So here we are, watching a new but already obsolete methane gas-fueled electric generator being installed to help meet the responsibility of 14 municipal light plants to provide power to meet the peak needs of the electric system. This Project 2015A, the Peabody peaker plant, developed by the Massachusetts Wholesale Electric Company (MMWEC), has no rational basis consistent with public health, environmental concerns, or climate warming. There are better solutions, nonpolluting, more reliable, and less expensive.

But our regulators have not adapted to the changing technology options and do not recognize the danger of the climate crisis in determining policy. The regulators at the regional and national level claim to use competition on price as a means of regulating and serving the common good. But we know that people and institutions motivated by profit tend to be vulnerable to economic and political influence that can punish innovation and harm the public good. Today, we see policies that protect fossil fuel plants that cause harm and create unfair challenges for renewable sources of energy and battery storage.

Guest post by Judith Black

As I listened to their presentations, it was really difficult to understand how they could be allowed to ballyhoo these same technologies year after year, with no real progress, while renewables are here, available, proven, and more affordable. Clearly, their real desire is to maintain the centralized creation, domination, and thus, capitalization of energy production.

This industry is fighting for their lives…not ours.

What will we do for our grandchildren?

On a bright November Saturday, advocates for clean energy from across Massachusetts joined Peabody residents in the "Peabody Peaker Push" at the courthouse in Peabody Square to advocate against the proposed  gas- and oil-fired electric generator (“Project 2015A”).

Among them was Peabody resident Hunter, a  young man of 8 years,  holding a sign that said, “Non Renewable Energy is Peak Stupidity.”

So many social and protest movements have been held together by song and story. Woody Guthrie. Joan Baez. Marion Anderson. Is that tradition only a memory? No longer! We're truly lucky to have a new generation of creative activists, with song and a documentary film.

We need to have a process that can bring together citizens, producers of power, experts in community development, and community organizers.

For the process to be effective, several issues must be addressed at the start.

“Ask not for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.”

Our survival is at risk. The world is on fire, drowning in flood, thirsty in drought, hungry in famine, devastated by tornadoes. Climate change caused by human activities, mainly from burning of fossil fuel—gas and oil, is threatening all of nature along with our civilization. In Peabody, fossil fuel generators and cars harm our health. Is cheap energy worth the disaster?

What can we do in Peabody to address our share of this world problem? We must focus on eliminating all sources of greenhouse gases— that trap heat in the atmosphere and change the climate. Our use of fossil fuel is harming us now and threatens the future of our grandchildren.

Although the Supervisor of Public Records on reconsideration has denied our request to MMWEC for certain public records about Project 2015A, the Peabody peaker, we are planning to continue our efforts through the Superior Court of the Commonwealth. See G. L. c. 66, § 10(b) (pursuing administrative appeal does not limit the availability of applicable judicial remedies).

How can leaders of Peabody, elected officials, faith leaders, and others with prominence in the community justify the negative impacts on health, the environment, and the climate from the proposed peaker plant?

I presented this document to Peabody Mayor Ted Bettencourt in 2012. That's right, nine years ago. Now compare the ideas of 2012 with the ideas in the letter I just wrote to Mayor Bettencourt, in 2021.

Peabody faces an energy challenge. We now depend largely on carbon-based sources of energy, and these pose major challenges: they are expensive and costs are uncertain, supplies are vulnerable, and the use of fossil fuels threatens society as well as all forms of life through greenhouse gases and global warming. But Peabody can seize the opportunity to transition to renewable sources of energy and save money while reducing harm to the environment.

Story: Judith Black, Photography: Rosemary Wessel, BEAT, and Ben Hillman

Rosemary Wessel and Jane Winn are the archers that very competently aim their arrows of justice at pipeline companies and polluters trying to invade their beautiful Berkshires.