I'm glad Oregon is ahead of the curve, but PGE, a former subsidiary of Enron, has a less than honest track record in these parts.
We're lucky to have hydropower here, but it's not exactly sustainable when the loss of fish habitat is taken into account.
Worse, PGE runs the Boardman Coal Plant, the #1 polluter west of the Rockies:
http://www.oregonlive.com/opinion/index.ssf/2009/01/its_time_to_close_the_boardman.htmlAccording to documents filed for their Title V Permit renewal in 2006 (a five-year permit), in 2003 PGE Boardman released 5 million tons of CO2, and in a given year emits 28,000 tons of sulfur and nitrogen oxides along with hundreds of tons of particulate matter, major causes of cardiac disease, low birth weight, SIDS, lung cancer, heart attack, stroke, and asthma. Plus Boardman annually emits enough mercury (221 lbs.) to contaminate 2.6 million acres of water, or four times the surface area of all Oregon lakes.
Combine these health and environmental impacts with the estimated $700 million to more than $1 billion this relict energy plant needs to come up to minimal standards (not counting the CO2 emissions), and Portlanders should be outraged enough at their local utility to swear off the light switch.
It's time we replace the power from Boardman with a clean alternative. Thirty years is the normal life of a power plant anyway, and today we have good substitutes available if only the utility would issue contracts with independent renewable energy producers. After decades of Green Window Dressing from PGE, they still supply only 4% of their power from green sources. Just 4 percent! Oregonians should be more than just embarrassed, they should be angry.
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