The Boston Globe editorial staff weighed in on the misguided proposal for a new peaking diesel plant for downtown Chelsea today with their piece, “To limit Chelsea pollution”. As a downwinder of the Salem Power Plant, it’s oh-so-tempting to allow myself to be seduced by the developers claims that the filthy old Salem Plant will run less, but I’m not convinced and neither is The Globe:
WHEN THE city of Chelsea in 1996 built a new school complex for all the city’s more than 1,300 public elementary school children, it had a right to expect that the already substantial air pollution in the neighborhood would not get worse. But that could happen if state officials approve a new power plant a few hundred feet from the school.
The developer says the plant on Chelsea Creek would burn the cleanest diesel oil and, by reducing the need for dirtier power sources nearby, actually improve Chelsea air quality. It might well do that, but in light of the uncertainties surrounding electricity production in the brave new world of deregulation, state officials should encourage the developer to find a different site.
I would even take it one step further than The Globe. Instead of finding another community in which to drop this thing, how about we discuss WHY we need more and more peaking power and then what we can do to solve that. For the reasons I laid out in “Do you REALLY want to wash that NOW?”, we can do better. Smart metering-type solutions are popping up all over the country and from a pollution and global warming perspective, burning more fossil fuels when we know what we know is a fuel-hardy step in the wrong direction.
we can do better.
why not roll out some solar cells throughout the state? Sure, they’d cost more in capital than the peaking plant, but you’d get a few benefits:
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p> * They help offset fossil fuel demand when the sun is shining, even off-peak. * They’re distributed, so you can spread around the jobs (install, maintain) throughout the state. * They do result in pollution when produced, but that pollution is literally about a half a world away. * They’d help meet the state’s renewable portfolio standard.
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Jeez, there’s tremendous opportunity here: Deval Patrick could come out with a bill that installs solar cells on all new public schools in Massachusetts. Also, any major roof work would come with solar cells. Link it directly to Chelsea. We’ve already got all sorts of laws named after kids (Amber Alert, etc) — so why not name the bill for the Chelsea school that would be otherwise burdened with the air pollution. Perhaps the “Chelsea Elementary Air Pollution Reduction Act” or some such.
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The peaking plant would create 250 MW capacity. Since it takes just under 10 sq ft per watt for solar, the state would need 25 million square feet of rooftop. That sounds like a lot, but its actually less than one square mile (under 575 acres).
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There’s more than enough rooftop to get it done. I think there’s enough political capital and willpower to get it done. Is there enough money? Given solar’s payback period of 20-25 years, sorta-kinda. Bonds could make it pretty close to revenue neutral in the long run.
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Bottom line: the Democrats could really help solidify their claim to sticking up for the environment, labor, and health by using the Chelsea proposal as an opportunity to do great work that benefits all of us.
They do result in pollution when produced, but that pollution is literally about a half a world away.
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Incredible!
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Bonds could make it pretty close to revenue neutral in the long run.
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And make some capitalists rich and soak the tax payers who have to buy them back.
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Conservation, stomv! This is the second thread that explicitly pleaded for conservation that you’ve come in like JP Morgan with your great alternative. Just let us install tons of shit we’ll manufacture and ship over from some asian country on every rooftop, and in 25 years, taxpayers will pay us all back. Nice.
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Air conditioning should be limited with minimum temperatures (80 degrees), residents should be educated about the additional local and global costs of doing laundry during peak hours, smart metering should be made available. One wage earner working closer to home should be able to support a family, and the kids shouldn’t be put in front of the TV set playing video games all day.
1. You can’t conserve 100% of our electricity. You’ve got to make some. Why not make that energy from solar?
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2. It’s particularly hard to conserve during peak, because the folks who are responsible for the peak (the M-F daytime users) are generally already more efficient. Industry and commercial space tends to use energy more efficiently because they use more of it, and therefore a few percent gain results in far more dollar saved.
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3. Conservation efforts generally take longer to roll out, because it requires millions of small changes, often in products that have 10-30 year life cycles. Changing the supply requires far fewer entities, and is therefore easier to change quickly. This doesn’t mean I don’t believe in conservation. But, coming up with policies to shave 250MW demand from peak hours within the next few years is damn hard to do; installing a few hundred acres of solar cells isn’t hard to do within the next few years.
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As for pollution: all methods, even conservation, result in pollution. CF bulbs? Mercury. Sensor switches? Heavy metal electronics manufacturing. Bicycles? Rubber tires use oil. Given that, reducing the amount of pollution necessary to generate the electricity we’re using is wise. Furthermore, since solar cells (including manufacturing) contribute far less to global warming & air pollution than current electricity generation methods, this results in far less air pollution, which was at the heart of the complaint about citing the peak plant in Chelsea in the first place.
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You can “should” all the live long day, but not only do the majority of Americans think your proposals are unenforceable and otherwise impossible policy positions, the majority of environmentalists would think the same way about your proposals.
If the choice is between a deisel generator or solar panels, let’s try to make solar panels more choosable, greener to make, better, cheaper. (though, same with deisel generators) What’s not to like about this utopian free energy from the Sun? Powered by the Sun! Yay. But it’s denial. Until we start trying to reduce our energy consumption, we’re going to be fighting mother earth somewhere, by building windfarms and extracting silicon and metals and plastics just to create this new “green” infrastructure. It’s our distaste for manual labor and dirty clothes that we need to confront.
You shall be hot in summer and cold in winter.
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You may work where we deem it appropriate for you do do, and may live in an suitably austere space, not to exceed 250 square feet per permitted occupant, within walking dostance of your permitted work place. Your spouse may seek employment within that area, if available.
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You may not travel by automobile outside of your designated residential area. If you do, you will be taxed until you weep.
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You may own only specifically licensed appliances, and may use them between the hours of 12am and 4 am on the second and fourth Saturdays of months that end in “y”.
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You may illuminate your residence with no more than 50 watts of lights as designated by the Optometrists Full Employment Association.
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You shall smell like the subway on a hot August afternoon, and yet you shall not bathe or wash.
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Though your white collar turn dingy and yellow, you may not launder it. He who uses chlorine bleach shall be shunned.
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You make conservation sound like rationing for Londoners during the Blitz.
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People likely advocate new and clean technologies, because rationing is likely to garner approximately zero votes. Solutions that generate, rather than destroy, wealth have at least a greater than zero chance of actually happening.
if we smelled it a little more. Other cultures laugh at our need for smelling like we just got out of the shower all the time. We can change our habits, and we can do it quick if we’re told it’s important to. Climate change and polution and acid rain and species transplating and endangerment are serious problems, they are not the next great business oportunity. The problem won’t be reduced by installing solar panels on roofs, not if we just use all the extra power and still want more.
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The measures you cite are exagerations and made-up silliness. We should seriously have a conversation about how we go about reducing energy use.
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We can have laws about minimum temperatures for businesses, and if a store or office or theater decides they need to be colder than that, they run the risk of being fined (revenue!) by enviromental inspectors (maybe fire inspectors can do the temp testing along with a safety inspection). We can make immediate cultural changes and tax incentive changes that people want, that would reduce how much we work and buy. Life will improve when we start to conserve more and stay home more and consume less. You are wrong to assume that if we consume less and work less and shower less, we will be less happy and less satisfied. The opposite is true, as studies have shown about some of those things, i seem i recall.
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That is precisely the choice, and that’s why I advocate solar.
John Howard’s point is, I think (and I agree) that this is not the entirety of the choice. It’s not just diesel vs solar, it’s diesel vs solar vs conservation. And it’s not a either-or decision either; it’s going to inevitably involve some combination of all three.
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Myself, I want to see solar, more conservation, and some play for these guys (or similar companies and technologies).
Industry and commercial space…
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You act as though we need all this shit. 90% of our “industry” and “commercial space” is crap, people burning the midnight oil in ad agencies making an animated lizard or dropping a VW on top of a tricked out Honda, turning their amps up to 11 so that it sounds better on their stupid new CD that no one would miss, millions of people driving millions of miles to do basically nothing, earning money to spend on crap we don’t need.
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I think we should have a general freeze on doing anything for a while, while we ponder what really matters to us.
that you should stop thinking for ‘we’. After all, what matters to you doesn’t seem to matter much to most, and what matters to many doesn’t seem to matter to you.
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Your rhetoric sure isn’t going to win many allies, thats for sure.
in this discussion…
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the peak aspect is only one piece, the more important part is the proposal is to provide emergency reserve capacity just by being there – not running, emergency reserve that now comes from spinning reserves – polluting sources.