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By Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. Environmental News Services Energy Crisis or Greed Crisis?
On the same spot I sit today Whatever the cause of the current energy crisis, a major goal of the new conservative administration in Washington has been achieved. Air quality controls have been suspended and the stage has been set for massive industrial expansion.
Some household electric bills have gone up as much as 80 percent and in an unprecedented action that went unreported in most major newspapers, the Bush administration authorized the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on January 29 to relax clean air rules so that California can produce more power. The EPA said it will not enforce any violations against California power plants and diesel generators that violate federal clean air standards in the course of producing the electricity needed to meet the demand.
California began reducing its own air quality regulations in December 2000 allowing the restart of several power plants in southern California that had reached air pollution limits and had been shut down. These actions will have a dramatic and immediate effect on our air quality. Many fossil fuel burning power plants around the nation have been cited for violating clean air standards over the years. They have antiquated equipment that the utility companies have refused to upgrade because such fixes could diminish profits. In heavily polluted Southern California, the natural gas fired Scattergood Power Generating Plant in El Segundo is monitored 24 hours a day for air quality compliance. When the pollution levels get too high, the plant, has been reducing its output. Now, it can keep on polluting. It is important to note that air pollution is not the only form of environmental damage generated by fossil fuel power plants. The Scattergood Plant, operated by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, can generate as much as 820 megawatts. It uses huge amounts of water from Santa Monica Bay each day to cool its three massive turbines. Thousands of fish each week are killed as they are sucked into the giant intake pipes. It can discharge back into the bay up to 495 million gallons per day of that water which includes metal cleaning wastes and a host of other pollutants, including stormwater runoff. The water is also returned heated, affecting the nearshore ecosystem. Alternative energy sources do not impact the environment in this way. The suspension of air quality regulations sets a dangerous precedent. Many environmental groups, political analysts and citizens think that the Bush administration has used the California energy shortages as an excuse to pave the way for the unregulated expansion of industries throughout the land.
States are also allowing utility companies across the nation to include surcharges on utility bills and transfer fees if a customer switches to an alternative energy company. These fees are designed to help the utility companies pay off bad investments in failed nuclear power plants. These cleverly disguised fees will pay off the $135 billion of these bad investments with consumers' hard earned dollars. In California and Massachusetts, this corporate welfare may constitute as much as 40 percent of consumers' electric bills. The nuclear industry, once thought to be the answer to our energy prayers, has been a complete failure. Billions of dollars in cost overruns, skyrocketing costs to deal with design failures and the deadly nuclear waste that results, and the costs of handling the waste from reactors that have to be decommissioned have taxed consumers to the limit and continue to do so. But the Bush administration and many states will attempt to revive this deadly and failed industry. The President has already begun studying how to streamline the process so that more nuclear reactors can be built. The dangers of nuclear power generation technology have not decreased. Each nuclear power plant creates mountains of spent fuel rods, the radioactive sources that generate the heat necessary to create the steam that powers electricity generating turbines. No one knows how to dispose of this deadly radioactive waste and much of it just builds up in ponds of water at nuclear reactor sites. Many nuclear plants were shut down or abandoned because of well documented cases of poor designs that could lead to a catastrophic meltdown. When a reactor core can no longer be used, the deadly spent core is transported to a hazardous waste site and buried, risking groundwater contamination. In the midst of all these concerns, few leaders are speaking of alternative energy sources such as wind power, solar, geothermal and biomass power generation. Whatever the reasons or motivations behind the energy shortages, our leaders are responding by increasing electricity costs, increasing air and water pollution, and blaming consumers for using too much power. As consumers, we can act immediately, but not by buying into the rhetoric of the administration or the fossil fuel powered electric companies. Conservation, investments in alternative energy producers, and resistance to the construction of additional fossil fuel or nuclear plants, can lessen the crisis.
There is and has always been an abundance of energy on this Earth. The wind, the Sun, and the natural heat from inside our planet alone could supply us with free energy for lifetimes to come.
Small utility companies are making a valiant effort to supply power generated from natural sources and soon, more and more companies will offer us the option of self-contained power sources, like fuel cells, for our homes. Sadly, market forces have created significant obstacles to their efforts. It is possible that underfunding of alternative technologies will stunt their growth while billions are spent extracting and selling the Earth's last remaining fossil fuels. Consumers need to demand that commitments be made to conservation and alternative energy sources immediately. Electricity is not used just to light and heat homes and offices. Washington, Oregon, and California devote about 17 billion kilowatt hours of electricity to livestock production. That's enough energy to light every house in the entire country for a month and a half. Manufacturing one pound of beef uses about one gallon of oil and 3,000 to 5,000 gallons of water. Meat and dairy farming uses many megawatts to pump that water, to run farms and slaughterhouses, power refrigeration and to power sewage plants to clean up some of the pollution produced. It is important to remember that our diet and lifestyle choices affect power generation as well as our health and the lives of millions of animals each year. What should our real energy needs and priorities be? The energy used by a casino, luxury hotel, or office skyscraper with its lights on all night helps line the pockets of a few affluent individuals, but it does little to warm a cold child in an inner city neighborhood. There are many things you can do to conserve energy regardless of its cost and availability: As ever, the choice is ours. RESOURCES 1. Read daily news about renewable energy and energy efficiency on the Green Mountain Energy Company website at: www.greenmountain.com/default.asp. This news is provided by the Environment News Service. 2. Find out how to make homes more energy efficient and what the greenest vehicles are for this model year from the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy at: www.aceee.org/ 3. Learn about wind power in the United States from the American Wind Energy Association at: www.awea.org/ 4. Learn more about fuel cells at the Fuel Cells 2000 website at: 216.51.18.233/index_e.html 5. Explore solar energy with the American Solar Energy Society at: www.ases.org/ 6. There is a great deal of information about all forms of renewable energy on the website of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a federal government agency. Visit: www.nrel.gov 7. Email President George W. Bush at president@whitehouse.gov and tell him conservation must be a priority before new power plants are built. Urge him to not ignore well researched and important environmental standards for the sake of industry expansion. 8. Read an article in The Nation magazine about the history behind this situation. Read another Nation article with more history. 9. See some excellent tips for increasing energy efficiency in your home and business at: www.ecomall.com/greenshopping/rockesave.htm 10. Learn about alternative energy sources from the Alternative Energy Institute at: www.altenergy.org/ 11. See a list of alternative energy resources at: www.serve.com/commonpurpose/contacts.html 12. The U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection agency jointly conduct the Energy Star program that labels energy efficient products and buildings so buyers can identify energy savings before they purchase. Check out a store locator or just look for the Energy Star label on products like clothes washers, TVs and VCRs, heating and cooling equipment that will save money on energy bills and help the environment. Learn about it at: www.energystar.gov 13. Find out who your Congressional representatives are and e-mail them. Demand that they reduce the energy use of business and industry and build new power plants that use alternative energy sources. Tell them to start with their own offices. You can find your representatives at: congress.nw.dc.us/innovate/index.html Jackie Alan Giuliano, Ph.D. is a writer and teacher in Seattle. He can be found sitting in a darkened room at home while the Seattle skyline of office towers burns brightly at night. Send your thoughts and ideas to him at jackie@healingourworld.com and visit his web site at www.healingourworld.com |
Bush's Secretary of the Interior Gale Norton has said she supports opening up more of America's landscape to energy companies 
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