Roger Caiazza
Environmental Justice (EJ) advocates like the PEAK coalition argue that “Fossil peaker plants in New York City are perhaps the most egregious energy-related example of what environmental injustice means today.” This post critiques a recent General Accounting Office (GAO) report on “Information from Peak Demand Power Plants” that was prepared in response to a question about pollution from these facilities by some congressional representatives..
The GAO website summary for the report explains why they did the study:
Environmental advocacy groups, and some congressional leaders have expressed concerns that peakers may be less efficient than non-peakers, meaning peakers may expend more energy that is not converted into electricity than other types of plants. Further, due to the nature of their operations, peakers may also negatively affect the air quality in communities around the plants, which may be historically disadvantaged or disproportionately low-income.
GAO was asked to examine pollution from peakers across the nation. This report provides information on the number and location of peakers in the U.S., their proximity to historically disadvantaged or disproportionately low-income communities, to what extent they emit pollutants and how these pollutants affect the health of people exposed, and alternatives for replacing them. To perform this work, GAO analyzed data from EPA, the U.S. Department of Energy, and other sources, reviewed relevant literature, and interviewed federal officials and stakeholders from 19 state, industry, and nongovernmental organizations representing a diversity of perspectives about peakers.
I am unimpressed with this report. It is not clear to me whether the political implications of this topic or the naivete of the authors was the reason for the poor quality. Whatever the reason, the report confirmed the biased concerns of environmental advocacy groups without addressing the fundamental problematic issues associated with peaking power. It is especially galling that the report ignored air quality protections already in place.
This topic is a particular concern of mine because issues associated with peaking power plants have been one of my responsibilities since 2000. Initially, my concerns were associated with developing an emissions tracking system to ensure compliance with air quality requirements for peaking plants. Later I participated in the regulatory process to develop regulations to reduce their emissions but also keep the lights on, keep the costs down, and achieve improved air quality. It took many years but New York State developed a rule that fulfilled those requirements. I doubt that I am the only one who participated in that process who was taken aback when environmental advocacy groups started campaigning against the power plants covered by the regulations put in place to address the peaking power plant pollution.
Peaking Power Problem
I think the GAO report missed the opportunity to highlight the challenges and implications of peak power demand and how it could and should be addressed. An Ozone Transport Commission presentation of issues associated with High Energy Demand Days (HEDD) from 2006 describes the tradeoffs. Air quality and energy planning both prioritize energy demand peaks because the highest electric demand and worst air quality tend to coincide. This is because the meteorological conditions that cause peak loads also exacerbate the air quality impacts of the increased emissions needed to match peak loads. Reliably meeting the peaks results in using the dirtiest and most expensive units. The key energy considerations slide describes the issues.
The GAO report overlooked this aspect of the peaking power plant issue. Instead, when they explained why this issue matters, they only talked about daily peaks. I think that devalues the criticality of the peak issue. The real problem is that peak loads occur when customers need power the most. If it is unavailable, then immediate acute safety and health problems occur. While the daily peak is a problem it is far less impactful than the annual peak load.
GAO Report
The GAO report determined how many peakers are in the country and where they are located. This discussion failed to discuss another impactful nuance. The GAO analysis determined the number of peaking power plants as a function of how much power plants ran in 2021:
For the purpose of our report, we generally define peakers as plants that use fossil fuels, including natural gas, coal, and oil; have a capacity factor (the percent of energy produced over a certain time frame, out of what could have been produced at continuous full power operation) of 15 percent or less; and have a nameplate capacity (the designed full-load sustained output of a facility) of greater than 10 megawatts (MW) of electricity.
This is a similar methodology to that used by Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers (PSE) for Healthy Energy in their report Opportunities for Replacing Peaker Plants with Energy Storage in New York State. There is an unrecognized shortcoming to the approach. The GAO report states that “Peakers are used to supplement other types of power plants, such as baseload plants, which run consistently throughout the day and night, and intermediate plants, which run mostly during the day and less at night”. There is a difference between power plants designed to meet peaking applications and many facilities that now operate as intermediate or peaking units. For example, around 1970 Consolidated Edison of New York needed peaking capacity within New York City that would only run infrequently but also needed to startup quickly. They responded by building a fleet of around 100 simple-cycle natural gas turbines that were the cheapest capacity available. Today many of the units that meet the GAO definition were originally designed as base-load units and cannot start up quickly. I used to work at the Oswego Harbor generating station that had two 850 MW oil-fired units and took over a day to startup. The units have met the capacity factor criteria for peaking units for years, but they were not designed to operate that way.
The GAO report includes a map of plant locations but there is no capability to identify the plants on the map. If you are interested in specific facilities, the EPA Power Plants and Neighboring Communities website presents that information. The GAO summary lists 999 peaking power plants in the following table. The overall capacity factor of these plants is 6%.
The GAO analysis determined how closely peakers are located to historically disadvantaged and low- income communities. This analysis, the Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers, and even the draft New York regulations to address these facilities all use distance between the disadvantaged communities and the power plant as the metric of concern. The GAO claims that “For example, based on our model and main definition of a peaker, a community that is 71 percent historically disadvantaged is expected to be 9 percent closer to the nearest peaker than the average community, which is 40 percent historically disadvantaged.”
I do not think this is an unexpected result, but I also think it is meaningless. The air quality impacts of any facility do not depend entirely upon distance between the source and a receptor location. The stack characteristics (gas temperature, height of the stack, and stack exit dimensions) as week as meteorological conditions (wind direction, wind speed, and atmospheric stability) all affect air quality impacts. The Con Ed turbines had exit ducts that released the pollutants that were less than 100 feet and the location of maximum downwind impact was relatively close. On the other hand, the Oswego plant had 700’ stacks and the location of maximum downwind impact was quite a way from the plant.
The GAO report addressed the impact of emissions and the resulting health impacts: “When operating, peakers emit similar types of pollutants to other power plants that also use fossil fuels, and these pollutants are associated with various negative health effects, according to existing literature.” The impacts section notes:
Compared to non-peakers, peakers emitted more pollutants—such as nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide—per unit of electricity generated, but fewer total annual pollutants in 2021, according to our analysis of EPA data (see table 2). In other words, peakers emit less in total because there are fewer peakers and they operate less frequently overall than non-peakers. However, when they do operate, they emit more pollution per unit of electricity produced. For example, the median sulfur dioxide emission rate for natural gas fueled peakers was 1.6 times more per unit of electricity generated than the median emission rate for non-peakers.
This language parrots the talking points of EJ advocates but is much ado about nothing. It is obvious that fewer peakers that run less would have lower emissions than more numerous non-peakers that run more. Advocates harp on the fact that emission rates are higher for peakers than non-peakers. Highlighting the finding that “natural gas fueled peakers was 1.6 times more per unit of electricity generated than the median emission rate for non-peakers” is a naïve point because 0.008 versus 0.005 lb SO2 per MWhr is negligible for air quality impacts. Moreover, I think there is an error in the methodology because the sulfur content in fuel determines the emissions not how it is burned, so there should be no difference in the rates.
Another issue I have with this analysis and other similar analyses is that they don’t recognize that the primary air quality issue with peaking power plants is ozone. These units operate when energy demand is highest in the summer and those periods are typically hazy, hot, and humid. Those conditions are conducive to the highest ozone levels (some of the haze) and there has been immense pressure to reduce their emissions to reduce ozone levels. Ozone is a secondary pollutant produced in a photo-chemical reaction from nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds. The conversion to ozone takes time and means that by the time it occurs the emissions from a power plant in a disadvantaged community have moved downwind. For example, the location of highest downwind conditions for emissions from New York City is in Connecticut, far beyond neighboring disadvantaged communities. Moreover the reality is that nitrogen oxides scavenge ozone so that the peaking power plants actually reduce ozone concentrations close to the facility.
I have been involved with air quality issues since I started working in 1976. The fundamental presumption has always been that the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) is the health metric used to determine health impacts. EPA explains:
The Clean Air Act, which was last amended in 1990, requires EPA to set National Ambient Air Quality Standards (40 CFR part 50) for six principal pollutants (“criteria” air pollutants) which can be harmful to public health and the environment. The Clean Air Act identifies two types of national ambient air quality standards. Primary standards provide public health protection, including protecting the health of “sensitive” populations such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly. Secondary standards provide public welfare protection, including protection against decreased visibility and damage to animals, crops, vegetation, and buildings.
As an air pollution meteorologist one of my jobs was to run air quality models to determine the air quality impacts of existing and proposed facilities. The primary consideration was whether the modeling proved that the projected impacts were less than the NAAQS. The basis of my work was that when I showed compliance with those standards, I proved that we were protecting the health of “sensitive” populations such as asthmatics, children, and the elderly. Regulatory agencies are required to ensure that any facility that cannot show compliance with the NAAQS must to modify its permitted operations or it cannot be allowed to operate.
The GAO report does not mention the NAAQS protections. Instead, the analysts follow the lead of EJ activists and claim that there are health effects from peaking power plants. The health effects section states: “Multiple pollutants that are emitted from peakers and other plants are associated with various negative health effects for the people exposed, according to federal agency reports we reviewed”. What they reviewed were the EPA Integrated Science Assessments:
EPA’s Integrated Science Assessments integrate information on criteria pollutant exposures and health effects from controlled human exposure, epidemiologic, and toxicological studies to form conclusions about the causal nature of relationships between exposure and health effects. For more information, see the EPA Preamble for Integrated Science Assessments at Preamble To The Integrated Science Assessments (ISA) | ISA: Integrated Science Assessments | Environmental Assessment | US EPA (accessed 8/30/2023).
The presumption in the report is that any level of pollution is bad: “For instance, short-term exposure to sulfur dioxide—the indicator for sulfur oxides used in EPA’s assessments—can lead to negative respiratory effects, such as decreased lung function, cough, chest tightness, and throat irritation.” The GAO report summarizes health effects from short-term exposures. All this is nice but it ignores the NAAQS process to determine acceptable ambient air quality levels.
The EJ activists pushing the negative impacts of the peaking power plants presume that there are alternatives. The GAO report looked at some available alternatives that could potentially replace fossil-fueled peakers at the same high-level used throughout the analysis. The report claims that “alternatives such as battery storage systems could potentially replace fossil-fueled peakers, according to studies we reviewed and stakeholders we interviewed”. The report lists battery storage, pumped-hydro storage, thermal energy storage, and notes that renewable energy systems (e.g., wind and solar) may be paired with energy storage. It claims that “adding roof-top solar and battery storage to houses could reduce the demand for peakers in adjacent areas.” It includes two other possibilities:
Transmission and distribution infrastructure improvements: Upgrades or expansions to increase the capacity of current infrastructure that transmits and distributes electricity. These upgrades or expansions may help enable existing underutilized plants to meet peak demand.
Efforts to decrease consumers’ use of power during peak times: Efforts to incentivize consumers to reduce or shift electricity use during times of peak use to off-peak times.
To its credit the report does address the “potential challenges of replacing peakers” including cost, reliability, and location. In my opinion, the responses downplayed those challenges.
The report notes that “some alternatives may have higher capital and operating costs compared to current fossil-fueled peakers”:
Replacing peakers, some of which have already paid off their capital costs, will likely lead to additional up-front or operating costs compared to keeping the existing peakers. Further, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reported that solar and wind plants had higher average construction costs compared to natural gas-fired plants in 2023.
It is remarkable that this Federal report documented that construction costs of solar and wind are greater than natural gas plants but there is a missing nuance. While I am not an economist, I still question what kind of business model could justify developing a new resource that will operate as a peaking facility running less than 15 percent of the time. Surely the facility will have to charge very high rates when it does operate.
Appropriately the report notes that “current alternatives may not be able to provide the same reliability of current fossil-fueled peakers”:
Similarly, some alternatives may create reliability challenges. For the grid to be reliable, the energy resources in an area need to be able to supply power to meet peak demand for as long as it lasts, according to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) officials. Some battery storage systems provide up to 4 hours of output, but peak demand may be longer in some areas. In contrast, a fossil-fueled peaker is only limited by fuel availability—a natural gas-fueled peaker could keep operating so long as natural gas is available.
This is an important point universally ignored by the activists that want to shut down peaking power plants now. The other nuance is that the overly broad definition of a peaking power plant covers facilities that provide different services than just peaking support. The 1700 MW at Oswego Harbor are within ten miles of three nuclear units. Nuclear units are required to shutdown when the grid goes down and in the 2003 blackout Oswego Harbor came on line to replace those units until the grid stabilized.
The GAO report also noted that “alternatives may not be able to be installed because of space and location concerns”:
Some alternatives may also run into space constraints or location concerns. For example, a densely populated urban community likely would not have sufficient space for a large renewable energy system paired with battery storage to help meet peak electricity demand.
I agree with this point, but it could have been expanded. Location matters within the grid. The transmission system is designed based on the location of the generating resources. The requirement that energy must be available at the location of the New York City peaking power plants is not acknowledged by the EJ activists, but it is a critical reliability constraint.
Most disappointing to me is that the report does not acknowledge the following challenges to the end of the main report. I believe that at least a hint of the following information should have been right up front:
In general, recognizing these challenges, some officials with whom we spoke identified trends that may lead to the continued use of fossil-fueled peakers. According to DOE officials, some U.S. peakers may not be able to be replaced with existing alternatives within cost, reliability, and location constraints.
Combinations of electricity generation and storage technologies, transmission and distribution improvements, and efforts to decrease consumer’s use of power during peak times may be too costly for consumers in some areas to provide an adequate level of grid reliability. Further, officials at two utilities noted that due to increased use of intermittent renewable resources on the grid (e.g., wind and solar power), the continued use of peakers to meet electricity demand may be necessary to maintain grid reliability. For example, the availability of sunlight for a solar installation may not match with peak demand in the evening when the sun goes down. Therefore, additional supplemental energy resources would be needed to fill the gaps and meet demand.
It gets worse. Buried in the technical appendix the last sentence in the last paragraph before the end notes is the caveat that there is no basis for concern (my highlight):
Limitations. We took several steps to assess the validity and sensitivity of our models, but certain limitations remain. Importantly, our measure of distance does not include other aspects—such as stack height, wind speed, or wind direction— that play important roles in the dispersion of pollutants and potential populations exposure. In addition, although we include some variables to control for factors that could influence the findings, it is possible that other controls might be important and were not accounted for in our model. Inclusion of a state fixed- effect partially addresses this by controlling for factors that vary by state. Still, our findings of associations between distance to peakers and historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic communities does not imply any causal relationships.
Discussion
The GAO was asked to respond to a question about pollution from peaking power plants by some congressional representatives. The response is a disappointment. The report summary found that:
- Historically disadvantaged racial or ethnic communities tend to be closer to peakers.
- Fossil-fueled peakers are primarily fueled by natural gas and emit air pollutants associated with various negative health effects, including on respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous systems.
- Alternatives are available that could potentially replace or provide similar services as peakers, but we identified challenges for their use related to costs, reliability, space, and location.
I do not dispute that disadvantaged racial or ethnic communities tend to be closer to peakers but the fact the “findings of associations between distance to peakers and historically disadvantaged racial and ethnic communities does not imply any causal relationships” indicates that the basis for the concerns is weak. If the GAO report had evaluated the status of the communities of concern relative to the NAAQS or at least mentioned that there are standards designed to protect those communities, it would have been obvious that this is a non-problem conjured up by activists.
The second finding is another lost opportunity to inject reality into the conversation. Obviously, fossil-fueled peakers emit air pollutants and they can be “associated with various negative health effects, including on respiratory, cardiovascular, and nervous systems.” The complete disregard of the NAAQS protections in place unnecessarily scares the residents in the communities of concern. In addition, regarding emissions in isolation, focusing only on the negatives and disregarding any benefits creates an unnecessarily pessimistic outlook, hinders growth, and could lead to unintended consequences.
The final summary point begrudgingly admits that there are “costs, reliability, space, and location challenges” for replacements to peaking power plants. The GAO report should have emphasized these challenges in my opinion. The reality is that in order to deal with peaking power plants and the net-zero ambitions we do not have the generating or transmission technologies needed.
I conclude that this analysis and the report were intended to confirm the biases of the congressional representatives that requested the report and the EJ activists who promote it. It is only possible through a complete reading of the entire report to discover contrary evidence eviscerating this as an issue. The bigger picture problem is the potential threat that political and activist pressure will force premature retirement of peaking power plants with a marked increase in potential reliability risks. A blackout will have real ramifications as opposed to the over-hyped risks claimed.
Roger Caiazza blogs on New York energy and environmental issues at Pragmatic Environmentalist of New York. This represents his opinion and not the opinion of any of his previous employers or any other company with which he has been associated.
I wrote elsewhere about PM2.5, that was for tyres of EV’s etc.The author responded that there were now doubts about PM2.5. But it was always thus. PM2.5 is untested except in epidemiological “studies”.
PM2.5 is junk science that underwrites EPA overreach as the EPA attempts to legislate the internal combustion engine out of existence.
Regulate, not legislate out of existence.
PM2.5 and many of the fake cancer studies rely on the linear no-threshold model or LNT. Basically they take rabbits or rats and practically choke them with massive amounts of a substance, note the bad effects, then cobble up a “study” that shows that any dose of that substance causes cancer or respiratory illness or something. Head over to JunkScience.com for Steve Milloy’s many reports on that.
Originally developed to kill nuclear power, this pseudoscience is now applied to everything civilized and helpful to man. Microplastics, PBAs, the myriads of substances that are known to the State of California to cause cancer, all junk science intended to cull the population.
They say there are too many people, but what they really mean is there are too many people that do not agree to live as serfs.
My family including 2 children under 10 lived for a year within 500 m of the chimney of a smelter for sulphide ores containing copper and gold. The site in the 1920s or so was the world’s largest gold mine.
It would get woofy several times a day when particular conditions swept CO2 to the base of the chimney, then to our home and nearby school. Our annual exposure to SO2 I can only guess, possibly 100 to 1000 times higher than now permitted. We have no evidence of subsequent health damage 50 years later.
What a sad parade of snowflakes we see now, being schooled by ignorant activists to cry compensation for damage to the under classes when there is next to no actual evidence of medical harm from their local SO2 levels.
Why to ignorant people write fiction disasters when, with a little more self-respect, they could engage in useful productive work instead of resembling housewives gossiping over the garden fence because gossip is easy and lazy.
Please come back, those days of old when men were men and women tried to be pretty. When activists were sent to asylums instead of parliaments.
Geoff S
Geoff
Growing up in the urban London of the late 50s and 60s we leaded petrol. We had lead water pipes. We had paraffin heaters or coal and some gas fires. The factories belched all along the river and yet here I am.
I’ve given up explaining how remarkably clean the air is today. They’l have to experience it to get it.
Hi Geoff,
I see we are separated by a common language. Please define “woofy”. 🙂
Sometimes called “moofy”. 😉
Activists want….
And they care not a jot what the consequences might be.
“for countless hard-working people, the American Dream is increasingly out of reach”
“The war on America’s working class”https://www.spiked-online.com/2024/05/27/the-war-on-americas-working-class/
I’d wager that much is true of any western nation pursuing Net Zero. England is no exception.
If the American Dream is out of reach for some- too bad. Reality sometimes sucks. Get used to it. Grow up. Tell your children to do their homework. But instead of homework, they’re interested more in sports, their smart phone, sex and drugs. I know a lot of people who grew up in low income families. They did their homework and got advanced degrees and are now upper middle class.
My family was low income. I was one of the top students in my high school. So I went to college. But instead of focusing on getting a great education and great job- I was a stoner who wanted to “get back to nature”- so majored in forestry and spent my career in the woods, but earned little. My bad. I don’t blame anyone. I know I could have become a great scientist or engineer. One guy I used to help do his math in high school now owns a large engineering firm on Martha’s Vineyard. I was in the same dorm in college. While I was partying, he was doing his homework.
The road to progress in America is DO YOUR HOMEWORK.
“There are still good jobs to be had for people without college degrees, she notes. Skilled tradespeople can command high salaries…” (from Strativairus’ link)
In low income central Wokeachusetts, it’s hard now to find a plumber, electrician or carpenter- while many young people complain of “no good jobs”- because those jobs are hard and you have to get licensed- which is rather difficult in this state.
A few years ago I needed to find a plumber and finally found one. The guy, in his late 20s, is very good- I watched him do everything in my home. Works fast, works smart- gets done what I want and quickly. But he charges $100/hr. (low by state standards) I asked how he got into plumbing. He said, “well, I’m not book-smart. I went into the marines and learned to use a machine gun- got out and worked for my uncle, a plumber and decided to go into that.” OK, so he didn’t even do much homework in school – but he did have to study to get the plumber’s license. In this state, even if you’re working in a rural region- you have to be able to do plumbing in Boston on a skyscraper with very different and more complicated skills needed. I like the guy- don’t like paying that much – but he’s very good at his work so worth it.
So, yes, do your homework and get a professional career or get licensed in a trade. Almost everyone can do it. Older generations who failed to do this are out of luck. Being a far left state, Wokeachusetts doesn’t let anyone freeze in winter, die of hunger, or go without health care- with all its social programs. But not everyone can live in a nice ‘hood with perfectly great air and zero crime. Some have to live near power plants or, God forbid, industries- though there are few of those left in this state or region. I have to live next to a &*^$# solar “farm”. I consider it an injustice. 🙂
What happens when people believe the American Dream no longer exists for them? Too many people already believe this.
The American Dream always involved hard work. I think you’re saying younger people expect things to be handed to them today. The American Dream was never about entitlement.
because those jobs are hard
That’s a big part of the problem IMO. These kids are coming out of college with degrees like “Art Communications” (no joke saw that yesterday) and other “soft” degrees and expecting high paying jobs right away. (Yes, that’s a big generalization and my own son is an exception so I know it’s not all of them)
Then they get a job at Starbucks and complain that they’re not getting paid enough and that it’s SO HARD being on your feet for 6 hours and only getting two breaks. (something else I’ve seen first hand)
I have some hope, though. 10-15 years from now, those who choose the harder path will be in much better positions than the others. Might lead some change, unless the government screws it up (a good possibility)
Yes. Life is so hard when all you can do is complain about how Boomers messed up everything. And now they can’t afford houses, or cars or anything.
Guess what. Everyone went through that. I didn’t buy my first house until I was about 32. I worked for it. No college, just high school.
Actually this “unintended consequence” is exactly the plan from the beginning.
The prosperous middle class is an embarrassment to Marx’s grand theory of the curve of history, from feudalism to capitalism to socialism and finally communism. If people are happy in a free-market capitalist state, there is no incentive to tear it up and install the totalitarian communist utopia.
The American Dream, really everyone’s dream, is a direct assault on the totalitarian elitist deep state. Nut Zero and all that is just the latest attempt to dismantle all that is beautiful and good so it can be replaced by Orwell’s “boot to the face”.
Peaking Power Problem…
“peakers may also negatively affect the air quality in communities around the plants, which may be historically disadvantaged or disproportionately low-income”
duh! The reality is if you’re low-income you’re likely to live in a less desirable place- but now it’s considered an injustice- in other words, it’s an injustice society that doesn’t have everyone living in the same quality of neighborhood- a socialist Utopia. duh!
I doubt the people living in such “disadvantaged or disproportionately low-income” ‘hoods, have peaker plants on their top 100 concerns.
What really chaps my ass, and I’ve seen it more than once, it’s not just power plants, it’s all kinds of things that may be less desirable to live adjacent than your average urban rose garden. Things like airports, dairy farms, steel smelters, etc., etc., picked a place to build that was out in the boonies, partly because the land was cheap, but mostly so they could get the permits, so damn near every one of them was out in the boondocks with no one around when they opened their doors for business. In other words, they were there first.
Then along comes a few young desperate wannabe home owners, and they find an acceptable place out in the boonies, and it’s acceptable because the land is cheap, and it remains cheap because it’s right under the flight path of that Air Force Base, but what the hell, some of these snowflakes had grandparents that grew up next to railroad tracks (like my Dad, his house wasn’t next door to the railroad tracks there was another house in between, all 800 sf of it, but I digress this story isn’t about me), and those selfsame grandparents tell them it’s not too bad once you get used to it, you’ll be sleeping right through it before you know it. Which is all true and so they do it, they buy the land, bring in their double wide, drill a well, convince the power company to drop them a line, and they set up shop raising a family.
After a bit, developers notice the attention this area gets, so they come out nosing around and find a few significant parcels still available, and it must be a great location look at how many young people are moving out here, and beside the land is cheap. So the developers buy up the parcels, rape the land, put up a bunch of ugly boxes and, Jesus, people bought them (I don’t think that’s the way the Eagles punctuated that verse when they wrote it, but that’s the way I heard it). After a time, there’s a significant population living out there under the flyway of that Air Force Base.
Then along comes the ambulance chasing attorney, handing out literature from that French rent-a-condemnation-report so-called lab, claiming that certain frequencies and decibel levels (low and behold, exactly those frequency and decibel levels associated most often with Air Force Bases what a coincidence!) cause irreversible damages, impotence, mutations and even death. Just in case they missed anyone they hang fliers all over town with the headline, “If you have died because of the sounds of this Air Force Base, please call 1-800-GRIEVANCE! (how they’re going to call when they’re already dead I have never figured out, but there the flier hangs, I’ve seen it! Repeatedly!), until the activists self-scheduled “townhall” manages to attract more than 2 people on a night that there are no high school football games nor a bowling league, and then said activists files a “Class Action Suit™” against the Air Force Base, the Base Commander, the Air Force, the nearest city, the resident county, the county next door just for good measure, the State Government, the Federal Government, and the Government of Israel, demanding the Air Force Base be shut down, and $millions paid in reparations, that works out to about $2.98/resident within aural range of said Air Force Base, but because of the low land prices, the attorney filing the nuisance lawsuit is looking at a potential fee (at 30%) of several $million.
And the Air Force Base was there first!!! Why has this country set up a system to so consistently screw the taxpayers like this? Because we all know, when everything is said and done, that’s where the settlement money comes from, the taxpayers. Including a good number of those members of that Class that will get the check for the whopping $2.98, but because the attorneys’ fees and court costs, and the cost of all that discovery and etc., etc., has to be paid for in the end their taxes go up a great deal more than $2.98, and it’s repeated year after year after year after year! So, how does it feel to be a Winner?
Funny you should mention an Air Force Base as an example.
I don’t think there was ever a lawsuit, but I used to be a phone operator at March AFB in California. There was a guy who would call in regularly to complain about the noise of the jets. He started calling shortly after he moved in.
This was in the 80’s. MAFB was built in 1917.
And what about the consequences of a blackout vs. the health effects of having a peaker to keep supplying your neighborhood? People without power will fire up portable generators, fireplaces using gas logs and wood, kerosene heaters, etc. in their homes and backyards, those emissions are up close and personal.
Excellent review. Just wait until there is a battery fire in or near those “disadvantaged” neighborhoods.
This battery fire was upstate. Want one on your city block?
https://www.northcountrypublicradio.org/news/story/48280/20230811/solar-battery-fire-in-jefferson-county-raises-concerns-for-the-future
The LS Power Gateway Energy Storage project is located in San Diego County California. As far as I can tell it has a 250 MW capacity and can provide 250 MWh oF energy. The fact that it caught fire and kept re-igniting was a news story that did not get much coverage. There have been evacuation orders because of “harmful” gases.
This one, now seems to be contained and no longer a threat. There are residential areas 1.5 mi. to the south – in Mexico.
I am sick and tired of the whinging about peaker gas plants. I you don’t like them, all you have to do is build the battery backups. But “NOOOOOO”
–>Then my unreliable green energy doesn’t look affordable.
–>Well, then your green energy needs to factor in the gas plant costs
–>But then my green energy doesn’t look green!
–>How is that my problem? Include backups in the total cost, including health costs. I don’t care which
As an engineer, with design of a few solar thermal plants under my belt, I consider the current marketing method of PV solar, where if anyone asks about back-up there’s just a mumbled statement about The Grid now back to how much money WE get, as premeditated Fraud!
I say shut down all the peaking power plants and see how uninhabitable Manhattan becomes without electricity in mid-summer. I’ll wager that the Wall Street bankers will just be thrilled when their 24/7 trading floors are shut down by grid failures.
You can’t expect people to change their minds when we protect them from the consequences of their idiocies.
The author’s examples in this article are another confirmation for my belief that very few people who have not worked for an electric utility truly understand how an electric utility works.
The sequence is
You left out:
0. Seize all firearms from private citizens.
Roger ==> Odd question, but maybe you know. Were these peaker plants purpose-built in low-income/disadvantaged areas, or did the poor neighborhoods grow up around existing plants (because the land was cheaper)?
Do the accusations that society builds these plants in in black/brown/poor neighborhoods stand ?
I know Los Angeles, south Compton, Torrance, etc — oil refineries and oil wells — poor today but were barren when the wells were drilled and the plants built.
See my overly lengthy comment above. Or is it below now?
I think that the purpose built New York City peaking turbines were sited based on where the grid needed them and where they could be shoe horned into space close to where there needed. Con Ed built four sets of turbines: two were adjacent to existing power plants and the other two were built in barges because there wasn’t enough land available. More recently the New York Power Authority built six turbines scattered across the City which I believe were built to address a specifc reliability problem.
I think that once the location for grid support criterion was met then the got built where there was room and if there was a choice they went to the cheaper location. Presumably that would be in the poor neighborhoods. I am positive that no one has ever made a decision based on purposely sticking it to the poor neighborhoods despite what the activists would have us believe.
The other point that I cannot over emphasize enough is that any claims that these units are the cause of the poor health in these neighborhoods is bogus. One of the things that the activists demand is community air quality monitoring. The results from those monitors is that the air qualityis affected mostly by buildings and transportation sources and not any point source emissions.
Roger ==> Thanks, as I suspected.
Very good Roger, I don’t know how you deal with these knuckle draggers. We have two problems here, EJ activists and government.
Activists shouldn’t have a whole lot of influence over policy decisions. You have shown in this article that they convey the things they want to convey whether it is the truth or not or just half the story. They need to be held to account for misleading everyone.
Of course the other issue is government. One government agency reporting to another like minded agency is a joke. The closest analogy would be the Yankees and the Dodgers playing a game with the officiating being provided by the Yankees.
Someday some agency is going to have to say sorry we cannot shut down peaking units because you have an irrational fear about them. The knuckle draggers will never be happy but that will set them off.
This is an important point universally ignored by the activists that want to shut down peaking power plants now.
‘Climate activists universally ignore all important points that don’t support their agenda beginning with the reality that CO2 is not the climate control knob. The negative consequences of their “wants” aren’t any part of their positions.