The Mercury News editorial board has been a strong cheerleader for Calpine's Metcalf Energy Center. This past weekend the Mercury News' chief editorial writer, Phil Yost, commented on the Moss Landing expansion project coming online. Mr. Yost wrote:

Those 2,550 megawatts can light up between 2 million and 2.5 million homes. They can provide about 5 percent of the state's total electricity use on a hot day. A thousand of them come directly to the Metcalf substation in South San Jose.

Using Mr. Yost's numbers, Moss Landing provides enough electricity to the Metcalf substation to power one million homes. The City of San Jose Planning department posted data from the 2000 census that shows the City of San Jose has a total of 281,706 housing units. South San Jose (district 2) has only 27,725 homes.

In addition to Moss Landing, the South County now has 265 megawatts of generation in Gilroy, enough for 265,000 homes. Maybe all this local generation so close to South San Jose is the reason why experts said in evidentiary hearings that they would rather have Metcalf sited in North San Jose. Unfortunately, these facts have been sorely missing from Mr. Yost's editorials cheerleading the Metcalf Energy Center and the CEC's override of local zoning rules.