California's Top Lawyer Sues Feds Over Inefficient Transformer Use
California's top lawyer is joining several environmental groups in suing the federal government. They don't like a recently passed Department of Energy rule that allows electric companies to use less efficient transformers. Transformers move electricity through the power grid.
The Sierra Club 's Erin Chalmers says requiring more efficient transformers could help reduce global warming.
Chalmers : These are Department of Energy's own numbers. Is that, if they required the most efficient transformers, across the country, over the next 30 years, as these get phased in, we would save enough power to eliminate the need for 20 medium-sized power plants.
Chalmers says fewer power plants means fewer greenhouse gas emissions. He says the newer equipment would reduce the cost of moving electricity through a grid and there would be fewer power outages because of inefficient, overheating transformers.
