Environmental “purists” — you may have seen their letters on our pages — fanatically oppose the use of clean-burning natural gas as a bridge fuel until renewable energy can meet our real-world needs. Ironically, though predictably, their policies have turned out to be unfriendly to our environment during this bitterly cold winter.
High demand for energy is forcing power plants to burn oil and even coal — both much more polluting than natural gas (“Electric utilities turn to oil in deep freeze,” news, Jan. 4). Since demand for natural gas to heat homes and businesses is so high, making its cost spike, power plants have turned to cheaper oil to try to produce electricity at an affordable price.
According to Independent System Operator New England, the nonprofit that manages the power grid, oil has been generating as much as a third of the region’s electric supply as the temperatures plummeted.
We would be much better off, environmentally and economically (just look at your energy bill), if our leaders considered the common good for a change, and did not yield so readily to the always vocal BANANA (Build Absolutely Nothing Anywhere Near Anyone) crowd.
During such bitter cold spells, we should ideally be using natural gas, rather than resorting to oil and coal.
Unfortunately, so-called environmentalists have made it almost impossible to build the needed energy infrastructure our region needs, including efficient state-of-the-art power plants to replace those going offline, and greater pipeline capacity to bring natural gas to New England far more cheaply.
Natural gas is not perfect — it is a fossil fuel, after all, and contributes to pollution — but burning it is far less damaging to the environment (and people’s health) than burning coal and oil. Indeed, the biggest reason for the welcome trend of declining emissions in New England over the last two decades was a dramatic increase in the use of natural gas to fire our power plants.
Such renewable resources as wind, solar and water power are not yet capable of providing all our power needs. We have not yet developed a means to store wind and solar power effectively, which means we are in trouble when the wind is not blowing and the sun is not shining.
We do not have space readily available for the massive fields of solar panels that would be needed to meet all our demands. Environmentalists have opposed the construction of transmission lines to bring hydroelectric power from Canada to our region. Many also oppose nuclear energy, which is perfectly clean in terms of emissions but produces very dangerous waste — with fierce political opposition to plans advanced for storing it.
We will eventually get to the promised land of energy without fossil fuels, we are certain, as innovators find a means to store renewable energy and generate it much more efficiently.
In the meantime, though, unless we want to revert to the Stone Age, we do need power generation. It thus makes sense to support the development of natural gas infrastructure, rather than block it at every turn.
We in New England well know where blocking it leads. Sky-high energy and electric bills, and greater pollution. While “purists” bask in the warm glow of feeling holier than thou.
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