Price for More Megawatts Is More Smog

Gov. Gray Davis’ decision this week to relax emission controls at power plants will help keep the juice flowing, but will also retard progress against smog.

The changes are bound to cause mischief for some California areas on the cusp of achieving healthful air after more than 30 years of effort. Even a little extra pollution could be enough to thwart attainment of the national health-based ozone standards in the Bay Area, San Diego and Ventura County, officials say.

Moreover, in case the governor’s strategy doesn’t work, he has left open the option of tapping the dirtiest power source available--legions of backup diesel generators. Those 12,000 engines would provide a few hundred more megawatts, but at a terrible price for air quality, because they lack controls and can spew about 10 times more pollutants than the very dirty “peakers” that Davis exempted from emissions controls Monday.

“We’re trying to make the best of a bad thing, but in the short term, we are getting rolled. Air quality is going to suffer more this year, and there will be some impacts,” said Dick Baldwin, executive officer for the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District.

Across most of Southern California, however, the energy crisis is not likely to lead to dirtier air this year, air quality officials say.

The reason is that California’s power plants, some of the cleanest in the nation, contribute just 5% of the smog-forming emissions during summer and half as much the rest of the year. The lion’s share of the Southland’s air pollution comes from cars and trucks. Two-thirds of the 16 power plants in the region will be equipped with devices to render them 90% cleaner by summer, according to the South Coast Air Quality Management District, which regulates air pollution in Los Angeles, Orange and parts of Riverside and San Bernardino counties.

Those improvements should reduce overall power plant emissions about a third this year, although pollution from individual generators may be higher, according to the state Air Resources Board.

For the most part, California air quality officials say the challenges they will face because of the energy crisis are temporary and surmountable, but they acknowledge that they are under intense pressure from politicians, energy companies and manufacturers to relax regulations. California has more smog than any other state and the world’s most stringent and comprehensive program to tame it, although progress toward a healthy environment is still slow.

On the other hand, officials are attempting to balance the need for a clean environment with the need to keep the economy humming. The power crisis, too, can be hazardous to people when blackouts knock out traffic signals or cause heavy equipment to malfunction in the workplace.

An executive order that Davis issued Monday lifts emissions limits on heavily polluting power plants, allowing municipalities and energy companies to produce as much power, and smog, as necessary.

The decision was reached after utilities such as the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power noted that operating restrictions on so-called “peaker” plants were leaving hundreds of megawatts of capacity unused. Peakers are typically run by gas-fired turbines, similar to jet engines. They produce limited power, but lots of pollution, which is why their use was strictly controlled in the first place.

Under the governor’s plan, power producers will pay $15,000 per ton of extra smog produced by the turbines. The money will go into a fund to pay for cleaning up dirty trucks, buses, boats and farm equipment to offset the pollution from the power plants. Government estimates show that the plan could provide up to 1,200 megawatts of additional electricity, but an additional 500 tons of pollutants this summer.

Meanwhile, emissions from cars, trucks, buses and consumer products continue to decline. Air quality is dramatically better today in the Southland than it was a decade ago. Credit rigorous controls on everything from lighter fluid to paint, oil refineries to autos, bakeries to landfills.

The trend of improving air quality should accelerate as power companies pay the millions of dollars in fees and penalties to help fund smog-cutting programs. The funds will be used to switch vehicles, farm equipment and boats to clean fuels, many of which can be converted this year to help offset power plant emissions, said Catherine Witherspoon, policy advisor for the state air board.

“On the whole, there’s not going to be a lot more smog. We expect declining emissions from power plants,” Witherspoon said.

Across Southern California, power plant emissions are up this year while smog levels remain largely unchanged. Boilers and turbines have released more than 2,045 tons of pollutants so far--twice as much as they had by this time last year. Yet just 11 days of unhealthful ozone levels have been recorded anywhere in the region so far this year. The peak ozone reading has been 0.18 parts per million, a level comparable to last year’s, said Joe Cassmassi, senior meteorologist for the AQMD.

Smog levels are strongly influenced by weather, and in the approaching summer ozone season, Cassmassi said, conditions this year should be no worse than last year. In fact, he forecasts that by August tropical storms from the Gulf of California will bring unsettled air, which tends to reduce smog. He said that by year’s end the region can expect a gradual return to El Nino conditions, which portends an early end to smog season.

“The way the weather is lining up, it will be a typical year in a long-term trend and the trend is toward improving air quality,” he said.

The increased emissions from power plants, however, might be just enough to add one or two smoggy days to some communities with little margin for error. San Diego, the Bay Area and Ventura are close to meeting the federal one-hour ozone standard--the benchmark for healthful air and the culmination of a multibillion-dollar cleanup effort spanning decades. Those communities are racing against Clean Air Act deadlines that, if not met, could trigger federal sanctions and restrictions on highway funds.

“If we can make it through November without having two more violations this year, we would be in attainment,” said Dick Smith of the San Diego County Air Pollution Control District. “That means the air quality is not being exceeded, and it would allow certain onerous and burdensome regulations to go away.”

The margin is even closer in Ventura County, which was once one of the smoggiest places in the nation. Now the county is almost in compliance with air quality standards, but just one day of unhealthy ozone would push it over the line, Baldwin said. A 132-megawatt Reliant Energy Co. peaker plant in Oxnard may be the deciding factor; it might produce up to 12 tons daily of smog-forming nitrogen dioxide this summer, a 25% increase in those emissions in the county, Baldwin said.

Air quality officials opposed the governor’s decision, but acquiesced with an understanding that an alternative plan to press into service backup diesel generators would be delayed.

“In the short term, there may be some negative impacts on air quality, but if it avoids use of diesel backup generators, it’s a small price to pay,” said Barbara Lee, president of the California Air Pollution Control Officers Assn.