By Doug Howell, Sr. Campaign Representative for Beyond Coal
Thanks to our new 100% clean electricity law, coal-power will no longer be allowed in Washington by the end of 2025, the same time the Centralia coal plant will stop operating. Finally, after 15 years, Washington will be coal-free.
In the wake of this victory, we are channelling this momentum towards the next frontier: fracked gas.
Fracked gas is mainly methane, a gas 87 times more damaging than carbon dioxide. One of the biggest consequences of fracking is the alarming leakage rate of unburned methane gas during the drilling, processing, transporting, and storing process. In total, this nearly doubles the climate impact of fracked gas.
This is why Puget Sound Energy – with its gas power plants and gas utility – may be the number one climate polluter in Washington State. Thankfully, Washingtonians are learning that fracked gas sure isn’t “natural,” nor is it a “bridge fuel.” Instead, it causes massive environmental and climate destruction.
And with public opinion turning, it’s no surprise that the gas industry foresees a bleak prognosis. And just with the stages of grief in terminal illness, we expect to see lots of denial and anger.1
But there is a better way.
The gas industry needs to acknowledge two fundamental truths. Firstly, that every credible, long-range study for addressing the climate crisis – whether from Gov. Inslee, President Obama or the United Nations – recommends phasing out gas usage.
Secondly, the gas industry needs to acknowledge that gas causes a massive market failure by not owning up to its true costs of climate impacts. The cost per ton of climate pollution is likely over $100 per ton, yet we pay zero, forcing our children to take the hit for our market failure.
When you account for leaking methane and real carbon costs, gas is just no longer a good deal. It is a simple economic equation: Household or smokestack emissions + leaking methane emissions + $100/ton of carbon pollution = bad economic investments.
The better alternative is for us to work together to find pathways to protect workers, communities, ratepayers and yes, even shareholders as we transition off gas. If the gas industry does not take this path, we will struggle mightily with denial and anger before we move to bargaining, depression and acceptance. The industry’s denial helps no one and workers, communities and ratepayers need to be prioritized over shareholders when they finally face the truth.
We also need to stop making the problem worse. That means we first need to stop expanding the fossil fuel industry. These expansions are now rampant in the gas industry, from methanol in Kalama, to LNG in Tacoma, to pipeline expansions and new buildings hook-ups across the state.
The alternatives abound for gas in electricity and in our buildings and homes. Wind, solar and energy storage are outcompeting gas in the electricity world. For buildings, heat pumps provide longer-term savings over gas. Electric hot water heaters are next. And new electric induction stoves are showing they are better, faster, cleaner and safer than our beloved gas stoves.
We call upon the gas industry, and Puget Sound Energy specifically, to tell the truth about the future, and to move beyond denial and anger. There is a better way and it is up to us citizens and ratepayers to demand it of our utilities and governments.
1. On Death and Dying was made famous by Elisabeth Kubler Ross in her study of terminally-ill patients. There are five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.