Bidding high for pollution credits.(The Orange County Register)

Southern California power plants pumped nearly three times more air pollution than they were allowed last year - damaging efforts to meet clean-air goals and driving up electricity prices for consumers statewide, records and interviews show.

The South Coast Air Quality Management District limited power generators to 2,334 tons of oxides of nitrogen, a smog component known as NOx. Instead, the power plants emitted 6,000 tons, much of it from plants in Huntington Beach and Long Beach.

Most of the power plants polluted legally by buying NOx credits from other businesses that already had cleaned up. But the demand for credits made the credits expensive and scarce. In total, 16 Southern California power plants spent $111 million on pollution credits and paid $31 million in fines when the credits ran out, according to the AQMD.

The total cost to consumers was at least $142 million, and some experts say it might even have been higher.

The monetary costs of California's power crisis are well known. Consumer rates have risen an average of 39 percent this year. Less well known are the costs to the environment as generators run 40-year-old plants longer and harder to keep the lights on. The excess NOx pollution from power plants last year was equivalent to half a million more cars on Los Angeles freeways.

Power companies say more pollution is one of the tradeoffs to avoid blackouts. Regulators and environmentalists say over-pollution could have been avoided if power companies had heeded warnings in past years and added emission controls.

Industry leaders, environmentalists and regulators agree the energy crisis has stalled the Regional Clean Air Incentives Market, once considered a model clean-air program. RECLAIM was intended to let businesses make cost-effective decisions and still reduce smog.