Re: Revisions to ISO New England Transmission, Markets and Services Tariff of Buyer-Side Market Power Review and Mitigation Reforms, Docket No. FERC ER22-1528-000
I urge you to require ISO-NE to immediately end the minimum offer price rule (MOPR) and to re-open their forward capacity and forward reserve auctions to all renewables.
Story: Judith Black; Photography: Jerry Halberstadt
We are sleepwalking to climate catastrophe—can we awaken from this nightmare? On April 16, 19, and 21 we climate activists stood out in Peabody Square to say that a new fossil fuel facilities in the year 2022 is an example of
“immoral and economic madness.”— UN Secretary-General António Guterres
Children holding sign, LLuveia and Amaya Luz Segura-Leigh
Do we want a livable planet for ourselves, our children and grandchildren?
This peaker plant, built, would be another nail in the coffin of a livable future. This peaker plant stopped is the beginning of a swift transition to a better tomorrow.
The standout by six hunger strikers, "Fasting for the Future," at Memorial Park in Marblehead on March 17, 2022.
We are concerned about the future of our grandchildren. Their future depends on our rapid action to replace burning fossil fuels to produce energy with renewable energy sources. This goal is essential to mitigate climate disaster and must be met by everyone working together, especially by the government. Therefore we are advocates for a responsive government that serves the public—but people that we trust to do the people’s business are not acting in our interests.
At a time when we must urgently reduce our reliance on fossil fuels such as methane gas and oil to mitigate the looming climate crisis, critical agencies and institutions are fighting a rear guard action that threatens us all.
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.
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.”