Green Party of Ventura

THE CALIFORNIA ENERGY CRISIS IN VENTURA COUNTY
By Stuart Bechman
June 23, 2001

The California energy crisis continues unabated as the state and federal government point fingers at each other without putting forth any real solution.

Recent moves by Gov. Grey Davis include the relaxation of pollution-control regulations for gas-fired plants and to expedite the state review process for approving new and 'repowered' power plants.

The GOP's answer to our energy crisis is a$1.5 miillion PR campaign financed by the allegedly 'broke' power companies to tell us how wonderful they are, how the Democrats and environmentalists caused this mess, and how that's still OK because the crisis isn't as bad as it seems. State Senator Tom McClintock is promoting a return to nuclear power plants while he clucks at the environmentalists for their 'unwillingness to grasp reality.'

The companies primarily responisible for this energy fiasco -- PG&E and SoCalEd, continue to operate in this state with impunity, working out bail-out deals with the governor. PG&E has filed for federal bankruptcy protection, yet had the gall to provide multi-million dollars bonuses for its executives -- once, days prior to filing for bankruptcy protection in early Spring, and again in early June. No elected government official seems interested in banning these companies from the state or pulling their corporate charters, despite repeated calls to do so by public interest groups.

What we don't see happening is a stampede by local governments to bring the power crisis under their own control and set up their own Municipal Utility Districts such as exists in Los Angeles, Sacramento and San Francisco and which proved their worth by saving their customers from the crisis embroiling the rest of the state.

The VC Board of Supervisors made early moves to address the crisis, thanks to the efforts of Steve Bennett; but those efforts have stalled out. No Ventura County city council has addressed the issue in a serious matter, preferring to stay out of the heat. Yet it is the local governments that should be at the forefront of this crisis and the best able to solve it.

The current power infrastructure is seriously hampered by antiquated and decyaing technology. Despite the billions of dollars the energy industry has earned off of Californians, it has been several decades since serious upgrades have been done to any major extent. The state power transmission lines that Governor Davis is negotiating to buy are in a state of disrepair and will require millions to rehabilitate. The plants and transmission lines are so inefficient that the average customer receives only 5% of the power that he purchases, the rest being lost in production inefficiencies and transmission line drain-offs.

Ventura County has two active power plants, previously owned by SoCalEd but sold to The Reliant Company of Texas after deregulation went into effect. The northeastern half of the county is semi-desert and has ample space and sunlight to support solar energy plants. We even have the largest solar generation equipment company, Seimens Solar, based right here in Camarillo.

In California, cities granted "Home Rule" status have the power to create Municipal Utility Districts (MUDs). These MUDs are city-owned districts that provide power to all residents in the city or district. MUDs provide a myriad of advantages over the private utility companies.

Producing energy through local MUDs is inherently far cheaper than buying power from current providers. The reasons for this benefit are twofold: First, by creating power locally, we do not experience the loss of power inherent in shipping power across miles of power lines. Secondly, cities who set up MUDs can invest in new-generation technology that are not only far more efficient than old furnace power plants, they are more affordable, smaller, quiet, non-polluting, scalable to any size of demand, and modular. A power generator today does not have to commit millions of dollars in equipment and months of construction before a kilowatt of power can be generated. Today's power technologies are so modular, they can be purchased "off-the-shelf" and installed in a very short period of time.

Instead of paying for a 5% return on the power generated by the mega-providers, local MUDs could be enjoying a yield of 60-70% or more, significantly reducing our energy costs and being kinder to the environment. We would also be free of the threat of power blackouts and the larger threat of bad political deals that will put us on the hook to the large power providers and their stockholders for years to come.

Micro-turbines are the equivalent size and cost of an automobile, and are modular and scalable to any generation capacity. Micro-turbines to power entire neighborhoods are compact enough to be installed in existing neighborhood power substations without problem. They are powered by any gaseous fuel, from natural gas to propane to methane that can be drawn off of our own landfill! Fuel cells are even more efficient and compact and have no moving parts, allowing the generator to run silently. Both of these technologies are developed and offered by (among others) Capstone Technologies, a company based in Chatsworth, California.

Solar power, while probably not feasible as a power generation source via a MUD, is certainly an abundant and equally feasible power source in eastern Ventura County. Again, there are local companies such as Siemens Solar in Oxnard that provides state-of-the-art solar panels with high efficiency factors. Contracting with these emerging local companies would not only benefit local power customers, but invest in our local economy and provide jobs for our residents.

In addition, local governments could and should be implementing requirements on residential and commercial builders to incorporate local power generation in their building plans, whether that includes solar power, micro-turbines, or fuel cells. Existing local businesses could be given tax breaks to set up solar power grids on their roofs, further encouraging energy independence. Future power needs could be met with a city or county-wide MUD that would provide power more cost-effectively than any existing private energy provider.

But Ventura County does have a choice. We can take our own initiative and chart a path out of this morass to energy independence by investing in our own community. The investment is affordable and not likely to be wasted whatever the outcome of the crisis. It would bring our power needs under local control and responsibility rather than relying on outside forces that have shown themselves to be unreliable and greedy. And we can begin to implement this solution almost immediately while the rest of the state waits years for new power plants to come on-line.