So glad for this interview. We are facing this exact problem on Long Island, NY, where towns are passing year long moratoriums on battery storage (BESS) before projects are even proposed. David Alicea, Green Light's Regional Campaign Manager for the Northeast, has done amazing work, letting our local chapter of Transition Town know when to attend Town of North Hempstead board meetings, helping us with talking points & press releases. The opposition is a small rabid group called "Protect our Coast LI" who go around quoting the Heartland institute & spreading misinformation about forced electrification, flying wind generator blades, dead whales, flaming BESS, you name it. They've called us "despicable" for wanting to make our town safer, cleaner, more resilient, & sustainable.
Unfortunately, we were not able to prevent the passage of the BESS moratorium, but we are planning our next moves to make sure the town puts the zoning & fire-fighter training in place that they claim to need in order to end the moratorium. Sadly, it's pitted us against some of the other more conservative environmental groups that we've worked with previously. Once again, divide & conquer is working for the FF industry, as an effective means of stopping progress on the local ground level where it ultimately needs to happen. We have gotten the attention of the LI paper, Newsday & we're open to any suggestions! https://www.newsday.com/opinion/editorials/battery-storage-bess-offshore-wind-solar-ijy7ye2r
Thank you. For some reason, I had not heard about Greenlight. Love it, though I think some tribal activist claims of "cultural resources" are overblown. But that's quibbling. I'm glad some progressives realize that there is no energy transition and reduced emissions and sustainable climate without "industrial" wind and solar.
Supporting this is actually "effective altruism" as opposed to the guy you had on a few years ago who thought wealthy folks should support far-fetched "climate tech."
"Climate" activists and advocates and technocrats and politicians need to get back in the habit of saying the names, of wind and solar, or else the playing field is ceded to the opposition, as it was during the presidential election. These are the technologies which are "bending the curve," leading to the recent plateau in worldwide emissions. The lack of new wind turbines in the USA has slowed our emissions reductions in the last few years.
One thing this interview misses is that there are shady developers out there and it only takes one bad experience to sour a community on future renewables projects. Not only that but word spreads. If your neighboring county got a bad deal that'll make you less enthusiastic about hosting a project.
What happens when the opposition to local small scale solar is the IBEW including its elected supporters on the utility board. Labor supports prevailing wage utility scale solar farms and puts its thumb on the scale to prevent community solar constructed with non union workers. I have run the numbers and we can not build community solar and pay prevailing wage. Nor do we get a subsidy for the added cost from the utility as roof and parking lot solar panels are disincentivized in the local energy rate structure. Sometimes a utility scale solar farm in important blue oak woodlands should not be built. Period. Not all utility scale clean energy is meritorious.
You guys know a lot. I have got a burning question. I would be great if you can answer it.
I live in The Netherlands. As most European countries my government is very pro environmental measures like electric cars wind and solar etc you get the picture. This results in spending enormous amounts of money. Now let's say human kind is responsible for rising of temperature. Now if all the countries in Europe reach their goal this would result in a reduction of 7,3% CO2 emissions. This is far too little. The rest of the world is hardly doing anything certainly with Trump coming into power because 'drill baby drill'.
My conclusion is thus the money spent is pearls before swine. Our country spends about 1 bilion. There are therefore much better things to spend the money on like helping the elderly research in medical treatments etc. I would like to hear your opinion.
It appears that you've omitted some relatively short-term direct benefits from your calculations. Solar & wind +storage battery development & maintenance costs are now so low, compared to fossil energy, that these investments can pay for themselves in less than a decade, and then continue producing for another decade or more, at a consistent cost to consumers. Meanwhile , fossil energy costs constantly trend up & fluctuate with supply & demand spikes that are exploited by energy market traders at consumers expense. And equally important, widely distributed renewable energy is characterized by neighborhood community micro grids that provide levels of reliability unattainable from our existing centralized utility generation & transmission model.
So glad for this interview. We are facing this exact problem on Long Island, NY, where towns are passing year long moratoriums on battery storage (BESS) before projects are even proposed. David Alicea, Green Light's Regional Campaign Manager for the Northeast, has done amazing work, letting our local chapter of Transition Town know when to attend Town of North Hempstead board meetings, helping us with talking points & press releases. The opposition is a small rabid group called "Protect our Coast LI" who go around quoting the Heartland institute & spreading misinformation about forced electrification, flying wind generator blades, dead whales, flaming BESS, you name it. They've called us "despicable" for wanting to make our town safer, cleaner, more resilient, & sustainable.
Unfortunately, we were not able to prevent the passage of the BESS moratorium, but we are planning our next moves to make sure the town puts the zoning & fire-fighter training in place that they claim to need in order to end the moratorium. Sadly, it's pitted us against some of the other more conservative environmental groups that we've worked with previously. Once again, divide & conquer is working for the FF industry, as an effective means of stopping progress on the local ground level where it ultimately needs to happen. We have gotten the attention of the LI paper, Newsday & we're open to any suggestions! https://www.newsday.com/opinion/editorials/battery-storage-bess-offshore-wind-solar-ijy7ye2r
Thank you. For some reason, I had not heard about Greenlight. Love it, though I think some tribal activist claims of "cultural resources" are overblown. But that's quibbling. I'm glad some progressives realize that there is no energy transition and reduced emissions and sustainable climate without "industrial" wind and solar.
Supporting this is actually "effective altruism" as opposed to the guy you had on a few years ago who thought wealthy folks should support far-fetched "climate tech."
"Climate" activists and advocates and technocrats and politicians need to get back in the habit of saying the names, of wind and solar, or else the playing field is ceded to the opposition, as it was during the presidential election. These are the technologies which are "bending the curve," leading to the recent plateau in worldwide emissions. The lack of new wind turbines in the USA has slowed our emissions reductions in the last few years.
One thing this interview misses is that there are shady developers out there and it only takes one bad experience to sour a community on future renewables projects. Not only that but word spreads. If your neighboring county got a bad deal that'll make you less enthusiastic about hosting a project.
What happens when the opposition to local small scale solar is the IBEW including its elected supporters on the utility board. Labor supports prevailing wage utility scale solar farms and puts its thumb on the scale to prevent community solar constructed with non union workers. I have run the numbers and we can not build community solar and pay prevailing wage. Nor do we get a subsidy for the added cost from the utility as roof and parking lot solar panels are disincentivized in the local energy rate structure. Sometimes a utility scale solar farm in important blue oak woodlands should not be built. Period. Not all utility scale clean energy is meritorious.
This and last week's podcast are not able to be played or downloaded on Pocket Casts
You guys know a lot. I have got a burning question. I would be great if you can answer it.
I live in The Netherlands. As most European countries my government is very pro environmental measures like electric cars wind and solar etc you get the picture. This results in spending enormous amounts of money. Now let's say human kind is responsible for rising of temperature. Now if all the countries in Europe reach their goal this would result in a reduction of 7,3% CO2 emissions. This is far too little. The rest of the world is hardly doing anything certainly with Trump coming into power because 'drill baby drill'.
My conclusion is thus the money spent is pearls before swine. Our country spends about 1 bilion. There are therefore much better things to spend the money on like helping the elderly research in medical treatments etc. I would like to hear your opinion.
It appears that you've omitted some relatively short-term direct benefits from your calculations. Solar & wind +storage battery development & maintenance costs are now so low, compared to fossil energy, that these investments can pay for themselves in less than a decade, and then continue producing for another decade or more, at a consistent cost to consumers. Meanwhile , fossil energy costs constantly trend up & fluctuate with supply & demand spikes that are exploited by energy market traders at consumers expense. And equally important, widely distributed renewable energy is characterized by neighborhood community micro grids that provide levels of reliability unattainable from our existing centralized utility generation & transmission model.