San Diego will reap the benefits of a pioneering environmental agreement that will help bring a new power plant to Otay Mesa while at the same time reducing the amount of air pollution in the county.
PG & E; National Energy Group, a subsidiary of PG & E; Corp., announced Sept. 8 that it will work jointly with Waste Management, Inc. to reduce emissions in the county’s fleet of garbage trucks.
Brian Herzog, spokesman for PG & E; Corp., said the company will replace 120 of Waste Management’s diesel-powered garbage trucks with cleaner-burning natural gas. The trucks will be switched out over an 18-month period, he said.
PG & E; will pay Waste Management the difference between the cost of replacing the existing trucks with diesel equipment and the cost of replacing them with the more expensive natural gas-powered trucks, Herzog said.
PG & E; will also pay for the construction of a new liquefied natural gas fueling station, which will also be open to other fleets converting to natural gas. The total cost of the conversion will be $33 million, of which PG & E; will pay about one-third, he said.
That will result in annual emissions reductions of 35 tons of NOx, or nitrogen oxides. This is the equivalent to removing 9,200 new passenger cars from local roads, Herzog said.
This will earn PG & E; about one-third of the air emissions credits it needs to allow the company to build a 500-mega watt power plant in Otay Mesa. Other offsets will come from San Diego Harbor Excursions, through conversion of two vessels to cleaner-burning fuel, and from stationary sources in San Diego County, he said.
Pioneering Agreement
Air pollution officials say this is the first time anywhere in the country where emissions offsets from a major new stationary source have been achieved by reducing pollution from mobile sources.
Thomas King, president and chief operating officer of the West Region for PG & E; National Energy Group, said the project is just what San Diego needs.
“As we have seen this summer, there is a critical need for new power supplies in California, including the San Diego region. New base-load power plants, like Otay Mesa, are the long-term solution to the immediate problem,” he said. “(This) helps bring the region the new sources of power it needs while improving San Diego’s air quality.”
Alan Walsh, spokesman for Waste Management, said the agreement will give San Diego the largest fleet of natural-gas powered garbage trucks in the world, while improving the region’s air quality and providing the region with the additional electric generation it needs.
Win-Win Situation
“The public wins, the air regulators win, and business wins. So we’re real excited about the project,” Walsh said.
The first natural gas-powered garbage trucks will arrive in January. By April 2002, more than 90 percent of Waste Management’s trucks will be natural gas-powered, he said.
The San Diego Air Pollution Control District has already approved the agreement. It achieves the mandated emissions reductions in nitrogen oxides, and allows a power plant to be built that is one of the cleanest fossil-fuel plants in the country, said Robert Reider, spokesman for the district.
As an added bonus, the deal will help San Diego achieve other clean-air goals as well. PG & E; is required to reduce nitrogen oxides only, but switching the garbage truck fleet from diesel to natural gas also reduces other pollutants, such as particulate matter and sulfur dioxide, Reider said.
“It’s kind of a win-win situation in that regard. We’re getting the NOx offsets, plus we’re getting the diesel exhaust reduction. And that’s a real benefit for the whole region,” he said.
Reider noted this is the first time anywhere in the country that emissions offsets from a major new stationary source have been achieved by reducing pollution from mobile sources.
Future Wave
But this could be the wave of the future. As more and more power plants are being built throughout California, they may increasingly turn to vehicular sources to offset their own pollution, Reider said.
Under federal law, any major new source of pollution , such as a power plant , must find a way to offset its own pollution plus 20 percent extra if it builds in a “non-attainment area,” he said.
But getting such heavy reductions in pollution from stationary sources is growing increasingly difficult. Stationary sources of pollution are already heavily regulated, Reider said.
“We’ve already done just about everything we can on the stationary source side. So coming up with surplus emission reductions is rather difficult,” he said.
This becomes a major hindrance throughout California, as offsets for stationary sources become increasingly expensive. But since the major sources of pollution in California are all mobile, there’s much room for improvement there, he said.
EPA Endorsement
Felicia Marcus, federal EPA spokeswoman, endorsed the deal.
“The Otay Mesa mobile emission reduction credit program will provide NOx reductions as well as control of diesel particulates and other toxic compounds in the San Diego regions. We’re happy to support such an innovative, common-sense approach to producing cleaner energy while cleaning our air.”
Construction of the Otay Mesa Generating Project is expected to begin in early 2001, immediately after the project gains final approval from the California Energy Commission. It is scheduled to begin commercial operation in mid-2003, Herzog said.
The facility will be the first major power plant to be built in San Diego County in about 30 years. It will generate enough power for half a million homes, he said.
