $6 billion in new transmission, more than half of that in Southern California, said Dave Olsen, coordinator of the Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative

Olsen said that task force of stakeholders, including state regulatory agencies, the energy industry and the Sierra Club, is determining the most effective and least environmentally destructive places to locate renewable energy-generation projects and the transmission lines to serve them.

Environmental concerns about protecting the desert are making it difficult to get these projects built. Also a freeze in the financial markets already has prevented at least one geothermal company from obtaining capital to start construction on an approved project in the Imperial Valley.

"The economy is working against what we are trying to do," said Robert M. Doyel, lands branch chief with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Many Applicants

California is fielding a deluge of renewable-energy proposals. The federal Bureau of Land Management has 154 applications from prospective solar, wind and geothermal power developers requesting access to almost 1.5 million acres in its California Desert District that includes parts of San Bernardino, Riverside, Imperial, San Diego and Kern counties.

Not all the applications will become operating power plants. Greg Miller, the bureau's renewable-energy program manager for that district, said many wind companies want only to test the resource.

Miller said besides, the process of getting approval is so daunting that it is likely some applicants will give up. Part of the delay, he said, stems from the bureau's inexperience with vetting solar projects planned for federal lands.

"Because solar energy development on BLM land is so new, there are many issues cropping up that we have to address on the fly," he said. The myriad of issues, he said, range from the impact on desert tortoises to potential desert erosion. Also, he said the bureau is not staffed to deal with the flood of applications.

In an effort to weed out speculators, the Independent System Operator late last year required a hefty deposit from applicants waiting for transmission connection -- with the result that about half the projects dropped out.

Simplifying Steps

The governor and state legislators are trying to speed the development of renewable-energy projects by consolidating the approval process, which is now fragmented among numerous state, federal and local government agencies.

"Simply setting a goal isn't sufficient unless we aggressively remove barriers to siting and transmission and actively encourage the industry here in California," said State Assemblyman Paul Krekorian, D-Burbank.

Krekorian is co-sponsor of Assembly Bill 64, which would, among other things, establish a single state agency in charge of approving renewable-energy generation and transmission projects.

Schwarzenegger in November ordered state agencies to work together in reviewing renewable-energy projects. He also signed a memorandum of agreement with the federal Bureau of Land Management and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for state and federal agencies to jointly streamline the approval process for such projects in the Mojave and Colorado deserts.

Transmission arguably remains the biggest obstacle to the development of renewable energy because of the need to carry electricity many miles from remote areas where it is produced to population centers.

Larry Grogan, a former Imperial County supervisor and longtime energy industry consultant, said "the first ones (renewable projects) with resources and financing will get onto the transmission lines and the rest will have to wait."

O'Brien of the California Energy Commission said clearly more lines will have to be built for all the new generation planned by 2020.

Sunrise PowerLink, a $1.9 billion, 120-mile transmission line designed to bring wind, geothermal and solar power from the Imperial Valley to San Diego won approval last month from the Public Utilities Commission after a three-year struggle by the developer, San Diego Gas & Electric.

That transmission line was approved after it was rerouted around a state park. It is expected to go into operation in 2012.

The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power also faces opposition to its plans to route transmission from the Imperial Valley to Los Angeles.

Geothermal Gem

"In my opinion, Imperial County will be the renewable capital of the country," said Vince Signorotti, vice president of land management for Terra-Gen, a renewable-energy development company looking for solar and geothermal sites in the area.

The Imperial Valley's most valuable resource, the experts say, is a rich underground reservoir of hot water near the Salton Sea. Steam extracted from briny water is pushed through turbines to produce electricity.

Currently about 400 megawatts of geothermal electricity is produced in the Imperial Valley and an estimated 2,000 megawatts of additional power remains to be tapped.

Mark T. Gran, vice president of Cal Energy, the largest geothermal plant operator in the Imperial Valley, said in anticipation of the new transmission the company plans to double its current geothermal energy production at the Salton Sea, building an additional 50-megawatt plant each year for the next dozen years.

Southern California Edison is a major customer of geothermal energy produced at the Salton Sea. The company is also building a $2 billion transmission project, with anticipated completion in 2013, to spur development of up to 4,500 megawatts of wind power in the Tehachapi region.

Southern California Edison Vice President Stu Hemphill said the company is relying on a provision in the state mandate that allows utilities that can't deliver 20 percent renewable energy to its customers next year to make up the shortfall by contracting to buy power from projects still on the drawing board.

"The question is how many of them will actually deliver and when," Hemphill said.

DWP sticks with Green Path North project, rejects Edison's offer to use power lines

By DAVID DANELSKI
The Press-Enterprise

Southern California Edison is offering an alternative to the Green Path North power line project that Los Angeles wants to build across San Bernardino County deserts and foothills.

Edison could add enough capacity on its power lines along Interstate 10 to carry electricity to Los Angeles from geothermal, wind and solar power projects planned in the desert, said Sandi Blain, manager of the transmission project licenses for Edison, an investor-owned utility.

However, officials with the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power say they are not interested.

Any agreement with Edison would involve paying to use the power lines and could be suspended or terminated, leaving too much uncertainty for some 5 million Los Angeles-area customers, said David Nahai, DWP general manager.

"We cannot afford to be in a second position when it comes to transmission," Nahai said. "We have to have permanent and absolute transmission rights. ... Renting is not the option one prefers to have."

Los Angeles wants 800-megawatt power lines in place by 2013 or 2014 to tap geothermal energy at the Salton Sea as well as proposed desert-area wind and solar projects.

Imperial Irrigation District would build power lines from Salton Sea to a spot north of Palm Springs. From there, in several scenarios, the Los Angeles utility would build about 80 miles of transmission lines to Hesperia, linking to the network that would carry the electricity to Los Angeles through the Antelope Valley.

Los Angeles needs to tap renewable energy sources to meet state greenhouse-gas reduction requirements. About 11 percent of the utility's electricity comes from renewable sources. By 2020, that needs to be 35 percent, utility spokesman Joseph Ramallo said.

OPPOSITION

Edison's offer bolsters the position of Green Path opponents.

Some High Desert residents have fought the DWP Green Path North plan ever since they happened upon one of the utility's survey crews last year north of Yucca Valley.

They fear power lines, and the roads needed to build and maintain them, would damage undisturbed land in the desert and in the foothills of the San Bernardino Mountains. Opponents include property owners, the Riverside County Board of Supervisors and the cities of Desert Hot Springs and Twentynine Palms.

Los Angeles officials said they would need a path no more than 330 feet wide, but desert residents worry that Green Path power lines could help justify a federal utility corridor designation that might lead to pipelines and other utility projects.

The maintenance roads would invite off-roaders, causing more damage to the environment, said David Miller, a resident of Pioneertown northwest of Yucca Valley and a member of the California Desert Coalition, a group opposing the project.

"We need to first maximize the use of all existing (utility) corridors, including all of the I-10 capacity, before we start adding corridors," Miller said.

Nahai said DWP is considering ways to build the power lines with minimal damage to the environment. An option is to bury the lines in more sensitive areas, he said. One scenario would put a portion of the power lines parallel to Edison's lines along Interstate 10. Nahai said he is in talks with Edison.

Some Inland cities could benefit from Green Path. DWP would build the lines in partnership with the interagency Southern California Public Power Authority, whose members include the cities of Riverside, Colton and Banning. Members of the power authority that opt into a project are then entitled to some of the electricity.

Blain said if the Los Angeles utility used Edison lines along Interstate 10, it would have to schedule power deliveries through California Independent System Operator.

The ISO is a state entity created when the electricity industry was deregulated in the 1990s to allow open access to most of the power grid in California. The agency would also set the transmission fees that Edison could charge.

GOING IT ALONE

But Ramallo said Los Angeles prefers to own its transmission lines and power-generation sources as much as possible.

That allows the utility to offer lower rates than those offered by investor-owned, for-profit utilities, such as Edison.

Miller said DWP's motives go beyond tapping renewable energy. The utility would have the potential to bring in money by delivering power to others, he said.

The project greatly boosts the DWP's clout and financial position by establishing new power lines near future alternative-energy projects and between two transmission corridors along interstates 10 and 15, he said.

"There is a huge potential for revenue," Miller said.

The U.S. Bureau of Land Management is processing 171 applications seeking to develop solar and wind energy on public land in the desert from Ridgecrest to El Centro. Any electricity those projects generate would have to be linked to the power grid.

The Los Angeles area will need all the power Green Path can carry, DWP officials said.

Nahai said the agency's only purpose is to serve the public.

"It is almost perverse for anyone to suggest we would be building this line to make money," Nahai said.

Federal environmental review of the Green Path proposal is expected to start next year.

Desert power line gets OK

The ratepayer-funded electrical transmission project aims to boost the use of clean sources.

By Marc Lifsher
Los Angeles Times

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."

Debate over Sunrise Powerlink may be near decision

Transmission lines near Boulevard in San Diego County. Many area residents have criticized a utility’s plan to erect what it calls a superhighway for green electricity as it tries to meet its renewable energy commitment.Sean Masterson / For The Times

The California Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on the renewable energy transmission project, opposed by some environmentalists.

By Marla Dickerson and Marc Lifsher
Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Sacramento and Calipatria, Calif. -- In the rural, arid flatlands near the Salton Sea, CalEnergy Generation is sitting on what California needs.

The Imperial County company taps steam heat from deep within the Earth's crust to generate clean electricity, enough to light 238,000 homes.

There's more where that came from. But whether further development of renewable energy ever happens at this Calipatria operation and dozens of proposed projects in California's hinterlands may depend on what goes on in San Francisco, maybe as soon as today.

The California Public Utilities Commission is scheduled to vote on a controversial transmission project known as the Sunrise Powerlink. The $1.9-billion high-voltage line would stretch more than 100 miles from Imperial County to San Diego, linking power plants in the desert to coastal cities hungry for their energy.

Billed by its developer, San Diego Gas & Electric Co., as a superhighway for green electricity, the project has drawn fierce opposition from environmental and community groups that don't want Godzilla-sized power towers marring the region's scenic wild areas.

The bruising four-year battle has exposed one of the dirty little secrets of clean energy: A lot of this new-age power requires old-school infrastructure to get to people's homes.

"You can't love renewables and hate transmission. They go together," said Jonathan Weisgall, a vice president of MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., which owns CalEnergy.

SDG&E, a unit of San Diego-based Sempra Energy, says it needs the line to meet tough state mandates to boost its use of green energy. Existing transmission, company executives contend, can't possibly accommodate all the wind, solar and geothermal projects needed in coming decades.

Opponents say clean power is a cover for SDG&E to use Sunrise to transport low-cost, polluting electricity from Mexico, where Sempra has invested heavily in natural gas and power-plant assets.

Activists also say Sunrise will fleece ratepayers, destroy sensitive desert habitat and increase the risk of deadly blazes in one of the state's most fire-prone areas. Far better, they say, to upgrade California's existing transmission network, encourage energy conservation and build clean generation closer to California's cities.

"This isn't about protecting the planet. It's about money," said Donna Tisdale, a rancher and community activist in eastern San Diego County. "This is the industrialization of rural America."

A creaky grid

California isn't alone in this power struggle.

Concern is rising about the inability of the antiquated U.S. power grid to keep pace with the nation's growing demand for electricity. Congestion -- essentially electricity traffic jams -- bedevils existing transmission corridors across the country. Renewable sources such as wind and utility-scale solar thermal plants are adding to the bottleneck.

The U.S. Department of Energy has identified Southern California and the New York-to-Washington corridor as the nation's most critically power-congested areas. Officials say more transmission should be built and warn of the increasing risk of blackouts if it isn't.

California is in a particularly tight spot. State law requires investor-owned utilities to procure 20% of their electricity from renewable sources by 2010. That's set to increase to 33% by 2020, thanks to sweeping new rules that require California to slash its greenhouse gas emissions.

At present, less than 12% of the state's electricity comes from renewables. Utilities are counting on large-scale solar plants, wind farms and geothermal operations to help them meet their targets.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger actively supports these projects as well as new transmission to accompany them. He wrote utility regulators Tuesday endorsing the Sunrise line, saying, "This project is a vital link in California's renewable energy future and must be approved as soon as possible."

Critics say spending billions on distant power plants and hulking transmission lines is a throwback to another era, the equivalent of betting the farm on an Escalade instead of a Prius. The true promise of green electricity, said San Diego environmentalist Terry Weiner, lies not only in switching to clean sources but also in changing the way energy is delivered.

She said massive investment in rooftop solar panels in California's cities could bring hundreds of clean megawatts online quickly without damaging precious wilderness habitat.

"San Diego doesn't need to import sunshine from the desert," said Weiner, conservation coordinator for the San Diego-based Desert Protective Council.

Environmentalists have won some rounds. SDG&E had been pushing to build Sunrise through the heart of Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, a recreational jewel beloved by hikers and campers. That 150-mile route appears doomed after recent decisions by an administrative law judge and a utilities commission member.

Judge Jean Veith wants the commission to reject the Sunrise Powerlink because she has concluded it's too costly, too harmful to the environment and not needed for SDG&E to meet clean-energy mandates.

Commissioner Dian Grueneich favors an alternate 120-mile route along the Mexico border, provided that SDG&E agrees to deliver a "substantial" amount of clean energy on the line.

The utility objected, complaining that continued regulatory wrangling would slow construction and discourage the development of renewables. The company promised to allow no power from coal-fired generation on the line if the commission would give it a timely approval.

"I think it's ready for a decision," said Mike Niggli, SDG&E's chief operating officer. "There have been tens of thousands of pages of documents."

A need to plan

The likelihood of approval increased markedly a few weeks ago, when commission President Michael Peevey issued his own proposed alternative decision mandating the same route Grueneich did but without her restrictions. It would "clear the way for a new renewable energy superhighway, allowing us to tap into the Imperial Valley's rich renewable resources without delay or unnecessary barriers," Peevey said.

Whether Sunrise is greenlighted and with what conditions will send important signals to companies hoping to develop more geothermal, solar and wind energy in California's desert regions.

Building transmission gives renewable-energy companies the certainty they say they need to market electricity. Access to transmission allows them to sign long-term delivery contracts with utilities and line up financing to build new power plants.

But financial uncertainty could make it impossible to fulfill contracts with both SDG&E and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to supply up to 1,700 megawatts of power, said Steve Cowman, chief executive of Stirling Energy Systems Inc., a Phoenix solar power company.

Californians need to find a balance between protecting environmentally sensitive areas and building transmission lines, said Paul Thomsen, director of policy and business development for Ormat Technologies Inc., a Reno geothermal company.

"You really start to back yourself into a corner," Thomsen said, "if you don't want to live next to a power plant, and you don't want transmission and don't want fossil fuels."

Future power lines, pipelines will cut across wildlife refuge

By STEVE TETREAULT
Las Vegas Review-Journal









WASHINGTON -- Despite the pleas of nature advocates earlier this year, the Desert National Wildlife Refuge will be included in 1,622 miles of federal land crisscrossed by future power lines and pipelines.

The inclusion is part of a final report released Wednesday designating land in Nevada as part of an energy corridor network throughout the West.

Part of one corridor runs for about 25 miles along the southeastern edge of the 1.6 million acre Desert National Wildlife Refuge north of Las Vegas. Nature advocates at public hearings in Southern Nevada earlier this year urged federal officials to delete the corridor.

But it could not be done, according to a final environmental impact statement issued by the departments of Energy, Interior, Agriculture and Defense. The agencies collaborated after Congress set direction for them in a law enacted three years ago.

"It is not like it is going to
destroy the refuge..."
- John Hiatt,
Red Rock Audubon Society
The route intersecting the Nevada refuge "was retained because of there being no other viable option for relocating the corridor," the report states. It added that the agencies would seek approval from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service that manages the haven for desert shrubs, bighorn sheep and the desert tortoise.

Release of the environmental report is one of the last steps before the energy corridor network can be finalized. It designates 6,112 miles of federal land in 11 states where future power lines and oil, gas and hydrogen pipelines could be funneled through the bureaucracy to build more energy infrastructure. Most corridors would be two-thirds of a mile wide.

John Hiatt, conservation chair for the Red Rock Audubon Society, said the energy corridor that runs through Clark County follows a tortuous path around the Sheep Mountains and then north and west of the Spring Mountains.

Hiatt said the route pleased nobody, including the federal officials who detoured it "150 extra miles" around the metropolitan area. In the process, they did not bypass the Desert National Wildlife Refuge.

"It is not like it is going to destroy the refuge, but it is a death by a thousand cuts and this is the first big cut," Hiatt said. "It definitely has a big impact. Essentially it removes all sense of naturalness from a fairly wide corridor which will be disturbed numerous times for fuel lines, gas lines, whatever they want to do. It is a bad situation with no simple answer how to solve the problem."

Jill Moran, a BLM spokeswoman, said the corridor designations do not automatically green-light development projects. Further environmental studies would be required for specific proposals before they can be permitted, although some studies may not need to be as extensive because of the groundwork being laid now.

The initiative also commits federal agencies to cooperate to reduce red tape for developers. Moran said the corridors will be formally designated through a record of decision that will be issued before the end of the year.

In Nevada, 34 corridors were identified. About 69 percent of the mileage already is designated for utility or transportation rights of way. BLM officials could not immediately identify which corridors would be newly designated in the state.

The Bush administration's work to designate energy corridors "has ruffled a lot of feathers in the environmental community out West," said John Tull, conservation director of the Nevada Wilderness Project.

The maps favor coal, oil and gas, and "look like another handout for traditional energy sources," Tull said. "It doesn't have the foresight for a renewable energy plan."

How the corridors might look different "is entirely the discussion that needs to go forward," he said. "I don't know what they would look like but that discussion has not taken place."

In the meantime, "I will be surprised if there will not be lawsuits real quick," Tull said. "That's pretty much the only course of action left."

Federal energy-corridor plan criticized

By Stephen Speckman
Deseret News

Critics last week flayed a new federal plan for about 6,000 miles of energy corridors on nearly 3 million acres in 11 states, saying the strategy fails to protect "treasured" public lands.

In the meantime, state lawmakers endorsed a proposed bill Wednesday that seeks to create a task force to focus on where to site utility transmission corridors in Utah. Rocky Mountain Power's manager of government affairs, Kevin Boardman, told members of the Public Utilities and Technology Interim Committee that his company would like to be part of the task force.

"I think going forward this is going to be a primary issue before the state," Boardman said. He referred to the "challenges" his company recently encountered when Box Elder County residents, citing health concerns, objected to a $4.1 billion, 90-mile corridor running through the county into Idaho.

The bill to create the task force will be considered during the 2009 legislative general session, which begins in January.

The Wilderness Society said in a statement Thursday that a newly proposed federal plan plots a corridor a "stone's throw away" from the Paria Canyon-Vermillion Cliffs Wilderness Area. The group also pointed out that another corridor would cut through Moab and skirt within a few yards the boundary of Arches National Park.

Watchdogs also fear a corridor will be allowed to slice through Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument. The new corridors in Utah would be used for oil and natural gas pipelines and electric transmission lines.

The Bureau of Land Management and Department of Energy were given some credit Thursday for moving certain "objectionable" corridors, imposing protective management conditions and clarifying that pipelines cannot be sited without an environmental review.

But the plans cannot be considered a success "because they inadequately address renewable energy, cut out the public's right to protest and will turn national monuments and wildlife refuges into industrialized energy corridors," said Wilderness Society senior counsel Nada Culver.

Residents meet to speak out against power lines

Proposed project could damage local wildlands

Marcel Honoré
The Desert Sun

Residents of Desert Hot Springs and the high desert are bracing for a long fight against Los Angeles power officials over a proposed transmission line corridor that could cut through local wildland preserves.

About 100 people attended a meeting in Yucca Valley on Thursday opposing Green Path North, a Los Angeles Department of Water and Power proposal to carry geothermal energy from the Salton Sea to Los Angeles and Orange counties.

Although the project would provide renewable energy, it also could severely damage the local environment, opponents say. The lines could cut through Desert Hot Springs, and wildlands in Big Morongo Canyon Preserve and the San Bernardino National Forest.

If built there, the lines would cut off crucial wildlife corridors and threaten species such as bighorn sheep, said Mike Cirpa of the National Parks Conservation Association.

Local residents further worry the project would destroy the area's pristine beauty and hurt property values.

“This is the last frontier in California, this part of the state,” said Charles McHenry, a seven-year Yucca Valley resident at the meeting. “They're going to destroy all that.”

Agency officials did not speak at the meeting.

Several attendees said they suspected the agency not only was interested in transporting renewable energy from eastern Riverside County, but also in building the lines to collect transmission revenues. The California Desert Coalition, which organized the meeting, wants the the agency to use existing transmission lines along the Interstate 10 corridor that are controlled by Southern California Edison.

“This is a David-and-Goliath situation, and David has the upper hand,” said Robin Kobaly of the SummerTree Institute, a nonprofit group that supports the CDC.

“It's basically going to take over some important scenic views” in the city, Desert Hot Springs City Councilman Russell Betts told attendees. Meeting organizers asked Betts if other Coachella Valley cities had expressed opposition.

“The power lines don't run directly through their cities so we'll have to impress upon them” the importance, he answered. “We'll make that effort.”

Coalition leaders said they hope to generate enough early support from state and federal elected officials to stop Green Path North before it takes off. They've met with staff for Reps. Jerry Lewis and Mary Bono Mack, as well as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said April Sall, coalition chairwoman.

Sall told attendees to expect the agency to begin its public environmental review process as early as Jan. 2009.

The desert and green power: A love triangle

The pristine Mojave. Clean energy for a city that needs it. Do environmentalists have to choose?

By Michael Martinez
Chicago Tribune

PIONEERTOWN, Calif. — April Sall is a keeper of the Mojave Desert and its mountains, tending a private conservancy in the same canyon where her grandmother homesteaded in the 1920s.

Once considered wasteland, this expanse of sunshine and wind is now a prized battleground between unlikely opponents. For generations, conservationists like Sall's family have guarded the landscape, but 21st Century demands for renewable energy are threatening to crash into the pristine desert, now deemed a gold mine for solar, wind and geothermal farms.

Unlike offshore drilling and other oil and gas ventures in which developers and environmentalists are obvious adversaries, renewable energy is increasingly pitting two kinds of green advocates against each other as the nation seeks alternative sources in the face of record oil prices and global warming, both sides say.

The issue bears upon building a new infrastructure—such as gargantuan transmission towers or wind turbines—to connect remote areas where clean energy is being harvested while conservationists vigilantly protect the land and its life.

Big plans, big stakes

Such conflicts have played out in the Midwest, but the stakes are acute in California, where new state laws demand industry cut carbon emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 and require private utilities to generate 20 percent renewable energy by 2010.

Near Pipes Canyon—where Sall, a preserve manager for the non-profit Wildlands Conservancy, resides—a group led by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power is considering building a leg of transmission lines between a substation outside Palm Springs and one in Hesperia, about 80 miles away.

Called Green Path North, the lines would ultimately connect Los Angeles and other communities to the Salton Sea's 2,000 megawatts of geothermal power—enough to juice 2 million homes—as well as solar and wind plants. The utility group will select from six potential routes, including one as long as 313 miles, but a dispute over a "preferred" route through Pipes Canyon and the broader Morongo Basin has residents fuming.

"There's some conflict due to what's been described as a feeding frenzy for renewable energy in the desert," Sall, 28, said as she walked through a landscape of mesas and the Sawtooth Mountains that surround Pipes Canyon and adjacent Pioneertown. The setting is so evocative of the Old West that Roy Rogers and other cowboy actors built Pioneertown in 1946, and Hollywood made more than 200 movies and TV serials here, such as "The Gene Autry Show," "The Cisco Kid" and " Annie Oakley."

"If you're going to destroy conservation and pristine lands, then yeah, how green is it in the end?" Sall asked. She favors cities building solar plants on warehouse roofs, for example, but the utilities say the desert's geothermal fields provide a steady stream of power and do not rely on weather conditions as solar and wind power do.

Still, the dispute has led to tense meetings, and residents set up a Web site condemning the renewable-energy transmission lines through their communities.

No easy answer

As Congress and presumptive presidential candidates John McCain and Barack Obama struggle with the nation's energy crisis, developing alternative energy poses conflicts too.

"We're really at the forefront of a discussion that is certainly going to be repeated throughout the state of California and nationally as well," said David Nahai, general manager and chief executive officer of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power. The nation's biggest municipal utility, the department has set a goal of providing 35 percent renewable energy by 2020, up from the current 8 percent.

"All of us are going to face this challenge of where to build transmission corridors in a way that is going to impact the local communities as little as possible," he said.

The farther the green source is from urban users, the greater the risk of controversy, industry leaders say.

"It's interesting that we consider some of these areas as pristine and we don't want to put turbines or solar or transmission lines there, but they are suitable for [housing] development. There's sort of an irony there," said Mick Sagrillo, president of the non-profit Midwest Renewable Energy Association.

In the Mojave's Morongo Basin, open space advocates fear transmission towers—as high as 220 feet, with rights of way as wide as 330 feet—would endanger a wildlife corridor. But Los Angeles officials said they haven't determined tower sizes.

The California Desert Coalition, which opposes the towers, says the Los Angeles utility identified the Morongo Basin as the "preferred" route last year when helicopters landed on private property and the utility's crews laid survey disks and markers in the area. Later the utility apologized, calling it a "premature" move.

Residents want the transmission lines confined to an existing Southern California Edison corridor along Interstate Highway 10, but those lines are running at capacity, Los Angeles officials said.

Nahai, who joined the Los Angeles utility last year after the controversial helicopter surveys, acknowledges mistrust among angry residents, whom he visited last month in a meeting that was heated and raucous.

"We need to continuously talk to people and need to gain their trust and confidence," Nahai said.