The streetwise alternative energy dreams of one California officeholder have been given a tentative green light in Sacramento. If all goes well, the Golden State could roll out a technology that would turn vehicles’ rumblings over freeways into electrical energy.

“The office of L.A.-area Assemblyman Mike Gatto announced recently that the California Energy Commission has agreed to fund multiple piezoelectric pilot projects in the Golden State,” the L.A. Weekly reported. “The program’s schedule, including when ground will be broken, has not been revealed. The commission’s move follows years of research on how this might work on California’s busy freeways — and on whether it will be worth it for taxpayers. […] The state’s analysis concluded that a pilot demonstration of the technology would be the best way to determine if it’s worth our money — if we can actually squeeze some juice from concrete and asphalt.”

International precedent

Risk-averse politicians and policymakers had reason beyond the limitations of the pilot program to be cautiously optimistic. In other leading post-industrial nations, the tech being put to the test has already proven functional. “Gatto had a conversation with a friend who had just returned from Israel raving about a road that produced energy,” as the Fresno Bee noted, through the use of so-called piezoelectric sensors beneath roads and railways. “Gatto learned that engineers in Israel, Italy, and Japan had successfully installed piezoelectric sensors underneath roadways and railways. Those sensors, the size of watch batteries, are in effect the reverse of sonar: a vibration comes in, and an electric pulse goes out. Gatto said scientists estimate the energy generated from a 10-mile stretch of four-lane roadway can power the entire city of Burbank, comparable to Clovis,” the Bee added.

“You embed them right in the roadway and as cars and trucks drive over the roadway, it vibrates the road just a little bit, and these substances get charged from that,” Gatto told ABC 7 News. “It just makes sense in a car culture like ours to use that extra energy that is generated and put it to good use.”

Transforming transportation

Although environmentalist critics could be pressed to raise emissions objections to Gatto’s enthusiasm for so many cars on the road, other ongoing technological advances have begun to raise the prospect of substantially greater zero-emissions vehicles phasing out California gas guzzlers in the years to come. “Tesla’s goal of building 1 million vehicles per year by the end of 2020” — including buses and trucks — “depends on a fast-rising flow of batteries from the Gigafactory,” the company’s vast plant located in Nevada, the San Francisco Chronicle observed:

“The company has accelerated its work on the factory by roughly two years, planning to produce enough batteries in 2018 to supply 35 gigawatt-hours of electricity, the target originally established for 2020. ‘People really need to think of the factory as more important than the product itself, and with far greater potential for innovation,’ Musk said Tuesday at the plant.”

While Musk’s plans to date have focused on solar power’s applications in structures like homes, designers have also begun to turn to the sun’s energy in rethinking the way roads can be used to help power the grid. L.A.’s Michael Maltzan Architecture has proposed a tunnel overlay on a bridge section of the 134 freeway that would incorporate a host of alternate energy features, including emissions traps and rainwater collection. “A field of photovoltaic panels along the top of the tunnel would produce about 6 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually — enough to power 600 homes,” the Los Angeles Times added. “Maltzan proposes that the cost savings made possible by the solar array — an estimated $1 million per year — be similarly fed back into the city, used to boost the budgets of the half-dozen Pasadena Unified School District campuses located within two miles of the freeway bridge.”

Previously, a CalWatchdog.com story covered Carson Bruno’s research showing that the state of California has far surpassed its 2020 goal of having 33 percent of electricity coming from renewable sources. So why isn’t this big news? Because according to state laws establishing the 33 percent goal, some renewable energy doesn’t count as renewable energy.

Bruno also makes a provocative point about Gov. Jerry Brown’s goals on another energy front:

California may be the greenest state in the nation. The Golden State’s renewable portfolio standard is among the nation’s most aggressive, the state’s cap-and-trade program is likely the most developed, and each legislative session lawmakers grapple over dozens of new environmental-based bills. … So it didn’t come as any surprise that during his 4th (and final) State of the State address, Jerry Brown focused heavily on taking California’s already aggressive climate change action to the next level. …

Brown [said the state would] double the energy efficiency of California’s buildings. …

This proposal is the most straightforward, but also may be the most difficult to achieve. Here’s why: California is already the national leader – coincidentally, since Jerry Brown was first governor – in energy conservation.

Conserving more would be akin to squeezing out more lemon juice from an already squeezed lemon: you’ll get a little, but not that much. Californians use approximately the same amount of energy they did 40 years ago as the rest of the nation has increased its use by roughly half. This is despite California’s population and economic output steadily increasing. California’s Mediterranean-like climate helps reduce energy use, but that can’t explain the full difference.

Here’s where the paradox comes in, however. We know how to get to the next step: technology. Smart metering enables consumers and providers to better understand their behavior to encourage conservation; new lighting technology and new advances in heating and cooling systems better reduce waste. But even with new technology, doubling efficiency while California continues to grow and after California has already squeezed a lot out of consumers won’t be easy.

‘Build it and they will come’ regulatory approach

There’s always been an element of “build it and they will come” to California environmental regulators’ habit of establishing goals that seem unrealistic but that the private sector manages to meet. More than a few engineers were skeptical that cars averaging 35 MPG was a realistic goal, but that’s now the federal mandate for coming years, as the Obama administration follows the California example of demanding change that seems daunting. As Car & Driver wrote, “as goes California, so goes the country.”

But there are two recent examples of California regulators going too far and retreating in embarrassment. In 2010, they backed down from a proposal to criminalize having under-inflated tires after I wrote about it on my U-T San Diego blog and John & Ken took up the cause on KFI AM 640. This was the informal analysis of the proposal from the California New Car Dealers Association:

(The) regs. CARB’s pushing through (released this week and subject to a 15 day comment period) … provides that the only times that consumers may decline a check and inflate service — they can never decline the service if it’s offered for free — is when they are charged for services AND if they can PROVE (with DOCUMENTATION!) that they’ve had their tires checked and inflated in the last 30 days, or if they WILL do so within the next week. It is unclear, but possible, that CARB could take enforcement action against the consumer if they don’t follow through with their promise?!

In 2009, California regulators also backed down from a tentative proposal to ban black paint on cars after facing incredulity from U.S. and Japanese automakers. Snopes treats this as a “mostly false” story. But I spoke with an executive for an auto paint company in 2009, and she said California air board staffers were absolutely serious about the idea in meetings early that year. That’s how it was treated by an auto-industry website.

This link — http://www.arb.ca.gov/cc/cool-paints/cool-paints.htm — used to show the air board’s proposal, but now it only shows an error message.

By KATY GRIMES

In it’s annual update to the Legislature, the California Public Utilities Commission offered plenty of good news and optimism. But what CPUC President Michael Peevey left out could have been held at another two-hour hearing. And the questions that legislators did not ask Peevey hung in the air like Los Angeles smog.

On Monday, Peevey gave the legislature-mandated annual review of the CPUC to the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce. Despite what might have been a very important review and update to legislators, as well as a golden opportunity to ask some very specific questions about a difficult year, only two legislators were present for the entire presentation: Assemblyman Jeff Gorell, R-Camarillo, and Committee Chairman Steven Bradford, D-Inglewood. Most of the other 13 committee members gave the hearing a cursory glance and a brief stay.

Peevey painted a picture for legislators of a regulatory agency which cares deeply about low-income utility customers and diversity, is committed to the advancement of the smart grid in California, and said that California’s utility companies have spent more than $1 billion on energy efficiency, and $750 million for low-income retrofits.

Peevey insisted that the California Solar Initiative is “doing great, remarkable, and going ahead very, very well.” And, he did credit the federal government with providing a “big federal tax credit” to help the initiative along.

When the presentation came to the PG&E explosion in San Bruno last fall, Peevey said, “While the explosion has gotten a tremendous amount of attention, we’ve all followed pipeline safety practice. Nonetheless, it had very severe consequences. The whole nation is watching.”

Peevey added, “Shortly after the accident, tragedy forced us to take a look at how we regulate pipeline safety.” This led to the formation of an independent review panel made up of energy experts from academia, utility companies and union representation.

Annual Review

In anticipation of Monday’s hearing, last week Peevey provided committee members a PowerPoint handout of the CPUC annual review. The handout contained much more information about the San Bruno PG&E gas line explosion than was discussed in the hearing, including a timeline of important events “and CPUC actions.”

“If anything positive at all came out of the San Bruno explosion, it’s how we look at safety,” Peevey told legislators.

Although the timeline accounts for new rules for pipeline operations, there was no discussion or specific information about how the CPUC plans to hold PG&E accountable in the future, specifically, so that another San Bruno never happens again.

Paul Clanon, the executive director for the CPUC, told legislators about a project PG&E is working on at the Cow Palace in South San Francisco. When completed, he said, the project “will be a new way of looking at pipeline safety. We will be an industry leader for the U.S., and partner with the National Safety Transportation Board.”

And in December, the CPUC issued an order to PG&E to lower the pressure on all pipelines that were the same age and size as the San Bruno pipeline. “We’re doing that not because we know there is a deficit underground, but because we don’t know there isn’t,” said Clanon.

Still unanswered is whether PG&E will have to pay the entire tab for the San Bruno explosion, or if ratepayers will be forced to pay for it.

Peevey spent a substantial amount of time explaining to legislators about the many diversity policies and practices the CPUC has implemented through the Utility Supplier Diversity Program. “The Commission has had an incredible effort of diversity — minorities, women, and veteran-owned businesses and suppliers,” Peevey said.

“So why is it?” asked Assemblyman Sandre Swanson, D-Oakland. Consider looking at “some of the best practices that many of the companies have used.”

Peevey said that, in 2009, procurement from diverse suppliers increased, surpassing more than $3 billion. Both Verizon and AT&T exceeded 40 percent, PG&E exceeded 30 percent, Southern California Gas reached more than 37 percent and Southern California Edison exceeded nearly 28 percent.

Energy Efficiency Programs

The California Renewable Portfolio Standard, mandated by the Legislature, was established in 2002 under Senate Bill 1078, and accelerated in 2006 under Senate Bill 107. The RPS is one of the most ambitious and aggressive renewable energy standards in the country, according to the CPUC.

The program requires investor-owned utilities, electric service providers, and community choice aggregators to increase procurement from eligible renewable energy resources by at least 1 percent of their retail sales annually, reaching 20 percent by 2010, and aiming for 33 percent by 2020.

Peevey told the committee that the CPUC is continuing to push on the renewable standard, and added, “I think the state can go to 40 percent renewables by 2020.”

Bradford asked Peevey why there hasn’t been an uptick in jobs with the increasing workforce diversification and energy efficiency mandates and subsidies. “Future jobs are on the come,” said Peevey. “There’s obviously been a lot of work created in the state. We have to make sure that benefits are distributed more equitably than has been in the past.”

While Peevey was focused on the Legislature-mandated diversification, low-income programs for bill assistance, and energy efficiency programs, he did not address the expensive “Million Solar Roofs” program, which has fallen very short of its goal.

The California Solar Initiative, often referred to as the “CSI,” is the solar rebate program for customers of the investor-owned utilities: Pacific Gas and Electric, Southern California Edison, San Diego Gas & Electric.

Despite having spent $2.2 billion so far, the utilities are coming up short on the solar roof initiative — and the budget is largely spent.  In a recent legislative informational hearing, the utilities said that the $2.2 billion subsidy program aimed at adding 1,940 megawatts of solar power in investor-owned utility territory by 2016, and 3,000 megawatts by 2018, is falling short of the mark as funds run out.

The utilities have only reached 790 megawatts of new distributed photovoltaic systems, after spending more than $2 billion in subsidies, while maxing out the ratepayer-funded spending caps for the non-residential solar subsidies.

Legislators were quiet about this subject.

In 2010 the CPUC approved eight grants totaling $9.3 million, the first of the solar initiative’s grant solicitations. Peevy said then, “The California Solar Initiative is one of the greatest focused efforts to promote solar photovoltaics ever seen and is designed to help build a sustainable solar industry. Integrating substantial amounts of PV into the grid is part of that vision.”

One energy expert, who asked that his name not be used, said that it was apparent to him that committee members did not read the advance copy of the CPUC presentation. And with only two of the 15 committee members present for the bulk of the hearing, as legislators came and went, few questions were raised on the issues Peevey presented.

CPUC Controversy In Oakley

“What happened?” committee chairman Bradford asked Peevey, referring to the Oakley, Calif. power plant controversy involving the CPUC.

“I was persuaded — that we needed it,” said Peevey.

And again legislators were quiet. No additional questions were asked.

The CPUC’s Division of Ratepayer Advocates, an “independent” division of the California Public Utilities Commission, originally had opposed the Oakley power plant. It previously warned PG&E customers that, as the utility continued to seek approval for the plant (despite original CPUC denial), approval would stick ratepayers with $1.5 billion in costs “for unneeded new electric capacity of 586 megawatts.”

More than once during the hearing when questions came up about his support of controversial projects orissues, Peevey told committee members, “I am only one commission member.”

Tomorrow: The Division of Ratepayer Advocates‘ annual review to the Legislature

Read the entire CPUC update.