This Wednesday, February 8th, at 7 pm, the next chapter in an unfolding saga about Newton’s energy future will be heard in the otherwise sleep-inducing Newton Public Facilities Committee. This is a rough and tumble story that includes National Grid’s resistance to simple gas ratepayer and City Councilor questions.
If you care about rising costs to ratepayers and tax payers for National Grid’s pipeline projects as well as household air pollution, then you will find this Wednesday’s meeting fascinating.
And, if you found the hydrogen hype in the Glass Onion entertaining, you might also find it interesting that National Grid is actually planning for what it calls the “Hydrogen Home.” Gas customers and city officials may not yet know that National Grid has filed its hydrogen plan to the Massachusetts Department of Public Utilities (its “confidential” version is publicly posted here).
At the Public Facilities Committee’s September 8th meeting there were many simple, still-unanswered pipeline cost questions. The larger story is of the old leak-prone pipes delivering gas under Newton’s streets and sidewalks giving us many safety hazards, dead trees, air pollution, wasted money, and climate damage. National Grid’s plan to add blended hydrogen will increase indoor air pollution (“NOx”) even as this expensive hydrogen increases ratepayer costs. But no one in the City, and definitely not National Grid, has yet to inform residents of their hydrogen plan.
National Grid has been unresponsive to what the Public Facilities Committee has called “reasonable” ratepayer cost questions. Meanwhile, there is a potentially excellent and achievable alternative conclusion to this story, based on a parallel development in which one of the oldest gas companies in the nation, Boston Gas Company, is pivoting to networked geothermal systems across whole swaths of buildings in Lowell, a significant advance forward in energy efficiency and resilience.
Our energy and climate future is being played out before our eyes in the mundane-sounding Public Facilities Committee. It’s worth some pre-meeting popcorn-making!
Big thanks go to the homegrown Newton grassroots coalition A Future With Out Gas (AFWOG) for drafting a resolution to be heard this Wednesday that calls for cost, climate, environmental, public health and safety transparency that has been missing from each and every National Grid gas expansion project.
See the agenda and join the meeting here: https://www.newtonma.gov/home/showpublisheddocument/96768
