Greenwashed

Transmission is Dumb and Brown. Gas and electric monopoly utilities are exploiting public misunderstanding of green power to promote new transmission lines and ratepayer-funded brown investments that will not reduce carbon emissions. Saying we need new transmission to reach remote wind sites, the industry is avoiding tough but necessary relocalization of power and dramatic demand reduction to deliver meaningful climate action. Moreover, without reducing power sales (and gas, coal and electric utility load growth) greenhouse gas reductions from the power industry will cause Policy Collapse that has already engulfed California's promise-the-sky with no follow-through political culture. I joined Local Power staff Robert Freehling and David Erickson in authoring this new article in Natural Gas & Electricity, a pre-print (Wiley, May, 2009).