In 2019, New York enacted a Climate Act, imposing on the citizens various legal mandates for greenhouse gas emissions reductions and net zero targets, the most immediate of which is a mandate of 70% of electricity production from zero-carbon-emissions sources by 2030. The official title of the Act is actually the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act.
I’ve written a lot about portions of the Act dealing with reducing carbon emissions. Those portions are completely delusional, but at least they ostensibly have something to do with protecting the world’s climate. And then there is this “Community Protection” piece. What is that about? Try reading some of the materials coming out of our climate bureaucracies and you will learn that a second and co-equal focus of the Act is supposedly helping or protecting what they call “justice communities” living near at least some of the power plants.
CO2 emissions do not disproportionately affect these nearby “justice communities.” So the activists have come up with a different hook to use to demand closure of fossil fuel power plants on behalf of “justice communities.” That hook is certain local pollutants, particularly nitrogen oxides and PM2.5, the latter referring to very fine “particulate matter” of diameter 2.5 micrometers or less. The claim is that emissions of these pollutants, particularly as emitted from the sub-category of power plants known as “peakers,” is destroying the health of the people in the “justice communities.”
This campaign to close the “peaker” power plants makes even less sense than the campaign to eliminate CO2 emissions from the world by building millions of wind turbines. I know that may seem hard to believe, because you would think that nothing could make less sense than trying to eliminate carbon emissions by building millions of wind turbines. But consider the remainder of this post, and see if you agree with me.
I understand that there is a serious scientific debate as to whether this PM2.5 stuff, in small doses such as might come from a power plant burning natural gas, has any adverse health consequences at all. However, you don’t need to get into that debate to understand why the campaign against the “peaker” plants makes no sense.
Let’s start with some of the over-the-top claims of the advocates. A collection of the main environmental and “community” groups advocating for the closure of the “peaker” plants has gotten together to form something called the “PEAK Coalition.” The constituent groups in question go by the names UPROSE, THE POINT CDC, New York City Environmental Justice Alliance, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, and the Clean Energy Group. Last month they put out a big Report with the title “Accelerate Now! The Fossil Fuel End Game 2.0.” The term “accelerate” summarizes what they want — they want the closure of the “peaker” plants speeded up and indeed done immediately. Here’s the reason why, from their introduction:
Throughout New York City, in response to demand for electricity that cannot be met by other sources of energy generation, highly polluting “peaker” power plants fire up in the South Bronx, Sunset Park, and other communities of color, exposing people living in these communities to numerous health risks. These expensive and inefficient oil and gas peaker plants spew harmful emissions into neighborhoods already overburdened by pollution, exacerbating widespread health problems. Peakers are a prime example of how low-income communities and communities of color bear the brunt of a host of energy and industrial infrastrucTture that poses significant public health and environmental hazards.
And then, an emotional tale of how power plants are somehow targeted specifically at harming the justice communities:
[E]very child growing up in the South Bronx is acutely aware that the city does not care about them. The moment they step outdoors, it is clear that their neighborhoods are unimportant to the city. The infrastructure reflects historical scorn for their existence. . . . A member of the PEAK Coalition was made to witness their own father’s stroke as a result of the environmental conditions they are forced to live in. . . . We cannot accept any infrastructure that jeopardizes the health and happiness of residents.
But then you get to a map of where these “peaker” plants are located, and the majority are in middle class or even wealthy neighborhoods. Here is the PEAK Coalition map from page 12 of their Report:
Roger Caiazza has an excellent post on February 7 critiquing the advocacy for immediate closure of all the peaker plants. Roger points out that the state bureaucrats (NYSERDA and the Department of Environmental Conservation) put on a webinar on January 23, from which he was able to get a copy of the slides. One of the slides is titled “What Kind of Sources Create Air Pollution Burdens in New York?” Here is that slide:
You can see that this one is specifically about PM2.5, and doesn’t include nitrogen oxides as well; and they don’t appear to have a comparable slide for the nitrogen oxides. Still, the story for PM2.5 shows just how ridiculous it is to blame this kind of pollution mostly on peaker power plants. The slide shows from the state’s own data that only 4% of PM2.5 emissions come from the entire electricity generation sector, and only a tenth of that, 0.4% of the total, from the peaker plants. Of the remaining 96%, the large majority comes from burning wood, and the rest from a wide variety of sources, mostly in industry, agriculture and transportation. While they don’t have a comparable slide for nitrogen oxides, there is every reason to believe that the story would be similar, although probably less heavily weighted to wood.
Meanwhile, does anybody live in fear of the health effect of particulate or nitrogen oxide emissions from burning wood in a fireplace? The particulate emissions are what give the wood smoke its pleasant smell. My own neighborhood has a large number of older buildings with wood-burning fireplaces. On cold days in the winter, there is a faint pleasant smell from the fires. I’ve never heard of anybody complaining, and apartments with fireplaces carry premium prices. The PM2.5 and NOx emissions are surely a multiple of what can be found in the air of the South Bronx from the peaker power plants.
Caiazza rightly points out that the PEAK Coalition people pay no attention to the need for the peaker plants to step in at times of peak demand, particularly the coldest days in the winter and the hottest days in the summer, to keep the lights on and the heat and air conditioning running. Nobody in New York has anything close to a solution for this issue other than natural gas power plants. More wind turbines and/or grid battery storage are never going to work.
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