Windmills proposed for Jordanville are whipping up debate according to the OD. Farmers can't be blamed for wanting them. Growing crops is a risky business given the vagaries of the weather. Windmills will give them another way of making money from their land. Windmills are also a good way to wean us off foreign oil, and they are non-polluting. They would contribute to New York State achieving its goal of 20% of our energy from renewable sources.
Neighbors who won't benefit directly from the windmills, however, are concerned over what they would do to the landscape, and other effects. They can't be blamed either. It's one thing to want renewable energy, but quite another to have to look every day at how it is made. To them, windmills would be a nuisance -- and, like other nuisances, should be regulated by law. The law recognizes that what one does on one's property can adversely affect others, and, for that reason may be regulated. Much of modern environmental law evolved from the common law of nuisance.
What may be a nuisance to one person (a purple house for example) may be a thing of beauty to another. There is a certain amount of subjectiveness to the determination, and perceived benefits will play into this determination. If a windfarm generates cheap power for its community, that community will be less likely to consider the windfarm to be a nuisance. If a neighbor receives a direct benefit from a windmill, he or she will be less likely to complain about it.
Not mentioned in the OD article is how the proposed NYRI powerline will play into the windmill debate. Powerlines are the means by which windmill power will be brought to market. Since NYRI will enable area farmers to sell their power to the NYC area market, more than just the windmills' neighbors will be affected by wind power: namely, all those living along the powerline route. Compounding things, the powerline will likely spawn even more windfarms. If unchecked, one can imagine the entire upstate landscape covered with windmills, with every ampere of power sent over NYRI's line to downstate, while downstate abandons its old powerplants and fails to build new ones. The disparity between the upstate and downstate economies will ensure that if market forces are left to rule, Upstate will get all the negative impacts and Downstate will get all the benefits because the money and political power is Downstate.
If New York State is taken as a whole, it may make sense to let the market forces take over since, in theory, that would result in the greatest efficiency. However, New York State is not a "whole." Upstate and Downstate economies are different. The Upstate economy was literally built on cheap power -- hydropower -- which led to an economy based on manufacturing. Downstate, removed from the sources of hydropower, evolved in a manner less dependent on same.
State policies, controlled by politics and aided by new transmission technologies, have encouraged sharing power between Up and Downstate, lessening the impact of the high demand Downstate, and elevating prices Upstate. The result is that Upstate over the years lost its cheap hydropower advantage over other parts of the country with similar economies ... and its manufacturing base withered along with its economy.
If everything is left to a state-wide marketplace, Upstate will die -- not because Upstate is inherently different than, say, Virginia, but because Upstate's resources will be dedicated to Downstate use. The marketplace appears to be the trend in state policy. PSC law sweeps away local regulation of what occurs in (and what is considered a nuisance by) local jurisdictions and makes decisions from a statewide perspective. Essentially, state policy based strictly on the marketplace will pit one group of people against another. If you believe that government should be there as a referee, to keep one group from taking unfair advantage of another, then state policy is way off the mark.
Policies can be different from what they are. The State could, if it wanted, recognize that localities closer to resources should have the benefit of those resources. It has long been recognized that the State is obliged to ensure that water supplies which are more available for use by one community are not absorbed by another. Syracuse v Gibbs, 283 NY 275 (1940). Why shouldn't this concept apply to water power . . . or wind power . . . or locally generated power of any sort? Pairing resources with communities would lessen conflicts, lessen the liklihood of negative impacts unaccompanied by benefits, and lessen the perception of nuisance. It should be a matter of policy that those who suffer the consequences should be the ones who reap the benefits, and not otherwise.
If Upstate communities are protected from having their local resources absorbed by other communities, Downstate would be encouraged to generate more of its own power, there would be less need for NYRI, and, perhaps, Upstate's economy would be better. At least Upstate would have greater means to control its own destiny.
Our legislators may make NYRI out as the villain, but they are the ones who have made the State policy that encouraged NYRI to happen.
. . . Ask them what will they be doing about changing state policy.
5 comments:
This debate over keeping resources within the local area has already been anticipated by the Great Lakes water compact, which is the agreement between some Canadian provinces and those U.S. states that border the lakes. It has to be ratified by the Canadian and U.S. governments, however. There is great anxiousness to get this pushed through, because it is only a matter of time before the entire Rust Belt is put in Upstate's place re resources (in this case, water, the most precious resource of all) being sold to destinations south and around the world.
"But hey! We're all Americans!" the Nevadans will say...
Are you saying that Syracuse v. Gibbs should form a basis for contesting PSC law?
Syracuse v Gibbs probably cannot be used to contest PSC law because "common" law has been so distorted and complicated by Statutes. It does, however, suggest a policy that should be considered: that regions should receive the benefits of their resources. That is what happens "naturally" until profiteers and lawmakers get involved and use their positions to redistribute resources more to their liking. With regard to water, it should be noted that there are seldom used provisions in the Environmental Conservation Law for compelling municipalities to participate in region-wide water resources planning -- however cities of one million or more are exempt! So much for public policy! It's all politics and who has the most clout. The upsetting of the "natural" state of affairs occurred because what was happening has gone unrecognized until now.
Your bringing up the Great Lakes scenario is a good analogy. If it's OK for Nevadans to say "Hey, We're all Americans" while our water is rerouted to them in the South, why should New Yorkers have been indirectly paying mineral severance fees all these years to our competitors in Texas, Alaska, Louisiana, etc., contributing significantly to their state budgets through every gallon of gas purchased? What was happening went unrecognized.
Instead of trucking/wiring/piping upstate resources to encourage ever more growth in an overdeveloped downstate, why should New York not develop policies that encourage growth in those areas with/close to the resources to support it?
Because this is the Empire State and the empire has begun to eat itself?
Remember, Joe Bruno wants high-speed rail so that downstate residents can commute from their second homes further upstate. Perhaps our planned role in all this apparently is to be maids in the second homes, and construction workers on the second homes.
>> It does, however, suggest a policy that should be considered: that regions should receive the benefits of their resources. <<
"But Mr. Gandhi, India *is* British!"
The problem is that there is nobody in power willing to creatively leverage the resources that we do have up here... and it's very hard to do that after the barn door has already been opened and the horses led away. Maybe it's too late, I don't know.
Just a few weeks ago, a high voltage line went up a couple of miles from my house, similiar in size to the one preposed by NYRI. It follows the route of a natural gas pipeline put in about 10 years earlier.
I haven't lost much sleep about it.
Ideally, regional electrical systems would be more efficent. As much as 40% of all electricity is burned up in resistant in transit. Yet, power plants can't be turned on or off quickly, much less turned up or down in output.
What do you propose we do with the excess capacity that Nine Mile Nuclear produces or Oswego Generation? Right now it's discarded, despite all the air pollution it created. NYRI would allow that excess to be sent downstate to regions that can use it.
It's a lot better use of resources to conserve by not wasting excess electricity building powerlines and pump storage facilities then building new power plants that create more energy for areas that need it more while others discard energy.
Welcome NY Cowboy, good comment and question ... If your house is a couple miles from a powerline, perhaps it is not close enough to affect your property value or raise concern for your health. If it somehow benefits you or your community, that would also make it more tolerable.
It is well known that Upstate's electric rates, while less than Downstate, are still significantly higher than the rest of the country -- to the point where it has killed off jobs. Given the laws of supply and demand, if there is "excess capacity" that is "discarded," that suggests that Upstate's electric rates are being kept artificially high. If the rates are lowered, that "excess capacity" would soon disappear and we might even see a return of jobs Upstate. It is not unreasonable to expect that Upstate rates should be made even cheaper than most parts of the country given the abundance of water power here. The fact that it has not worked out this way suggests that we are not being regulated properly. Cheap power (waterpower) is one of the things that caused Upstate to grow in the 19th and early 20th century. It should not be different now.
In so far as "40% of all electricity is burned up in resistant in transit" this is my understanding as well. That suggests that perhaps what is needed is more generating capacity closer to the consumer, rather than generating Upstate and transmitting 200+ miles to the user.
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