Will California mandate new Salton Sea geothermal plants at 11th hour?

Sammy Roth
Palm Springs Desert Sun
The Salton Sea as seen from a drone’s point of view on May 19, 2017.

UPDATE: The author of this bill said Wednesday it would not move forward in the Legislature this year. Read the latest here.

ORIGINAL STORY:

As state lawmakers debate far-reaching bills that could reshape the energy landscape in California and across the West, some groups are urging the Legislature to require new geothermal power plants at the Salton Sea before a key deadline Tuesday* night — but those groups can't agree on what the geothermal mandate should look like.

In a letter to Assemblymember Chris Holden last week, the Imperial Irrigation District, Imperial County and other groups and companies said they would oppose a bill to speed up the construction of solar and wind farms in California unless Holden adds language requiring a quarter of that additional development to come from "baseload" renewable resources that generate electricity around the clock, including Salton Sea geothermal.

A counter-proposal from a coalition of environmental groups and renewable energy companies, who support Holden's bill, calls for lawmakers to do something more limited but more specific: require 500 megawatts of new geothermal be built at the Salton Sea by 2030. That would more than double the existing Salton Sea geothermal capacity.

The debate over a geothermal mandate isn't new. In 2014, Sen. Ben Hueso, D-San Diego, and then-Assemblymember V. Manuel Pérez, D-Coachella, tried and failed to advance a bill requiring utilities to buy 500 megawatts of new Salton Sea geothermal.

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But Imperial Valley officials and some environmental groups have continued to push for development at the Salton Sea, which is home to one of the world's most powerful geothermal resources. Only one new plant has opened at the Salton Sea since 2000 due to the technology's high up-front costs, but geothermal has one major advantage over solar and wind: It can generate climate-friendly electricity around the clock. Right now, California keeps the lights on after the sun goes down largely by burning natural gas, a fossil fuel that contributes to climate change and generates local air pollution.

New development by the Salton Sea could provide a much-needed economic boost to Imperial County, where the unemployment rates hover between 20 and 25 percent. Additional geothermal plants could also cover up exposed lakebed as the Salton Sea shrinks, helping prevent the emission of lung-damaging dust from the dry lakebed into a low-income region where asthma rates are already among the highest in the state.

READ MORE: Toxic dust and asthma plague Salton Sea communities

CalEnergy’s Hoch geothermal plant in Calipatria, near the shore of the Salton Sea, churns out electricity on July 28, 2015.

If Holden plans to add a geothermal mandate to his legislation, he doesn't have much time — the final text of all bills must be in print 72 hours before final votes. With the legislative session ending on Friday, that means bills must be finished by Tuesday night.

The future of Salton Sea geothermal is far from the only energy debate going down to the wire in Sacramento.

The highest-profile energy bill still in play is SB 100, which would put California on a path to 60 percent climate-friendly electricity by 2030 and 100 percent by 2045. Then there's Holden's bill, which could lead to greater sharing of clean energy across state lines — a controversial proposal that supporters say would allow California to import cheap wind power from Wyoming and other states, but that critics are worried could result in California being forced to accept coal-fired electricity from the interior West.

READ MORE: California is aiming for 100% clean energy. How much of it will come from Wyoming wind?

As part of a deal negotiated by Gov. Jerry Brown's office that could bring labor unions on board with the energy-sharing plan, Holden's bill includes provisions that would speed up development of solar and wind farms, in time for Californians to reap the benefits of federal tax credits that are scheduled to phase down over the next few years. Unions have been wary of an energy-sharing plan that could see jobs building solar and wind farms exported to other states — hence the promise of accelerated in-state construction.

But those provisions have rankled geothermal advocates, including Imperial County and the Imperial Irrigation District, a publicly owned energy and water utility. In their letter to Holden, they argue that additional government support for solar and wind would unfairly disadvantage geothermal plants and also bioenergy facilities, which generate electricity by burning wood and other organic waste from farms, forests and other sources.

READ MORE: Salton Sea geothermal: Cheaper than solar farms?

The 550-megawatt Desert Sunlight solar farm in Riverside County, California, about halfway between the Coachella Valley and the Arizona border.

Holden's bill would not only make new geothermal and bioenergy development difficult, IID and Imperial County say — it might also force existing plants to close if they can't renew their power purchase contracts with utilities. In their letter, the agencies say the legislation "will exacerbate economic harm to rural and underserved communities throughout California, including but not limited to, Imperial, Inyo, Lake, Lassen, Placer, Riverside, San Joaquin, Stanislaus and Placer Counties, and jeopardize future environmental benefits that uniquely derive from continued use of these resources."

The letter was also signed by Controlled Thermal Resources, an Australian company trying to build a massive new geothermal plant by the Salton Sea; Calpine Corporation, a Houston-based company that owns 13 geothermal power plants in Northern California; Greenleaf Power, which operates three bioenergy plants in California, including one on the eastern edge of the Coachella Valley; and the California Low Carbon Fuel and Energy Coalition, whose members include bioenergy and geothermal companies.

Holden's bill would require large utilities to buy additional renewable energy by the end of 2018, beyond what state law currently mandates, in amounts to be determined by the California Public Utilities Commission. The geothermal and bioenergy supporters want Holden to require a quarter of that additional procurement to come from "baseload" renewables, with 40 percent of that coming from Salton Sea geothermal.

RELATED: At Salton Sea, dreaming big on geothermal

Other geothermal advocates don't like that proposal.

In a separate letter, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Clean Power Campaign — a coalition of environmental groups and renewable energy companies — said the letter signed by IID and Imperial County made several false claims about the effects of building additional wind and solar farms over the next few years. While those resources alone won't get the state to 100 percent clean energy, the groups wrote, taking advantage of expiring federal tax credits will save Californians money in the long run.

Wind turbines and solar panels dominate the landscape along Interstate 10 near Palm Springs, California.

The Clean Power Campaign and EDF addressed their letter to Sen. Ben Hueso, who chairs the Senate's energy committee and represents Imperial County. They said Holden's bill should be amended to mandate 500 megawatts of new Salton Sea geothermal by 2030, on top of any additional wind and solar that utilities are required to buy.

"New geothermal development in Imperial County is overdue and would create significant local economic environmental benefits, as well as help reduce California’s reliance on natural gas plants," the groups wrote to Hueso. "This important renewable resource will also be incredibly important in displacing the 26% of California energy which is currently imported, and comprised largely of coal from other western states."

RELATED: Rewiring the West: A Desert Sun special report

Those groups also had a different idea for how Holden's bill should be modified to support existing geothermal and bioenergy plants, and also wind farms that may have to close if their utility contracts aren't renewed. The California Public Utilities Commission, the groups wrote, should be required to "examine the economic and environmental benefits of these projects and the impacts of those projects shutting down, taking into account both (climate change) concerns and local environmental health impacts."

Erin Hickey, a spokesperson for Hueso, declined to discuss the senator's position on Holden's bill, saying in an email Monday afternoon that the legislation "is still with the Rules Committee and has not been referred to the Energy Committee, nor have any hearings been scheduled at this point." Kelly Smith — a consultant for the Assembly's energy committee, which Holden chairs — didn't respond to a request for comment.

If lawmakers don't pass a bill to support Salton Sea geothermal, they might create legal headaches for the California Independent System Operator, which runs the power grid for 80 percent of the state. The Imperial Irrigation District, which runs its own separate power grid, sued the state grid operator in 2015, arguing that the grid operator was trying to "crush IID out of existence." The two sides agreed to a 60-day pause in the lawsuit in July — predicated on the possibility of impending state support for geothermal.

"We are collaborating on behalf of the geothermal resource at the Salton Sea that we've long advocated for," IID general manager Kevin Kelley said in a recent interview.

Sammy Roth writes about energy and the environment for The Desert Sun. He can be reached at sammy.roth@desertsun.com, (760) 778-4622 and @Sammy_Roth.

Correction: This story has been updated to correct the deadline for finalizing bill text.