No More Polluting Power Plants!

San Francisco is about to end PG&E's power monopoly and build the largest renewable energy network in the country. In June 2007, the Board of Supervisors passed the Community Choice energy project which will build enough solar and wind power to run the City on 50% clean, renewable electricity within the next decade.

But even though we are about to construct a spectacular new solar and wind project, the Board of Supervisors is poised to allow ICC corporation to use hundreds of millions of ratepayer and tax dollars to build and run a polluting natural gas power plant inside the City!

Worse yet, the plan is to site this plant in the already heavily polluted and economically marginalized Bayview Hunters Point district, which is 40% African American, and has high concentrations of other people of color and low income residents. This racist, classist, and environmentally disastrous power plant project must be halted immediately. (See - What You Can Do - further below.)

Claims That The Power Plant Is Needed To Close An Older Plant Are False

Some supervisors claim that the proposed natural gas plant is necessary to close an older more polluting plant owned by the Mirant Corporation in San Francisco's Potrero Hill district.

This claim is false. The California Independent System Operator (Cal ISO), the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (SFPUC), and the Bay Area Air Quality Management District (BAAQMD), which oversee our electricity reliability and clean air standards, have all stated that the existing Mirant power plant could be upgraded at much lower cost, to emit less pollution than the proposed new plant.

So some of our supervisors outrageously seek to waste hundreds of millions of dollars (funds that could be used to build massive amounts of solar, wind and other renewables) to install a power plant that will emit more pollution than the plant that is already there!

Hidden Real Estate Profits Agenda

Evidence has now surfaced that these supervisors have been pushed to replace the less polluting plant in the middle class Potrero Hill neighborhood with a new more polluting plant in the lower income Bayview district, because when the older plant is shut down, property values will double in Potrero Hill, giving big windfall profits to private real estate developers.

New Power Line Makes All Plants Unnecessary

The Board of Supervisors recently approved a power transmission line called the Transbay Cable, which will deliver enough new energy capacity to San Francisco to provide a full one half of the electricity we use daily. This, and our new Community Choice solar, wind, and efficiency project, which begins next year, will together eliminate the need for any fossil fuel power plants in San Francisco.

But the City is dangerously close to sealing the bad power plant deal, so we need to act now!

What You Can Do

Call Mayor Newsom's Office of Neighborhood Services today at:

415-554-7111

(if you get voice mail, leave recorded remarks - if you have trouble connecting, call San Francisco's 311 line and ask to leave a comment for the Mayor)

Leave him the following message:

"Mayor Newsom, please declare to the world that San Francisco will no longer burn fossil fuel for electricity, that you oppose the combustion turbine peaker project, and that the City will close the existing Mirant power plant by 2010, relying only on renewable energy, efficiency, and the Transbay Cable."

THEN: Email the Board of Supervisors

Once you have called the Mayor, take one more moment to send the following email message to the Board of Supervisors at:
board.of.supervisors@sfgov.org

Dear Supervisor,

Please be a global environmental champion and vote 'NO' on the ICC combustion turbine peaker project. Then call for a 2008 Energy Action Plan to close the existing Mirant power plant by 2010, relying only on renewable energy, efficiency, and the Transbay Cable.

Thank You!

[your name and address here]