GWF Energy wants to replace this part-time power plant with one that runs all the time. Press file photo
The Tuso family, which owns four custom homes on 275 acres adjacent to the Tracy Peaker Plant, said in a statement that to expand the power plant would seriously compromise their quality of life. The Tusos opposed the peaker plant’s construction back 2001, and said they’re angry they have to once again fight for their right to enjoy their land.
“Never would we have imagined that a few seven years later, we would be here again, backed into the corner … fighting for our property rights and quality of life against this towering menace of the neighborhood,” said Annette Tuso Elissagaray in a June 23 statement to energy regulators that the commission posted online this week.
GWF Energy, owners of the peaker plant, wants to add a second turbine to the facility and convert it into a full-time power plant instead of one that just runs during peak hours. Expansion would include heightening two towers at the plant from 110 to 140 feet. It would mean upping the number of hours the plant runs from about 300 a year to as many as 5,000. It would mean the plant would emit 90 tons of nitrogen oxide a year instead of the few tons it spews now.
The company said it needs to expand to keep up with the state’s energy demand. Energy regulators are in the midst of a yearlong review of the company’s plans and comments from the public about those plans.
Planned housing development Tracy Hills also submitted comments opposing a bigger power plant. Attorneys for Tracy Hills criticized the state’s review for not including anything about the plant’s visual impact. They asked the state to require GWF Energy to plant trees around the plant to help disguise it from a future Tracy Hills subdivision, which would lie less than two miles away, southwest of Tracy.
The company is already permitted by the state to run for 8,000 hours a year, max. A new, expanded plant would burn more efficiently by recycling steam to power another turbine, but would run more often.
To see documents related to the peaker plant expansion, go to the energy commission’s Web site.
•Contact a Tracy Press reporter or editor at 835-3030 or tpnews@tracypress.com.
We don't need any stinking energy, or agriculture, or auto manufacturing, or aircraft manufacturing, or Internet companies, or ship manufacturing, or chip manufacturing...all that stuff sucks. What we really need is more righteous unemployment. Oh, and pot smokers.
You pitch science fiction faster than Ed Vosberg, a former Major League Baseball player.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ed_Vosberg
I don't think population control is the answer when there is still plenty of open space on the islands. I'm surprised you are not a proponent of population replacment?
Recall, how the island of Great Britian solved this problem by relocating some of their's to Australia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Large_Hadron_Collider
Are you talking about the Cap and Trade? Where the current administration wants to Cap off the amount of energy produced so that we can Trade it at a higher price? I don't think the current administration is particlarily enthusiastic about the benefits of Nuclear Energy? Maybe even Energy, at all, for that matter?
I just read the complaint in the weblink that you provided on to website. Wouldn't 275 acres of ferterlizers also produce nitrogen oxide? How do you justify a complaint about a neighbor when you are doing the same thing?
The Central Valley does better than our state's capitol (Sacramento).
http://airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.fcsummary&stateid=6
http://www.epa.gov/region09/air/sjvalley/index.html
San Joaquin Valley OzoneRecent actions
June 2009: Proposed approval and partial disapproval of San Joaquin Valley's 2004 extreme area plan to attain the 1-hour ozone standard.
Proposed approval and partial disapproval of San Joaquin Valley’s 2004 extreme area plan to attain the 1-hour ozone standard
On June 30, 2009, EPA’s Regional Administrator signed a proposal to approve in part and disapprove in part the San Joaquin Valley’s 2004 Extreme Ozone Attainment Demonstration Plan. The plan, prepared by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District, shows that the area will have in place the controls necessary to meet the 1-hour ozone standard by the area’s Clean Air Act deadline of 2010. EPA is proposing to approve the plan as meeting the Clean Air Act’s requirements for rate of progress, control measures, and rate of progress contingency measures. EPA is proposing to disapprove the plan as not meeting the Clean Air Act’s requirement for attainment contingency measures.
EPA will be accepting comments on the proposed approval for 30 days following the publication of the proposal in the Federal Register.
The following documents summarize the action.
Fact Sheet (PDF) (4 pp, 36K)
Federal Register notice (PDF) (72 pp, 203K) (Disclaimer: This is the signed version of the notice. The version published in the Federal Register is the official version and may vary slightly from the signed version.)
Contact
Frances Wicher (wicher.frances@epa.gov)
Office of Air Planning, EPA Region 9
(415) 972-3957
""It would mean the plant would emit 90 tons of nitrogen oxide a year instead of the few tons it spews now.""
There is a train track that goes all the way out there on Shulte. No way you get QUITE U$E, out there, when you have a train track rollin through those hills.
And since this is listed as agraculture use I don't know how anyone could expect to enjoy quiet use?
I used a roto-tiller for a small garden project and that thing is louder than a 30 foot cooling tower.
BRRRRAAAAAAABABABARRRAAAAAAAABAAAAABRAAAAAA..
That and the street noise. The kid who rides his motor cart up and down the street. The other kids with their motorized scooters.
And the neignbors rooster.
Oh, and the dogs.
My neighbor's motorcycle too (almost forgot).
Chuckling at that one, "quiet use".