[ “We must move funds to frontline communities for clean energy
projects and stop fossil fuel developers from perpetuating
conventional investments in dirty energy and injustice.”]
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FOSSIL FUEL PHASE OUT MUST BEGIN WHERE THE INDUSTRY HAS HURT PEOPLE
THE MOST  
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Leanna First-Arai
April 14, 2021
Truthout
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_ “We must move funds to frontline communities for clean energy
projects and stop fossil fuel developers from perpetuating
conventional investments in dirty energy and injustice.” _

,

 

 

This story is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism
collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

Without warning, on the most bitter winter days, or the hottest of
summer, smoke stacks that sit idle much of the year switch online,
spewing trails of climate-altering, coronavirus-
[[link removed]]exacerbating
[[link removed]]
pollutants across the sky, like carbon dioxide (CO2) and particulate
matter 2.5 (PM2.5), known for penetrating deep into the lungs
[[link removed]-(outdoor)-air-quality-and-health]
and entering the blood system.

One thousand power plants
[[link removed]]
known as “peaker plants” are still operational across the U.S.
Their name derives from the function they serve, shifting from idle to
burning gas or oil in infrequent moments when energy demand peaks
beyond average — typically when heating and cooling needs are the
greatest.

In addition to serving as eyesores and taking up large swaths of space
that might better serve the needs of crowded communities, the plants
are often located alongside waste treatment facilities and other
undesirable infrastructure in low-income and communities of color.
Many of the plants were built in these locations during the era of
redlining
[[link removed]],
or later, in or near areas
[[link removed]]
that had been redlined. Decades down the line, many of the Black and
Brown neighborhoods that host them also have the highest COVID-19
mortality rates, due to the long legacy of health inequities
[[link removed]]. An estimated
397 of every 100,000
[[link removed]]
people living in the Bronx neighborhood
[[link removed]]
where a plant called Hell Gate is located have died of the virus, in
comparison with the U.S. average of 171 per 100,000
[[link removed]]. In other words, the
neighborhood has lost one out of every 252
[[link removed]]
residents.

An informal network of scientists, activists and lawmakers in at least
nine states have identified the plants as a first-line target to be
replaced with wind, solar and distributed battery storage, and say
doing so would save money and lives. In March, a coalition
[[link removed]] of community organizations dedicated
to environmental justice in New York City published a detailed report
offering a blueprint
[[link removed]]
for lawmakers to deliver on the vision, in two five-year waves, which
they’ll introduce to the public in an April 21 webinar
[[link removed]].

Peaker plants tend to be older and inefficient, says Carlos Garcia,
energy planner with the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance
(NYC-EJA)_. _“A lot of them run on jet fuel oil, and some natural
gas, which is literally the dirtiest type of energy fuel source you
can imagine,” Garcia tells _Truthout. _Though many of them only come
online a handful of times a year, those that burn natural gas emit 30
times
[[link removed]]
the nitrous oxide (NOx) of newer plants. The PM2.5 particulates they
spew are linked to [[link removed]]
higher COVID-19 mortality rates, as well as 6,000 emergency department
visits
[[link removed]]
each year for asthma in New York City.

NYC-EJA is one of five organizations comprising the PEAK Coalition
[[link removed]], which launched in 2020 and is
working with the New York Power Authority
[[link removed]] to
advocate for replacing peaker plants with community-led energy
generation projects. Other members of the coalition include UPROSE,
THE POINT CDC, New York Lawyers for the Public Interest (NYLPI) and
Clean Energy Group.

 

The PM2.5 particulates they spew are linked to
[[link removed]] higher COVID-19
mortality rates, as well as 6,000 emergency department visits each
year for asthma in New York City.

Not only do peakers tend to be dirtier than base load plants, but
using them raises utility costs significantly, due to the expense of
maintaining them at central locations and powering them on and off
with short notice. Companies that own them collect millions in subsidy
payments, while residents foot the bill. In New York, peaker plants
received $4.9 billion
[[link removed]]
during the last decade, in comparison with $112 million in incentives
[[link removed]]
for solar projects over the last two decades, according to the
coalition’s report.

“Inequities in our dated energy system are rooted in the continued
investments in fossil fuels at the expense of the health of our most
vulnerable communities,” Elizabeth Yeampierre, executive director of
UPROSE, a multiracial Brooklyn-based community development
organization focused on bringing about a just transition for
residents, said in a statement
[[link removed]].
“We must move funds to frontline communities for clean energy
projects and stop fossil fuel developers from perpetuating
conventional investments in dirty energy and injustice,” Yeampierre
said, noting the ongoing effort of power company NRG to add yet
another natural gas burning peaker
[[link removed]]
to its fleet in Astoria
[[link removed]],
known as “asthma alley.”

Residents living within a one-mile radius of the Oswego Harbor Power
Plant, one of only a handful of such plants left in Upstate New York,
are ranked in the 99th percentile
[[link removed]]
for incidence of heart attacks, based on an analysis of New York State
Health Department data by the nonprofit research institute Physicians,
Scientists and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE). The 73-year-old
plant
[[link removed]]
only went online six times in 2018 (the most recent year for which
data are available). But if residents suspect hazier-than-usual skies,
no federal air quality data exists to help make sense of the
short-lived plume of pollution, as the closest Environmental
Protection Agency monitors
[[link removed]]
are 40 and 70 miles away, respectively, in Syracuse and Rochester.

The social toll of peaker plants is significantly greater in urban
places like New York City, with 750,000 people
[[link removed]]
living within a mile of a peaker plant, 78 percent
[[link removed]]
of whom are low-income and/or people of color. And whereas the upstate
plants only operate a few days annually, the Hell Gate plant, for
instance, averages turning on 149 times
[[link removed]]
each year, often on days when air pollution levels are already at
their highest. In general, that burden is in line with the findings of
research on plants in California, Florida, Massachusetts, Nevada and
Texas, among other states, says Elena Krieger, director of research at
PSE_. _“Your highest-rate emitters are often near disproportionately
impacted communities, so they should probably be the first [in] line
for replacement,” Krieger said of her initial findings in a 2016
study of power plants across California
[[link removed]],
which the latest PSE research builds on.

 

In New York, peaker plants received $4.9 billion
[[link removed]]
during the last decade, in comparison with $112 million in incentives
for solar projects over the last two decades.

The PEAK Coalition’s proposal to phase out select plants in 2025,
including Hell Gate, and the remaining plants in 2030 is designed to
prioritize communities most impacted by peakers, by ceasing damage to
the immediate environment and creating new local job opportunities,
the report states. Emissions from the city’s peaker fleet cost the
state $43 million annually
[[link removed]],
on track to rise to $50 million annually
[[link removed]]
by 2030, in expenses related to morbidity and mortality.

By 2025, the PEAK Coalition suggests, peaker plants could be replaced
by 1.5 gigawatts of offshore wind, growing to 3 gigawatts by 2030. New
York State’s existing offshore wind goal is 9 gigawatts
[[link removed]]
by 2035.

Wind turbines are notoriously low-performing during summer months when
demand often skyrockets — just the time when peaker plants are used
more frequently. But that’s where solar comes in. Solar panels,
which the PEAK Coalition envisions becoming ubiquitous atop city
rooftops, generate energy at increased capacity during summer months.
The report calls for 2.8 gigawatts of rooftop solar by 2025, and 5.6
gigawatts by 2030, aggregating and storing that power in distributed
batteries
[[link removed]]
and through advancements like “virtual power plants
[[link removed]].”
Energy storage capacity would need to roughly double during those
years, and be paired with significant energy efficiency efforts.

“The previous barrier was that of technology, and that’s just not
the case anymore,” Anthony Karefa Rogers-Wright, director of
environmental justice for NYLPI, told _Truthout_. “You have both the
solar and wind technology to unleash at the local, regional and
national levels.” Solar energy is now the “cheapest electricity in
history,” as _Carbon Brief_
[[link removed]]
has reported
[[link removed]].

Rogers-Wright was seven years old when he moved from Washington, D.C.
to New York City, where he joined West Side Little League, and
remembers being stunned by how many of his teammates, mostly Black
and/or Latino boys, relied on inhalers, as compared with his peers in
D.C. “They clearly had a lot of cardiovascular impairment simply
because of what was built by where they live,” Rogers-Wright said.

 

Peaker replacement is only the very tip of the iceberg in the
transition to renewables, but represents a logical, actionable,
justice-oriented first-step.

The PEAK Coalition’s blueprint provides an opportunity for state
officials to deliver on climate policy set out in the 2019 Climate
Leadership and Community Protection Act [[link removed]],
Rogers-Wright said, which establishes a goal of 70 percent renewable
energy
[[link removed].]
generation by 2030. The plan is also in line with the Biden
administration
[[link removed]]and
New York State environmental justice commitments, ensuring that at
least 40 percent
[[link removed]]
of the benefits of clean energy investments go to disadvantaged
communities. Based on the average emissions of New York City peaker
plants from 2017 to 2019, retiring the city’s peaker fleet could
result in a reduction of 2.66 million tons
[[link removed]]
of CO2 each year, or about one-fifth
[[link removed]] of New York City’s annual
CO2 emissions generated by commercial sources. As Krieger has pointed
out, peaker replacement is only the very tip of the iceberg in the
transition to renewables, and is more feasible in certain areas
[[link removed]],
but represents a logical, actionable, justice-oriented first-step.

Garcia points out that the tendency of the “Big Green
[[link removed]]”
organizations like the Natural Resources Defense Council to be awarded
funding over smaller-scale organizations is an impediment to the
community-led transition the PEAK Coalition envisions, as is the
tendency of peaker plant owners like Consolidated Edison to be
gatekeepers of their energy generation data.

But Rogers-Wright calls “political will” the greatest existing
barrier, noting, however, that the New York State Senate recently
passed the Pollution Justice Act
[[link removed]] of 2021. The
bill [[link removed]], which
would require peakers to be replaced with renewable energy systems and
battery storage within five years of the renewal of a plant’s
operating permit, is currently in committee before the New York State
Assembly. The PEAK Coalition is also working with Sen. Kirsten
Gillibrand (D-New York) and Rep. Yvette Clarke (D-New York) on a
federal bill they’ll introduce later this year.

“People in environmental justice communities are being choked by
toxic policies, toxic emissions and toxic police officers —
they’re extremely linked,” Rogers-Wright said, noting the
necessity of intersectional organizing that brings abolitionists and
environmental justice advocates together with labor groups to
continually exert pressure on lawmakers.

“I think the [peaker plant replacement] blueprint will serve as that
organizing tool.”

 

_We know that everyone in Truthout’s reader community will be
touched by this pandemic in one way or another. That’s why we’re
devoting ourselves to covering it as thoughtfully, accurately and
creatively as possible. [[link removed]]  Truthout
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[[link removed]]_

 

Copyright © Truthout. May not be reprinted without permission.
Reprinted with permission.

 

_Leanna First-Arai is a freelance journalist who
covers environmental and climate (in)justice. Her work has appeared
in Undark, Sierra Magazine, Yes! Magazine, Outside Magazine, on
New England Public Radio and elsewhere. Follow her on Twitter:
@FirstArai [[link removed]]._

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