Meet the new climate activists
Different tactics, different skills
When he wanted to play, we thought of Buddy as gently ‘insistent.’ We should have called him ‘dogged.’
Electricity leaving a solar panel or wind turbine has become cheaper than electricity leaving a fossil-fueled power plant. Clean energy can now beat dirty energy on price. No need for carbon taxes or pipeline sabotage or throwing soup on works of art. Our negative and coercive climate actions over so many decades can now give way to simple price advantages in the free market. Right?
And that advantage is augmented by the money supporting clean energy coming from last August’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
Credit Suisse says the Inflation Reduction Act will have such a tremendous impact on renewable energy that the US may see the levelized cost of electricity from renewable sources fall to less than one cent per kWh by 2025, that is, too cheap to meter. [Cleantechnica]
Hooray, Right?
WELL, WE’RE NOT THERE YET
There’s a key problem: even a big price advantage at the source may not survive the trip to market.
Will green energy actually be cheaper when we buy it for our vehicles, our homes, our street lights? This is the new field of work for climate activists, illustrated by the shift in the following invitations? The shift from protests to hearings.
OUR NEW JOBS
We need to become sweepers in front of a curling ball, actively smoothing the rough spots in front of that cheap power that leaves the solar farm heading for our home or office. Barriers, costs, and delays - there are lots of them. And, their overall effect can have a lot of people looking at their electric bill in surprise: “Hey, they said green energy was going to be cheaper.”
Here’s some of the work needed to pull down those barriers to obtaining clean energy. We need to help
persuade Americans to make land and offshore areas available and acceptable for lots of big solar and wind farms.
put up lots of new electrical transmission lines, especially local ones.
prevent taxes, rate hikes, and corporate profits from siphoning off the green energy savings.
overcome lifetime attitudes about what our landscapes should look like.
lower our communities’ fears around safety, and our quieter but more rigid “Okay-but-not-in-my-backyard” attitudes.
plan compassionately for the losers: such as coal miners and gas drillers, investor-owned power companies, and pipelines.
In contrast to many actions in the past against Big Oil and Congress and our utilities, most of the new actions we need to take now are local. We need to learn the way into our Statehouse or county courthouse or town hall. And some of the needed changes are within ourselves. We were just about anonymous when we held up protest signs or wrote checks to activist organizations. That won’t be true when we stand up and take the microphone at a regulatory hearing.
AN EXAMPLE
Here in Washington State where we moved with Buddy last June, we’re excited that the local power company is preparing for a big increase in solar and wind power. But this green power is different from what they’re now sourcing from hydro (66%), natural gas (12%), nuclear (8%), and coal (5%). Those current power sources work day and night. Solar power, by definition, does not, and wind power can be intermittent too. So the power company near our home needs to build a big battery storage facility to accept solar power during the day and dole it out at night.
Money’s not the problem. The company and the IRA together will cover the costs, but there are other things this power company needs before it can provide lots of green power.
And they need our help to get those things.
First they need the right location for new equipment. For instance, transmission loss is lower if the solar farm and battery bank are near the local homes and businesses they serve.
Second, they need a secure location. A few bullets fired recently at two North Carolina substations cut power in the area for days. New power infrastructure in America may need to be protected.
They then need permission to install the batteries. This involves persuading the County Planning and Development Services to push changes to the local building codes and zoning ordinances through the local lawmakers and ordinance writers, a potentially lengthy process. Primary arguments against battery installations seem to be safety. Batteries in California caught fire last September, and the batteries needed here in Washington will be located where residents - and their fire departments - are already threatened by summer wildfires.
Overall, they need local ratepayers to be educated about the project and to outgrow knee-jerk concerns like safety or appearance or ratepayer costs.
HOW WE CAN ALL HELP EACH OTHER
To clear the way for low-cost electrons to get from that solar panel or turbine all the way to our accelerator pedal or heat pump, thousands of us across America need to
Examine—before anything else—our opponents’ opinions, facts, and statements, looking for common ground. After all these are our neighbors.
Submit our wishes at meetings of our public utility commission, planning board, town council and other authorities.
Take a small group to sit down and talk with the town manager.
Lobby our state legislator if something has to be changed at the state level. A lot does.
Educate our neighbors. Maybe organize ground-breaking or ribbon-cutting events or an Energy Fair, as a chance to let more local residents understand the good things that are happening.
Put letters and educational ads in local papers.
Be dogged!
I know ClimateDog readers can add dozens of other actions to this list.
Clearing these barriers will involve lots of time and work. But, one thing to keep in mind: if we can help change regulations or local attitudes in our own area, other power companies, other regulators, other media editors and other activists may use what we have done as a model, making it much easier for them to take the same actions faster, maybe even better, where they are.
ACTIVIST BEHAVIORS AND FEELINGS WILL BE DIFFERENT
Anger Climate activists need to adapt to big changes in our roles. Group anger in big protests helped get us where we are, but showing individual anger in local settings will be less effective.
Morale Our whole persona can be much more upbeat and attractive now that we’re championing local tangible stuff, not just bemoaning distant, faceless companies and legislatures.
Activity Most of us, no matter how involved in pushing for climate legislation or other steps, have had little we could do most of the time. Now, for things as concrete and local as a battery bank, a rate cut, a zoning change, a tax holiday, etc., we can find more steps to take every day: talk to our neighbors, write to our local media, organize education events, lobby different regulators, put up yard signs, send out local mailings, arrange for interviews on local media, and more.
Self-confidence It feels a lot different parading in the People’s Climate March along with 311,000 others than standing up to speak at a regulatory hearing. In a coming newsletter, I’ll be suggesting how we can tie in with others to do many of these things in with group support.
I’ve started mentioning the new batteries project to my neighbors. I’m submitting a comment to the planning commission. I’m excited at the chance to actually help those cheap electrons get here to bake my brownies.
READ, THINK, ACT
Here’s a good explanation of how the costs of renewable energy havd dropped so quickly, and how they can drop further as we increase demand and volume.
The North Carolina attack suggests that our opposition is changing tactics too.