A rising national drumbeat is calling for the expansion of the electrical transmission grid as essential to securing the nation’s energy future. If this drumbeat continues, more and more households will share the fate of the residents of Saw Creek Estates in Lehman Township, PA, who face the prospect of a PPL power line with 200-foot towers standing as sentries over their diminishing property values.
It’s not clear yet whether the same destiny awaits residents on the New York side of the river, in the form of the proposed New York Regional Interconnect (NYRI) power line. But in the current climate, somebody, somewhere is going to get hit. And whoever they are, they will worry about property values, environmental impact and health, just as we have done.
Is that just their tough luck? Is the devastation of communities along thousands of miles of transmission line a cost that sooner or later will have to be accepted by this nation?
We think not. In fact, we think the whole model of producing energy in a small number of intensive production sites, then building a long-distance grid to route it around the country, is just as obsolete as fossil fuels. And as fossil fuels are phased out, we have the opportunity to transform, not only our sources of energy, but a system for owning, producing and distributing it that has held the American public hostage.
Our view flies in the face of the conventional wisdom with which we are currently being bombarded by sources as ideologically diverse as T. Boone Pickens and Barack Obama. Both of them believe that the electric transmission grid needs to be glorified, magnified and transfigured in order to meet the energy crisis. Pickens envisions vast tracts of land in the American Southwest (of which, by a curious coincidence, he owns an awful lot) being used in as massive solar and wind factories, from which transmission lines will march thousands of miles to feed an energy-hungry nation. And Obama, in a recent interview, spoke of transmission lines bringing the wind energy of North Dakota to the population of Chicago.
Talk about coals to Newcastle. Chicago’s nickname is “The Windy City.” New helical rooftop wind turbines have been developed that can employ the turbulent winds that blow in such urban environments. How about perfecting those and deploying them all over Chicago, rather than spending hundreds of millions to string a line out to North Dakota? And incidentally, the localized solution would be a lot less vulnerable to terrorist attack than those long, narrow transmission lines.
Fossil fuels are a bad idea not only because they are a major source of pollution, but because they are held in the hands of a small number of nations, and the production and distribution of them in the hands of an even smaller number of multinational corporations. Between the cartels formed by the nations, and the price control and supply manipulation exerted by the multinationals, American consumers have lost control of their energy fate.
Granted, a national transmission grid run off sun from the Southwest and wind from the plains would at least not rely on foreign soil. But ownership, production and distribution of energy would still be concentrated in a perilously few hands—too few for genuine competition. Instead of being held hostage by Big Oil, the American public would be held hostage by Big Wind, Big Solar and Big Transmission Lines.
In addition to sustainability, energy sources such as wind and solar have the advantage that they can be created and used by a large number of geographically dispersed entities. Small panels and small turbines can be produced by a wealth of small- to medium-sized companies, all competing to keep quality up and price down. And as technology improves, individual residences, commercial buildings and factories can use solar and wind not only to produce their own needs, but enough of a surplus to provide for the needs of those of their immediate neighbors who either can’t produce their own or need more. Such a system would still use grids; but it would be smaller, regionalized grids, that would not have to carry anything like the capacity of the massive lines envisioned by NYRI and PPL.
We are proud to see groups like the Sullivan Alliance for Sustainable Development advocating localized solutions and to see entities like the Town of Callicoon taking steps to put such technology into effect. If the whole country could follow such a model, then maybe nobody would have to submit to a line of monsters running through their backyard. It’s not smart engineering. It’s not smart stewardship. It creates infrastructure vulnerable to attack. And it’s just plain dumb economics.
Dr. Punnybone
Hell's Kitchen
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There is absolutely no reason to consider a special election for the Department of Public Works issue in Tusten. The fact is that the town did not submit the necessary paperwork in a timely fashion, thus causing it to be left off the absentee ballots, according to the election officials in Monticello. Special elections are costly and are too often used to pass an agenda that the people oppose. Fewer people participate in special elections which are generally held when a large number of the taxpayers are away for the winter.
