http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/sunrise_powerlink_history.pdf
DISTRIBUTED GENERATION OF POWER - SUCH AS ROOF-TOP SOLAR - IS BY FAR SUPERIOR TO "CENTRALIZED POWER GRIDS CONTROLLED BY MONOPOLISTIC UTILITIES (SDG&E / SEMPRA), AND CONNECTED TO FOREIGN, EXTREMELY EXPENSIVE, POLLUTING ENERGY SOURCES (SUNRISE POWERLINK). RESPECTED EXPERTS FROM ALL SECTORS GIVE TESTIMONY:
"Yet, as the Draft EIR thankfully indicates— and as expert after expert has testified— Sunrise Powerlink is a false choice. The EIR’s top two alternatives clearly show that this region— its economy and its landscape— are better served by local, DISTRIBUTED GENERATION -- not imported, generation." From Diane Jacob, Supervisor, 2nd District, County of San Diego.
http://www.co.san-diego.ca.us/cnty/bos/sup2/press/speech080226.html
Leading authority Bill Powers, often hired by community groups and governments and companies to provide expert testimony on power issues opposes the $1.9 billion Sunrise Powerlink line as "unneeded and too expensive, and calls the decision approving it “a period piece.” Central to Powers’ vision is that San Diego can produce the renewable power it needs here, negating the need both for big transmission and big desert solar farms. It’s a concept called DISTRIBUTED GENERATION. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2010/sep/04/q-what-guy-who-opposes-sdge-thinks//
SPECIAL THANKS TO: LOCAL CLEAN ENERGY ALLIANCE...for compiling the following advocates of DE-CENTRALIZED DISTRIBUTED POWER GENERATION...
http://www.localcleanenergy.org/Acclaim-Community-Power
“One of the great side effects of moving to renewable power is that we will replace vulnerable, brittle centralized systems that are too big to fail with spread out democratic energy sources small enough to be resilient. COMMUNITY POWER makes a compelling case for moving in this direction.”
--Bill McKibben, Co-founder of 350.org; author of a dozen books on the environment, including The End of Nature.
..."anyone interested in the myriad of benefits (jobs, lower prices, energy security, sustainability, economic development) that can be derived from local decentralized electricity generation. Decentralized power is truly “Power to the People.” This publication provides a clear explanation of how and why our communities have so much to gain from local decentralized power and so much to lose if big energy corporations continue to control our energy resources.”
--Angelina Galiteva, founder of Renewables 100 Policy Institute; chairperson of the World Council for Renewable Energy (WCRE).
"Distributed generation offers a unique set of economic, social, and environmental benefits, including the ability to diversify energy markets, turn buildings into profitable power plants for even low-income households, and to spur a wave of small-business job creation. Community Power provides an essential guide to the technologies, policies, and management skills needed to make this energy transformation a reality."
...Dan Kammen, Founding Director of the Renewable and Appropriate Energy Laboratory, UC Berkeley; Chief Technical Specialist for Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, World Bank
"Nature does a great job of distributing energy to every community. Community Power shows us the way to make sure we’re doing a better job of using it and weaning ourselves off of limited, polluting fossil fuels."
Terry Tamminen, Former Secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency and Special Advisor to California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
"The only way we are going to effectively and rapidly make the transition away from fossil fuels is to place that transformation in the hands of citizens and communities. Community Power is California's guide to descaling the solution so that people everywhere can participate in leading the nation to a secure and stable energy future."
Paul Hawken, author, Ecology of Commerce and Natural Capitalism
"California must take a multi-faceted approach to meeting its future energy needs and this includes decentralized renewable energy generation. Community Power provides vital information so that we can move the state forward to grow this emerging sector so that California can meet its goals of reducing pollution to protect the environment and public health."
Assemblymember Pedro Nava, Chair, California Assembly Select Committee on California’s Green Economy
"Al Weinrub’s Community Power puts forth practical and achievable renewable energy solutions for communities most impacted by our dependence on fossil fuel. Community Power exemplifies how distributed/decentralized generation creates genuine local green jobs and environmental health benefits for communities across California choking from dirty air and toxic dumping. Anyone who prefers community control over profit-focused utilities, and anyone who wants clean air for our children should read Community Power."
Strela Cervas, Co-Coordinator, California Environmental Justice Alliance
"Community Power shows that local renewable power generation can open doors to clean energy careers for working class communities of color. It can bring jobs, health, and wealth to cities like Oakland."
Emily Kirsch, Green Collar Jobs Campaign, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights; Convener, Oakland Climate Action Coalition
"Energy, like land, water, and clean air, is a resource that is essential to healthy communities. Community Power shows us that local decentralized energy can enable not only environmentally healthy communities, but also economically healthy and socially equitable communities. We must reclaim the power of the sun."
Diane Takvorian, Executive Director, Environmental Health Coalition
"Al Weinrub's Community Power addresses many benefits of decentralized renewable power, including the increased energy security that comes from widespread distributed generation of electricity. These relatively small projects can be built quickly to improve system reliability and reduce the energy supply vulnerabilities associated with centralized power systems."
R. James Woolsey, Venture Partner, VantagePoint Venture Partners; Former Director Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
"Preserving deserts is as important to mitigating climate change impacts as preserving rainforests. COMMUNITY POWER provides great alternatives to scraping up living desert ecosystems, and shows how renewable energy does not have to compete with habitat for desert species and carbon-storing vegetation."
Laura Cunningham, Solar Done Right; co-founder of Basin and Range Watch.
"Community Power helps overturn the conventional wisdom that bigger is better, illustrating how decentralized, distributed renewable energy can provide a cost-effective and economy-boosting strategy for meeting our power needs."
John Farrell, Senior Researcher, Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR)
"Decentralized community-oriented power is simply elegant common sense. Any thoughtful person wants to ensure that the way we power our societies works for all people and all creatures. Al Weinrub’s Community Power gives us a handbook to power California consistent with in the great web of life."
Randy Hayes, Climate and Energy Campaign, World Future Council; Founder, Rainforest Action Network
"Wholesale Distributed Generation is the single most important market segment for achieving significant deployments of cost-effective renewable energy in the coming decade. The many reasons span economic, environmental, and national security considerations; and Community Power does a tremendous job of highlighting the details."
Craig Lewis, Executive Director, FIT Coalition
"COMMUNITY POWER" (By Al Weintraub) is meant to inform community activists, environmental justice advocates, labor unions, municipal governments, legislative assistants, commercial building owners, and businesses of the potential of local renewable power to revitalize communities. It is a backgrounder for the ongoing work of the California Clean Energy Solutions campaign, which calls for uniting a broad spectrum of groups to advocate for local renewable power as key to economic development and clean energy jobs."
http://www.scribd.com/doc/46692589/Community-Power-by-Al-Weinrub
"A coalition of community and consumer groups, environmental organizations, and energy experts believes the time is right to break the links chaining us to a centralized energy system and move forward to a decentralized (DISTRIBUTED GENERATION), secure, renewable energy future." ...from Basin and Range Watch Org.
http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/sunrise_powerlink_history.pdf
 |
| Yellow = Utilities -- Red = Non-Residential -- Blue = Residential |
http://cleantechnica.com/2010/01/10/rooftop-solar-installations-growing-faster-than-utility-scale-solar/
http://irecusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/IREC-2009-Annual-ReportFinal.pdf
AND FROM: San Diegans for Smart Energy Solutions, Myth vs. Fact: The True Story of the Sunrise Powerlink
http://www.sdsmartenergy.org/SRPL_mythvsfact.pdf :
When asked, "Do we need the Sunrise Powerlink in order to have clean renewable energy in San Diego, and to meet California’s Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS)? " ..."No. Renewable energy goals can be met by existing transmission lines", as conceded under oath by Jim Avery, a Senior Vice President of SDG&E. (Source: Craig D. Rose, San Diego Union-Tribune, “Powerlink’s supply called into question,” July 11, 2007) California's Renewable Energy Standard has not changed since SDG&E's SR. VP's testimony in 2007.
Jan 30, 2011...Ex-California Governor Schwarzenegger also admitted during a private, closed Powerlink groundbreaking ceremony for SDG&E and its employees...that the Sunrise Powerlink is not needed...but they should build it anyway!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zolMVpgEgts&sns=fb
Additionally, local renewable energy resources are available in San Diego. This has been confirmed by a 2005 report partially funded by SDG&E entitled, “Potential for Renewable Energy in the San Diego Region.” (Source: San Diego Regional Renewable Energy Study Group, “Potential for Renewable Energy in the San Diego Region,” August 2005)
In evaluating the Sunrise Powerlink project, the independent consumer watchdog group, Utility Consumer’s Action Network (UCAN) noted that SDG&E has “exaggerated” the need for this project, has “understated its costs,” has “ignored reasonable alternatives,” and has engaged in a “systematic scheme to mislead the public.”
http://www.ucan.org/energy/electricity/ucans_comments_on_the_california_energy_commissions_strong_endorsement_of_the_sunrise_powerlink.
“UCAN Testimony on Overview of Technical Testimony, SDG&E Misinformation and Alternatives,” June 1, 2007.
Furthermore, the Division of Ratepayer Advocates (DRA), the arm of the California Public Utilities Commission that advocates on behalf of public utility customers, maintains Sunrise is clearly not needed to meet any of its stated objectives, including the critical goal of providing reliable service in San Diego. DRA (Division of Ratepayer Advocates) is not convinced that Sunrise is the best alternative for meeting such goals, or even that Sunrise’s benefits will exceed its costs.
http://www.dra.ca.gov/electric/index.htm
http://www.sdsmartenergy.org/sunrisepowerlink.shtml
SDG&E claims the Sunrise Powerlink will connect to planned solar plants in Imperial Valley. Experts have testified otherwise. In reality, Sunrise will link to "dirty" power plants across the border, worsening pollution in an area that already has poor air quality and the highest asthma rates in California.
http://www.sdsmartenergy.org/sunrisepowerlink.shtml
SDG&E over-estimated the Powerlink's savings to consumers, and these numbers relied on electricity from Sempra's Mexicali NG polluting power plants. So much for clean, affordable electricity! The Utility Consumers Action Network estimates the line will actually cost consumers at least $93 million MORE per year.
http://www.sdsmartenergy.org/sunrisepowerlink.shtml
Utility monopolies such as Sempra-SDG&E are "anathema to free capitalistic market economies. As any Introduction to Economics textbook shows, monopolies set prices far in excess of what they would be in a competitive market, thus incurring obscene profits. In such situations, government regulations are absolutely necessary to protect the public from predatory pricing." , Joel Harrison, PHD, MPH
http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/site/?q=node/8231
And far from being reliable, the Southwest Powerlink has gone down twice since 2003, a victim of massive wildfires in San Diego County. SDG&E’s response to the Southwest Powerlink’s failures? Build more of the same. But a coalition of community and consumer groups, environmental organizations, and energy experts believes the time is right to break the links chaining us to a centralized energy system and move forward to a decentralized, secure, renewable energy future...from Basin and Range Watch Org.
http://www.basinandrangewatch.org/sunrise_powerlink_history.pdf
SPECIAL THANKS AGAIN FOR MOST ALL ABOVE RESEARCH AND CITES: San Diegans for Smart Energy Solutions, "Myth vs. Fact: The True Story of the Sunrise Powerlink"
http://www.sdsmartenergy.org/SRPL_mythvsfact.pdf
1. Personal.com. Bill Powers, Border Power Plants Working Group. Also see Los Angeles Times, “Bill to ban sale of incandescent light bulbs advances”, April 24, 2007.
2. SDG&E Press Release, May 14, 2007, “SDG&E selects projects to meet peak-power demand in 2008,” http://sdge.com/news/news_releases.html.
3. Dave Downey, North County Times, “Power line not needed, report says,” May 21, 2007.
4. California Public Utilities Commission, Order Instituting Rulemaking to Establish Policies and Rules to Ensure Reliable, Long-Term Supplies of Natural Gas to California,” January 22, 2004, http://www.cpuc.ca.gov/PUBLISHED/FINAL_DECISION/33642-01.htm.
5. Craig D. Rose, San Diego Union-Tribune, “Powerlink’s supply called into question,” July 11, 2007.
6. Utility Consumers’ Action Network and Border Power Plant Working Group, “Comments on Draft 2005 IEPR Transmission Chapter – The Sunrise Powerlink and Alternatives for Moving Renewable-Generated Electricity, Relieving Congestion, and Assuring Reliability in the Service Territory of the San Diego Gas & Electric Company,” October 14, 2005, http://www.ucan.org/energy/electricity/ucans_comments_on_the_california_energy_commissions_strong_endorsement_of_the_sunrise_powerlink.
7. San Diego Regional Renewable Energy Study Group, “Potential for Renewable Energy in the San Diego Region,” August 2005, http://www.renewables.org/.
8. Craig D. Rose, San Diego Union-Tribune, “SDG&E official faces foes of Sunrise Powerlink,” July 10, 2007.
9. Dr. Barry Butler, “Phase I Direct Testimony of Dr. Barry Butler on Behalf of Conservation Groups,” June 1, 2007.
10. SDG&E Application for a Certificate of Public Convenience and Necessity (CPCN) submitted to California Public Utilities Commission, August 4, 2006. Proceeding number A.06-08-010.
11. “Sempra Energy/SDG&E’s Fossil Fuel Corridor,” Sierra Club, Center for Biological Diversity, Border Power Plant Working Group, Protect our Communities Fund, 2007.
http://www.sdsmartenergy.org/sunrisepowerlink.shtml
12. Phase I Direct Testimony of the Mussey Grade Road Alliance Fire Analysis – Economic Impacts, May 31, 2007. David Hogan, “Phase I Direct Testimony of David Hogan on Behalf of Conservation Groups,” June 1, 2007.
