When I travel about Orange County pursuing a variety of tasks, it is exciting to see the numerous developments in progress. New homes, office buildings, retail, public buildings and resorts as well as substantial renovation projects. In a thriving construction market, we must be ever aware of the potential future impact of our decisions. Taking the time to evaluate the negative and positive potential expands both the opportunity for innovation as well as the value and character of the built heritage we leave to our posterity.
A predominant reality in the environs around Orange County that consistently catches my attention is the thick brownish haze that often hangs above the horizon. Comments on the subject vary from those who shake their heads in helpless resignation saying it is such a trajedy, yes, a real trajedy, but what can I do about it? Others say we 'should have seen it before when the pollution was really bad', or 'it is not as bad as some countries we should feel lucky'. Orange County certainly is not as smog-ridden as our neighbors just to the North in Claremont or Los Angeles, south of the border in Mexico or across the sea in Asia. But, our business practices effect all of these areas.
I'd almost forgotten about a rather scary phenomena I experienced when I moved to Southern California in 1996 until recently when I met a young lady at the train station in Orange. She had just moved here with her husband who had been transferred by his company. She said they were both quite pleased with the good fortune to relocate in Southern California. However, her eyes were red and watering involuntarily just as mine had done the first year I lived in Orange County. That same year I met over fifteen people with Parkinsons Disease, and worked at Children's Hospital in LA where over 50% of their patients are inner-city cancer victims. In the Orange County area where I have seen 50 Lamberginis drive by in one hour at Fashion Island, and there exists thousands of consumers that are allegedly well-educated, wealthy and demanding, this reality of pollution is appalling. In Orange County style, it should be the focus of action-oriented networking groups across the County. This is especially true since the California electricity industry was made competitive April 1, 1998. Having been involved in a California Public Utilities Commission Rulemaking the past two years, I assure you the electricity industry is far from deregulated. It is how it is regulated that needs to be explored. The best way to gain the clean renewables technologies we as consumers really want, to reduce monopoly control and increase the user-friendly nature of the industry is to consistently be a part of it all.
A recent workshop at a Southern California faciltiy in Fontana near Montclair and Cal Poly was a real eye opener -or closer. The pollution permeated not just a small line above the horizon, but the air everywhere. It smelled terrible. People said it was a bad smog day. I have also experienced the shameful and notorious pollution in Bakersfield and LA on an alleged 'bad smog day'. There is not one person in the world that should have to live under these abhorrent conditions with the clean air technologies that are available, affordable and ready for the mainstream market, today! The Chairman of the Rockefella Foundation insisted in an article published last year that we need to re-evaluate the supply and demand analysis for deployment of technologies especially when it comes to comparing fossil fuels and much-needed renewables technology. George Soros in his book entitled 'The Reflexivity Theory' describes a similar attitude toward a new economics responsive to human need by evaluating the benefits of new technologies within deployment decisions.
However, other fossil fuel proponents insist we must continue to deploy only their assets for their stockholders in order to transition to pollution-free technologies in the next 100 years. It is a known fact among these constituants and anyone who has analyzed the market thoroughly that an educated electricity consumer market could evolve to primarily pollution-free technologies within ten to twenty years, and especially in a deregulated or competitive energy industry discouraging fossil fuel technologies in Distrbuted Generation [DG].
The oil cartels and gas companies in the present DG Rulemaking with the California Public Utilities Commission are proposing to deploy 100,000 DG gas turbines a year ranging in size from 1 to 20 megawatt peak. These systems will be closer to and at times even within our neighborhoods. Respondents from the CADER organization insisted in their comments that DG businesses must not be burdened with Air Quality Standards. My response comments were quoted in the Public Utilities Fortnightly News August, 1999. Jeff Wilson of the Air Resources Board left the pollution-abatement situation even more dubious when he insisted they would not want to shut down any fossil fuel systems even where illegally built and generating in a non-compliant area, but he assured us they would fine any of these companies they found breaking Air Quality laws. This must be a real comfort to the families of the victims of those company's polluting power plants. When I saw the recent Ian Brockovitch movie I was left in limbo between the simultaneous urge to laugh and cry. She made it look so simple. The struggle Julia Roberts so eloquently portrayed [despite the occasional outburst of foul language] was far too close to HOME! Home is something I have been missing far too much since the year after I founded my solar energy business in 1992, and even more these past two years while involved in the California DG Rulemakings! What is Distributed Generation and why weren't consumers informed about this choice in the deregulation educational mailers sent out by the California Public Utilities Commission in March, 1998? Distributed Generation is electricity that is generated and interconnected on the consumer side of the electricity grid. There are three levels of electricity grid transmission. The first layer of lines transfer extremely intense charges of electricity directly from large remote-site generators. In 1994, 99.5% of remote site electricity consumed across the nation generated electricity from the Big Three of fossil fuels (70%), nuclear (20%), and large hydro (9.5%) with all other forms of electricity [including renewables] providing the other 0.5%. Coal consumption doubled in the United States during twenty prime years of Earth Day from 1975 to 1994. [Department of Energy Annual Report 1995] Coal consumption grew in California from less than 1% to over 11% in that same timeframe. 64% of the electricity consumed in California in 1994 was generated by fossil fuels. [California Energy Commission Report 1994] If oil cartels and gas turbine companies achieve the agenda they have outlined in the CPUC Rulemaking, 90% of the electricity consumed by Californians in the year 2010 will be generated by fossil fuels. Of course they claim they are 'cleaner fossil fuels'.
The second layer of lines transfer electricity from Distribution Feeders to transformers in our neighborhoods. The third layer of lines transfer electricity from transformers to our homes and offices. These three layers of lines make up what is called the electricity grid. Distribution Generation is allowed to interconnect their electricity generator on the consumer-side or distribution-side of the grid.
Within this century, where we have increased public awareness focused on renewables technology deployment in a competitive electricity industry, we predict the majority of United States electricity generation will be produced by Distributed Generation systems. This will reduce many problems including our dependency on large wiring networks and remote-site generation plants. It will also increase national security risks from natural and man-made disasters due to our global dependency on electricity, computers and electronics. In 1998, the Solar Development Cooperative made numerous inquiries to the California Public Utilities Commission asking why they were not including the choice of consumer-owned distributed generation in their public education materials notifying the consumer about these choices in deregulation. We were formally instructed in a letter from Michelle Cooke, assistant to Commissioner Duque on May 20, 1998 and in a letter dated May 28, 1998 from Michael MacNamara, Director of Market Development in the Office of Ratepayer Advocates to raise this issue in a proposed Rulemaking on Distributed Generation formally filed on June 5, 1998. We were also instructed to raise the issue of anti-competitive oppression of building-integrated photovoltaics [BI-PV] by Amoco, Enron and British Petroleum since Amoco's fraudulent takeover of the Solarex Corporation in 1984. That is the year the Solarex Corporation completed the 300 kilowatt peak photovoltaics roof on the Intercultural Center at Georgetown in Washington, DC. It is so well designed that 90% of the people I met when I worked there for a year, were not aware the pretty blue roof was/is generating electricity.
According to an article which I have lost the reference to, 127 solar energy businesses in the United States went out of business from 1984 to 1988. From 1988 to 1991, Amoco/Enron sued Arco Solar out of business. Money was not issue and settlement was not an option. Their patents went to Siemens who established Siemens Solar who compete with [first Amoco/Enron and now] BP-Amoco Solarex in the United States and globally. March 17, 1999, SDC filed our opening comments with a request for the California Public Utilities Commission to investigate the illegal and antitrust business activities of these three oil cartels in relation to their ownership and control of photovoltaics as one of the strongest Distributed Generation technologies on the market, today. The Photovoltaics industry is presently growing at 30% per year. A recent report indicated it is growing faster than either the telecommunications and computer industries. Two weeks later on April 2, 1999 BP-Amoco took over the entire Arco Corporation and therein most of the Alaskan pipeline that had provided discount gasoline to California consumers for many years in addition to taking all evidence of the Arco Solar litigation into foreign ownership.
The takeover of Arco seemed to stimulate a price hike in gasoline starting in California and moving across the nation. That first week of April, 1999 the price of gas shot up from $1.08 cents to $1.56 per gallon, and has continued to increase over the past year to over $2 a gallon at some stations. In December, the San Francisco Examiner reported that the Federal Trade Commission is attempting to block the BP-Amoco takeover of the Arco Corporation due to the ownership and control of the Alaskan pipeline. The last report is that BP-Amoco would release the Alaskan pipeline as part of the deal. It is not settled.
On April 6, 1999 BP-Amoco took over Enron's 50% of the Solarex Corporation putting 70% of American PV innovation and manufacturing into foreign ownerhip. Amoco/Enron had sued Advanced Photovoltaics Systems in Fairfield California out of business from 1995 to 1997 when British Petroleum came in and offered them $20 million of assistance. Shortly afterward, they BP Solar closed APS's fully-automated PV manufacturing line and British Petroleum merged with Amoco in August.
From December to March 31, 2000 the California Energy Commission facilitated Interconnection Standards workshops for Distributed Generation where with grueling negotions we attempted to rewrite Rule 21. These workshops were part of the California Public Utilities Commission 'public' proceedings on Distributed Generation 99-10-025 and a supplement to the CPUC Systems Planning and Operations workshops moderated by Valerie Beck.
In February, 2000 two years after I was first referred to Valerie Beck at the CPUC to attempt to get DG technology listed in the CPUC mailers to consumers, we were told comments in the workshop would be arbitrarily removed at her discretion before submitting them to the CPUC Commission. SDC had agreed to become an Intervenor only with the promise we would get some compensation for our time and efforts. Also in February, after 21 months of unpaid hardwork as SDC's Founder & Ceo, the Commission and the Administrative Law Judge, Michelle Cooke, made two decisions indicating they would not pay SDC any Intervenor Compensation for the financial hardship brought about by our participation in these proceedings because (1) we do not have an electricity bill in our name, and (2) we might realize some future financial business as a for-profit cooperative.
We limited our request to $50 an hour for expert witness reporting and $25 an hour for administrative work. Six non-profit organizations were approved for Intervenor Compensation. They are asking $100 to $350 per hour for 'hardship' compensation. $800 to $2,800 a day for government welfare-like payments is not bad money if you can get it. Mr. Boies who represented the Department of Justice in the lawsuit against Microsoft was only paid $50 an hour according to People's Magazine even though he charges private clients $600 per hour. In one case, a non-profit employee who had worked for the CPUC for 14 years was paid $100 per hour to drive from the Marine Headlands north of San Francisco to the CPUC headquarters in downtown San Francisco. Maybe he should try the night bus from Orange County as we had to take on a number of occassions.
We want to share with electricity consumers the opportunity to submit their comments in this important Rulemaking. Written Testimony for Phase I Issues is to be filed by April 10, 2000. Seven file-stamped copies to the CPUC and 11 file-stamped copies to the CEC with e-mail distribution to over 200 participants. As this is April 8, 2000, you may ask to file a Motion to allow late filing if you would like to submit comments. Or send your comments to us and we will submit them for you. We are seeking witnesses to testify in the related evidentiary hearings coming up the last week of May. Phase I Issues include:
Phase II Issues are due sometime the month of June. Evidentiary Hearing for Phase II Issues is scheduled for the last week of July. Phase II Issues include:
Consumers have for some time been paying the potential stranded costs of remote-site electricity. The lawsuit against the Utility in Washington in 1985 showed how ratepayers protest and refuse to pay for five unneeded and unwanted nuclear plants. Two of these plants were demolished in 1996 without generating on watt of electricity. Just recently, California voted to pay $28 billion dollars for nuclear plants businesses who want to be reimbursed for their potential stranded costs. This money may be used to perpetuate nuclear deployment in 3rd World Nations against their wishes.
AB 1890 legislation put the nuclear plants owners in this position as well as poor planning. We need to protect DG renewables consumers within Rule 21 and assure subsequent legislation won't leave them with extreme stranded costs and a DG system that has been disconnected from the electricity grid, and thereby not able to realize the substantial savings provided to them by Net Metering. Utility employees indicate it is not likely that they would arbitrarily disconnect consumer-owned DG renewables systems, but it happened in New Mexico where oil cartels elected Commissioners who voted out Net Metering. Consumers who had bought their systems only a few years before were robbed of the Net Metering incentives for the remaining 17 to 22 years of their PV systems warranty. This tends to discourage consumers and make them bare unreasonable costs of technology deployment. A Photovoltaic [PV] system may realize problem-free generation for 30-50 years or more.
We submitted comments requesting contractual protection for residential and small commercial DG consumers in Rule 21 during the Interconnection Standards workshop, but our comments were bin-listed as a 'minority opinion'. They are being submitted to the Commission, which is an improvement over Ms. Beck's dictorial management style, but they are not included in the group's list of proposed changes. 99% of the Rulemaking participants consist of government, Utilities [private and public], oil cartels, gas turbine companies, attorneys, paid consultants, and paid non-profit organizations.
SDC is one of the only small businesses consistently involved throughout these proceedings. The public has not been notified about this alleged 'public' Rulemaking as requested on numerous occassions before and during the proceedings. Therefore, it is really not appropriate to label input by one of the only unpaid public consumers/businesses as a 'minority opinion' where it is supposed to be a public proceeding dominated by public participants. We need thousands of consumers and businesses to respond to this important issue challenging the right to disconnect a system within 60 days unless it is a threat to the health, safety or welfare of the citizens of this state. Write your own comments or letters, and/or submit one of the letters attached here or linked on-line for your convenience.
It is our goal to make CPUC and CEC proceedings more user-friendly for consumers and small businesses who rely on the decisions they evolve. Only then will Assembly Bill 1890 and Senate Bill 90 realize their goal of achieving a truly competitive electricity marketplace.
One presence far more dangerous than oil cartel monopolies or utility monopolies is the fragmented fearful futilistic attitude of a confused public verging on resignition about the pollution that plagues our daily lives in Southern California. We must believe in our ability to transform the energy industry, and consequently our lives. PV for your TV(R) Healthfood for Our Electronic Pets is a deployment program SDC initiated in 1996. The Southern California consumer religiously goes to fitness centers and uses a variety of healthfood products. Clean electricity is another extension of this consumer habit.
OTher barriers that need to be confronted, today, by consumers and new consumer groups include the refusal of the auto industry and government to facilitate mainstream manufacturing and distribution of fuel cell conversion kits for automobiles. Auto manufacturers are hesitantly considering the manufacturing of new fuel cell vehicles 'sometime in the future'. Fuel cell technology is now ready for mainstream deployment. It provide releases a small amount of water vapor as exhaust. The best process uses a minor electrical charge within the vehicle by batteries or solar electricity splitting the hydrogens in water to generate on-going fuel for the vehicle. Thus, there is no need to transport hydrogen except for air transportion.
Consumers must persistently demand immediate responsible action on the part of government and industry to provide renewables technologies in the mainstream electricity and transportation markets, today. Don't be satisfied with marginal progress. Death and illness from pollution and related immune deficiency diseases can wait; the health, safety and welfare of the citizens of this nation cannot. A leadership role in California followed throughout the nation will provide new opportunities around the world to realize dramatic market penetration of renewables technology within the next ten years in both the electricity generation and transportation sectors.
Enron finally pushed through a major unwanted fossil fuel power plant in India February, 2000. Enron was sited by the World Watch as encouraging police abuse of protestors of the project that had been totally rejected by India's government in 1996 according to the Wall Street Journal Report.
There have certainly been some unexplainable and interesting problems arise in my life since my association with Solarex Enron/Amoco began in 1993. It takes significant peer pressure and intolerance to turn these problems around. Don't be a victim of displaced business corporations suffering from what appears to be addictive symptoms refusing to replace dangerous, depleting and out-dated technology at the cost of you and your family's health, safety and welfare.
When I first became aware of photovoltaic technology as an architect student in 1975, it cost around $500 a watt to manufacture and was primarily used for satellite electricity. In 1990, it had reduced to $5 a watt at less than 0.001% of the electricity consumed by Americans. The Germans began the first national deployment program with their 1,000 PV Roofs program from 1993 to 1995. When they were scoffed at by other nations due to the lack of sunshine above the 49 degree parallel, Hermann Scheer, a German parliamentarian insisted in 1995, they would build 100,000 PV Roofs. At that same conference, the Solar Development Cooperative initiated the 100 Headrick Solar-Voltaic DomeTM Power Stations By 2010 Program; A Three-World-Powers Competition Between The United States, Europe and Japan. Not one of these important solar array configurations has been built. Colonel Richard T. Headrick a retired World War II pilot and inventor who has lived most of his life in Orange County Irvine and Santa Monica patented the Solar-Voltaic DomeTM in 1986. A study funded by the Department of Energy was completed the same year indicating it was based on viable engineering calculations. They indicated at that time PV was too expensive to build a prototype in the United States.
100 solar domes at 200 feet in diameter each is around 2 million SF of PV surface costing approximately $150 to 200 million dollars installed. SDC published our business plan to install 21,000 SF PV surface on 1,000 solar domes, and 200 SF PV surface on 200,000 homes world-wide by 2010 advancing approximately $4 billion dollars of clean, renewable, recycleable, aesthetic, dual-use solar electricity business.
In 1997, the United States and the European Commission both announced their own Million Solar Rooftops By 2010 Program. That is $20 billion of PV business at $5 watt installing only 2 kilowatt peak per rooftop. In southern California 2 kWp provides around 10 kilowatt hours per day on the average.
December 8, 1999, BP-Amoco Solarex, who now own 70% of the PV manufacturing world-wide, announced their rather oppressive goal to achieve $1 billion of PV deployment by the year 2010 world-wide [100,000 homes at 2 kWp each]. BP Solarex already has a five year contract to provide PV for LA Department of Water and Power's 100,000 PV Roofs program, and are contracted to provide all the PV for the 2000 Olympic Village in Australia. In my written comments before the CPUC Systems Planning Workshop, I thanked them for leaving the other $49 billion of potential PV deployment to the rest of us. There is at least $19 billion or more of deployment if the United States and the European Commission realize their million solar roofs program. The CPUC and CEC need to be encouraged to facilitate small business enterprises to realize this goal with manufacturing of proven technologies as well as new technologies and remand of fraudulent and anti-competitive business practices to the appropriate jurisdiction.
Consumers may most successfully respond to this challenge in an organized, strategic fashion and thereby realize the needed results through public testimony, consumer education, investments and community support of non-fossil fuel leaders working to protect your rights to clean air, today through building-integrated photovoltaics [BI-PV} and fuel cell technologies.
The electricity and transportation industries are growing, and energy conservation does not address the collective problems of pollution and damage to the earth. Fossil fuels are not the appropriate technologies to meet the mainstream need at the scale and quality consumers need, globally. Government, oil cartels and corruption walk too closely together without consumer intervention to persistently encourage them to break away from the destructive filthy habit of fossils plaguing our air, ozone level and the earth's structural stability on a daily basis. As fossil fuels become more costly and controlled by a handful of companies, our worst fears may be realized in terms of pollution, cost of gas, destruction, illness and war. We can let go of these worst nightmares and embrace our fondest dreams, today.
Awaken the American pioneer inside you toward ridding the world of polluting energy consumption within this century. Electronic innovation supported by clean renewable and recycling distributed generation electricity is truly the frontier of the present promising innovation far beyond our wildest dreams.