Dartmouth College is on the cusp of deciding the shape of its energy future, and along with Dartmouth, many Upper Valley businesses, institutions and residences will likely have the chance to accept or reject offers of new fossil fuel sources of energy, due to the newly proposed fracked gas pipeline for Lebanon and Hanover.
Significant efforts by community members and town energy committees are providing valuable insights that point toward a transition to a renewable future. It is up to us all to invest the time and perseverance required to examine and weigh the options before us: to either choose the path to sustainability, or to lock ourselves into decades more of reliance on fossil fuels.
Energy committees of many Upper Valley towns are leading the way by embracing the goals of the Sierra Club’s “Ready for 100% Action” national campaign, comprising 23 communities. This past Dec. 14, Sustainable Hanover endorsed those goals which call for a transition to 100 percent renewable electricity by 2030 and renewable sources for all other energy needs, including heat and transportation, by 2050. On Feb. 6, the Hanover Selectboard adopted those goals in a resolution, and Hanover residents will have the opportunity to vote on them at Town Meeting in May. Across the Upper Valley, there are ongoing study groups and forums that focus on how to achieve these ambitious energy goals.
Furthermore, Vital Communities is promoting crucial energy efficiency work through its “Weatherize” pilot that involves 14 Vermont communities.
Dartmouth College, for a number of years, has been seeking to break away from the use of the very dirty #6 fuel oil that currently heats its buildings. In 2013-14, Dartmouth, DHMC and others expressed interest in transitioning to natural gas. But this was before extensive peer-reviewed research had revealed the powerful global warming effects of leaked methane (the main ingredient of “natural” gas) from wellhead to customer — a huge, complex problem that evades detection and repair.
Though natural gas burns cleaner and produces sizably less carbon dioxide than other fossil fuels during combustion, since methane is 86 times more potent than CO2 in its warming effects over 20 years, it is as damaging as oil even if only 1 percent leaks. In addition, serious environmental problems caused by the toxic chemicals used in the process of hydraulic fracturing, the use of enormous amounts of water, and the pernicious health effects discovered in areas where fracking occurs (not to mention the price volatility projected for natural gas) — all of this argues strongly against considering natural gas as a “bridge fuel.”
With the aim of investigating a variety of energy strategies, Dartmouth President Phil Hanlon initiated the Dartmouth Sustainability Task Force on Earth Day 2016. That task force will be announcing its recommendations to Hanlon this month, and the president is expected to decide on those recommendations by Earth Day 2017. Supporting the work of the task force, 286 Dartmouth Alumni for Climate Action (DACA) members, spanning 43 class years, wrote a letter that states: “In a blog post on his recent travel to the Arctic, President Hanlon remarked that ‘the biggest take-away for me was the urgency and delicacy with which we must approach issues of energy, environment … and the role Dartmouth can play in helping pave the responsible way forward for its people and planet.’ ”
In contrast to the work of the task force and despite new research on natural gas, last November the New Hampshire Public Utilities Commission announced that Liberty Utilities, after competing with Valley Green Natural Gas for over a year, is seeking permission anew to build a fracked gas pipeline system through Lebanon and Hanover, trucking gas to a storage unit on Route 12A. Liberty’s petition, again, cites Dartmouth College as a major anchor customer. We hope that such a citation is erroneous, and that President Hanlon — and the Dartmouth Board of Trustees during their visit this week — will embrace the recommendations of the task force and not view natural gas as an appropriate energy option. Indeed, it would be very helpful to the community if Dartmouth would post a letter to the PUC docket citing its lack of interest.
Anne Kapuscinski, Dartmouth professor of sustainability science in the Environmental Studies Program and current board chair of the Union of Concerned Scientists, stated in a public panel discussion on Jan. 17, “Natural gas is not necessary. Renewable energy combined with energy efficiency can supply all of our energy needs. All that is needed is political will.” Indeed, research shows that new fossil fuel infrastructure, such as what Liberty Utilities wants to place in Lebanon and Hanover, delays essential and timely transition to renewable energy. Such a pipeline system depreciates over an average of 40-50 years, and when customers get locked into such a system by spending sizable funds retrofitting to gas, transitioning to renewables becomes less and less likely, even as renewables become more and more affordable, and as better technologies develop.
So it is hoped that President Hanlon and Dartmouth’s Board of Trustees will not reconsider signing on to natural gas as a bridge fuel, and will also realize the broader implications for the Lebanon/Hanover community if they were to do so. Such a decision by Dartmouth — and by other large potential anchor customers such as DHMC, Pike Industries and more — would make this fracked gas pipeline system possible. Without large anchor customers signing on, the project is not financially viable for Liberty Utilities, and would not go forward.
We concur with DACA’s sentiment: “We … urge and offer to help Dartmouth ambitiously lead collegiate climate action by eliminating its greenhouse gas footprint, while we do the same in our own families and communities. Above all, we emphasize urgency; never before has the scientific consensus been clearer about the resultant destruction and suffering if we fail to act now.” Hanover and the greater Upper Valley are moving in an exciting direction, and one would hope that Dartmouth College and other potential natural gas customers will choose the sustainable route.
Joanna Sharf is co-chair of the Greater Upper Valley team of the Sierra Club’s “Ready for 100% Action” committee, and a member of the Cornish Energy Committee.