At this point, I am opposed to the plant for two reasons;
1) While others are claiming this plant will reduce power outages, this just will not be the case. Most outages are not caused by overtaxing the power grid. Most are caused by equipment failures (transformers), accidents (someone hitting a power line or pole), or storms effects.
2) Many people are ignoring the 186 tons of NoX that will be released in the air. That's about a 1/2 ton a day! While the Santa Teresa/Blossom Hill area may enjoy a nice north to south air flow pattern during the summer days, the air pattern is reversed at night and during the winter. That means the NoX WILL be blown into our neighborhood. Sound far fetched? Most residents will tell you they smell garlic in the morning and that migrates here from Gilroy which is located a good 25 miles south. With the many inversion layers that plague our area during the winter, resulting in a fireplace generated smoky haze, we can now add high levels of NoX to the mix.
Calpine themselves say the power will be inputted into the North American grid and distribution will be controlled from the central valley. If so, then they CAN build the plant anywhere and not necessarily in our backyard.