Editor’s note: This commentary is by Rob Bast, a former chair and member of the Hinesburg Selectboard and former member of the planning commission. He served as president and board member of the Vermont League of Cities and Towns, and on the board of the Snelling Center, and various boards and committees throughout the state. He is a partner in Bast & Rood Architects of Hinesburg.
[V]ermonters have a strong history of respect for their environment, our community and our duty to all members of society. This ethos centers on striving for a better tomorrow not just for ourselves, but for future generations. But in this regard it’s very important, and sometimes very hard, to avoid letting the perfect become enemy of the good. Building a lasting structure, be it a barn, a business, a state or a country, requires scaffolding and bridges during construction, and making the best within our means. That certainly applies to one of the most fundamental underpinnings of all: energy. Our current society largely depends upon a foundation of various fossil fuels, but research has taught us that each has quantifiable human and environmental costs. We are approaching a point when renewables can fill that role instead, but there is yet a sizable chasm to achieving this for the whole community of Vermonters. Natural gas has a place as a bridge towards that future.
Why we need a bridge
Renewables are rapidly improving, but scaling their production, reducing costs to make them affordable for the poorest, and creating the necessary infrastructure to handle their different properties will still take years. The new solar roofing tiles SolarCity and Tesla are producing that can simply take the place of a typical roof rather than being an installation on top are an example of the kind of disruptive innovation coming along. The technology to simply make renewables and distributed storage (batteries) a normal part of new housing is approaching but it’s not yet widespread, nor is the cost to where it is readily accessible to all Vermonters. Yet we need to bring what action we can starting now.
Natural gas as that bridge
When is a pipeline not just a pipeline? When it is a bridge. Natural gas has a set of attributes which make it an acceptable bridge. It is inherently a lower commitment than coal or oil, it can be used with existing equipment and appliances, it is not expensive, is the least bad of all currently widespread fossil fuels, and has the highest energy ratio per dollar, according to the Energy Information Administration ( EIA.gov). In heating and cooking for Vermont it is a near drop-in replacement for propane, but produces less CO2, is safer and cheaper. It is easy for homeowners to transition to quickly. On the national electrical level, consider that it is largely replacing coal. Coal power plants have an average lifetime right now of 45 years, and new plants cost in the billions each. Coal mines can also last decades. Traditional oil projects are very expensive. But the average fracked wells plummet in capacity after the first few years and then continue a steady decline. If new wells stop being drilled, production tails off in short order. As renewables continue to drop in price and carbon gets better priced, natural gas projects will come to a close much more easily.
Fuel within reach
We have a basic societal responsibility to all our residents including those for whom heating and cooking are heavy financial loads. Natural gas is safe and inexpensive. Unlike propane, natural gas is not heavier than air, so it doesn’t pool in basements and other low points.
As renewables continue to drop in price and carbon gets better priced, natural gas projects will come to a close much more easily.
It can dissipate merely by opening a window. If you run the numbers for cost per BTU vs propane (this varies some with market forces), natural gas is lower by about a factor of three, and can be even more, relative to heating oil.
Coal and oil use affect Vermont
Even without any coal plants here, we are affected by them. Acid rain has been a well documented scourge of our state for decades. Not only does it destroy trees, but we have learned that it also destroys soil. For example, it leaches out bioavailable calcium which does not naturally regenerate in the short term. This results in long term poorer soils even after acid rain is eliminated. Any reversal would take a very long time.
Conclusion
While we are currently experiencing a decent economy, cyclical downturns are inevitable. Moreover, many Vermonters need help now. We also need to be trying to improve the environmental situation now. Dropping all fossil fuel use will require significant home and business renovations, but replacing propane and heating oil use with natural gas is doable for some benefit right away, and the money the state saves for the future and the improvements for residents makes an eventual transition to renewables easier, not harder.
Beyond our borders yet connecting to us, coal causes mass environmental damage, poisons people and cripples generations. It results in the leveling of mountains, the filling of valleys and streams with sludge, and the production of over 120 million tons of heavy metal laden toxic waste a year. It has the highest CO2 emissions while natural gas’ are the lowest. CO2 in the atmosphere is the key, persistent long-term problem of grave concern, while methane, though much more potent, is more short term, persistent only over decades, and easier to contain and prevent. Natural gas and fracking are certainly not without big flaws, which the opponents of Vermont Gas and the Addison Pipeline have noted. But the Addison pipeline is part of a national effort to distribute natural gas. Coal still powers a solid percentage of the manufacturing and distribution that supplies our state, and justice demands that we share the burden of that, not just push it to other states where the “dirty work” happens. Can “environmental” Vermonters really just use organic products harvested with machines built on some miner’s black lung disease and cheerfully say “out of sight out of mind”? Natural gas is more economical than coal, and can supply, for example, power plants which formerly would use coal. Every coal plant eliminated is a vast 24/7 operational pollution source taken down and replaced with a peak-power natural gas plant that operates on an as needed basis. Every such coal plant gone is a win for every being downwind of that plant, and everyone in Vermont.
The clear imperative must be to help as many Vermonters as possible right now while laying down a clear course with yearly milestones for how to use those savings and economic gains for renewables in the future. We need to do our part in curtailing propane and oil usage, as well as coal production and combustion, as rapidly as possible, and nonfossil fuel sources are not yet ready to meet the volume of need. It would be best if natural gas was unneeded, but that isn’t how things have worked out. It will provide a bridge to renewables while doing what no political effort has managed more effectively: eliminate coal plants. Natural gas offers immediate value for our state and country, and opposing pipelines on the grounds of environmental or social responsibility is not justified. Let’s redirect that political energy towards pricing carbon, enhancing Vermont’s infrastructure, and working to make Vermont a national leader that still remembers all of its people.
