It appears that this link:
http://www.latimes.com/business/reports/power/lat_laplant010110.htm
supports Anthracite (and others) point; it is next to impossible to build a power plant in CA.
I’ll leave it to someone else to provide context for these numbers, but the gist of it is that a company wants to put a power plant in South Gate, a small city next to LA. This power plant will produce 550 megawatts, and the follwoing pollutants: 56 tons of oxides of nitrogen, 17 tons of carbon monoxide, 24 tons of volatile organic compounds and 287 tons of particulate matter annually.
According to last saturday’s LA Times, the mayor of South Gate is on a hunger strike protesting the plant.
Yes, we can conserve a lot more than we currently do, here in CA. But eventually, we will need to build power plants, and frankly, things like the above are pretty ridiculous.