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True energy security resides in local solutions and innovations – Daily Montanan

['More From Author', 'April', 'Priscilla Bell']

Date: 2022-04-11 00:00:00

I grew up in Billings and lived in Montana much of my life. My dad, Bill Sampsel, was a Billings geologist for 51 years. My family knew oil and “natural gas” (methane). It was our livelihood.

While being an oil man, Dad was also a conservationist. My first lesson was when he stopped the car on the highway so I could go pick up the orange peel I had blithely tossed out the window. I explained it would disintegrate. He wasn’t impressed.

Repeatedly, Dad told us that in the end we would not be looking for oil or methane, we would be looking for clean water and air. During his career, Dad’s work transitioned from oil to methane. Today, we face a transition from methane to wind and solar to meet the demands of the 21st century.

Despite the strategic need for this transition, politicians are pressured by industry to expand oil and methane exploration. The push is to open the gates, the earth and its creatures be damned. And they will, indeed, be damned given what scientists ranging from NASA to our local universities tell us about the grave consequences of increased climate pollution for upcoming generations.

However, we have a choice. We can meet the crisis of our day by making energy and conservation equal priorities. If our state treated this crisis with the urgency it demands, we would be prioritizing homegrown energy innovation through wind and solar while also striving to make energy more efficient. Unfortunately, a barrier stands in our way.

In Laurel, Northwestern Energy provides our electricity. This corporation continues to make clear they are not interested in what we, the public, want, despite enjoying their monopoly utility status. They are prioritizing profits over the public good.

Montanans are fed up overpaying for expensive, polluting, retrograde energy sources. I am appalled by NorthWestern’s reckless decision to build a methane plant – in a flood plain – on the shores of the Yellowstone River bordering Laurel. This is the first of eight methane plants NorthWestern wants to build in Montana. Despite efforts to evade public input, Montanans are not silent. We don’t want this methane plant.

As citizens demand more affordable, reliable, cleaner energy resources, NorthWestern is spending huge sums on a slick, misleading marketing campaign, “Net Zero by 2050.” It promises carbon neutrality in three decades. While NorthWestern acknowledges it must reduce its carbon pollution and provide affordable energy, it is doubling down on climate-degrading resources, a repeated pattern. The Montana Supreme Court has repeatedly admonished NorthWestern for the unlawful thwarting of solar projects, as well as its false claims regarding solar costs. How can carbon neutrality by 2050 possibly be reached by blocking renewables while building eight new carbon-polluting plants?

Each proposed methane plant will cost close to $300 million to build. Methane is already up 50% from last year. Given international conflicts, it will likely go up even more. Why would NorthWestern willingly tie Montana’s future to pollution and fluctuating global markets? Because the corporation is guaranteed, by law, an 11% return on building, operations, and maintenance costs for its power plants. These expenses keep stockholders happy, but do not serve consumers. The better choice is homegrown energies from Montana using wind, solar, and storage. Such local resources cannot be manipulated by Wall Street or political maneuvering.

Given the devastating climate-fueled Montana wildfire disasters which are growing more frequent and more intense; given the homes, farms, ranches, crops, and grasslands destroyed annually; given the damaged livelihoods of victims; how can another carbon-based fuel be the answer? If not stopped, generations of Montanans will be paying for the construction costs, inflated electric bills, and disaster relief.

Tell NorthWestern Energy, city and county commissioners, and planning boards: No more methane. Challenge them to create new partnerships that are conservation-friendly, local and effective. This is the only way to provide true security and prosperity for Montana.

Priscilla Bell is a Laurel resident and member of Northern Plains Resource Council, a grassroots conservation and family agriculture group.

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