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W "-l CJl '-0 review of all reasonable, cost-effective alternatives, utilities would be encouraged to make conversions or offset developments to benefit national, regional, and local interests. Although the Petroleum Fuel Backout program is in effect, the current Administration's position regarding implementation is still unknown, and as such, we have not provided for coal requirements in our conceptual scenario. According to estimates derived from the California Energy Commission [8], the existing fossil-fuel, electrical plant generation capacity in the Los Angeles and San Diego areas is about 16,000 megawatts. In 1979. one large utility, the San Diego Gas and Electric Company, burned 11 million barrels of oil in its powerplants to provide elec- tricity,to its service territory [9J, Nearly 58 percent of the total electrical energy supplied in that year was generated from oil. Based on these patterns for the Los Angeles and San Diego service areas, a large percentage of the 16,000 megawatts of fossil-fuel plant capacity is estimated to be oil-fired, Thus, the potential use of coal delivered by slurry pipeline from Colorado and Utah to the southern California area for conversion to clean fuels or electric power generation presents a realistic energy scenario, Potential coal conversion projects would provide' a substantial oil backout contribution as well as air quality improvement in the heavily populated air basins of southern California. One proposal recently submitted to the Department of Energy for feasi- bility ~tudy addressed the development of a Southern California Syn- thetic ~uels Energy System [9]. One part of the energy system involves direct conversion of slurry coal to medium Btu's gas by an advanced gasification process for end use in Los Angeles Basin electric gener- ating and industrial facilities. The other part involves direct generat10n of electricity and production of methanol in an integrated gasification combined cycle/methanol plant. The relatively clean- burning'methanol fuel would be available for offsite electric generating facilities, Coal gasification in this situation has a decided advantage over tradi- tional firing of coal, since sulfur and nitrogen, the two major air pollutants, are removed from the coal before burning. Gasification and combined cycle operation offer advantages of efficient energy production in an environmentally sound manner. The COOl Water Project (map site No. 28) in southern California will be the fir~t commercial coal plant to demonstrate the integration of a 1,000-ton-per-day gasification plant with a new combined cycle unit to generate about 100 megawatts of electricity. In this conceptual energy scenario to reduce dependence on imported oil and to use efficiently abundant coal resources of the Colorado River 8asin, water is one of the main ingredients, Water is essential in providing transport media for coal, cooling water, and process water, particuJarly for the coal facilities planned for the desert areas of southeast California. At the present time, WSCC data project little or IV-15