Author: arbriggle

The Religious Liberty Accommodations Act signed into law by Mississippi Gov. Phil Bryant protects people from state sanctions when they act on “sincerely held religious beliefs or moral convictions.” The bill makes it lawful for people (whether judge, florist, limousine driver, or disc-jockey) to refuse to participate in same-sex marriages. Religious organizations can refuse employment, housing, and services to LGBT persons. Doctors can refuse certain treatments for transgender individuals. Employers and schools can require transgender individuals to dress in ways and use restrooms that do not match their gender identity.

Many have rightly denounced the bill. Yet its most dangerous aspect has not been highlighted: it clothes discrimination against transgender people in the authoritative garb of science. In so doing, it raises some of the ugliest specters in the history of modern oppression. Eugenics, racism, slavery, sexism – science has long been used to justify dehumanization and discrimination.

One of the beliefs protected by this law is that “Male (man) or female (woman) refer to an individual’s immutable biological sex as objectively determined by anatomy and genetics at time of birth.” With this appeal to the scientific terms of biology, genetics, anatomy, and objectivity, the bill seeks to accomplish the old sleight of hand whereby nature displaces politics. The Mississippi legislature has not decided who shall count as male and female – they are only the modest witnesses to what Mother Nature has already unalterably inscribed!

Inconveniently for them, this sincerely held belief about the ‘immutable’ binary of sex is wrong. Indeed, it’s just as wrong as Ron Burgundy’s blithe pronouncement that women have brains one third the size of men. “It’s science,” he says with that lovable confidence of a dunce unaware of his own density.

Like the chauvinist 1970s anchorman, the people behind this bill don’t really care or know much about the science of sex. They just want a sledgehammer to put an end to an argument that has gotten too complex for them and pushed them out of their comfort zone. As we all know, “It’s anchor-man, not anchor-lady. That is a scientific fact!”

Still it’s worth pointing out just how much evidence there is against the belief that male and female are objectively determined by biology. There are human chimeras like one pregnant woman who found out in her forties that a significant portion of her body is actually chromosomally male. Nearly everyone is a mosaic of genetically distinct cells, some with a sex that doesn’t match the rest of the body. Roughly one in 100 individuals has some form of differences of sex development (DSDs). Some of these people have a sexual anatomy that says one thing and chromosomes that say something else. There are individuals who are genetically XX but who develop as males if they have a copy of a certain gene.

Men often carry cells from their mothers and mothers carry cells from their sons, which might actually integrate into their tissues and adopt a working role in the body. Then there are those cases where grown men who are XY with normal external male genitalia discover they also have a fully functioning uterus and ovaries. And of course all of this is not even to mention that gender is the quest for personal identity, a moral and psychological saga that overlays its own intricacies atop this jumbled biological bazaar.

That announcement at the time of birth (It’s a boy!) is not an objective determination based on the dictates of chromosomes and their anatomical expression. It’s a snap judgment based on a first look – in many ways, the opposite of science.  Our bodies are not blank slates, to be sure. We each have a nature that we spend a lifetime responding to – refining, resisting, seeking, exploring. We don’t determine our chromosomes. But neither do they determine us. Our personal identity, including our gender identity, is a personal project shaped, but not fated, by our biology.

“He created them male and female, and he blessed them and called them human” (Gen. 5:2). There are two poles, male and female, that anchor a stable cosmic order where one can feel at home. That’s the basis of this sincerely held belief. I understand the urge to ward off the disorienting thrust of what seems like a nihilistic culture. And I can see the strategy of trying to galvanize deeply felt intuitions (what Aristotle called nous, or worldviews) with science, which is the authoritative voice of that culture.

But this isn’t just dangerous and wrong; it’s nonsense. For science, no belief, no matter how sacred or ensconced in tradition, is beyond critical examination. Science is the last place to look for refuge. All convictions live with their necks in the guillotine. Objectivity is not a shield to guard established truths, but the shining blade poised overhead. And science is beheading old beliefs about immutable sex and gender binaries.

Religious liberty has become the conservative flavor of PC culture – a censorious wall protecting beliefs from the harsh light of examination. It’s state sanctioned confirmation bias, as if we don’t have enough of that in the age of personalized media. We don’t really know what’s going on with sex and gender. We just know it is more freaky and complex than we once assumed. Insofar as science can inform our policies, it can’t be as a brine to pickle outdated ideas, but as a model of humility in the face of a changing world.

A couple of days ago, I made an argument that we might be able to restructure our capital investment schedule to make the 100% renewable option more affordable. Brian Daskam with Denton Municipal Electric wrote to me today with a reply and I’d like to share it here. So, here is his note to me:

(this post written with the  help of Devin Taylor)

I have often heard it said that it will cost too much for Denton to go to 100% renewable energy. But will it?

The chart below shows that the 100% option would cost roughly 0.6 c/kwh more than the Renewable Denton Plan (which entails building two gas plants). That’s about a 5% rate hike.

Now while some in the city have been saying that we cannot afford this, the city just imposed a 5% rate hike through a capital expenditure program.

Annual capital expenditures for DME were $24 M/yr. in the time period 2010-2014 (p. 223). That jumped to $80 M/yr. in the time period 2015-2019 (p. 304). The debt service in 2012 was $19 M/yr. (p. 12). The debt service in 2016 is $29M/yr. (p. 12). That additional $10 M/yr. of debt service works out to the same as the 5% rate hike it would take to get us to 100% renewables.

To put it bluntly: it seems we are willing to put a 5% rate hike in place with little public discussion. But when it comes to renewables, a similar rate hike is a conversation stopper. Why is that?

Let’s say we have a $175/month electric bill (this is actually the total annual budget of DME in millions, so you can read this example as a fictional rate payer or just put it in millions and you’ve got how this all pays out in the aggregate for DME). The raw power is about half, or $90 per month (that is, $90 million/year for DME). Operations and maintenance cost about $39. Franchise fee is $7. Another $5 goes to paying down the investment in the TMPA coal plant. Another $5 goes to non-operating expenses. And $29 goes to paying the mortgage, the loan that we used to buy our transmission lines and substations.

Going to 100% renewable would cost $9.50 a month more. But DME has already made decisions since 2010 that have had an even bigger impact on our bill. In 2010, the mortgage portion of our bill was half what it is now, or $15 instead of $29. And that $29 is going to grow over the next 5 years, because of a planned upgrade and expansion of the Denton grid.

Until 2010 or so, we were able to expand and repair infrastructure at a rate that allowed us to pay off our mortgage as we went along. But old parts of the grid started to operate past their rated life and demand was increasing. So the decision was made to upgrade all of our substations and increase the power available in all parts of the city.

Yet at the same time, DME launched an expansion project to build substations in areas where growth is expected. It’s as if we have an old house and we decided to remodel it and at the same time build an addition on the west side. This makes some economic sense and it takes advantage of current low interest rates. But it also makes for a bigger mortgage. Our mortgage was $19 a month in 2010, it is $29 a month in 2016, and it will be around $45 a month in 2021 (the last figure is an estimate).

So, the $9.50/month to go 100% renewable needs to be seen in the context of  this $26/month remodel and expansion (going from $19 to $45).

Now, of course, we need a remodel, and we will need to expand. But we could do the remodel first, then the expansion incrementally. Even the remodel could be slowed down, which would lower the mortgage payment. I wonder if we couldn’t trim the mortgage to enough to buy us the $9.50 needed to go to 100% renewable without any rate hike.

Indeed, although some of these increased debt services are already baked into the cake, others are not. We could adjust our infrastructure plans to absorb the extra cost of going to 100% without sacrificing the reliability of our grid.

The rate hike associated with 100% is always pitched against this unspoken background of planned infrastructure work and the associated debt. The conversation assumes that all of that is going to go forward as planned so that we would be talking about adding $9.50 per month on top of the already budgeted $30 extra per month. It’s like saying (to press the metaphor) that we can’t afford to put solar panels on the roof of our newly remodeled and expanded home, because the work already budgeted now means the extra cost of the panels is out of reach. But we could adjust the capital expenditure plans to make room for the solar panels in the budget.

This doesn’t have to be about burdening lower income families and the big 100 corporate customers of DME with a 5% rate hike. This can be about prioritizing 100% renewables in our budget – finding room for it by slowing down some of our infrastructure plans.

I know most of the conversation has been about the quest for that magic technological bullet – maybe batteries or concentrated solar power – that would somehow make the 100% renewable option cheaper than what DME claims. But perhaps the conversation should be about the capital expenditure side of the equation, not the technology side.

In summary: It seems like we can reduce the mortgage portion of our electricity bill by the equivalent of the 5% needed to pay for 100% renewable power. We can do so without jeopardizing reliability.

Now, if I am wrong, someone please let me know how. If I am right, then I think we should restructure our financing plans, because I think avoiding the new sources of air pollution is worth it. I think it is worth it to avoid adding more fossil fuel infrastructure. I think the reputation Denton will gain is worth it.

Josh Fox’s new film about climate change is an aesthetic jolt and a moral gong. The first half hauls you along in a locomotive of bad news about the planet, accelerating and crashing into a wall of despair. Climate change is a waking nightmare.

The second half doesn’t lift the rock of anxious gloom. It doesn’t say that we’ll all be alright if we just change our light bulbs. Rather, it tries to sculpt that heavy fear into an anchor of resolve. It tells stories of the virtues we need if we are to overcome: courage, creativity, democracy, and most importantly – joy. It is said that the warrior can only keep fighting because he knows he is already dead. You have to let go of self. Our situation is the result of our inability to manage desire. “Development” multiplies desires and transforms them into needs. But we are the ones who are under-developed – spiritually shallow, debilitated by needs, distracted by things.

I wonder about climate change and children. How and when to tell them the bad news? It’s like Santa Claus – all that so-called supernatural activity was just us. All those so-called natural disasters are just us. Welcome to cold hard reality…our gift to you is an existential question the likes of which the human race has never before seen. Good luck, kid.

The framing of the film is one that resonates with little d. It begins with Fox celebrating a local victory over fracking. He dances and then wants to rest easy but cannot, because the global catastrophe of climate change won’t leave his home alone. We too cannot rest.

The Renewable Denton Plan is our moment of truth about the climate. If we are to do our part, we need to get this decision right. I so desperately want us to get this decision right.

It’s tough, because RDP is being sold as a climate fix of major proportions: 74% reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. But the resistance to it is largely from those concerned about the climate: That figure isn’t right or it’s not good enough.

We’ve got to figure this out. I don’t care about rancor and animosity along the way as long as we get this right.

At this point, we are thinking about how to structure the independent review of the plan. So, here are some of my ideas.

It needs to be conducted by a competent and trustworthy organization that has no dog in the fight. They need to report to City Council and have access to all relevant information.

I think they should answer the following questions:

1. Do you agree with the cost and emission estimates from DME for all the scenarios they have put forward?
2. What other scenarios can achieve the stated goal of cost-effectively maximizing renewables (or reducing reliance on fossil fuels)?
3. Do you concur that the California health impact study is a reliable analogue to the proposed RDP scenario?

For example, will the 100% renewable option cost as much as DME says it will (or will it cost less…or more)? If you think it will be different, why? Will the RDP cost what DME says it will and will it have the emissions reductions claimed? What about the 83% plan? The 70% one? Etc.

Is there a cost-effective strategy that could allow us to phase in new batteries and renewables over time to be genuinely (no fossil back-up) 100% renewable by 2030? If so, what do the short-term emissions look like as we ramp up…does this lock us into Gibbons Creek?

If there are differences in findings, we need to brace for a dueling expert situation. It’s not likely that differences will be the result of simple math errors. Rather, they’ll will hinge on different methods, assumptions, data-sets, projections, etc. For example, there are different projections for the price of natural gas across the next fifty years. Ditto for renewables and batteries. We’ll be in a position of trying to judge which assumptions, methods, and projections are most sound and we can’t appeal to the experts, because they will be in disagreement. That’s ok – it’s the day-to-day stuff of courtroom battles and science policy debates – I’m just saying we should be ready to shoulder this work as the stuff of democracy and community self-determination.

If an independent review confirms RDP as the most cost-effective way to slash GHG emissions, then do we swallow hard and embrace the counter-intuitive position of building gas plants to save the climate?

I don’t know…partly because “cost-effective” is ambiguous. Just how much of a rate hike is morally acceptable? Hopefully we won’t need to raise rates at all to meet strong climate goals. But what if, for example, an independent review concurs with DME about the costs of the 100% or 83% options? Is that kind of rate hike morally acceptable…what would it mean…lost jobs and tax revenue…harm to the poor…or might it spawn a boom resulting from the leadership image we’d cultivate…could we finagle the rate structure to shelter the vulnerable from economic hardship…?

I do not want fracked-gas power plants built in Denton. I want to do our part to address climate change. The ideal scenario: a cost-effective plan that slashes emissions more than RDP without building gas plants. I’m glad we are taking our time to see if we can find that solution. I so hope it is out there.

When MG started Taekwondo he was four and we called him Gracie. We were learning to spell words back then and there was a song I used to sing: “G-R-A-C-I-E. That. Spells. Gracie!” I’m not much of a singer but somehow that simple tune became the scaffold for a certain period of his childhood. Memories are attached to it – bath time, Bat Man, Diego, wrestling. And  the introduction of baby sister Lulu who would become a fourth planet in our family solar system…another place my heart would live.

Denton Taekwondo Academy is in a strip mall on Ave. C and Eagle. It has glass windows and a glass door that face south into the squelching heat of a potholed parking lot. We’ve been there, I would guess, over 200 times in the past four years. Twice a week for forty-five minute training sessions. Nearly half his life with some breaks here and there.

The place is not much to look at: the ceiling is stained, the blinds are dusty, the carpet is worn and ragged. But what happens inside is magical. Young kids – slowly and by degrees, imperceptibly in the same way the sun crawls from east to west – are transformed from bundles of inarticulate movements into artists who wield their bodies like brushes across the canvass of spacetime. Loose, jumbly limbs and jittery goofballs become crisp, pointed knives slicing the air with hand and foot. The place is a forge – a smithy of young souls.

The instructors, Mr. and Mrs. Rogers, exercise the most beautiful, difficult kind of love. Day by day tending to the children – adjusting knees and elbows as well as attitudes and perspectives. Straightening the crooked timbers as only foresters can do – with patience and a keen eye for the subtle emergence of new growth on green and pliable limbs.

The air conditioner is really only strong enough to cool the area where the kids work out behind a window cut through a wall. The parents sit closer to the front door where the mad sun cooks their backs as they work on computers or dither on their phones. They may glance up just in time to see their child do their 5,000^th repetition of a punch. This time better, but not better in a way that can be noticed just yet.

For her whole life, Lulu has laid down, then sat, then crawled, then walked, then jumped around the flat grey carpet behind the chairs by the front door. She’s had every toy from their little toy basket in her mouth. She’s colored on all the books. And Amber and I have sat on the carpet sometimes watching, sometimes swinging her around, sometimes stealing glances at our own phones. While from the other side of the room, from behind the wall with the Korean flag that everyone must bow to in a sign of respect, we would hear the cries “Ha-ya!” “Huhh!” “Hee-ya!” “Ai-ya!” Each little voice inflected and projected differently in a guttural chorus. Knife-hand guarding block. Down block. Spin twirl kick.

You start out as a white belt and you look up up up at the impossible rainbow of colors. It’s a sequence through yellow and green and on to blue and then red and most impossible of all – black. You see what red and black belts can do with their bodies and then you look at this zany sprocket of a little kid and you think, “no way.” Legend has it that in the beginning there were not different colors of belts – students just wore the white belt and trained and sweated for so many years that eventually it yellowed and browned and became black with the very soil of self-making. The belt changes color in symmetry with your body and soul. As you move up in rank you move up not just in physical skill but also in nobility. “You are not just memorizing the steps,” Mrs. Rogers once told them as they stretched before class, “You are pushing past that point to sink into a zone where the form is so beautiful, so perfectly executed, that it becomes formless.” You push yourself until you drop out of yourself.

My favorite part of Taekwondo is watching the whole class perform a pattern in unison at the count of Mr. and Mrs. Rogers. “One!” they yell and a room full of legs drops into a back stance with arms raised up as if holding a staff to ward off the blow from an imaginary attacker. “Two!” and they spin and thrust their leg into his imaginary stomach. All the way to “Nineteen!” with a room full of “Yaaa!” as arms come rocketing out of their chambers to deal a blow to the solar plexus. At the end of every class, the students face the Korean flag at the back of the room and straighten their uniforms. Then they face the high rank and bow. Then they face the instructor and bow. Then they recite in unison the student oath: “Sir, I shall observe the tenets of Taekwondo…I shall be a champion of freedom and justice!…” Then they recite the tenets: “Sir! Courtesy, integrity, perseverance, self-control, indomitable spirit, victory, Sir!”

It is disciplined and militaristic. It is the dance and shout of warriors. It is precisely what children need in an age of distraction and disposable, digital experiences. The mind must find its focus if it is to blossom. The body must swirl down like the helicoptered maple seeds into a hallow place in the forest floor if it is to make roots to hold up the tower of adulthood.

In the mornings, I would wake MG for school with another simple song: “Good morning little Gracie. How arrrrre you today? Gooooood morning little Gracie. I hope you’re good in every waaaaay!” He would kick at the covers on the top bunk under the blue canopy and tell me to go away. Grouchy as hell. Lulu would stir from the bunk below and hold up her arms for me to carry her to the couch. Eventually MG would roll out of bed and down the wooden steps. And I’d wonder what neurons would form today and which muscles. New filaments of actin and myosin to act as hammer and ratchet moving bones, which themselves are accumulating invisibly like coral in the ocean.

I’d think about the white belt pattern, Chunji, or Dan-Goon Hyung, the yellow belt pattern, and wonder at similitudes. Are these patterns emulated in cells and tissues? Are there neural pathways that mirror them? Do neurotransmitters do something like a spin twirl kick? Is there a Chunji-shaped vine that ropes around his muscles? As above, so below. I wonder about the twinship of self and cosmos. Bone is rock. Blood is river. Organs are the seven precious metals. Our bodies are the atlas of our experience. Here is a child in white pants with a blue belt. Here are the clouds and sky. Here is a child with a red belt. Here is the volcano. Here is a child looking up at the black belt – the black sky – the stars of our greater potential.

Everything fades. Everything rusts. But for now let it be known that this child has, with growing determination, climbed a long way up that rainbow. I wonder what he can see from up there.

Thanks to Rita Beving for providing the information below about the oil and gas lease sale near Lake Lewisville. Everything you need to know to write your own letter of protest.

From Rita: Below is this “Sample Letter” for writing the BLM as a citizen. There are some things that really need to be in here to make it count and it’s all included on the sample letter:

1) Addressed to Ms. Leuders at BLM

2) Parcel # and docket

3) State that you are “protesting” the sale of the lease

4) State how you are personally affected or how you are an affected party

– Lake Lewisville provides me/my family water

– I recreate at Lake Lewisville (boat, hike, picnic, run, etc.)

– I own property near the Lake

– I am worried about the emissions and how this could affect my asthma due to poor air quality.

5) State that the parcel should be pulled – and that the Environmental Assessment does not meet the requirements of the National Environmental Protection Act.

(The last paragraph in the sample letter has very important language.)

6) You must include your name, your address, and I suggest your phone number and email.

People might want to raise other issues, but it is very important they say how they are personally impacted – and their family.

ISSUES OF CONCERN for WRITING THE BLM:

Often when you write a letter to protest a state or federal permit re: an issue such as this, you need to include certain elements in your letter for it to legally “count” for that agency’s consideration. If all the elements are not included, then they can dismiss your letter.

Though a letter has already been sent in asking for a delay of the sale, it is important that the public send in a letter of “protest” regarding the proposed lease.

If you have a copy of the Environmental Assessment (EA), turn to page 7-8 and you will see a list of questions and issues listed in the EA doc below to address:

The pdf is called: April 2016 OB Lease Sale EA_30 day public comment.pdf

The following issues are listed on page 6-7 of the Environmental Assessment (EA). The issues listed by the BLM as those they charged to examined and addressed as required by the National Environmental Protection Act. The BLM lists these issues of review including the question “What effects will the proposed action have on…the following:

• Air Pollution/contaminants
• Watershed and Water quality
• Soil loss and contamination
• Floodplains
• Wetlands
• Farmlands
• Artifacts/Cultural Resources
• Spread of Non-Native animal or plant species
• Threatened/Endangered species
• Migratory birds
• Wildlife/Habitat
• Contamination of proposed lease parcel
• Climate Change
• Visual quality of the area
• Recreation area/Recreation Impacts
• State/local economies
• Minorities/Low Income Populations

Areas the BLM claim they addressed and dismissed were:

• Public Health and Safety
• Right-of-Way
• Areas of Critical Environmental concern
• And others (see page 7 of the Environmental Assessment)

SAMPLE LETTER

Amy Lueders

Bureau of Land Management

New Mexico State Office

P.O. Box 27115

Santa Fe, NM 87502-0115

February 11, 2016

Re: Protest of April 20, 2016 Lease Sale

Dear Ms. Lueders:

I am filing this Protest of the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) planned April 20, 2016 oil and gas lease sale and Environmental Assessment DOI-BLM-NM-040-2015-61-EA, pursuant to 43 C.F.R. § 3120.1-3.

I formally protest the inclusion of the following parcel, NM- 201603-43, covering a total of 258.9 acres. The proposed parcel is on/adjacent to Lewisville Lake.

I am filing this protest on behalf of [myself, my family, my business] . My [name] is and I live at [address/zip] and I can be reached at [phone]. My email is [email].

[there needs to be a statement here as to the person’s interests—e.g., I live near the Lake, I am a property owner here, I visit the Lake on the weekends, I live in Highland Village (or Denton) and my water comes from the Lake…etc.]

The reason I feel I am an affected party by the auction of the 10-year mineral lease on the property is due to the following [concerns]:

1) Highland Village obtains its drinking water supply from Lake Lewisville and public water wells near the lake. I am worried about the contamination of our drinking water through possible drilling runoff from the site. The possible migration of contaminants through our aquifers could also impair our public water wells.

2) I am also concerned about the potential for increased seismicity from added drilling in and around Lake Lewisville. The Lewisville dam is currently under repair after a 161-foot long, 23-foot wide slide on an earthen embankment this past spring. Additional drilling or the migration of drilling fluids along existing fault areas below the lake could negatively impact the integrity of the dam’s infrastructure.

The Environmental Assessment for this proposed lease sale is substantially and procedurally flawed. There was no analysis of how drilling, fracking, or wastewater injection could impact the Woodbine, Trinity or Paluxy aquifers in relation to this parcel. The EA does not address the soils or the geology regarding this Lake Lewisville parcel along with other important issues. Therefore, BLM’s offer of this parcel is unlawful as it fails to sufficiently address the above issues as required by the National Environmental Protection Act (NEPA). Please pull this parcel from the April 20 auction. Do not put my family’s water, health, and well-being at risk.

Sincerely,

[Name – Include Complete Address/Phone/Email]

OTHER ISSUES TO RAISE IN YOU LETTER

AIR POLLUTION – Denton county is is designated as “serious” as part of a 10-county nonattainment area for not having healthy air under the federal Clean Air Act. In early 2015, the EPA took public comments regarding elevating the 10-county DFW area to “severe.” Any drilling air emissions will only add to our unhealthy air quality.

In DFW during summer months, the wind primarily blows from southeast to northwest any pollution could impact the Denton airport monitor, which has the worst air pollution readings consistently in our region.

If you have someone in your family whose health may be impacted ie. asthma by oil and gas operations on this parcel, feel free to address that.

LOCAL ECONOMICS ­– If your business or the city’s local economy may be impacted should this parcel be contaminated, etc. feel free to mention that.

WATER POLLUTION – A 2015 peer-reviewed study by Dr. Zachariah Hildenbrand and others, “A Comprehensive Analysis of Groundwater Quality in the Barnett Shale” gives indications that fracking compounds have been detected in water samples near wells sites in an analysis of more than 500 samples in the Barnett shale. Some of this sampling was done in Denton county.

SOIL/DAM IMPACTS– A 2013 presentation by Anita Branch of the Army Corps of Engineers identified new issues of concern in the relationship to dams and drilling. These issues include induced seismicity (earthquakes), the transmission of fracking fluids outside the target zone via natural faults underground, and the disposal of flowback water raising the potential for ground and surface water contamination.

The presentation by the Corps further added that “[e]rosion of the embankment along existing faults located in the foundation, abutments or outlet works [that] could lead to project failure… [and] an uncontrolled loss of pool or flood storage.” In other words, a breach in a dam.

RECREATION IMPACTS – If you recreate, run, or boat at Lewisville Lake, feel free to discuss how the impacts that drilling on this parcel could negatively impact you and your family’s ability to recreate.

WILDLIFE/MIGRATORY BIRDS – The whooping crane and the least interior tern are on the endangered species list and have been seen on Lewisville Lake (see DFW Urban Wildlife website)

CLIMATE CHANGE – The lifecycle of natural gas drilling heightens the effects of climate change. From the clearing of the well pad to drilling, fracking, storage and combustion, we do not need to add to this problem.

Methane is 86 times more potent than carbon dioxide. It is a trigger for the creation of ozone- and is hazardous to human health.

A July 2015 study, “Come Heat and High Water: Climate Risk in the Southeastern U.S.” found that Texas will be one of the states most negatively impacted by climate change by mid-century absent any changes.  The study forecasted more hot days, heat-related deaths, sea rise along Texas shoreline, and an annual storm damage increases of at least $650 million due to increased storm related loss and damage along the Texas coast.

COPY CONGRESSMAN MICHAEL BURGESS

You may want to copy Congressman Michael Burgess on this letter and ask him to send a letter of protest or ask the BLM to pull this parcel by copying his staff on your letter:

His staff contacts include:

Kelle Strickland – DC Chief of Staff

Kelle.strickland@mail.house.gov

Erik With – Local District Chief of Staff

Erik.with@mail.house.gov

Melanie Torres- Director of Constituent Services

Melanie.torres@mail.house.gov

The DRC story about the petition filed to recall Kevin Roden got me wondering. What is representative democracy?

The petition listed only one grievance against Kevin (quoting from the story) “his disregard of the citizens’ initiative to ban hydraulic fracturing in the city limits in 2014 and his subsequent vote to repeal the ban in 2015.”

A lot of people who voted for the ban didn’t like seeing it repealed. Kevin (along with Dalton Gregory) cast the most public vote for the ban back on July 15^th, 2014 at the public hearing. He didn’t like seeing it repealed either. Nor did I. But I understood why he made that decision – he and five other council members.

I was part of a group serving as interveners in the lawsuits against the city at that time. That position gave me privileged access to legal advice – kind of like the access that Councilmembers have. We had lawyers from great organizations that work hard to protect communities including by defending local fracking bans. They didn’t want to see the ban repealed either. But they told us in no uncertain terms that it was the wise choice – the best move left under the new circumstances created by HB 40.

I wrote about this some time ago. My point here isn’t to rehash the details of that decision. Rather, I want to use it to talk more broadly about democracy in a complex modern society.

The political theorist E.E. Schattschneider wrote that “Democracy is like nearly everything else we do; it is a form of collaboration between ignorant people and experts.” Our City Councilors make decisions about roads, electricity, development, drainage, tax incentives, property taxes, water, landfills, and much more. In every case, there are experts who devote their professional careers to running the complex legal and technical systems involved. They comprise our city staff as well as various outside consultants.

City Council is such a time-demanding job, because there is a constant need to get trained up on the ins and outs of all these issues. In the collaboration between ignorant people and experts, City Councilors become the middlemen and middlewomen. They acquire what some call “interactional expertise,” meaning they can talk shop with the experts and understand what they are saying, even if they cannot contribute new ideas to the field under study.

Now, of course, there are also some residents who have interactional expertise in various areas. A few residents even have full “contributory expertise” in this or that field – think of Vicki Oppenheim and Tom La Point who served on the gas well task force as just two examples. Yet the vast majority of Denton’s population has little ability to interact with and understand the issues at hand in the level of detail required for making wise decisions. They simply don’t have the time to get trained up.

Yet, we don’t want to live in a technocracy (rule by experts), because the values questions that are rightly the province of the people (demos) are always all mashed up with the technical questions. Just think about the Renewable Denton Plan as only one example — obviously lots of technical stuff, but also fundamental moral questions about how to prioritize values. We cannot let our increasingly powerful means dictate our ends.

The reality of our dependence on complex systems, however, means that we also cannot decide on the ends in complete ignorance of the means. If every decision that Council made was instead made by popular vote, it wouldn’t just be impractical. It would also be unwise, because making good decisions hinges on a grasp of the technicalities.

I think this is the balancing act that representative democracy is supposed to play. On one hand, there is a danger that our elected officials get too complacent in the face of the sometimes overwhelming authority of expertise. Claims to privileged knowledge can at times slip into dogma and the representative must do his or her best to suss this out. There may be legitimate alternative ways of seeing the issue.

On the other hand, there is a danger that our elected officials get too complacent in the face of the sometimes overwhelming force of citizen opinion. It may be that the people do not understand the issue and the ramifications of different choices. What they are asking for may in fact go against their own good. Or what a vocal minority demands may go against the greater good of Denton. Then you ask yourself, “Am I here to do right by my city or to get re-elected?” Because even in a democracy sometimes the right vote isn’t the popular one.

That’s my read of the fracking ban repeal. It was strongly opposed by a faction that, in my opinion, didn’t understand the odds and the stakes. Sure, I could be wrong…but that would mean that many highly experienced and deeply sympathetic lawyers were wrong.

When we elect someone we certainly do so because we believe he or she shares our values. But I also think we do so because he or she has the capacity of judgment to understand how those values are best realized in any given circumstance. That judgment will require listening to and questioning both the experts and your constituents.

I think some people expect their elected representatives to be more like mirrors than judges: “I don’t care what you have learned from the (so-called) experts, we don’t like this, so your vote is NO!”

But if that’s the attitude, then why should our representatives spend all that time in all those meetings getting trained up on all the complexities? The job only makes sense if you study and learn new things and consider how your general values best take particular shape in a variety of circumstances. That process might at times lead you to conclusions that are unpopular. I think at that point, the right thing to do is to explain your position as best you can, vote as your judgment dictates, and let the political chips fall where they may.

Note: Here is a quick essay I wrote for my ethics class today…not polished and not sure I completely agree with all these points, but wanted to throw it out there. The point was to model a short essay…particularly one that touches on a subject in a way that Aristotle might (for you nerds, think ‘telos’ for ‘purpose’ below).

The confederate soldier monument on the Denton courthouse square should be removed and placed in a museum. Now, that may prove to be a political impossibility or perhaps a practical impossibility (i.e., it may crumble into pieces with an attempted move). If that is the case, then a compensatory monument should be erected on the north side of the square. It should celebrate the progress of civil rights and racial justice in this country, even though that is a halting and incomplete journey.

Either way, we can no longer steer the path of the status quo. The reasons have to do with both purpose and place.

First, the purpose of a monument is not just for remembering and educating but also for honoring. In this case, the remembering is all well and good. The civil war is indeed part of our history, and such a vital part that we should never forget it or the people who died in it and lived through it. Doubtlessly, many of those people displayed virtues that are worthy of honor as well as remembrance.

But I don’t think this is so in the case of “our confederate soldiers.” Their courage and sacrifice were in defense of a way of life centered on dehumanizing, oppressing, and plundering an entire race of people. The cause, in this case, infects the virtues and renders them into vices. There is no honor in fighting bravely for the supposed right to rob others of their freedom. To honor them with a monument is to honor the brutality that was slavery. We should remember our shameful past – in textbooks and museums – but we should not glorify it.

The second reason to remove the monument has to do with the character of the downtown square. This is the heart of Denton, the focal point that gathers us as a people. It is where we come together in celebration with music and ritual. It is the symbol of who we are as a community.

The confederate statue is the only monument on the square other than a veterans memorial (and John B. Denton’s grave, though that is not as visually prominent). It gives the false impression that somehow the confederacy is of such defining importance to our identity that it should be the one of only two monuments thrusting above the heads in the crowds at twilight tunes, at the 4^th of July Parade, or at the holiday tree lighting festival. But it does not represent us – certainly not the best that is in us or that has come from this place. It is not so singularly defining as to merit its unique prominence at the very hearth of our community.

When it comes to the discussion about the Renewable Denton Plan (RDP), I feel like someone opened up the Apollo mission to citizen involvement and we’re all sitting around looking at specs for rocket boosters as if we know what the f*** we’re doing.

Had the technical details of that plan been debated and voted on, it may very well have led to a disaster. Misunderstanding and suspicion on the part of the people might have led to political pressure to alter some things that shouldn’t be altered. Or imagine a democratic heart surgery, where citizens roll up their sleeves and get their hands in there right along with the surgeons. I bet that wouldn’t go well.

But we cannot cede all of our lives over to the experts. If we do that, then they determine the kind of world we live in. In the case of RDP, the values questions that are rightfully the place for democracy are all tangled up with the technical dimensions that are rightfully the place of experts. The end result is a jumble. Citizens speak about their values and they are quickly out of their depth in an ocean of technical details. The experts speak and are quickly met with quizzical looks and disbelief. I’ve tried to walk a path of understanding somewhere between blind trust and blind rejection.

In some sense, it’s ridiculous for those of us who care about this issue to be expected to say something intelligent about it. But in a larger sense, this is the stuff of citizenship in a high-tech age. Do we want the burden of thinking together? Shall we hope the invisible hand will sort it out? Or do we prefer the comfort of certainty that comes when we draw curtains over every window of a messy decision save one? It’s easy to look from only one perspective and pronounce with confidence. But is that right or wise?

A Conversation

Denton Municipal Electric (DME) was tasked with a maxi-maxi-min mission: Maximize renewables with maximum reliability and minimum rates. RDP is their conclusion. It was initially presented as the only option other than business as usual. Citizens pushed for other options and they have been presented but none with the considerable momentum of RDP.

Now, I wish the process had been different, but we need to work from where we are. We are in a trial of strength where the RDP is being subjected to a cross-examination. In principal this is healthy. We need to be sure that the trial is fair. That means on one hand a willingness to share information (to the extent legally permissible) and on the other hand a willingness to listen such that we do not put a straw man, rather than RDP, on trial.

So, what I want to do in an admittedly long post is to recapitulate this trial as I have heard it unfold in the form of a conversation. I am going to invent two personas – RDP and the Skeptic. I’ll do my best to put into their mouths the strongest arguments and the best questions that I have heard. I’ll start by giving RDP an opening statement.

Opening Statement

RDP: DME is a risk-averse agency that holds reliability sacrosanct (hospitals are counting on electricity). They are also scrutinized for their rates and have to compete as a public utility on a deregulated market. And they want to be responsive to citizen demands for more renewables. Denton is at 40% (the US average is 13%) but that ain’t good enough for little d.

Given risk aversion and rate consciousness, DME is primarily worried about a couple of things that might be rare in the grand scheme of things but that are so impactful they change the entire equation. One of these things are those black swan events (maybe four times in the last five years) where there is a huge spike in the price of electricity driven by a heat wave, a frozen pipeline, or a plant outage. These things can last several days and can drive prices over 100x above usual levels. These rare events (0.1%) can drive 10-20% of costs.

The other event is more frequent and steady and that is: Texas summer – peak usage days in July and August. At those times too, prices go up. So, whether it is a typical hot summer day or a rare event, the market can swing way up. Given that it is imperative to deliver electricity, DME has to buy it.

This is why DME wants to own a generation facility. It shields them from market volatility. And, yes, it could help pay off some debts. But there is another reason: it gives them the confidence to jump to 70% renewables. Wind and solar are intermittent sources that may or may not show up on any given day. Indeed, day-ahead forecasts for wind can be wildly wrong. If our renewables don’t show up when we expect them and we don’t have our own way to generate back up electricity, then we are at the mercy of the market.

The market for buying renewables has shifted since 2006 when we bought our current wind contract. Now, it is best to simply buy the wind or solar generated by a provider rather than buying that plus some back up package to cover you when the wind and sun are not active. With the plants we provide our own back-up, making it much more affordable and less risky. The main value of the plants is that they leverage the ability to buy all of these renewables in a way that actually reduces rates. They are an insurance policy that allows us to put more chits down on renewables.

The net emissions reductions, including greenhouse gasses, of the plan are not just from the construction of two or three new wind farms and two or three new solar farms. They are also from the gas plants displacing dirtier sources on the market. The plan takes two kinds of bold steps from a climate and environment perspective. It invests in renewables, which is like trading in an old clunker for a zero emissions electric car. And it invests in more efficient (not the MOST efficient, but more efficient than market average) fossil fuel generation, which is like turning in your other old clunker for a more fuel-efficient car.

This plan allows us to cut costs, keep reliability as high as ever, divest from the Gibbons Creek coal plant, invest in 30% more renewables, slash our emissions by 75%, and position us to step incrementally into more renewables to be at 100% by 2030.

Cross-Examination

Skeptic: If the two proposed RICE (reciprocating internal combustion engine) gas plants are about backing up Denton’s needs, why is it that DME plans to sell 69% of the electricity generated from these plants to the ERCOT market? Isn’t it possible, for example, to just build one power plant (not the two proposed)? That would reduce our electricity generation by 50% but, 69% was going to ERCOT anyway so that would still allow us to cover our needs plus another 19% to ERCOT and we’d get all the emissions savings. We’d make less revenue from sales, sure, but also capital costs would be lower as we’d just build the one plant.

RDP: During peak days in summer, we may very well be using both of those power plants at full blast for ten hours per day to cover our own needs (at lower costs than market prices). If we only build one plant, then during peak times, we’ll rely on the market more, which means both higher prices and higher net emissions, because the market average is much dirtier than the proposed plants. During non-peak times we’ll be able to meet our own needs with more renewables and a smaller slice of the plants. Yet given that the plants will out compete much of what is on the market, ERCOT will tap us during those times to also run the plants, thus generating electricity for sale on the market.

Skeptic: So, we don’t really “own” these plants…because we cannot shield them from ERCOT and they can turn them on whenever we show up in their stack. And it is not quite right to say that it is an insurance policy and the ideal is to never run the power plants – the ideal is to run them at whatever level is profitable.

RDP: That’s true. If we are going to build the plants it only makes sense to operate them when they are profitable rather than letting them sit idle. Of course, we can only operate them about 37% of the time across any given year, due to the air permit requirements.

Skeptic: You claim that these plants would not increase gas usage or fracking. You then claim that it will take 58 gas wells to fuel the plants. Isn’t this contradictory nonsense?

RDP: It is counter-intuitive to be sure, but it is true. You would expect new gas plants to increase gas usage. But consider that the supply of energy being fed onto the ERCOT grid at any given time is in response to demand on the grid at that time. When Texans start using their air conditioners, generating plants respond by producing energy. It doesn’t work the other way around. It’s not as though you check to see how much electricity is available on the grid before you use your air conditioner.

So if these plants were to turn on, they would be producing energy that would have been produced anyway by another gas plant (or perhaps some coal). And since these plants will use gas more efficiently than the majority of plants in ERCOT, we can say that they will not increase gas usage or fracking. Whatever amount of fuel we would use would have been used by another plant for the same purpose.

Skeptic: But we know that electricity consumption is going to increase in Texas and the Gibbons Creek plant will continue to run even if we divest from it. Won’t we just be adding more pollution on top of the existing pollution?

RDP: Imagine someone builds a new gasoline station. If a driver fills up at that station, they will not also fill up at another station, because their tank is already full. To claim that this will add net pollution is to claim that somehow building these plants will cause a rise in electricity consumption. But demand for electricity is driven by other factors (our consumptive lifestyle and economic system).

It’s not the case that BECAUSE OF the new gas station, someone is going to drive around more and use more gas. Similarly, there will be no increased consumption of electricity just because these plants are built. That means that whatever electricity these plants produce is electricity other plants are not producing (and these proposed plants will never displace solar or wind, which are always dispatched first because there is no fuel cost). Whatever emissions they produce are emissions that won’t come from some other, less efficient plants. And yes, Gibbons Creek will continue to operate, but our divestment from that plant opens the chance for someone else to buy into it and shutter older, dirtier lignite plants.

Skeptic: You have also claimed that this plan will reduce natural gas consumption by 37%. What is the basis of that claim?

RDP: More information on this should be on the website soon. What this means is that Denton will actually use 12 fewer gas wells to meet its electricity needs. That’s 12 wells that won’t be fracked that otherwise will be if we continue with business as usual.

Skeptic: The plan does not factor into account all the real emissions associated with fracking – at well site, transmission leaks, processing, etc. Right?

RDP: True, but no one accounts for those emissions. So, when we are making comparisons of emissions between, say, the plan and our current mix, you’d have to factor those unaccounted emissions into both sides of the equation. When you do that, you don’t change the percentage difference between the two scenarios.

Skeptic: DME keeps shifting the numbers. They said it would be a net emissions reduction of 75% but then they said 15%…so this is all Jell-O and smoke and mirrors, right?

RDP: The plan represents a 75% reduction in the emissions coming from generation to meet Denton’s electricity demand. The 15% number is the emissions reductions the plan would bring if we also factor in the electricity the proposed RICE plants will generate for sales on the ERCOT market.

Skeptic: Then isn’t it disingenuous to use the 75% figure?

RDP: No. In fact, the 15% figure is meaningless. It is double-counting emissions. The emissions from our sales to ERCOT would be to service the demand of some other city – they would have to calculate that into their portfolio. That’s like saying we don’t count our share of market emissions in our portfolio. We have to count those, because they are from our demand. So, those other cities need to count the ERCOT sales emissions, not us.

Skeptic: That’s all good for emissions as they add up on paper and perhaps as they add up in the atmosphere writ large. But the actual emissions will be in Denton, correct?

RDP: Yes, this does introduce two new emissions sources into our air shed. TCEQ has already permitted them, considering them to be “minor” sources. Further, some, maybe most, of the electricity generated by these plants will displace generation from dirtier plants downwind of us, which would help offset some of the negative local air quality impacts. Keep in mind too that a business could get permits to emit similar levels of emissions without any public debate and we could not stop them because local government is preempted on air quality issues.

Skeptic: Denton already has F-rated air. It seems foolish and reckless to introduce yet another source of emissions. Have you done a systematic air quality modeling study or health impact study?

RDP: We have not yet done that but hope to do so soon, utilizing independent expertise.

Skeptic: You should do that. And beware of the assumptions in the models, especially about run times for the plants and regulatory enforcement. And while we are on the subject of independent expertise….have you had a consultant review the plan and propose other alternatives?

RDP: We have used some consultants on pieces of the plan, for example, on air permitting. We have not had a 3^rd party examine the plan in whole or had a 3^rd party financial analyst look at it.

Skeptic: But this is a $225 or $250 million investment in a very rapidly changing market, and DME uses consultants frequently. Isn’t it right to have a second opinion on the figures?

RDP: Consultants are best used when we lack in-house expertise. When it comes to financial analyses of the energy sector, DME has a wealth of experience.

Skeptic: But isn’t almost all that experience from working on fossil fuel energy issues? Might this not introduce a bias that could color their calculations – after all, we are dealing with projections and that requires making various assumptions and interpretations.

RDP: That’s one way to look at it. But the other way to look at it is that for the past nine years the DME staff have been running one of the state’s and even the nation’s leading utilities when it comes to renewables. Second opinions can be good, but they can also be political stall tactics and if another agency comes back with different figures, we’d be in a dueling expert dilemma. Clearly, we don’t want to make a hasty decision. But there is no possible way to turn over every stone (do you study every cereal box in the grocery store?) and we risk paralysis by analysis, which would be a de-facto choice for status quo, which is the worse option all around.

Skeptic: Do you understand that the cost of solar is still declining rapidly?

RDP: Yes, which is why we are not buying more now. The plan is to cover all of Denton’s increased demand with more solar purchases.

Skeptic: The real dilemma here is batteries. Their cost is also plummeting quickly. We may well be at the cusp of an energy revolution that could get us to a genuine 100% renewable scenario. What I mean by that is not a Georgetown scenario, where they still need fossil fuels to cover them when the wind and sun are not available. I mean a scenario where we purchase only wind and solar and store electricity they generate in batteries that we draw down when needed.

RDP: It does look like batteries are the wave of the future but we are not there yet. DME estimates costs would be 3x higher to us batteries instead of the RICE plants. Most big batteries now are for ancillary services only. It is not a time-tested technology. DME thinks that by 2030 batteries will begin chewing into the natural gas quick start market, covering the kind of peak power needs they currently serve. This plan is a bridge to that point.

Skeptic: The Citigroup analysis that DME cited did not say batteries will start hitting the market in 2030, it says the battery market will already be 240GW and $4 billion by 2030. And, even if we say 2030 is the start of this massive transition, why do we only need an eleven year bridge (assuming this plan goes into effect in 2019)? Why would we saddle ourselves with an investment that we’ll want to be running for at least twenty years (and likely forty or fifty) when the replacement technology is only eleven years away? We risk becoming the last buggy whip manufacturers at the dawn of the automobile. This could be another stranded asset or a carbon lock-in that traps us in the natural gas generation game (to pay off the investment) when we could be in the battery game. Could we leapfrog from coal right over the supposed bridge of quick start plants to land on the lily pad of the battery age?

RDP: Sure, building the gas plants entails risks. But so does not building them. If battery storage is further away than you hope, then we have to hobble along either with business as usual or one of the other plans that don’t entail the gas plants, all of which are either more expensive or more polluting or both.

Skeptic: Not necessarily. Have you considered a strategy where you purchase an older gas plant at a much lower price to serve as your insurance policy for back-up purposes? Yes, this would be dirtier, but we could ditch it much more quickly than plants we build on our own. The idea is that we could start buying renewables more incrementally (not jumping to 70% right away) with this as an insurance policy and with the extra capital cost we don’t spend up front, we can start to invest in battery technology. We’d buy smaller scale now so that we can take advantage of falling prices and improving technologies and buy more as we go along. Could we bootstrap our way to a genuine 100% renewable portfolio maybe even by 2030 without needing to invest in the gas plants?

RDP: That would take more analysis, but on the surface it would likely be costlier if only because depending on the plant you buy you might face more exposure to the market and remember there are those expensive summer days and those rare times where prices are 100x or more of the average. And you would have more emissions at least in the short term…and the short term could be longer if the battery market doesn’t go the way you hope.

Skeptic: Why do you think that the gas plants will have value even after 2030, the time when you acknowledge batteries will be displacing quick start plants like this one?

RDP: Things move slowly in the power generation business – just look at us in 2016 using plants that were built in the 1980s. The carbon lock-in you mention is real. So, there will be early adopters but there will be plenty of quick start plants running well past 2030 due to sunken investments and we’ll still be competitive in that market.

Skeptic: But, again, if these are a bridge to a 100% renewable 2030…if those are our values, then why be in the fossil fuel generation game at that point? Why not shutter them at 2030 with a big banner saying “mission accomplished”?

RDP: The gas plants will likely still be profitable. And Denton may well be at 100% renewables by then, but perhaps without batteries, which would mean fossil fuels would still be needed as back up as with Georgetown.

Skeptic: Unless, of course, we start getting into the battery game earlier.

RDP: Sure, but that brings lots of uncertainties.

Skeptic: Uncertainties are par for the course. But tell me about the 100% option…why not just do that right now like Georgetown does?

RDP: DME will do whatever Council directs them to do. The problem with this is cost – it will run our top 20 consumers an extra $35,000 per month and probably over $200 a year more for residential customers – for many that is a real hardship.

Skeptic: What about the 83% renewable option?

RDP: That also avoids the gas plants but it too is costly with an extra $25,000 per month cost for those big consumers. Rate increases like that create very real risks of hurting jobs and economic growth prospects. And without their own generation back up, DME is going to feel less bullish about buying even more renewables to get us up to 100%.

Skeptic: Why not get into leasing for rooftop solar?

RDP: We can look into that, but DME ran the numbers and they found that covering every roof in Denton with solar panels would cost $720 million and still leave us in need of back up generation.

Skeptic: What about demand-side management? Can we avoid the gas plants by simply reducing our consumption?

RDP: Demand-side management is crucial and DME has several programs to help with that. The trouble is that very few people take advantage of them and they make very marginal changes to our overall load. We are not likely to conserve our way out of this dilemma.

Skeptic: Well, have you notified people who will live near these gas plants? And have you considered down-wind emissions from them for our neighbors to the north?

I know some folks are interested in the meeting from this week. I’ll put together something more coherent after thinking and talking with more people, but for now here are my rough notes – comments, queries, and corrections welcome:

Meeting Dec. 28 at City Hall, council work chambers, attendance: Jennifer Lane, Ed Soph, Carol Soph, Theron Palmer, Elida Tamez, Adam Briggle, Ken Banks (COD sustainability), Jim Maynard (DME), Katherine Barnett (COD sustainability), Phil Williams (DME).

Initial discussion focused on GHG implications of the plan with the aid of a new excel spreadsheet that can be made public. Data on the sheet come from either EPA EGRID (city has used this database since 2006) or from specs of the proposed RICE plants (guaranteed maximum emissions – it will likely perform better). I think sometimes data come from measurements at individual power plants.

The spreadsheet showed overall GHG emissions are reduced by 74% with the plan vs. status quo.

There is still an emissions reduction (I think they said 48%) even if we account for the additional generation for sale on the ERCOT market, which is a form of double-counting emissions.

ERCOT market sales from the proposed RICE plants will not displace solar or wind, because they have zero fuel cost and the stack is set by fuel cost (lowest comes online first).

The ERCOT market sales from the proposed RICE plants will displace some coal but mostly natural gas from less-efficient and more –polluting sources, mostly to the south and east of us.

There was another spreadsheet from the same data sources that showed how the proposed plan would reduce our overall consumption of natural gas by 37%. This spreadsheet too can be made public.

Other utilities are building plants like these, including some in south Texas and golden spread in the panhandle, which has 170 MW from these plants and has just switched into the ERCOT market to track with wind similar to the proposed plan by DME.

The conversation the focused more on the local air quality impacts of the proposed plan. There was some indication that outside consultants were used for help with air permitting – I didn’t get the name of the company, the woman mentioned was something like Mary Hauner-Davis(?). A claim was made that the proposed RICE plants are equivalent to 1% of on-road emissions in Denton County.

Denton has poor air quality in large part due to emissions from south and southeast – power plants, cement plants, and on-road sources.

When we purchase electricity from the market, it mostly comes from the south and southeast – the places that impact our air quality. So, producing that electricity here will displace emissions that would have otherwise come downwind of us. NOx impacts will be minimal in part because it will dissipate and move north before forming ozone. And also in large part because these proposed RICE plants are roughly 9x more efficient (emit 9x less NOx than the market average gas plant) – this claim came from another data source that I will also see if we can get publicized. Electricity generation in DFW ten county area emits 5,482 tons of NOx. The proposed RICE plants would emit 40 tons. Electricity generated by them for Denton will displace the coal plant and electricity generated by them for ERCOT market sales will displace these dirtier gas sources.

They have consulted Dr. John at UNT – he didn’t think there would be a noticeable change at Denton monitor, but there would be additional ozone precusors heading to the north.

TCEQ treats this as a minor (non-major) source.

At any point a new business/industry could move to Denton and produce this amount of emissions with a standard application through TCEQ. It would not require a public dialogue or vote and would not come with the increased renewables. And Denton cannot effectively regulate this as it is preempted on air quality issues.

Why not more solar now? If we go all in on solar now, we are too soon – the technology is developing rapidly so we want to wait a bit to get better technology over the coming years – we want to add new solar and/or batteries to accommodate Denton’s growing demand over the next 40 years. The idea is that all new demand is met with renewables and that we increase our overall percentage of renewables up to 100% by 2030.

Georgetown has 100% but that means in the sense that they buy enough electricity to cover their megawatts, but it doesn’t all come at the right time so they buy back up that is natural gas, dirtier than the proposed RICE plants, more expensive, and not under their control.

The ideal is to go 100% with batteries charged by all renewables. Forecasts they have heard and read show us being at least twenty years away from that and likely longer. Elon Musk has a stated goal to displace 10% of electric generation in 20 years.

DME rates have averaged 10% to 15% below market rates over past 15 years – DME is an at-cost provider – this was from a website called something like power achieve??

There was a good deal of discussion both about Green Sense and reducing demand/ working on conservation efforts. General acknowledgement that that too is important, especially for the key accounts (top 127 meters account for 40% of total electricity usage). But a sense also that getting to 100% via Green Sense is going to take a very long time. A claim was made that if all 45,000 customers residential got solar it would cost $720 million and would still require the gas plants as back up.

On Gibbons Creek still operating – it is like trading in your older, dirtier car for a more fuel-efficient one. Just because someone still drives your old car, does not mean you are responsible for those emissions. And in this case, we will be driving dirtier megawatts from other plants off the market, meaning very real emissions reductions.

A claim was made that 70% is the minimum renewable level sought by 2019 with the plan and that it would maybe be closer to 80%.

Due to interest rate increases (I think) deliberation about the plan has already increased its price by $10 million.

DME requires some confidentiality or else it will always be at a competitive disadvantage.

If 5,000 MWh of coal-fired electricity was shut down east and south of us at 130,000 tons of NOx that would only move the needle on our local ozone down by 1 ppb – this from Dr. John.

Some things I think we forgot to ask or could have done better on: notification for residents near the sites for the proposed RICE plants, the possibility of community aggregation, emphasizing more data for health impacts or air dispersion models.