PG&E's green talk - is it solar and wind power or just a bunch of wind?

Utility loudly proclaiming a new, greener attitude while pursuing nuclear and fossil-fueled future

Headlines and billboards have been trumpeting dramatic changes at PG&E, with a new CEO, a new attitude, and a commitment to clean energy. San Franciscans have seen a barrage of advertising touting PG&E's desire to make the famously green city greener.

Meanwhile, a California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) report issued in January said that PG&E will fail to meet a 2010 legislative deadline for minimum green-energy levels.

What should customers and the environmental community make of PG&E's green promises? Public-interest watchdogs remain deeply skeptical.

PG&E certainly deserves praise for actively supporting California's landmark global-warming legislation, AB 32. The Sierra Club would certainly welcome an honest, aggressive partner in addressing climate change. We would love to see our state's utilities coming close to 40 - 50% renewable energy as various Community Choice cities are planning. California utilities, however, including PG&E, are aggressively expanding their commitments to energy sources antithetical to clean energy and addressing climate change.

PG&E wants more nuclear power

PG&E is rushing upgrades at its Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant near San Luis Obispo, pushing the revival of the nuclear-power industry, and echoing the dubious claim that nuclear power can solve global warming.

PG&E is spending $14 million in 2007 to convince the state to relicense Diablo Canyon. In 2005 it won approval to pass on to ratepayers the cost of new steam generators there - meaning that Diablo's $800 million reactor upgrade is now in your rates. This upgrade, to be completed in 2010, will allow the plant to operate until at least 2025.

The veteran anti-nuclear organization Mothers for Peace and the Sierra Club have been seeking to at least mitigate the damage done by Diablo. Its pair of huge reactors straddles an earthquake fault, and its cooling systems kill hundreds of thousands of tons of sea life daily. California coastal commissioners Sara Wan and Mary Shallenberger pointed out that the plant's "impacts in the ocean are horrific," and unsuccessfully argued for requiring PG&E to dedicate a 9,000-acre easement as a mitigation. Mark Massara, director of coastal programs for the Sierra Club, said the commission vote represented a "historic lost opportunity" to protect the coast. "The commission showed their allegiance to PG&E and abandoned the public," he said.

The company recently added to its board of directors one of the nation's leading nuclear-energy advocates, Richard Meserve, who has long called for a nuclear-industry revival. PG&E's CEO, Peter Darbee, has told Wall Street analysts that the company is exploring out-of-state nuclear projects, openly circumventing a California law that forbids construction of new nuclear power plants in the state until the U.S. has a permanent site for storing radioactive waste.

PG&E has been making the dubious argument that building new nuclear plants is a solution to climate change. This argument can be made only because the nuclear lobby has convinced regulators not to count "life cycle" emissions when calculating nuclear power's "carbon footprint" - as if nukes magically materialize with a full load of fuel and vanish when their usefulness is over. In reality, over time greenhouse emissions from building the plant, creating its fuel, and managing its waste rival emissions from other types of power plant. The Sierra Club has long opposed nuclear power. We believe that existing plants should be retired upon the expiration of their licensed operating period, and that clean energy resources are sufficient and far more cost-effective in addressing climate change.

PG&E plans more gas-fired power plants

PG&E plans to build a liquefied-natural-gas (LNG) terminal in Coos Bay, OR, and a gas pipeline to California. PG&E has contracted to purchase power through 2014 from six existing gas-fired power plants, and it has just announced plans for eight new natural-gas-powered plants in northern California. On Jan. 24 PG&E broke ground at the foot of the Antioch Bridge on its first new power plant, expected to generate 530 megawatts from gas, enough electricity for 400,000 utility customers. Also in January, PG&E signed a 10-year agreement to purchase the full output of Calpine's proposed 600-megawatt gas-fired power plant near the Hayward entrance to the San Mateo Bridge. PG&E will supply the gas. PG&E won a decision from the CPUC in August to force Californians to pay for all this, even if they live in Community Choice or public-power jurisdictions.

With 42% of its power generated by burning natural gas, PG&E is among the most natural-gas-dependent utilities in the United States. While preferable to coal, more use of natural gas is inappropriate in California, where overdependence on this fossil fuel is already a major source of both greenhouse-gas emissions and volatile electricity rates.

PG&E blocks efforts at local self-determination

A 2006 election in the Sacramento-Davis area is the most recent example of PG&E's massive spending to impose its corporate interests and prevent communities from seeking cheaper, greener power.

After nine years of effort, the citizens of Yolo County almost got to join the publicly owned Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD). The pair of ballot measures that would have achieved this goal had unanimous support from county supervisors, city councils, and the local editorial pages, and for good reason. Nationally recognized for pioneering environmental leadership, SMUD offers 40% more solar and 140% more wind power per customer than PG&E, has 30% lower rates, and is ranked number-one in customer service. With SMUD an average Yolo County household would save $300/year, and Woodland's school district would save $1,000,000/year.

According to campaign reports filed with the state, PG&E spent $11.3 million fighting the vote - the most ever spent on a local ballot measure. The company paid to gather 50,000 signatures to force a separate vote by current SMUD customers in Sacramento, in addition to the Yolo County vote. Dumping a forest's worth of mailers on the city of Davis, PG&E falsely claimed itself "greener" than SMUD. As a public agency, SMUD was barred from participating in the campaign and forbidden to respond.

PG&E repeated the same line it uses regularly to fight public power and community choice: it's too costly and too risky to leave PG&E. It asserted that SMUD's expansion and buy-out of PG&E's assets in Yolo County would cost over $500 million and thus raise Sacramento's rates. Studies, however, showed that a whole new system would cost only half as much, and according to the tax assessor the existing system is worth only $64 million.

An underfunded, outmatched grassroots effort came close but ultimately failed: Yolo's Measure H (to bring in SMUD) won by 934 votes, but Measure I (to replace PG&E) lost by 10 votes. Measure L in Sacramento, where voters had no background on the issue, lost 38% to 62%. SMUD expansion is ruled out for now, but Yolo County advocates are determined to escape PG&E and are already planning their next moves.

A lesson here for Community Choice advocates: it may not be safe to assume that city councils and boards of supervisors will decide these issues; PG&E may force a vote and play hardball at the ballot box.

Where to go from here?

There is no doubt that individual employees of PG&E work hard, want to do the right thing, and are concerned about climate change. But since PG&E is an investor-owned utility, shareholder and corporate interests are foremost. This is not the first time that PG&E has claimed to have a new attitude. When a company so loudly claims its environmental intentions, it's wise to read the fine print.

To get involved in the work of the Bay Chapter's Energy Committee watchdogging PG&E, contact Chapter political director or call (510) 848-0800, ext. 304

Contributors to this article include Paul Fenn of the Sierra Club California Energy and Climate Change Committee, Barbara George of Women's Energy Matters, and members of the Chapter Energy Committee