In prior posts, I covered the energy situation for transportation. The good news is that New York City is an inherently energy efficient place, thanks to its high transit use and many pedestrian trips. The bad news is there is no political leadership to improve things further, by organizing a large-scale carpooling system for places not readily accessible by transit, for example. This post is about the energy required for other purposes, for heating, cooling, and use in buildings. Here again, the good news is that New York City is inherently efficient, since attached houses, apartment buildings, large office buildings, and other commercial space in multistory mixed-use buildings have less exterior surface area per square foot, and thus require less energy to heat and cool. And, the New York City lifestyle is energy efficient, because New Yorkers have less (because there is nowhere to put it) but do more. Making, moving and disposing of goods takes more energy than services, which rely on the human energy New York has in abundance. The bad news is that Downstate New York faces a local shortage of both electricity and fuel for heating, cooling and cooking — above and beyond the overall energy problem in the Untied States and the world — based on access to supply. And NIMBY’s gone wild, both outside the Downstate area and inside it, are blocking any and all possible solutions to that shortage, stoked by puffery from pandering local pols.
The safest and most benign energy sources, in a local sense, are electricity and, someday, hydrogen used in fuel cells to create electricity. Unfortunately neither is actually an energy source. Rather, they are conduits for energy created from something else, and the various versions of “something else” have greater or lesser pollution, aesthetic harm, and disaster risk characteristics. For the most part, Downstate New York does not produce its own energy – it must import it from and through other places. And those other places, increasingly, object to the facilities required to bring energy to Downstate New York.
Just recently, for example, New York State passed a law restricting the previously-available use of eminent domain for energy transmission infrastructure. The purpose is to block a new high-voltage electricity transmission line from Upstate to Downstate, by allowing any one property owner anywhere along the route to stand in the way. In addition to the usual fears about cancer risks near high-voltage lines, Upstaters object to the possible transfer of electricity from their area, where prices are low, to Downstate, were prices are high. Not only would Upstate not benefit from a new transmission line, in this view, it might even be worse off as prices equalize, at least to an extent.
The state of Connecticut isn’t willing to serve as a power-highway to Downstate either. It fought the construction of a the 24-mile electric cable crossing under Long Island Sound, preventing it from being turned on for several years, and continues to fight to have it turned off. Connecticut sees the cable as a benefit for Long Island, allowing consumers there to compete for electricity with those living north of the Sound. Today, the price of power is lower in Connecticut than on Long Island.
The Iroquois gas transmission pipeline, now in operation between Canada and Long Island and New York City (under the Long Island Sound), was also fought every step of the way. In a victory for Westchester, it was diverted through Connecticut, a battle the latter lost. New Jersey, as well, is fighting additional gas pipelines, saying it already has its share. Neither state wants to risk the very small possibility of harm through a gas pipeline explosion to benefit Downstate New York. A few years ago, New Jersey won a victory when the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruled that Transcontinental Gas Pipe Line Corp may not build natural gas pipeline across densely populated stretch of northern New Jersey.
Those surrounding Downstate New York, who get many economic benefits from the economic activity generated here, are being selfish. But so, they may point out, are those in Downstate New York itself.
Long Island fought a long battle to stop the Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant from operating – its high electric rates are, in part, a legacy of the need to pay for a plant that was never permitted to operate, because Long Islanders were unwilling to take the risk, however remote, of a nuclear accident there.
Those in Westchester want the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant shut down; they favor the new electric transmission line Upstate is fighting to stop, not to help meet New York City’s needs, but as a substitute for that nuclear facility.
Energy companies are seeking to build Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminals to allow the importation of natural gas from other countries. Downstate New York is cut off on land by dense development and the fact that most of it is located on islands, but is readily accessible by sea. Broadwater Energy, a joint LNG venture formed in 2004 between TransCanada Corporation and Shell, has proposed such a terminal for the Long Island Sound, to bring natural gas to the Island and Connecticut. Worried about the risk, however remote, of an accident at a terminal, finding it unsightly, and preferring that gas be provided through some other place to reduce local risks, both New York State and Connecticut, as well as Suffolk County, have contributed money to lawsuits to stop the project. They recently hailed a Coast Guard finding, that the facility would have to be defended to prevent an attack or accidental collision from another watercraft from damaging the terminal, as proof it should not be built, rather than proof it should be defended. LNG opponents also oppose using additional natural gas-fired plants to generate electricity, having previously been opposed to nuclear power. If gas was not being used for that purpose, they say, the existing supply would be sufficient.
Additional gas-fired electric power plants have also been fought in New York City. With the city’s population and employment growing, it faces an electricity shortage during times of peak demand. Mayor Bloomberg gained votes by opposing the construction of a new gas-fired plant on the Greenpoint waterfront, throwing up instead the red herring of another site the city did not own, which has itself generated opposition.
Meanwhile, the New York State Power Authority has been able to keep the lights on most of the time by skirting its own rules and quickly installing a bunch of smaller “temporary” gas power turbines around the city. According to the Power Authority the “New York City generators—at two sites in the Bronx, two in Brooklyn, one in Queens and one on Staten Island—are the cleanest, simple-cycle plants in the city,” but neighbors nonetheless want them removed. This past summer, during a heatwave, a blackout was avoided only by having inefficient, dirty diesel-fueled back-up generators run throughout the city. That is a worst case environmental scenario akin to exporting all the city’s trash to distant landfills by truck, which is exactly what the city does in response to the triumph of “not in my backyard” trash disposal everywhere. (That non-policy may finally be about to be reversed).
There is even “environmental” opposition to windmills. Take this Cablevision editorial on the Long Island Power Authority’s proposals to build windmills off the south shore.
It all sounded good until a group of South Shore civic associations started asking tough questions about reliability, environmental impact and costs…Consider the impact of industrializing these revered waters, including the construction of windmills, power cables and an offshore substation loaded with diesel fuel. What about the dangers of collisions with boats, damage from hurricanes? What about the threats to birds and fisheries? Then consider how towering windmills could blight the horizon at our priceless Jones Beach. Zoom in closer on LIPA's drawings, and see how the towers loom even larger at the waters' edge. Do you really want that at Jones Beach?
Perhaps the Dolans have a summer house whose view would be marred. Meanwhile, you can read Windmills and Water Mills of LONG ISLAND by Sr. Anne Frances Pulling and Gerald A. Leeds, part of the Images of America series published by Arcadia Press. If the additional windmills already existed, preservationists would be fighting to save them.
Opponents of additional power sources routinely trot out the argument that conservation could theoretically meet any and all needs whenever threatened with a new power facility in their backyard. But it seems no one is willing to actually conserve otherwise. There are just a couple of incandescent light bulbs in our house, we don’t have air conditioning and sweat it out no matter how hot it is, and our heat is shut off overnight and during weekdays by a timer. Since we live in a modest (but today’s standards) sized rowhouse, we don’t need that much heat in any event. I’m in favor of conservation too. But I’m not in favor of using it as an excuse.
In a way the NIMBYs are rational. Since everyone would rather be part of the problem than part of the solution, any place that agrees to be part of the solution may end up being stuck with the consequences of everyone else’s problems. Even the most fair-minded people don’t want to end up the patsy. If the problem is to be solved, however, a different kind of rationality is required.