Myth vs. Fact

MYTH: Environmentalists caused California's power shortage.     

"The California electricity shortage was not cause by environmental extremism..." And, as Paul Krugman of the New York Times said ("Smog and Mirrors" Jan. 31, 2001), "Nor, apparently, did environmental  regulations play much of a role in California's failure to build new plants in the years since deregulation."

The California electricity shortage is mainly the result of a flawed  deregulation plan compounded by mistakes made by the utilities.

The Sierra Club has not blocked or delayed any new power  plants in California over the last ten years.

The Sierra Club has long been in favor of updating old, inefficient generating plants with cleaner, more efficient ones and we support the proposed Calpine generating plant slated to be built near San Jose. Unfortunately, this  plant has been blocked by Cisco Systems, who is planning to build an office park nearby.

In 1995, the Sierra Club and other environmental organizations supported the construction of the 1400 megawatts of new, clean generating capacity. According to an article in the Los Angeles Daily News ("By Killing Plan, Socal Edison Helped Create Power Crisis," Jan. 21): 

"...Southern California Edison and other utilities helped kill a state plan that would have authorized  the creation of new power plants sufficient to power 1.4 million homes, records and interviews show."  The utilities hoped that they could buy " plenty of  cheaper power elsewhere..."

To add insult to injury the same Daily New article reported: "By state law, much of the power was ordered to come  from renewable energy such as wind, geothermal and solar."

According to the California Energy Commission, no electric  power plant in California has been rejected over air pollution issues.

MYTH: The Sierra Club is against building new power plants in  California

FACT: The Sierra Club has long advocated for modernizing or  replacing older power plants with newer ones. New power plants  are up to 50% more efficient and up to 90% cleaner than older  ones. Utilities and power producers on the other hand, have  resisted building new plants over the last ten years because, until  recently, demand did not force them to do so and because the  utilities knew that deregulation would force them to sell off plants.

In the last three years, a number of proposed power plants have  been slowed by objections from competing energy companies.  According to the Sacramento Bee (Jan. 28, 2001):

"Of the 21 power plants proposed for licensing since 1997, competing companies have intervened in 12 proposals, slowing the process in  at least four situations..."

MYTH: Higher energy prices and the California energy crunch  show that we need to increase our oil supply by drilling in the  Arctic National Refuge.

FACT: California gets less than 1% of its electricity from oil-fired  plants and, as the Los Angeles Times states ("Arctic Oil a Sham Answer," Jan. 31, 2001):

"Drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,  President Bush's signature energy cause, would  not generate one kilowatt of electricity for California. It wouldn't even produce any oil for an  estimated 10 years."

Instead of drilling in the Arctic, we could find a new source of oil  by raising automobile and light-truck fuel-economy standards. If  we increased fuel economy standards by just 6 percent each  year, by the time oil from the Arctic became available, we could  be saving 1.1 billion barrels of oil annually. That's more oil than  we import from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, United Arab  Emirates, and estimates of oil in the Arctic, and national offshore  oil combined.

MYTH: Air-quality restrictions have caused blackouts across the  state.

FACT: Air-quality restrictions are not a major factor in the  blackouts. In fact, dirty plants are highly inefficient and waste  valuable fuel. The blackouts are due to a lack of energy  production and are mainly the result of the flawed deregulation plan and mistakes made by the utilities.

According to an article in the LA Times ("Bush's Idea of Easing  Smog Rules Won't Help, Experts Say," Jan. 25, 2001) with the  exception of a small utility in Glendale, power plants around the  state "are cranking out as many megawatts as possible to ward off blackouts."

MYTH: The Sierra Club supported California's energy  deregulation.

FACT: The Sierra Club did not support California's energy  deregulation because we thought it would not benefit consumers  or the environment.

MYTH: Air pollution standards are unnecessary and too  expensive.

FACT: Californians enjoy breathing cleaner air in part because we  have taken sensible steps to reduce pollution from power plants  and these limits have affected the price of electricity minimally.

According to an article in the LA Times ("Bush's Idea of Easing  Smog Rules Won't Help, Experts Say," Jan. 25, 2001)

"Air quality rules in the Los Angeles region have had a role in raising the cost of power... But because only a fraction of the state's power is generated in the region, the overall price impact is limited."

 And these pollution standards have helped clean-up LA's air pollution: In 1981 Los Angeles had 180 days where smog reached  unsafe levels; in 1999, LA had only 42 unsafe days.