With all the hype Calpine gets in the press for their groundbreakings, Duke Energy received no coverage in the Merc when their Moss Landing expansion went online last Friday adding 1060 megawatts to the grid. A Reuters article described the Moss Landing plant as "California's biggest natural gas-fired generating facility." South San Jose is approximately 35 transmission miles away from Moss Landing.

If we go way back to September 11, 2000, the Calpine PR team tried to create FUD that the Moss Landing expansion would not be completed. In a message posted to southsanjose.com, Richard Williams wrote:

The White Knight alternative power project that Metcalf opponents say renders Metcalf moot may never appear. Dow Jones News reports Friday that the owner of the Moss Landing power plant, Duke Energy, may leave California and "take their turbines with them" because they are unhappy with the lowered price caps for electric power.

We have not heard from Mr. Williams in quite a long time since he was exposed to be Mr. Bill Toman, project manager of Calpine (the Wall Street Journal link Mr. Toman included with this Moss Landing information inadvertently contained his Wall Street Journal id that led to his "downfall". I should also note Calpine and Mr. Toman have never apologized to our community for this deception.)

Why was Calpine trying so hard to discredit to Moss Landing as an alternative to Metcalf? The Mercury News reported in the article "Mayor opposes power plant" on June 13, 2000 that the Moss Landing expansion would deliver more power than Metcalf to South San Jose:

With more power plants coming on line around the state -- including a new one in Moss Landing that could someday deliver 800 megawatts of power to Silicon Valley -- even that argument may fail to win support.

Does South San Jose still need Metcalf? In the evidentiary hearings we were told if time were not an issue the plant should be built in the North. At that time Calpine was still telling us Metcalf would be online Summer of 2002.