"So thoroughly have the utilities captured the body social, the body
politic, the body commercial, the body club womanly, the body editorial, and the
body ministerial, that allover the nation it becomes an occasion for sneer when
any man or any woman dares to stand out in the sunlight and battle for the sovereign
rights of a sovereign people against the arrogant dominations of the public
utility corporations, which should be the servants of the people, and not their
throttling czars."
C. K McClatchy, Publisher, SACRAMENTO BEE, as quoted in The Bee's
Centennial Album, Part the Ninth, pp. CD14, CD15 February 3, 1958
Dear Friends, In case you missed it, here's a link for a must-see KCRA Channel 3 Evening News segment that aired on Oct. 10th. Click on the Tom DuHain interview. Gene Stille of Nugget Markets and Dan Berman, among others are featured. Reporter Tom DuHain does an honest, hard-hitting piece on why SMUD expansion into Yolo County will benefit both Yolo County and current SMUD customers. It really cuts through PG&E's $10 million propaganda campaign.
KCRA.com
- Adwatch: No On Measures H, I, L AdSACRAMENTO, Calif. -- In this Adwatch report, the focus is on an ad for a trio of local measures that voters in Sacramento and Yolo counties will decide.
THE INCONVENIENT SPIN
Posted on OCTOBER 26, 2006:By Cosmo Garvin
PG&E also is spending a chunk of money to attack SMUD's environmental credentials. If you live in Davis, you may have gotten a glossy mailer sporting a cute tree frog and a quote from the Al Gore movie An Inconvenient Truth: "...inconvenient truths do not go away just because they are not seen."
But look a little more closely at the math. The No campaign boasts that PG&E gets "30 percent of its electricity from wind, solar and water."
Part of that percentage includes "large hydropower"--big dams that energy regulators don't consider to be renewable energy. If SMUD were to include the power it gets from big dams, its green percentage would rise to about 42 percent.
And according to the California Energy Commission, PG&E's renewable-energy mix, the share of its electricity that comes from wind, solar and biomass, is about 11.4 percent. Measured the same way, SMUD's renewable share is 14.5 percent.
PG&E also touts a 35 percent smaller "carbon footprint" than SMUD. In other words, less of its energy, per kilowatt, results in greenhouse gases being released. SMUD has to concede the point, but notes that PG&E gets a big chunk of its energy from its Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. Nuclear reactors don't give off carbon dioxide, but there is that little problem of what to do with all that nuclear waste.
Pacific Gas and Electric Company, a regulated utility
(PG&E)
PG&E
Corp(4)
S&P
A
(1)
BBB
Moodys
A1
(2)
Baa1
Baa3
Fitch
A
(3)
BBB
1. Since June 9, 1997
2. Since May 3, 2004.
3. Since March 1996
4. PG&E Corp. (the parent company) is rated Baa3
by Moody's. It is unrated by the other agencies.
Note from Dan Berman:
Which utility is likely to raise rates soon? SMUD with the
"A" or PG&E the one with the BBB? As you are probably
aware, the credit of publicly-owned utilities is much better than that of
privately-owned
ones. I had a long discussion with Linda Santoro of Fitch on this
very
subject, and reports have been issued on this very topic. Linda can
be reached at 212-908-0522 or linda.santoro@fitchrating.com.Untitled
The table below shows that PG&E charged, in most
cases, its business customers over
1½ as much as SMUD in June. 2005.
SMUD vs. PG&E: Sample
Commercial Utility Bills, September 2006
Usage in KWH
If your PG&E electric bill
was:
Your SMUD bill would have been:
Monthly savings with SMUD:
500
$100
$60
$40
1000
$191
$112
$79
2000
$375
$217
$158
5000
$925
$532
$393
10,000
$1843
$1,119
$724
50,000
$7,921
$4,963
$2,958
100,000
$15,751
$12,313
$3,438
Source: "Comparison of Typical Electric Bills" ,
Energy Rates and Contracts, Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power, 213-367-0330
On average, SMUD charges business customers 38% less than
PG&E !
What Yolo residents should know about their electric bills.
SMUD vs. PG&E: Sample Residential Utility Bills,
September 2006
Usage in KWH
If your PG&E electric bill
was:
Your SMUD bill would have been:
Monthly savings with SMUD:
400
$46
$40
$6
500
$57
$48
$9
700
$90
$65
$25
1,000
$162
$111
$51
2,000
$437
$246
$191
Source: "Comparison of Typical Electric Bills" ,
Energy Rates and Contracts, Los Angeles Dept. of Water & Power, 213-367-0330
On average, PG&E residential
customers would save 26% with SMUD!
When Yolo County switches to SMUD, the savings levels in the table will not be realized immediately. The cost to buy out PG&E assets and contracts must to be included in post-annexation electricity costs.
Yolo electricity rates under SMUD are expected to decrease 2% upon severance
with PG&E. Yolo residents will get the same rates as all other SMUD
customers when the annexation asset purchases have been paid off.
The Coalition for Local Power, an ad hoc citizens committee, recommends this change to residents and businesses in Davis, Woodland, West Sacramento and Yolo County.
