Puget Sound Energy (PSE) customers have a right to voice our opinions on how power is generated. For a short time, our Washington Utilities and Transportation Commissioners (UTC) will be listening. We must speak up and implore PSE and the UTC to make a bold and essential commitment to a 100 percent fossil-free grid.
The counter forces, however, are significant. PSE is working hard to project an identity as a green company. Its website provides images of blue skies and windmills.
“At PSE, we’re putting our energy into clean power solutions that help our customers and the environment,” it reads.
If we do not question the language of PSE’s marketing euphemisms, we will remain complacent.
A couple of things that ratepayers may not be aware of: When you flip on the lights or plug in your electric vehicle, 60 percent of that energy is generated by coal and liquid natural gas (LNG). This is the case despite the fact that we live in a region that has a surplus of hydropower and resources prime for harnessing wind and solar. Also, PSE is suing Washington State over the Clean Air Rule, which was enacted last January. This rule joined those of 10 other states to cap and reduce greenhouse gas emissions on utilities and large polluters.
PSE is also pushing for a delay in the Clean Power Plan that was proposed by the EPA to combat climate change. Customers can provide the countervailing pressure.
Our utility’s coal plants are closing, and plans are under development for replacement energy sources. A replacement proposal called an Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) written by PSE was recently released. PSE is seeking approval to build a new LNG plant that has a 40-year life span, but new technology and laws limiting fossil fuel will make it obsolete long before its natural death. We now have a rare opportunity to flood the UTC with letters during an open comment period.
They must hear that the true cost of a new gas facility is too great. “Ecofriendly natural gas” is not the green solution PSE touts. LNG, predominantly composed of methane, is a potent greenhouse gas, especially when leaked. Compared to coal, burned methane emits only about half the amount of carbon. This argument favors methane. However, 3.8 percent (conventional gas) to 5.8 percent (fracked gas) of LNG is leaked into the atmosphere before it is burned. The point at which leaky methanegas surpasses coal on greenhouse gas emissions affecting our climate is 3.2 percent. This means that as a greenhouse gas emitter, LNG from fracking is likely worse.
PSE’s statements about LNG as the most viable replacement for coal should be cause for concern. Here’s why:
• PSE promotes environmentally sustainable values to their ratepayers in apparent contrast to the motivations of its private shareholders of Macquarie Consortium, an Australian investment company that holds the fourth largest gas production and distribution company in the U.S.
• The CEO of PSE is Kimberly Harris, and this year she has been named vice president of the American Gas Association.
• The cost of wind and solar are rapidly declining. In the past few years, the cost of solar has dropped 40 percent, and wind has dropped 66 percent. PSE’s plan does not take this cost curve into account.
Over 100 pages of the IRP analyzed gas, where only a six-page addendum addressed solar and wind cost. The IRP looked only at established (past) wind and solar facilities and did not seek competitive bids.
• By the time a gas facility would be built, it would be with the backdrop of an era of new renewable energy laws technologies that could easily take its place. We, the ratepayers, would bear the cost for early decommissioned facilities while the majority of the profits would end up with PSE’s private shareholders.
•The Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative Outcomes Study investigating carbon caps on large power plants with carbon output restrictions showed electricity prices decreased 3.4 percent while in states with no carbon output restrictions, electricity prices increased an average of 7.2 percent. PSE’s prices increased 14.8 percent in the same time period in an economy where oil and coal have dropped substantially.
• External costs to society including financial and human costs of climate change, otherwise known as externalities, must be considered.
My favorite sign at last year’s Women’s March was, “If you stick your head in the sand, your butt will get burned.”
PSE has built a pile of warm sand for us to stick our heads in. The good news is that we can take action by writing our UTC to say we do not want to pay for more stranded assets. Externalities and future financial costs of a decommissioned plant must be considered. We can be proactive, diversify our grid and demand renewable energy. Think of it as an investment in your utility future and the future of our planet.
Be sure to put the docket numbers UE-160918 and UG-160919 along with a return address on your letter. You can submit letters by emailing comments@utc.wa.gov or by mail to WUTC at P.O. Box 47250, Olympia, WA 98504-7250. The deadline is Jan. 19.
For more information, see the Facebook Vashon Climate Action Group or sign on to Sierra Club’s letter to Kimberly Harris at sc.org/CarbonFreePSE.
— Angela London is a volunteer environmental activist and naturopathic physician.
