Just Transition

I’ve been reading about a concept called “just transition” and I thought it would make a great policy blog post.

Just transition refers to investing in the people and infrastructure that used to be deployed around coal fired power plants and mines, and helping them to transition to new jobs, industries and infrastructure in a way that is just and respects the generations-worth of sacrifices that they made so we could have reliable power.

We see it a lot around “coal country”, back east. In Arizona, this is particularly important in Navajo and Hopi land.

But, let’s first dig in to a few things that are important to know.

First, coal is more expensive than natural gas, hydroelectric and nuclear power. That is not going to change.

Solar PV and wind is also competitive with natural gas for big power plants (as opposed to on your home). See page three of the last link for a great table. See this article for a good summary.

It is now competitive, often cheaper and will definitely be cheaper than almost all other options in the next few year –that is even when you add the cost of batteries to store power when the wind is now blowing and the sun is not shining.

Good ol’ market pricing: it’s is why coal plants have been closing and another 13 will close in 2020.

So, let’s retire the old debates about whether renewable energy is a good investment or not. It’s settled. Let’s save money and clean the air.

But, we are left with a fairness issue: what do we do with all of those communities that worked so hard to mine the coal and run the plants that gave us all convenient power for the last century?

This is particularly acute when you consider that utilities are closing down coal plants almost over night (by power plant standards), as they look at the cost of coal fuel vs the cost of no fuel (sun and wind).

In other words, coal-centric communities thought they had decades to find new industries, jobs and re-build infrastructure. But they don’t.

While it’s a good and necessary thing that we leave fossil fuels as quickly as possible, we need to be responsible for those communities.

Here is an inspiring video from Eastern Kentucky about how groups there fostered non-partisan conversations about how to approach just transition, and how to pay for it.

But, let’s turn our attention to Arizona, where Navajo Generating Station was recently closed down with little warning. Here’s a great blog post from a man who has been working on energy issues for decades. It gives you a great perspective on how we got to this situation.

In short, utilities since the 1940s built dirty, polluting power plants on tribal land for the purpose of powering mostly Phoenix and pumping water up-hill so that we could have more golf courses and grow high-water use cotton in the desert.

They made promises back then to the Navajo and Hopi people of economic development if they would allow these power plants and mining on their land.

But little was delivered.

All the while, the coal plants were pumping dirty coal dust in the air, strip-mining sacred land and sucking millions of gallons out of the aquifer to cool the plants, all with insufficient protection against pollution.

So, what do we owe the people of this area? They lack basic infrastructure because the investment that was promised never came. In fact, we have seen recently how the lack of infrastructure on Navajo and Hopi land have made them a hot spot for COVID-19.

You think that’s just because Navajo and Hopi governments are inefficient? Well, nobody is perfect, but if you think that, contact me and I’ll go in to great detail how Arizona state tax code seriously undermines tribal ability to invest in infrastructure, like roads, schools, water and power.

Did you know that thousands homes in the Navajo Nation sit within view of massive utility power lines, yet have no power? It is a third-world-level problem in our own state.

Whew.

Okay. That’s a lot to take in.

Lemme take a breath.

Then I want to tell you how great the Navajo and Hopi future can be, if we plan responsibly right now.

Here’s a great column from one of the owners of a new, Navajo-owned renewable energy development company called Navajo Power.

The columnist is very specific about what needs to be done. We need to support tribal development and ownership of the power plants which send us electricity. Rather than building dirty plants and sending profits to Phoenix or out of state, we need to help tribes build plants from which they can profit and build the infrastructure that they were promised 70 years ago.

Have a look at this column from GreenBiz.com about the details of a plan to sell solar energy to Los Angeles Power and Light.

We can do that through just transition.

The utilities can build two things in to their future plans: the purchase of power from tribe-owned renewable energy power companies and funds to help with transition. These funds will help remediate the open sores left from strip mining coal, build water and power infrastructure and get energy projects off the ground.

Look, we all have a strong sense of fairness, regardless of where we are on the political spectrum.

When you understand what Hope and Navajo people have been through, I’m convinced that you will agree that we can to a lot tomorrow with just a little investment today to right the wrongs of yesterday.