Update of Laguna Beach Energy Sources Since 2011
The Laguna Beach Climate Protection Action Plan was completed in 2009.
The Southern California Electrical Energy sources have changed dramatically from the initial Climate Protection Action Plan, due to the permanent shutdown of the clean energy San Onofre nuclear reactors due to engineering failures in their new heat exchangers. Each of the two reactors generated 1100 megawatts of power, with high duty cycle or capacity. This has been made up with out-of-state power, which is not listed by type of source as in-state power is. 41% of SC Edison power falls into this category. A colleague who is also doing energy research has been advised that the out-of-state power to Southern California is the equivalent of natural gas power.
The 2015 SC Edison Power Content Label is:
25% Renewable (7% Solar, 8% Wind, 9% Geothermal, and 1% Biomass)
2% Large Hydro
6% Nuclear
26% Natural Gas
41% Unspecified
Adding Large Hydro and Nuclear to Renewable, clean power is 33% of the total.
California has increased its solar power over the years, which was supposed to increase the state’s clean energy, but then was supposed to replace the already present San Onofre reactor power. Actually, the amount of solar power to SC Edison has not really increased.
We compare SCE 2015 to that of 2011, before the January 2012 shutdown of San Onofre reactors. In 2011, Nuclear was 24%, down to 6% now. Natural Gas was 27%, now 26%. Large Hydro decreased from 7% to 2%. Two good parts, coal decreased from 8% to zero. Also, renewables increased from 19% to 25%. Unspecified has increased from 15% to 41%. Clean energy was 50% in 2011, but has dropped to 33% now.
The Southern part of Laguna Beach is serviced by SDG&E, or San Diego Gas and Electric.
The SDG&E 2015 Power Content Label is:
35% Renewable (18% Solar, 15% Wind, and 2% Biomass)
54% Natural Gas
11% Unspecified
If you add the 30% of extra out of state power for SCE compared to SDG&E as natural gas, then SCE is 56% natural gas, comparable to SDG&E’s 54%. It’s 33% clean power is comparable to SDG&E’s 35%.
The 2015 California Total Mix is:
22% Renewable (6% Solar, 8% Wind, 4% Geothermal, 3% Biomass, and 1% Hydro)
5% Large Hydro
9% Nuclear
44% Natural Gas
6% Coal
14% Unspecified
The total of clean energy statewide is 36%, with 44% of natural gas. Unspecified power in the North can be clean Large Hydro. Even assuming the state’s unspecified is efficient natural gas, the California emissions is only about 21% of that per energy unit of a state burning only coal.
The natural gas plants operating in California are almost all high efficient combined cycle plants, which are more efficient than the standard type of plant which are a savings of 50% of emissions over coal plants for the same amount of power.
