By Rebecca Bowe
Photo courtesy Luke Thomas, Fog City Journal
Here’s the scoop: The San Francisco Bay Guardian will get 50 megawatts of wind power, courtesy of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom.
Don’t get excited — the mayor was only kidding. Newsom’s witty remark came in response to a question by local journalist and blogger Luke Thomas, when he asked the mayor who would own the energy being generated by the municipal wind turbines that are envisioned throughout the city in a report unveiled today.
Newsom’s response: “I hope it’s the Bay Guardian.”
SFBG publisher Bruce B. Brugmann was delighted by the news, and immediately emailed a San Francisco Chronicle City Hall reporter to say he was available for comment on how he plans to use the power.
The press conference was held to announce the recommendations of San Francisco’s Urban Wind Power Task Force, a group convened to study possibilities for small urban wind projects in the city. The vision involves siting turbines at famous city landmarks, mapping micro-climates to figure out how best to harness wind energy potential, and making it easier for small urban wind projects to be permitted.
“Wind needs to be part of the urban mix,” Newsom said. “There are still a lot of questions, but nonetheless there’s a lot of enthusiasm.” Wind-power demonstration sites could include the Civic Center Plaza, The W Hotel, a new San Francisco Public Utilities Commission headquarters on Golden Gate Ave., and Treasure Island, Newsom said.
My question for Newsom was whether the city’s Community Choice Aggregation effort, which has a stated goal of supplying publicly owned power generated by 51 percent renewable energy by 2017, would be integrated into the bold new wind-development plans. The overarching vision of the Wind Power Task Force report is to develop 50 megawatts of wind power over the next few decades, a much longer time line than the initial 2017 target established by CCA. Newsom replied, “It certainly could be. I haven’t gotten that far along.”
To which we’d like to respond: Did you have a nice time on that PG&E-funded trip to Mexico?