Opinion: Powerlink Won't Light a Light Bulb

4/5/2008 - North County Times
By Peder Norby

Ratepayers (that's us) are being asked to support and fund a $1.5 billion dollar transmission line to import energy.

One fact is indisputable, and easy for all to understand. The $1.5 billion Powerlink project will not generate, nor save, enough electricity to illuminate one standard 60-watt bulb. Not one.

The proponents led and funded by SDG&E seek to use our complacency as ratepayers, coupled with a marketing campaign crafted by professional spin-meisters filled with puffery and pollution fear, in order to build this transmission line.

It is in my estimation nothing short of a "billion-dollar boondoggle."

We should all be outraged by this utility-funded public relations effort and potential "gross" waste and exportation of our money and valuable jobs.

The goal of using more sustainable energy is admirable and one I support and invested my own money in, but constructing a $1.5 billion transmission line to import energy, a small portion of it green energy, from hundreds of miles away for our local consumption, violates the very tenet of sustainability, which is to "produce what you use locally."

San Diego, with a county population of around 3 million, should be generating its energy and jobs locally, not exporting jobs and importing energy from afar at a cost of billions in dollars and an incalculable cost of diminished nationwide and statewide public habitat.

When are we as a society willing to preserve forever our treasured public open spaces, our state and national parks, instead of justifying a degradation of them?

The central theme of the SDG&E-funded "Your Choice" campaign is fatally flawed and weirdly points the finger right back at itself as a gross polluter. That if we don't support the importation of energy, a portion of which will be green, then we will have polluted skies with new coal and gas belching power plants all over San Diego County.

Another way of delivering this message is, "We support green energy from somewhere else and coal power plants locally."

They describe it as a desire for green energy. I call it simple green-washing and fear-mongering. Scare tactics by spin-meisters at their worst.

"Your choice" in my opinion is fairly simple:

1) Spend $1.5 billion that generates no electricity, to import energy and export jobs, or

2) Generate truly sustainable green energy in San Diego County for a fraction of that cost with a new transmission line from your rooftop to your service panel.

Examples of choice No. 2 include:

-- Southern California Edison, which is going to be generating 250 megawatts of advanced solar photovoltaic on 65 million square feet of roofs of Southern California commercial buildings.

-- City of Encinitas installing a 100-kilowatt system on the roof of City Hall to provide its own power.

-- Pacific Station project in Encinitas, providing solar photovoltaic for each of its 47 townhouses and lofts at no cost to the owners.

-- Last, my own home, which generates 100 percent of the electricity it uses with a photovoltaic system that uses 15 percent of the roof space.

Some important questions to ask ourselves:

Do we invest in San Diego County's citizens, corporations and new jobs, providing energy independence based on existing infrastructure, or do we export these jobs, and our billions, to other states and areas hundreds of miles away through a single fragile transmission line?

Is San Diego County going to be a driver and an adopter of sustainable energy, a technology-driven curve, more efficient and less costly to manufacture year after year? Or are we going to be a gross spender on a dinosaur of fossil fuel-driven, powerplant-based transmission lines with fuel costs that go up every year?

Do we increase our dependency with every new home and job requiring energy from hundreds of miles away, or do we decrease consumption and improve our energy infrastructure locally with each sustainable-energy project that is built locally?

It truly is "Your Choice."

Let your voices be heard and join me in promoting sustainable energy for San Diego County and opposing the Powerlink project.

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