San Francisco seeks transmission link

You can generate all the power you want, but if you can't get it to the users, it is worthless. San Francisco is seeking a way to get power to the Bay Area.

Electric power is San Francisco's Achilles' heel.

The city's aging power plants don't generate the amount of electricity its people need. High-voltage lines tied to the state's power grid take up the slack, but they all come from just one direction -- the Peninsula. An earthquake there could shut down several lines at once, plunging parts of San Francisco into darkness.

Now, the city of Pittsburg and Babcock & Brown, a finance company specializing in power projects, want to bring energy to San Francisco through a new route -- a cable under the bay.

They plan a $300 million electrical line running beneath the bay floor from Pittsburg to San Francisco. Buried 3 to 6 feet deep for most of its 55 miles, the transbay cable would give the city an extra path for power.