Mayor Lee doesn’t want to buy power from one dirty company, but is happy to buy from others.
By Tim Redmond
When the mayor summarily threw CleanPowerSF – and the city’s commitment to locally produced green energy – under the bus this week, he argued that the program was flawed because it had a contract to purchase power from Shell Energy, a “dirty power” company.
Actually, the program would buy only green power from Shell, but the mayor is right: Shell is also a fossil-fuel company with a bad record. So are most companies in the energy business, including PG&E.
The mayor’s implication, of course, was that the city shouldn’t buy power from dirty companies. Too late, though: We already do.
In fact, figures from the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission show that between December, 2013 and February, 2014, the city spent $2.7 million buying 54,300 megawatts of electric power from three private companies, two of which have, at the least, somewhat dubious records on the environment. (more after the jump)
San Francisco’s Hetch Hetchy Water and Power system provides electricity for municipal needs, and has a contract to sell what would be excess power to two irrigation districts in the Central Valley. But in drought years, or when the system needs maintenance, the O’Shaugnessey Dam can’t generate enough to meet those needs.
So the city goes on the market and buys more.
One of the vendors the PUC has been using is a company called EDF Energy, one of the largest power suppliers in Europe. Clean and green? No – it runs natural gas and nuclear plants and has come under fire from environmentalists in the UK. In fact, the company sued environmental protesters for 5 million pounds, and only backed off under public pressure.
Another vendor is Constellation, a subsidiary of the giant Exelon Corp, which is one of the nation’s largest nuclear companies. Exelon is a big supporter of the American Energy Alliance, a lobbying outfit connected to the Koch Brothers.
Hardly shining examples of sustainable energy production.
John Avalos, a supporter of CleanPowerSF, told me that the indication the city is already in businesses with dirty-energy companies suggests that the mayor is being somewhat hypocritical. “He refuses to approve a program to buy clean power from one vendor when we’re buying power from other dirty-power vendors,” he said.
My emails to the mayor’s press office seeking comment have not been answered. When I ran into the mayor’s press secretary, Christine Falvey, at City Hall this week and asked why she rarely answers my questions, she told me that her office was too busy to handle all press requests in a timely manner.
