John Marks, Esq., Mayor of Tallahassee
Dear Mayor Marks,
We thank you for meeting with representatives of the Big Bend Climate Action Team (BBCAT) last Thursday. As discussed, BBCAT began a long-term effort to work cooperatively with the City’s Energy Services Department before the City’s interest in a coal-fired power plant was announced. Our prime goal remains not to oppose the proposed coal-fired power plant, but to reduce and mitigate the release of greenhouse gases, particularly carbon dioxide.
We seek your leadership in three areas:
1. Fair and Informed Decision Making. The seemingly rapid pace toward a decision regarding the City’s investment in a new coal plant is of great concern.
We appreciate your call for a full public dialogue and your goal that Tallahassee’s energy future be objectively decided on the basis of fact. From our perspective, neither a full dialogue nor an informed decision can occur without more extensive analysis of the available alternatives.1 The apparent plan for a City Commission decision about committing funds to the coal project in early July is far too short for such an outcome.2 Before committing any funds to the proposed coal plant, the commission should institute a procedure in which a balanced presentation3 of the alternatives is made, followed by a full public dialogue. We understand the need to maintain reliable energy service but a hasty decision on coal is not required for that purpose. There is the real prospect of a better option: an energy resource mix developed though the cooperative efforts that began only three weeks ago between City staff and BBCAT’s committed and experienced volunteers.
2. Energy Efficiency. We can and should lower electric bills by by employing more energy-efficiency measures--that is, buying more “negawatts.” Negawatts, or avoided megawatts, should be viewed, not as “lost revenue,” as the City’s accounting system treats them now, but as an alternative means of “generation,” because they reduce or eliminate the need to produce megawatts from power plants.
We appreciate and share your concern about the impact of rising electric bills on low income families.4 The City’s first response to these impacts should be to maximize its investment in energy-efficiency resources that lower bills. Our “conservation” programs are good, but much more can be done to lower bills, and very cost-effectively, by investing in energy efficiency.
As we discussed in your office, the economic test used to screen demand-side measures is pivotal. The test the City uses now is very restrictive—and the City can change it. The Commission should free its staff to more fully explore and more accurately evaluate the available efficiency options and institute those that will lower energy bills. Programs to buy these least-cost “negawatts” can be designed to ensure that all customers share in the bill reductions that are produced. Community consensus on this seems clear: the City’s own surveys confirm that residential, commercial, and industrial customers alike are pleased when the City helps them reduce energy bills, and they want more of this type of energy service. Bill savings from efficiency can also be used as an economic development tool, both to help grow local businesses and to attract the new business into the community. The Commission should direct its utility staff to invest, at minimum, in all efficiency programs that cost less than generation alternatives.
3. Renewable Energy. Tallahassee can benefit in many ways by making renewables a growing part of our energy resource mix. Renewables, like efficiency, diversify the mix and produce local jobs by employing local designers, installers, and maintenance people in contrast to importing fossil fuels or electricity from outside the City. Since renewables involve zero fuel costs (e.g., solar) or fuel costs that are different from the costs associated with agas or coal plant (e.g., biomass), adding renewables to our energy mix helps to stabilize electric rates from the volatility associated with fuel prices.
Other cities have taken a leadership role and Tallahassee should also—by planning to increase the clean renewables in its energy resource mix by 2% or more every year from now on.5 Jacksonville has made a commitment like this, and it has led to many popular projects, such as solar photovoltaic panels, and companion educational units for all of its high schools. Lakeland now profits by selling the environmental attributes of its innovative solar hot water program on the “green tags” market. Cities in other states (including but not limited to Austin, Texas, which City officials have cited as a model for Tallahassee) offer many more inspiring examples, and our BBCAT team is hastening to get together a packet of examples for you and staff to examine.
Again, we thank you for meeting with us. We listened carefully to what you said and believe that you did likewise. We know that you want the best for our community, and we certainly do, too. We look forward to an ongoing dialogue with you as to what “the best” really is.
Sincerely,
[signed by all the CATs]
Copies to:
City Commissioners
Anita Favors, City Manager
Ric Fernandez, Assistant City Manager
Kevin Wailes, General Manager, Electric Utility
[As the Mayor requested, we attached the affiliations of the founding members of the Big Bend Climate Action Team (BBCAT) and added “BBCAT’s founders are all long-term residents of this community. Also, we are proud to report that only a day and a half after learning of our efforts, more than 50 other citizens have asked to become our Allies.”]
Footnotes:
1. We believe an informed decision can be made only after a complete analysis of the costs and benefits of other energy planning options, particularly those options that will influence the date and quantity of the need for additional generation. Needing analysis are: the level of investment in demand-side efficiency resources, the reserve margin, and the alternatives to coal generation—notably renewable energy alternatives and natural gas.
2. BBCAT’s efforts have not yielded a firm answer as to when the vote is scheduled. It appears that the City plans a decision after only two public hearings within a week of each other, conducted less than six weeks after the coal proposal was first announced. Such a rapid pace does not allow sufficient time to get the facts out. Before making a significant investment of tax dollars, the City should insure that Tallahassee residents have been given pertinent information including, but not limited to, the following:
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The impact on electricity bills of the capital costs of the proposed plant,
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Projected future costs of coal as compared with other fuels and demand-side measures
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Estimates of pollution increases
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The economic impacts of pollution increases on health care costs and affected industries
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Alternative strategies to meet projected demand.
3. The rapid pace at which the coal decision appears to be proceeding, particularly since it is coupled with fairly frequent broadcast of a program on the City’s TV station which focuses most on the choice between coal and gas (and which some label as a coal PR campaign “puff piece”) are provoking a very strong emotion-based opposition that could lead to a community split/upheaval that we would all want to avoid.
4. We’d like very much to meet with you again to further explain concerns about
the health impacts of mercury in the lakes and rivers that low-income families in our community often rely upon for fish as a staple food in their diets. Nearly all our local lakes and rivers are already so polluted by mercury that state government advisories limit or ban eating of fish caught from them: Lake Iamonia, Lake Talquin, Lake Miccosukee, Piney Z Lake, and the Ochlockonee, Aucilla, St. Marks, Wakulla, and Apalachicola Rivers are examples. A coal plant , even one that meets environmental permit standards, would add significantly to the already severe pollution of our local waters with mercury.
5. The last time Tallahassee considered a coal plant, a commitment was made that renewables would play a larger role in meeting Tallahassee’s future energy supplies, although they have not come to play such a role. |