Grid systems transfer electrical energy from where it is produced to where it is used to meet industrial and household needs.
Reducing global warming requires a transition from fossil fuels to so-called green energy sources. This transition is being frustrated by several realities. First, facilities producing green energy (dams, large-scale fields of solar panels, land-based or offshore wind turbines, etc.) are often far removed from population centers that need the increasing supply of green energy.
Second, fossil fuel energy facilities (and the grid systems they require) are often in close proximity to the urban markets they serve.
Third, notwithstanding the regulatory preference for green energy over fossil fuel energy, and the fact that improved green energy technologies have reduced the per-unit cost of this energy, grid systems capable of transmitting the increasing supply of green energy to urban markets are not being provided by state (or multi-state) instrumentalities as quickly as the need to mitigate global warming dictates. No national counterpart to a federal air traffic control or interstate highway system exists.
These realities have been understood and cynically played by fossil fuel energy producers with no regard for the environmental consequences: continued global warming.
Driven by profit motives, fossil fuel interests from Maine to California have worked to slow grid system upgrades by individual states and groups of states. They have stoked (NIMBY-type) fears and called for added hearings at state and local levels of government portraying power lines as dangerous, an intrusion on traditional scenic views, fishing, hunting and other quality-of-life activities.
If regulatory approvals are ultimately granted, they fund court challenges to these approvals. If court challenges fail, they fund referendum to overturn approved projects. These delays enhance fossil fuel corporation profits.
A 2020 article in the Atlantic summed it up well: “The oil industry is quietly winning local climate fights.” The article continues: “In the past few years, the American Petroleum Institute and its allies have fought climate friendly policies in at least 16 different states.”
Here in Maine, the NextEra Energy Corp. has led the fight to block a Central Maine Power transmission line that would allow Canadian hydropower to pass through Maine to markets in Massachusetts. NextEra is one of the largest fossil fuel energy providers in the nation. It is headquartered in Florida and operates in 30 states and five Canadian provinces.
It has financially propped up local opposition groups, and has directly poured millions into extended hearings, court cases and referendums; the first referendum was summarily declared unconstitutional. A separate suit held the CMP transmission line was in the public’s interest. A second initiative was provisionally held to be unconstitutional by Maine’s highest court but was remanded to deal with “vested rights” issues.
Meantime, construction on the transmission line (possessed of all required state and federal permits and over 40% complete) has been halted for nearly 18 months. A final decision is many more months away. More importantly, fossil fuel usage has not been reduced in Massachusetts. Global warming continues unabated.
A New York Times article in February noted that critical grid system upgrades, in multiple states, are often stalled for years. Approval of new green energy facilities are backed up, and some are being canceled, because the energy they would produce can’t get to markets unless or until grid system upgrades (and interconnections) are completed.
In the interim, costly and high-carbon fossil fuels continue to be used.
In sum, NextEra’s strategy is working – delay enhances profits – and it is not alone. Nationally, fossil fuel interests have identified and are exploiting the weak link: The nation’s grid systems almost without exception are unable to handle the transition from fossil fuel energy to green energy.
This can’t go on. We need to stop tolerating strategies of delay, and we need to fast-track grid system expansions and interconnections. These steps are long overdue.
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