To protect its revenue, NextEra Energy Resources is blocking the New England Clean Energy Connect (NECEC) line, a transmission project designed to import hydro power from Canada, by failing to agree to upgrade a circuit breaker at the Seabrook nuclear plant in New Hampshire, according to Avangrid and NECEC Transmission, the companies developing the power line.
The Lincoln Memorial, on an island surrounded by churning Potomac waters; Nationals Park, a bathtub surrounded by mid-rise office buildings flooded by the Anacostia River; the Pentagon, accessible by boat, with State Route 110 and the George Washington Memorial Parkway underwater.
At the beginning of the pandemic, energy prices crashed. We did an episode of this show trying to figure out how oil prices fell to negative $40 per barrel. Times have changed. Oil is up over $100/barrel. But far more acute is what’s happening with natural gas, particularly in Europe and Asia. In the US, natural gas prices have doubled in the last year. But in parts of Europe, the price has risen more than 5 times. The disruptions are clear. We’re seeing stories of power shortages in China, fertilizer plants being shut down in the UK, and fears about home heating costs in the Northeast US as winter approaches. So what the heck is going on? How long might it last? And what does it tell us about the future? To answer those questions Shayle turns to Leslie Palti-Guzman. the President of Gas Vista and a non-resident fellow at the Columbia Center on Global Energy Policy. Shayle and Leslie cover the many demand-side and supply-side issues. Then they talk about what comes next: What does this crisis reveal about the vulnerability of the energy system? And will countries double down on renewables, gas, or both to shore up their resiliency? The Interchange is brought to you by Schneider Electric. Are you building a microgrid? With a microgrid you can store electricity and sell it back during peak times. Keep your power on during an outage. Integrate with renewables. Control energy on your own terms. Having built more microgrids in than anyone else, Schneider Electric has the expertise to help. The Interchange is brought to you by Bloom Energy. Bloom’s onsite energy platform provides unparalleled control for those looking to secure clean, reliable 24/7 power that scales to meet critical business needs. It eliminates outage and price risk while accelerating us towards a zero carbon future.
I spend too much time dreaming about how renewable energy projects and the climate emergency will be used to punish political opponents in the coming decades. After all, during an emergency there is no time to be thoughtful or care about people of color or the poor.
While maybe it’s just defensive or because I’ve clicked on the ads of a few fossil fuel companies that oppose any kind of climate action that would negatively impact their business, there seems to be a real uptick on advertising against a climate related tax on fossil fuels. Maybe it’s a good time too, as the public’s attention is focused on the news of predicted high heating bills this winter and gas prices that keep hiking at the pump.
I doubt legislators are in any kind of rush to enact taxes on gasoline, especially with prices going up so much lately. It seems like political suicide, although maybe less so in the New York City metropolitan area where so few people fuel their own cars or pay their own heating bills. But still, I can’t see much of a push to hike taxes on energy these days. Maybe it’s just about firing a warning shot, to keep the possibility of fossil fuel taxes off the agenda.
On the whole, I like the idea of enacting fossil fuel taxes as long as other taxes are reduced, so the proposal is revenue neutral. While it wouldn’t set well with progressives, I think it would be good for the economy to cut capital gains taxes to make up for revenue on fossil fuel taxes — and encourage people to invest their money rather then spend it on fossil fuels.
How would you react if you turned on the news on Tuesday morning to only find out your house and entire neighborhood had been condemned under the state’s quick take eminent domain law, for a large renewable energy project by a private developer?
The state would compensate you for fair market value and moving expenses but you would have to moved out of your home within 30 days. By filing a quick take deed with the county clerk, the state had already taken title to your property, your only choice is to take the check the government is sending you or sue in the court of claims for additional compensation based on what you believe the fair market value is to be.
In theory, homeowners and other property owners could band together and sue the state under Article 78 arguing that the project was arbitrary and capricious under the law but you could not challenge the individual eminent domain as quick take can not challenged in court. But even there, everything was stacked up against you as the state had decided building renewable energy projects was their priority, and the state with its millions in resources had no interest in defending homeowners and farms against big solar.
Solar and wind energy in many ways is the next interstate highway system. The climate crisis is already unlocking the next generation of Robert Moses and the master builders. The solar or wind farm must be built, the hell with the environment or community. A crisis affords no time to consider such impacts, the outcome has been predetermined by government officials. The bulldozers must come, the cement laid, steel I beams set and the thousand of acres of silicon and glass panels set into place.
I have a friend who visited a CalTrans office during the 1960s, and said the experience was like visiting a war room filled with enormous maps that filled the walls detailing the planned superhighways. The walls were certainly backed by stacks of files that contained detail survey data and rooms of super computers and reels of magnetic tape that would be used to crank out letters and prefilled out checks to owners of condemned property for compensation without much human intervention. Cold hard, statistics and FHWA regulations basically predetermined the route after all.
With massive government subsidies and the climate crisis the renewable energy projects must go ahead without question or significant evaluation of environmental impacts. The future has been predetermined by the planners, there is no turning back, we are told. Historic buildings must be hauled off to the landfills, forests stripped of their timber, farm fields stripped of their soils and concreted, open space industrialized. There are good union jobs, tax revenue, campaign contributions and patronage jobs after all to fill.
At least I’m glad to hear that local governments are asking solar developers about decommissioning plans, requiring some kind of bonding and calculations on landfill space to dispose of the panels when their time is done, not imagine they will be recycled into pixie dust. But no time to focus on that, the tax revenue and campaign contributions are more important than community character in a fucking climate crisis.
While I’m sure it won’t be popular, I sure hope people do rise up and ask before it’s to late:
