Davis’ Power Plan: Conserve, Build Plants

* Re “Davis Urges Electric Overhaul to End ‘Energy Nightmare,’ ” Jan. 9: I resent being asked to do without. I do not waste energy. I use very little electricity. I live in Morro Bay and can see the power plant from my condominium window. People in other areas of the state don’t care about the environmental issues surrounding power plants, especially those on the Central Coast. I hear “Just build them!” That’s easy to say when you don’t have to put up with the negative issues surrounding power plants. I say, let the high-tech companies build power plants in their own backyards. You need power, you deal with the negative issues that surround producing it.

I resent being asked to reduce my already meager use by 7%. Let the companies that use as much as a city do without. Why is it always the little guy who’s asked to suffer for the mess the government created?

LYNDA WELLS

Morro Bay

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Let’s just set the clocks forward one hour and we’d consume considerably less electricity.

ROBERT DEFIEL

Palm Springs

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So, Gov. Gray Davis is proposing that the state step in and begin buying and building power plants as a solution to the “energy nightmare.” No mention is made of the fact that the state has blocked the building of virtually all new power plants for the past 25 years. Now the “greed” of the utility companies is blamed for insufficient supply, and Davis says the state may have to seize control of private power plants. And all this time I thought nationalizing private industries was reserved for Third World dictatorships.

STEWART MARGOLIS

Los Angeles

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How do leaders in private industry get the government to build a bunch of state-of-the-art power plants that they’ll then try to take over at little or no actual cost to themselves through some “deregulation reassessment” sham? The story is happening now in California. If Davis builds them, then all the economic benefits of owning them should remain the public’s in perpetuity.

Authority and economic control over certain crucial public services should always remain in the public domain. Such survival-critical and quality-of-life necessities as public power should never be handed over to the robber barons of unrestrained capitalism.

DAN DAUGHERTY

Pasadena

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People should know that municipalities offer electricity from clean sources such as solar, wind, biomass and water to those who request it. The L.A. DWP also has a program to help homes and businesses install solar panels on their roofs and/or other parts of their property. Anywhere from 10% to all of the power a building needs can be delivered from its own mini-power plant.

We should be turning away from big-megawatt plants--especially those powered by fossil fuels. Some percentage of their power is lost on the way to the customer anyway. The governor should put our taxpayer money into helping us generate our own power or buying from small, local green power plants. The spectacle of Silicon Valley businesses grabbing all the diesel (choke) generators they can get hold of to keep their systems up (Jan. 8) is a result of a blackout that has already taken place--I refer to the news blackout on alternate sources of electricity.

ANN ALPER

Pacific Palisades

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Because I had such a favorable experience with a small ranch that had to be completely energy independent due to its location far from any utility lines, I decided to install a solar electric-generating system in my conventional house in Orange County in early 1997.

Since that time, my electric meter has run backward during the daylight hours and forward during the nighttime hours, and I only have to pay for the net usage (which I have chosen to be the federally subsidized minimum usage). Despite having a large house with a pool, I generate almost all of my electricity.

For my son’s science class, we calculated that if I had covered my entire roof with panels, I could generate enough electricity for all the electric needs of 11 of my neighbors as well! The technology is now mainstream and the systems run flawlessly with no maintenance. If all the houses in California had such a system, we would be selling the surplus electricity to the entire nation.

CHRIS A. WILLS

Santa Ana

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Bertram Wolfe and Chauncey Starr are correct that our energy problems are reflected throughout the nation (Commentary, Jan. 3). It is time that we get realistic about energy and stop the endless wait for solar and renewable sources that never seem to become economically competitive. Nuclear energy, for all its issues, has demonstrated itself to be a safe and affordable electricity supplier. Some of the same groups in California that once tried to shut nuclear plants down are now loudly fearful that a nuclear unit might have to shut down temporarily for repair or maintenance. Perhaps the time is right to think about the next generation of nuclear power plants.

EDWARD “TED” L. QUINN

Past President, American Nuclear

Society, 1998-99, Laguna Niguel