Bay Area might use portable power plants next year

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Published Sunday, October 1, 2000, in the San Jose Mercury News

Bay Area might use portable power plants next year ONE OBSTACLE: MOVABLE STATIONS TEND TO POLLUTE MORE BY STEVE JOHNSON Mercury News

In a desperate plan that has environmentalists worried, a mechanized cavalry consisting of hundreds of portable power plants could be sent rumbling into the Bay Area and other parts of California next summer to rescue the state from the threat of blackouts.

Altogether, up to 440 mobile generators could be used to beef up the state's overtaxed electricity system under the unprecedented proposal by the Independent System Operator (ISO), which oversees California's power grid. If the plan is approved by the non-profit organization's board, which is expected to vote on the idea Wednesday, most of that power would be headed for the Bay Area.

``The ISO and others are looking for creative solutions to try and meet the need for next summer, when we anticipate the demand to be even higher than it was this summer,'' said Patrick Dorinson, a spokesman with that organization. ``We clearly have to find some solutions for next year.''

This porta-power brigade would largely be trucked into the region and would operate only at periods of peak electricity use when the weather was hot, which is why state officials term the mini-generators ``peakers.'' Moreover, most of the units would be relatively small, so the process for reviewing them wouldn't be as lengthy as it typically is for bigger plants.

Nonetheless, mobile generating units tend to be more polluting than the bigger ones on the drawing board in California. And that has aroused concern.

``It's unacceptable,'' said Bradley Angel, executive director of Greenaction, a non-profit environmental group in San Francisco. ``There should not be a mad rush to bring in polluting facilities. They are looking for a quick fix that will make some companies a lot of money at the expense of our health and the environment.''

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 02, 2000

Answers

Continued at

http://www.sjmercury.com/premium/front/docs/portapower01.htm

-- Martin Thompson (mthom1927@aol.com), October 02, 2000.


They should be looking at some of the industrial-size fuel cells currently available. These use a chemical process instead of internal compostion, therefore almost no pollution is produced. They also have a much higher rate of efficiency. Enron (the big gas company), just bought a share in one company, Fuel Cell Energy, which has been supplying fuel cells for years to the Navy. This company now has several industrial-strength commercial fuel cells in operation in the U. S. and Europe. I think that the higher efficiency rating alone should make them more attractive to utilities.

-- K (infosurf@yahoo.com), October 02, 2000.

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