Energy Officials Miss The Obvious

From yesterday’s Boston Globe:

Facing a worsening crunch in the supply of electricity, soaring prices, and rolling blackouts, top New England utility officials are thinking about some once-unthinkable solutions: more coal and nuclear power.

Officially, no proposals for new nuclear reactors or coal-fueled power plants are in the works. But in an interview with the Globe, Gordon van Welie, chief executive of Independent System Operator New England, which runs the six-state power grid, broached the idea of coal and nuclear plants — along with better conservation and wind power — as steps the region, overly reliant on natural gas, must consider to stave off a power crisis.

”We don’t want coal. We don’t want nuclear power. We don’t want windmills off the coast of Massachusetts. We don’t want windmills in Vermont,” van Welie said. ”We don’t want any of that stuff, but then once you’ve made that decision, acknowledge what the costs are. You can’t have it both ways.”

I can appreciate their frustration. To meet our ever-growing appetite for energy, new power sources must be found. However, no one wants those new power sources cluttering up their views, polluting their air, or sitting in their back yards.

However, I can’t notice that increasing public awareness and interest in conservation didn’t make the list of considerations. True, such a solution probably seems too fru-fru for the masses…but if you have a fundamental problem of too much demand with no easy increases to supply, it’s perhaps it’s long past time to do something to affect the demand pressure.