Twitter kind of consumed the Quick Hits genre, but 140 characters is just not enough …
- Climate group Mothers Out Front had a nice event on Boston Common yesterday. They’re trying to get folks to sign up for renewable energy through MassEnergy. Here’s founder Kelsey Wirth, her sister Annie and niece Charlotte. It’s all about the family — really.
- I’ve said some nasty things about Marco Rubio and his climate denial. So how do you deal with politicians in denial? Give them a chance to climb down. Let the Citizens Climate Lobby demonstrate: Here’s a really nifty anecdote from their most recent podcast, starts about 2:20 in, and goes to 5:10: CCL-June-2014.mp3.
- So even Charlie Baker is talking income inequality. Let’s count this as a positive development. There are things about our state that exacerbate that problem, specifically the high cost of housing.The recent run-up in home prices in Greater Boston is usually reported as an unalloyed good, but that’s not right. Income inequality leads to skyrocketing housing costs — which shows the need for zoning reform. We just don’t have enough housing stock in Massachusetts, and too few municipalities have been growing their stock. Even Boston has catching up to do.That’s got to change if we want to hold on to the middle class — if we want to keep our state from becoming another Silicon Valley. As the Globe editorialized last week again — the legislature has a bill in front of it to encourage more housing near town/transit centers — “smart growth”, with a whole bushel of carrots to make such growth more attractive to municipalities. Given the current situation, that’s just got to happen..It’s H.4065 if you’re calling your reps. I’d like to hear the #magov candidates address this as well.
- This is great and all, but man, Tom Friedman … Tom Friedman …
- Mt. Tom Power Station in Holyoke is closing. After it and Brayton Point close, that will leave Massachusetts with zero coal plants. This is good. They should be replaced by conservation and renewables, not natural gas, which very likely provides no benefit vs. coal with regard to global warming. And the state should provide transitional help to employees and the town of Holyoke.
Please share widely!
nopolitician says
This state has plenty of housing in Gateway Cities. Why not make those communities more attractive by helping them out, rather than trying to force more residents down the throats of rural towns?
stomv says
My take on that quick hit was a focus on housing near transit rich areas. Isn’t that exactly like Boston, local suburbs, and Gateway Cities (and not the throats of rural towns)?
To be clear, I believe all communities ought to have affordable housing goals, and 40B, while a brutal hammer sometimes, is one way to get there. In terms of overall growth, though, I believe that we ought to (a) make it easier to develop near transit rich areas, and (b) work to improve the quality and quantity of transit rich areas!
ryepower12 says
The formula used to determine poverty at the federal level is archaic and overly simplistic – based on the days when a good budget was one of the highest living costs, as opposed to rent, insurance and other costs that exceed groceries today.
This puts Ma residents at an extreme disadvantage in becoming eligible for programs like food stamps and all kinds of other things. Red states with very low living costs and cheap housing love this, as it works exclusively to the benefit of them.
We desperately need to update the formulas that determine eligibility to help out thousands of families in the Commonwealth who may make more than the federal poverty taste, but struggle immensely to keep a roof over their heads and provide for their children. If we could update that formula, it would go a long way toward making Ma a more affordable state for many people, particularly young families with kids.
ryepower12 says
1st paragraph – food budget, not good budget.
2nd paragraph – federal poverty wage, not taste.
stomv says
I had the chance to sit down with a representative of GDF/Suez a few years ago, and while she was quite open and forthcoming on a number of issues, she clammed up tight when I asked about the inevitable retirement of Mt. Tom. The numbers just aren’t there — coal is expensive, so it doesn’t operate economically very many hours. It’s not worth installing the pollution controls on a plant that doesn’t operate much.
We’ll still have fuel diversity in New England — gas, nuclear, Canadian hydro imports, and a growing wind and PV sector. Natural gas is the biggest contributor to our MWh, and unless we work hard to significantly expand wind and PV and Canadian hydro, it will grow even larger as nuclear gets phased out of the Northeast. So, goodbye coal, and hopefully(!) hello renewables.
Trickle up says
.
Charley on the MTA says
To ensure that renewables instead of gas take up that capacity?
stomv says
So long as the levelized cost of a combined cycle gas plant is cheaper than the levelized cost of a wind farm or a solar farm, we’ll need policy. That policy could make gas more expensive (restrictive hydrofracking policies, restrictive NOx or CO2 emission policies, restrictive traditional gas play policies) or to make renewable generation cheaper (renewable portfolio standards, subsidies, investment in R&D, building transmission to renewable-rich areas of the country).
And, if you view large hydroelectric dams as “renewables” then building transmission to get Canadian hydro into New England would also help preclude gas. That could be via the Northern Pass, down NY side of Lake Champlain, or through Maine.
P.S. I know you didn’t mean “capacity” in the technical sense (ability to generate electric power), but for the record, gas capacity isn’t the problem. It’s perfectly fine to have generators on standby ready to generate in cases of need, so long as we don’t need them very often. It would be fine to have 15 GW of gas capacity in New England if it is only called a few dozen hours a year. The problem is when we use gas generators as an energy resource, for thousands of hours each year.