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TALKING POINTS FOR 5/15 PUC HEARING ON BOARDMAN GAS PLANTS

Protocol for testifying to the PUC: Please keep your comments under the time limit. As you begin your testimony, be sure to:
  1. State your name for the record
  2. Identify yourself as a PGE customer if you are one
  3. Thank the commissioners for holding this special hearing in Portland

COST/CONSUMER IMPACTS

  • Fracked gas is notoriously volatile in price - right now it’s affordable, but thirty years from now, who knows? PGE ratepayers will bear all the risk of paying to fuel these plants, while PGE pockets the profits from building infrastructure Oregon doesn’t need or want.
  • PGE stands to profit more from building and operating their own power plants, rather than working with outside contractors who can deliver clean energy for less. As a utility customer, I’m asking my PUC representatives to balance PGE’s business needs with my desire to keep my energy bills low and be served by sustainable clean energy.
  • PGE hasn’t even demonstrated that they actually need this capacity to serve their customers - utilities stand to profit by building unnecessary power plants and raising customer rates to pay for them.
  • There is every reason to expect that within the lifetime of these plants, fossil fuel infrastructure will be banned in Oregon, making these plants a very expensive mistake for utility customers - what is known as a “stranded asset.” Another likely scenario is that fracked gas prices could go up dramatically as the cost of clean energy continues to decline, making these plants economically unviable. Don’t let PGE gamble with our future.

OREGON WANTS CLEAN ENERGY, NOT FRACKED GAS

  • Portland General Electric says they support clean energy, but right now they’re trying to lock Oregon into decades of fossil fuel infrastructure by building two brand new fracked gas power plants in Boardman.
  • There’s no good reason for Oregon to commit to forty more years of fossil fuels. Solar and wind are already cost-competitive with fracked gas in our region.
  • Reliable power is essential. PGE's own analysis concluded that it can meet customers' power needs reliably and affordably by investing in renewable energy rather than dirty fossil fuels.
  • Of course it’s true that the wind doesn’t always blow and the sun doesn’t always shine, as the utility likes to say. But we have technology solutions that can help us manage demand. As Oregon transitions to 100% clean energy, tech solutions like battery storage, efficiency, and advanced demand management will be able to address demand. In the meantime, we can purchase power on the market rather than commit to forty years of fossil fuel infrastructure.
  • We have everything we need to build a 100% clean energy economy that runs on solar and wind, creating good, family-sustaining union jobs right here in Oregon. Already Oregon has 52,000 people working in wind, solar, energy efficiency, storage, and smart grid technology, compared to less than 1000 in the fossil fuel sector. Let’s keep heading in the right direction.

CLIMATE

Fracked gas is not a clean energy source. When methane pollution is accounted for, from the wellhead to the power plant, fracked gas contributes just as much or more climate-disrupting pollution than coal. Accounting conservatively for methane leakage, these two fracked gas plants would emit 1.74 times - nearly twice as many - climate-disrupting greenhouse gases as the old coal plant at Boardman did.
  • With the federal government poised to move backward on climate and clean air protection, Oregon's leadership is more vital than ever. We can lead the nation and give the U.S. a fighting chance of sticking to our climate commitments.

SAFETY AND HEALTH

  • I’m deeply concerned about the reports I have read that Carty 1 has significant safety issues, with missing permits that could pose a life safety risk to workers at the plant. Until these issues are addressed, it would be irresponsible to allow PGE to build even more fracked gas plants at this same location.
  • The existing fracked gas plant in Boardman has apparently exceeded its emissions limits for volatile organic compounds (VOCs) by 67%. VOCs are a key ingredient in smog and soot,which are associated with numerous serious health effects, including asthma attacks, increased respiratory problems, permanent lung damage, and early death from respiratory and cardiovascular causes. If the first Carty plant is already more than 50% over their emissions limits, why would we allow the utility to build two more plants on top of this already troubled fossil fuel plant?

CALL TO ACTION

  • Please make sure that PGE’s customers are heard and represented in this process by directing PGE to significantly revise its plan by taking a close look at clean energy sources like wind and solar instead of rushing ahead to commit Oregon to risky gas-fired power plants.

OTHER ISSUES

  • EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT: Experts estimate a 20% likelihood that Northern Oregon will experience an earthquake of a magnitude greater than 8 in the next fifty years. “The big one” is a real threat that we have a duty to prepare for. Fracked gas infrastructure is incredibly vulnerable to earthquakes and other natural disasters - if an earthquake broke one of the pipelines serving these plants, Oregon could experience a one-two punch of blackouts and massive gas leaks or even explosions, all while we’re at our most vulnerable.
  • DISTRIBUTED GENERATION: There’s a better path available to us. We can continue to expand the number of rooftop solar installations in our state, which creates jobs in our thriving solar industry. Right now Oregon law prevents consumers from installing batteries in their homes so they can store their own energy for emergencies - that needs to change. The system of monopoly utilities has kept Oregonians from making their own energy choices for far too long.
  • STATE CLIMATE GOALS: According to the Public Utility Commission, PGE would have to replace all the generation capacity from the Boardman coal plant with clean energy sources like wind or solar in order to meet Oregon's greenhouse gas reduction goals. Instead they're pursuing adding two more new gas plants that will emit 1.74 times as many greenhouse gas emissions than the coal plant did - making it virtually impossible for Oregon to reach our goal of reducing greenhouse gas levels to 75 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.
  • JOBS: We have everything we need right here in Oregon to build a sustainable clean energy economy that runs on solar and wind. Energy efficiency already supports over 40,000 jobs in Oregon, helping us do more with less while creating thousands of jobs. In fact, four times as many people in Oregon are employed in the energy efficiency sector than in the entire electric power generation industry. Within the electric power generation industry, over 80% of existing jobs are in clean energy sources like wind and solar.