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The Municipalization of SDG&E
On Sept. 5th, community activists and environmentalists will throw a warning shot across the bow of the Sempra Corporation. Gathering at 6 p.m. in front of their downtown headquarters at 101 Ash Street, they will announce plans to take back city energy policy from the Texas based company.
The rally/press conference will focus on a campaign to develop a public owned, municipally run, power grid. Also featured will be opposition groups to SDG&E's proposed Sunrise Powerlink project, which will cut through San Diego's backcountry and a state park.
The San Diego Coalition for Clean and Fair Government has called for San Diego to become 100% energy independent by 2018 by mandating renewable sources of energy such as solar, wind, and geothermal as the only permitted sources. The Coalition, comprised of members from several dozen community groups, says the only way to do that effectively and quickly is to transform SDG&E from a private, bottom-line, concern into a community project. They suggest all eneregy projects and decisions must benefit San Diego, rather than distant investors in Texas (Bush's base).
Profits from a public owned facility would stay in the community to fund free installation of renewable energy systems in every home and building in the city, beginning in poorer neighborhoods; Coalition members suggested.
Sempra Corporation has a proven track record as corporate thieves, price manipulators and endangering the public health and safety. From exposing citizens of San Diego and Lemon Grove, including nearby school children, to dangerous levels of asbestos at its Encanto Gas Holder Facility to manipulating prices, falsifying official documents and lying to government investigators over its illegal price fixing during the electricity deregulation crisis.
Sempra's 600-megawatt thermoelectric plant near Mexicali is a blatant
attempt to hide its air pollution and wastewater contamination. It also shields green-house gas emission levels from its customers. The lack of safety concerns for its exploited workers is also hidden.
While recognizing that enabling ordinances and funding for a city owned facility would take some time; Rocky Neptun, the Coalition's candidate for Mayor of San Diego, has called for the city "to immediately consider forming a public organization, called perhaps "San Diego Energy Users District." He proposes the elected Board negotiate better prices, fight Sempra's attempt to end the rate cap, enacted by the legislature until 2015 to protect residents from the excessive contracts extracted during the deregulation crisis, and, to demand cleaner generation of power.
He also called for ant-trust ordinances that would, in the short run, create a competitive environment for lower energy prices by requiring seperate ownership for gas and electricity providers. Also, stipulating that providers could not also be energy producers.
Pointing to the recent buy-out of a proposed wind farm in Mexico by Sempra: Neptun said, at a recent homeowners meeting in Normal Heights; "we cannot continue to allow deep-pocketed corporations, like Sempra, to but out smaller renewable energy companies, like their purchase of the wind generating plant near La Rumorosa in Baja, to merely shut them down or dribble out energy production to meet the 5 perecnt state requirement for clean generation."
"We oppose moving electricity over great distances by power lines," he said, "it is both expensive and unnecessary."
 e-mail:: dustyddelon@yahoo.com
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The presence of LNG terminals in Mexico as another form of environmental racism is forgotten by the corporate media and proponents of natural gas as clean energy. How clean is it really??
On the world's longest border between a developing nation and a developed one, rising demand for energy and declining air quality are in constant conflict. In the single region that includes the Imperial Valley in California and the Mexicali Valley in Baja California Norte, the prevailing winds carry pollution from north to south two-thirds of the year. The rest of the time, they blow it from Mexico to the United States.
"They say the wind doesn't need a passport or a visa," said Margarito Quintero, a professor of environmental sciences at the Autonomous University of Baja California in Mexicali. "We share a neighborhood, we share an atmosphere. Without the plants, there would still be a (pollution) problem, but they're adding to the problem. ... I don't see much benefit for Mexico."
1,600 tons of pollution
Niggli said getting permission to build Sempra's Mexicali plant in just five months, a fraction of the two-year average wait the company would have faced in California, was just a fringe benefit. He and other energy executives say the two Mexicali plants exceed local environmental requirements, provide clean power and meet the demands of the growing energy market in both countries.
Powers and the Border Power Plant Working Group, which he co-founded with colleagues on both sides of the border, have been dogging the plants to meet U.S. environmental standards. Their top priority has been to get the companies to compensate for emitting 1,600 tons of pollution each year by reducing emissions by other polluters in the region. Had the plants been built to California's strict standards, the companies would have had to take such measures as paving particularly dusty roads to reduce overall air pollution."
article @;
 http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/12/10/MNG3OG620R1.DTL&type=printable
People in CA demand a cleaner source of energy that isn't as destructive to the ecosystem as LNG facilities. Part of this could be realized by dissolving the mega-energy corporations like Sempra and enabling communities to provide thier own non-profit energy sources. In addition, corporations (McDonalds, Wal-Mart, etc..) who consume great amounts of energy subsidized at taxpayer expense need to be able to "pull themselves up by the bootstraps" as is expected of any other human being surviving under capitalism. Then there's the ENRON-esque tactics used by Sempra to manipulate and profit from perceived energy crisises...
"Myth: LNG will help ensure against rolling blackouts.
Reality: The blackouts of 2000 – 2001 were NOT caused by gas shortages. They WERE caused by manipulation of price and supply by some of the very companies who stand to gain by importing LNG, especially Sempra Energy. In fact, Sempra is now being sued for lost revenues by several California counties as a result of their “gaming” the gas supply in 2000 – 2001. If Sempra moves ahead with their LNG import facility near Ensenada, Mexico, they will have even more control over Southern California’s gas supply.
In addition, LNG would put our gas supply at the mercy of global politics and local conditions we have no control over. Environmental and human rights abuses associated with gas production in Indonesia, Peru, and Russia have led to widespread discontent in the areas around the projects. It’s entirely possible that these conditions will lead to the projects being shut down, or taken over by the host governments. On the receiving end, if an accident or an attack shut down an LNG import terminal, gas supplies would be stopped until the facility was rebuilt. Because LNG concentrates supply through a single import point, and because LNG comes from places we have no control over, it actually puts our energy grid at increased risk of future blackouts."
entire article @;
http://lngwatch.com/race/truth.htm
Energy from solar, wind, biogas and other renewable sources are able to be regulated by regions and communities, not greedy for profit energy mega-corporations like Sempra..
NO to LNG Instability!
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