Opinion: California can produce more green electricity
Share this pageCalifornia’s environmental report card for electricity looks respectable. Hardly any dirty coal. Many new, efficient natural gas plants. Hydropower generated either in-state or imported. Solar popping up on rooftops and spreading across the desert. Wind farms on the ridges.
And yet, in 2007, only 12 percent of the electricity used in California came from renewable resources such as wind, solar, geothermal, biomass and small hydroelectric facilities. That’s renewable as in sustainable — as in landing lightly on the environment.
California is pushing to do better. A 2006 law, authored by state Sen. Joe Simitian, D-Palo Alto, requires the state to obtain 20 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2010. That’s significant progress, but we can do more. California should be looking at 20 percent in the rearview mirror as it stretches to 33 percent renewables in 2020.
A third of our electricity from renewables is the target that would be set by SB 14, a new bill just introduced by Simitian. It is the target Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger endorsed in November. It is a target that will stimulate investment and innovation as it cleans the air and combats climate change.
Read the full op-ed on the Mercury News website