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For months, confusion has been mounting over where Schwarzenegger and the sometimes warring groups in his close staff stand on coal. In April he signed a memorandum of understanding with the governors of Wyoming, Utah and Nevada to create a partnership to build the Frontier Line, a $3-billion-plus transmission project that would bring electricity generated from both coal and wind power to California.
"We need abundant, available, reliable power, and we need it now," Schwarzenegger said in a statement.
Environmentalists were rankled by the governor's apparent support for coal-burning power plants, which still produce greenhouse gases even though many other pollutants are scrubbed out of smokestacks. They persuaded Democrats in the Legislature to strike preliminary Frontier Line funding from the state budget.
The environmentalists' fears turned to glee just two months later when Schwarzenegger signed an executive order "establishing clear and ambitious targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in our state."
State energy regulators, taking a cue from the governor, endorsed his greenhouse gas policy and came down hard on making electricity by burning conventionally pulverized coal.
In October, the state Public Utilities Commission unanimously approved a resolution telling Southern California Edison Co. and other regulated investor-owned utilities that they could sign long-term contracts to buy power from coal-fired plants only if they were as clean as the most modern natural-gas-fueled generator. What's more, the PUC said that any carbon dioxide emitted from a plant would have to be pumped into the ground instead of the atmosphere.
This technology, which turns coal into gas before burning, produces electricity that costs 20% to 40% more than electricity from conventional coal power plants.
A commercial-scale pilot plant is not expected to be ready until 2012 at the earliest, and some coal experts suggest that gasification may not work efficiently at the high elevations where it's mined in the West.
Last month the California Energy Commission took similar action, approving a comprehensive plan that sets the same stringent greenhouse gas standards.
Members of both commissions stressed that they wanted California to spur industry to develop new anti-pollution technology, much in the way automobile manufacturers were forced to curtail tailpipe emissions by meeting ever-tighter government standards.
"Our policy sends a clear message to developers of current coal projects that they are going to need to reach a bit further to more advanced technology," Energy Commissioner John Geesman said.
Environmentalists hailed the commission's plan as an important victory.
"The Schwarzenegger administration has come out very strongly that it's clean coal or nothing," declared Eric Heitz, president of the Energy Foundation in San Francisco.
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