RSS
A 41-year old generator in the city’s Hetch Hetchy hydroelectric power system, located 180 miles away from downtown San Francisco in Yosemite National Park, needs a $1.5 million emergency repair job before the spring’s snowpack begins to melt. Built in 1967, the generator is one of three in the Kirkwood Powerhouse — among three remote hydroelectric stations managed by the city’s Public Utilities Commission — located six miles downstream from the O’Shaughnessy Dam on the Tuolumne River.
Inspectors in September found a key part of the generator, called the stator core, was damaged through normal wear and tear. Fixing the generator will allow the PUC to collect up to $3.5 million in extra revenue during the warm spell in the spring, money that can then be used to fund projects like the proposed solar energy installation at the city’s Sunset Reservoir, according to PUC spokesman Tony Winnicker.
“The less clean hydroelectric power we produce (at Hetch Hetchy), the more (electricity) we have to go out and buy,” Winnicker said. The city’s other hydroelectric generators have all been repaired in the past few years, Winnicker said. The normal life span for a generator is 30 years.
The project must be approved by the Board of Supervisors before work can begin. The Board will vote on the project at its Jan. 6 meeting.
The city has selected energy giant General Electric to do the repair work, which should be completed by early February, according to a PUC memo. The job was originally estimated to cost $2.2 million, according to a letter from PUC general manager Ed Harrington.
The Hall of Fame coach spent the last three seasons on NBC’s “Sunday Night Football.” His final telecast was the Super Bowl in February. “You know at some point you have to do this — I got to that point,” Madden said on his Bay Area radio show Thursday.
Many who attended Thursday’s service at a local high school gymnasium — some wearing T-shirts with Sandra’s face — wiped tears from their eyes as family members and community leaders remembered an exuberant, loving girl who screamed with joy when she rode
SONG BY GANGSTER TO HIT STORES:.
