Our view: County's precarious power picture casts new light on Sunrise

If we could but tap the ferocious energy in the wildfires raging across Southern California, our power supply would be secure. Instead, the flames tearing through homes and hillsides have severely threatened our region's electricity. As blue sky begins to peek through the blanket of smoke, questions old and new will emerge about North County's energy infrastructure.

Today, our hearts and energies are rightly focused on dousing the flames and helping the stricken. But whenever the soot settles, we will have to consider what these firestorms mean for our region's future. Specifically, count on the debate over the Sunrise Powerlink to spark up again once the fires' last embers are extinguished - if not before.

As if we didn't have enough on our minds the last three days, the California Independent Service Operator offered another reason to worry on Tuesday. The agency charged with managing the state's wholesale power grid declared a "transmission emergency" for Southern California.

San Diego County, in particular, faces a dire double threat. In our cul-de-sac of the Western Energy Grid, we rely on two big sets of power lines to transmit electricity into the county.

The Harris fire knocked out the San Diego Gas & Electric Co.'s Southwest Powerlink, a 500,000-volt line extending from the Otay Mesa area to Arizona. Then, as of last night, the Horno fire along Interstate 5 in Camp Pendleton threatened the county's other key transmission lines, which connect to the San Onofre nuclear power plant.

In its campaign to build the Sunrise Powerlink - a 500,000-volt line from El Centro in Imperial County through Anza-Borrego Desert State Park, Ramona and Scripps Ranch to Rancho Penasquitos - SDG&E trotted out a scenario quite like what we're now confronting. The utility touted its Sunrise Powerlink proposal as energy reliability insurance in the event a wildfire knocked down its Southwest Powerlink along the Mexican border. Point taken.

Or is it? This week's winds and Witch Creek fire would likely have devastated the new power line. The Sunrise Powerlink's opponents say our efforts and dollars should be spent instead on new local generation, particularly of solar power, providing similar or better energy security with far less expense and environmental degradation.

Just last week, opponents gathered under a blue sky to promote a report written by Sunrise Powerlink opponent Bill Powers. The engineer and environmental activist sketched a plan to supply the region with roughly the same amount of power as the proposed new transmission line - at the same $700 million cost to San Diego ratepayers - by offering incentives to home and business owners to install solar panels on roofs.

On our typical sunny day, that argument sounds winning. These days, however, with soot and ash blotting out the sun and coating our cars and roofs, it's hard to believe that solar power would be of much help in this particular kind of energy emergency.

The infernos around us have ripped new holes in the cases both for and against the Sunrise Powerlink. We still support the Sunrise Powerlink because, among other reasons, we do think it will increase our access to reliable energy. But whatever solutions we arrive at must take into account the challenges illuminated by the firestorms of 2007, so that they emerge smarter than they were before this devastating week.

In the meantime, please make an extra effort to conserve your use of energy while SDG&E's transmission lines remain under threat.