Utilities to Weigh New Power Line for the West

Seven utilities agreed Monday to bankroll economic and environmental studies for a major new transmission line that would bring cheap electricity to California from generating plants as far away as northern Wyoming.

The utilities, including Southern California Edison Co., Pacific Gas & Electric Co. and San Diego Gas & Electric Co., said they formed a partnership to study future demand in power-hungry California and potential routes for the 1,300-mile transmission line.

The so-called Frontier Line, which could cost $6 billion and take six years to build, would be one of the largest in the country, carrying more than 14,000 megawatts of electricity -- enough to serve more than 10 million homes and businesses in California and other Western states.

The power would be produced from a variety of sources including wind and coal. California officials say they will import energy produced by coal-fired plants only if it is generated using a still-developing technology to minimize the emission of a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Wyoming Gov. Dave Freudenthal signed a memorandum Monday pledging to seek federal and state funds to build wind farms and a commercial-scale plant that turns coal into gas to run generating turbines. The carbon dioxide created by the process would be injected into the ground to keep it from being released into the atmosphere.

Business groups in Sacramento urged Schwarzenegger to move quickly to ensure the state gets a dependable supply of relatively low-cost electricity. According to the California Energy Commission, the state’s electricity consumption is growing 1.8% per year, the equivalent of the output from two large power plants. Demand is growing even faster in areas such as Las Vegas and Phoenix, which could share in the power delivered by the Frontier Line.

“We’re importing 25% to 30% of our electricity. Demand keeps growing, and we need transmission to get it here,” said Dorothy Rothrock, vice president of the California Manufacturers & Technology Assn. “Coal is a really vast resource.”

But Rothrock said the governor’s call for more transmission could ring hollow if environmental restrictions and technological challenges made the power too expensive. Schwarzenegger last week promised to reduce state greenhouse gas emissions by 25% by 2020.

Pacific Gas & Electric, the state’s largest investor-owned power utility, is joining the study because early indications are that coal gasification and carbon dioxide injection “are viable and produce clean energy,” spokesman Jeff Smith said.

Some environmental and consumer groups, which opposed earlier plans to import into California more electricity generated by traditional coal-fired plants, called the cleaner, updated plan bold. But they said cheaper alternatives to the Frontier Line should be investigated.

California gets more than 15% of its electricity from out-of-state plants powered by coal.

“We are appropriately skeptical (considering the many billions of dollars at issue) that the Frontier Line makes economic sense,” environmental groups wrote in a letter to Schwarzenegger, Freudenthal and the governors of Utah and Nevada.