Protesters delivered a powerful message to Gov. Deval Patrick (D-MA) on Sunday, asking him to shut down the coal-fired Brayton Point power plant:
Organized by 350 Massachusetts Action and Better Future Action, protestors carrying mini wind turbines and signs like “Coal is stupid” called for Gov. Deval Patrick to close the coal plant and “ensure a just transition for workers and host communities from the West Virginian mines to Somerset,” according to a press release. […]
Chanting slogans like “All coal is dirty coal, leave it in the ground,” a line of protesters snaked past area homes, drawing some bystanders.
“We live nearby and we are concerned about the power plant but didn’t realize (the protest) was going to be that big a deal,” said Missy Pimentel, surprised by the turnout. “I’m glad they are here.”
Police arrested 44 protesters. Show your support by emailing Gov. Patrick asking him to shut down Brayton Point now. (Its recent sale shows Brayton Point is nearly worthless anyway.)
Despite the $30,000 in riot gear that Somerset Police Chief Joseph Ferreira bought especially for the event, all went peacefully. Somerset is now considering a sizeable solar project near the current site of the Brayton Point coal plant that could generate $500,000 a year in revenue for the town.
The event garnered widespread media coverage, though lines like this give me a headache (emphasis mine):
The plant has long been the ire of environmental groups worried that the plant’s emissions can cause nerve and brain damage to nearby residents. The latest protest comes after a boat blockade attempted to stop coal shipments to the plant earlier this year.
Dominion Energy, which owns the plant, paid a $3.4 million penalty in April for alleged violations of the Clean Air Act. In documents online protesters allege the plant spews 15,000 pounds of mercury, arsenic, lead, and other hazardous air pollutants into the air each year.
Why are the health impacts and pollutants attributed to environmental groups, as though that’s a he said/she said debate rather than scientific fact? If environmental groups stop worrying, will the health impacts go away? Can’t we objectively measure the pollutants?
Check out a more in-depth review of the event from Wen Stephenson in The Nation and sign up for updates from the Better Future Project.
Cross-posted from The Green Miles
in order to replace reliable Brayton Point? Do we have enuff land in Massachussetts to put all the necessary windmills, in order to generate the lost power supply, if we close Brayton Point (God help us if we do). Do not include “conversation” in any response, either.
Brayton Point is 1,500 megawatts. Cape Wind will be 454 megawatts, and the Deepwater Wind project will be about 1,000 megawatts. So, done. And that’s without talking about how demand for big power plants is already in decline due to increased efficiency & rooftop solar.
But since you asked: “conversation”.
Once Cape Wind and Deepwater projects are both completed, then, and only then, do we discuss closing Brayton. Let’s see how these offshore turbines work, before we start taking reliable power plants off the grid.
Based on today’s weather, there’s not enuff wind to power a 60 watt bulb, which means the oil plant in Sagamore will be revving its generators more often.
I won’t bother getting into the high cost of offshore wind power, but I hope people have plenty of money, it’s mighty expensive.
Do we have a deal?
If not for people like you, those projects would be in the water harvesting clean energy by now.
Tell me, how much does the hugely polluting electricity the Cape gets now cost? From what you’re saying, it MUST be incredibly cheap, especially to make up for all the health problems it’s causing. Right?
(I’m done with this, so I’ll skip to the end: Holy crap is the Cape’s polluting electricity expensive.)
I’ve always said we should be looking to drive our energy prices down, not up with projects like Cape Wind.
If you are concerned about health problems, why not start with cigarettes, booze, and potato chips. I don’t mean to be flippant, but there are more immediate health dangers than Brayton.
dan, we’ve had these chats before. You must just be really forgetful.
1. Massachusetts is part of ISO-New England. We don’t supply our own electricity as a state, we do it as a region [except the northeastern most part of Maine, which is in a Canadian RTO]. Doing the “math” based on Massachusetts is irrelevant and nonsensical.
1b. We also import thousands of megawatts from Hydro Quebec, and buy/sell electricity with the New York ISO.
2. We don’t need Brayton Point’s capacity or energy for New England system-wide reliability. Now, if Brayton’s retirement were to coincide with a large number of other retirements, that would be a problem, but there’s no expectation that a mass retirement is on the horizon in New England.
3. Brayton Point may be needed for local reliability — voltage regulation, etc. If that is the case, then it could be replaced with a (probably smaller) natural gas combined cycle plant which would emit less than half the CO2, almost none of the SO2, and less NOx than Brayton Point. Also, virtually no PM 2.5, PM10, mercury, or other heavy metals.
Our electricity grid is a New England-wide system. No single component is critical for reliability, by design. This includes Brayton Point.
Replace Brayton with Cape Wind and Deepwater will lower or raise rates, for New England? By the way, Pilgrim just dodged a bullet from the environmentalists who wanted to stop the permit to store the spent fuel in dry cast containers. I can only imagine the ripple effect if we lost both Brayton and Pilgrim.
drarnrfrrrormrwrarlrtrhrarmr:
Eliminating *any* power plant (which dispatches even a few percent a year) raises locational marginal prices, and possibly capacity payment prices. Adding *any* power plant lowers prices. Supply and demand curves, simple as that. I’d add that any wind project tends to suppress prices more than any fossil fuel plant because the marginal operating cost of a wind farm is far, far lower than a fossil fuel plant, which means you get big SIPE effects.
Keep imagining ripples… because you’ve got quite the electric imagination.
Lets break this down. You described our power grid as a network between several states, made up of several sources, hydro, nuke, coal, gas, etc. and we have a price for this mixture.
Kinda reminds me of a bartender, he has his alcohol in the well( the cheap stuff-coal and nukes) and the higher end like hydro and gas. What you are saying is we can replace the well alcohol, replace them with top shelf spirits (offshore wind) and even lower the cost of the drinks. And, there is no consistent inventory of this top shelf, sometimes you have it, other times, you don’t.
You know that I know that you know offshore wind power is like 3X the cost of conventional sources of energy. Like when Obama said Obamacare would lower my premiums $2500, I knew it just wasn’t true. I just don’t buy your prediction, and fear for many jobs that could be lost due to having even higher energy prices.
I see no math. And I don’t see you making even the slightest attempt to respond to stomv’s rebuttal. Lazy, lazy, lazy Dan.
A just as reasonable question to ask would be how many hamster treadmills would it take to replace the capacity.
It’s not like wind, clean as it is, is the only alternative that is cleaner than coal.
not a (benevolent) dictator. It’s not at all clear that he has the legal authority to force Brayton Point’s closure.
The legislature, on the other hand, certainly does. I wouldn’t hold my breath though.
I am guessing Charley is exaggerating for effect. I am no expert but it seems that we are at least a decade from making coal illegal. Two if we also ban oil and shale. Coal is dirty but pretending we are in any position to ban it is political.
Considering how many MA communities are in the bull’s eye of climate-fueled sea level rise, why shouldn’t we get off of it as fast as possible? The only thing stopping us is exactly what you cite: Politics.
…as in twenty years. As I said. But to make something illegal with extreme prejudice doesn’t imply two decades to me. Coal is filthy, but banning it tout de suite just raises our prices and exports our pollution elsewhere.
from http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/2013/06/retiring-nes-coal-and-oil-electric-plants/
Stephen Rourke, ISO-NE, presented their report on retiring the current 28 oil and coal plants in NE which are 40+ years old by 2020, a total of 8,281 MW. These plants are increasingly uneconomic due to natural gas competition and tightened environmental regulations. New transmission capabilities being built and planned throughout NE will add flexibility and facilitate their closing. However, if no new generation capacity is installed, only 950MW can be retired without causing reliability and resource deficiencies. At least 5000MW of new generation is needed to retire all the old plants but only 1 out of every 6 projects in the generation queue actually get built. [That leaves a little over 2MW unaccounted for although I suspect that energy efficiency, demand response, distributed generation, and more flexible transmission policies will be taking up some of that slack.]
I have been trying to get 350MA to look at the report and informed Bill McKibben of the ISO-NE plans when he was in town recently. Brayton Point will be closed by 2020 or before whether Gov Patrick acts or not, whether more demonstrations happen or not, whether DanfromWaltham likes it or not. I just wish more people were studying the realities of the situation rather than looking for enemies and a fight so that they can feel righteous.
There’s no doubt that there will be new generation capacity installed by 2020. How much? Hard to say. But if it looks like old coal and oil will get RMRs, it will only entice new entrants (or new transmission projects).
Obviously, if you want to end coal and oil generation, you’ve got to retire them. In the mean time, note their low capacity factors — a power plant that isn’t operating isn’t emitting. It’s entirely possible that some potential retirees won’t retire right at 2020 because their capacity is needed for reliability, and they’ll have capacity factors below 10%. It’s also possible that units like Mt. Tom might be “needed” for reliability, but will retire anyway to avoid 316(b) or some other compliance issue.
And, on top of that, you’ve got maybe 2 GWs of behind the meter solar coming online between now and 2020. 1.2 GW in MA, and CT has a great program as well. It’s true that you can’t count the whole thing as capacity credit, but it’s also true that the peakiest hours in New England are still rather positively correlated with sunshine.
If they paid the penalty, then the violations are no longer alleged violations. They are violations.
Don’t get that.
They may have signed a consent agreement (or its equivalent) where they agreed to pay the penalties without acknowledging guilt.
Sadly, it happens all the time.