Things to Watch For in 2001
Powering Into the New Year
It’s unlikely that a 508-megawatt power plant under construction in Northern California will get consumers as excited as, say, the nouveau-retro Ford Thunderbird, but with the state teetering on the verge of rolling blackouts, every extra electron that can be delivered to the power grid will be cause for celebration.
The new plant, Calpine Corp.’s Los Medanos Energy Center in Pittsburg, is expected to go online in July. Two smaller “peaker” plants, which will operate only at times of peak demand, are expected to start up in June. They are among nine projects approved by the California Energy Commission that will add 6,300 megawatts of capacity by 2003, enough to supply 6.3 million typical homes. Thirteen plants still under review would boost capacity by a similar amount for a state in which no major power-generation site has been added since the early ‘90s.
Still, there are clouds over the state’s energy prospects: ever-rising demand (which in Silicon Valley alone is growing 12% a year, about four times the national average); continuing community concerns over the ill effects of new power plants on the environment; and skyrocketing prices for the natural gas that fuels most of the plants.
In the end, all those cell phones and laptops have to plug into the grid at some point to recharge. And until Californians show more willingness to conserve--or decide to start living in those brand-new T-Birds--power reliability and supply problems will remain a key threat to the economy.
