Fossil fuel interests mislead on electricity

The June 3 letter from the executive director of the Consumer Energy Alliance, “Climate goals will raise energy costs,” is a classic example of how fossil fuel interests create groups with consumer-based-sounding names to disseminate misleading information that undermines needed efforts to combat climate change.

The Center for Public Integrity and Desmog report that CEA’S supporters actually include such industry groups as the American Petroleum Institute and the American Natural Gas Association, and petroleum giants like BP, Exxonmobil, Shell and Chevron.

The letter raises concerns about requiring most new construction to use modern electric-powered heating by asking such loaded questions as, “How much more will a new house cost if abundant and affordable, clean natural gas is outlawed?”

New construction with modern, energy-efficient heat pumps does not require separate furnaces and air conditioners, or expensive gas plumbing. RMI, an energy research organization, found that in every city it studied, new all-electric homes were less expensive to build than mixed-fuel homes. The Long Island Power Authority found the same thing.

“Clean” natural gas is mostly methane, a much more powerful greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide in the short term, when our need to quickly curtail greenhouse gas emissions is most critical. Production and transmission leaks often make it as “dirty” as coal.

While there are certainly challenges in the major changes scientists have overwhelmingly concluded we need to make, such misleading letters only seek to derail or delay policies urgently needed to avert disastrous climate consequences. Paul Fisk

Latham