Power Lines

Sanya Carley and David Konisky set out to provide a narrative of the “many challenges that emerge when we center people in the energy transition” (p. 218, emphasis added). 

They conclude that the challenges of transitioning away from fossil fuels toward renewables are “immense.” So immense, that they fear that the picture they have “painted . . . seems grim and hopeless, leaving an impression that the price of completely overhauling the energy system is not worth pursuing.” However, they do not think this is the right conclusion, because we “do not have a choice. . . . The alternative by century’s end is . . . an ‘uninhabitable Earth,’” so “we face no real option but to press ahead” (p. 218).

Despite this plea, their pessimism may do their cause more harm than good. And pessimism pervades Power Lines. It begins with a pessimism about the costs and benefits of fossil fuels, as it unfolds a parallel agenda that is meant to malign decentralized decision-making about energy consumption and production. Their second objective is to repeatedly portray the market economy as unfair.

The book begins by arguing that across the world, “people lack the power and agency to rewrite their own relationship . . . with the world’s energy systems, a relationship marked by historical oppression, social and economic alienation, and abandonment” (p. 15). An alternative reading is that historically the development of the fossil fuel “energy system” has not been marked by “oppression” but has been one of the most liberating developments in human history. Historically the vast majority of people lived below the “extreme poverty” line identified by the World Bank. Our ancestors were often malnourished, and they expended considerable energy in doing difficult tasks like hauling water to their meager dwellings or planting and harvesting crops. Then fossil fuels became cheap and ubiquitous allowing affordable indoor plumbing and vastly reducing the price of food thanks to tractors and ammonia-based fertilizers, among other wonders. The energy transition to fossil fuels was one of the most important, liberating events in human history and has given us the chance to lead much easier and more fulfilling lives. 

Instead of focusing on these benefits—which far exceed the costs of fossil fuels by almost any way of reckoning—Carley and Konisky look for—but don’t always find—the few who may have lost out and arguing that they have been treated unfairly. A telling example is Port Arthur, Texas, “refinery central” in the United States (p. 44). While the rest of us blithely consume gasoline, the residents of Port Arthur pay the price, we are told. In Port Arthur there are homes within a few hundred feet of refineries and “not surprisingly, residents complain about the constant sulfur smell and toxic chemicals spewing into the air” (p. 45). “Unlike the location of coal mines or oil wells, which are mostly dictated by natural factors, companies select the location of oil refineries for other reasons, which may be related to where historically marginalized population reside” (p. 43). Exploitation? Probably not. I searched the housing situation in the neighborhood near the Valero refinery in Port Arthur and discovered that the homes were built in the early 1960s. The original refinery was built in 1901. The refinery’s site was selected because Port Arthur is (surprise) a port and near the heart of Texas’s first oil fields. Its population was about 900 before the first refinery opened. People moved to be near its refineries, rather than oil refiners purposely locating near marginalized people. Later in this chapter, “Beaten, Broken, and Forgotten,” the authors lament the fate of workers in the once-thriving coal mining communities of West Virginia. Jobs paying $120,000 per year were once available. “These coal miners were lured from high school with six-figure-paying jobs and a promise of a stable income and lifestyle for the duration of lives” (p. 73). This is certainly an area experiencing transition difficulties from the war on fossil fuels, but one wonders who made a “promise” that such jobs would be around for the duration. Coal miners have certainly lost out, but the implication that the decline in demand for their labor—driven mainly by technological changes—is “unfair” is hard to sustain. 

The next chapter, “Life Without Energy,” includes a lengthy case study of an unfortunate man whose electricity was turned off due to an unpaid power bill of only $13. “According to Darrin . . . the utility company did not make an effort to notify him in advance—at least not that he knows of—and instead it made the decision to shut off his power due to his modest outstanding balance” (p. 84, emphasis added). It’s hard not to sympathize, but his interpretation of the facts seems unlikely. As Legal Aid of West Virginia explains on its ​website: “Generally, the utility has to follow these steps to turn off your service: They must send you a letter 10 days before they turn your service off AND They must make 2 attempts to call OR visit your house 24 hours before they turn your utilities off.” The authors seem to imply that it is grossly unfair that poor people should be required to pay their power bills and invoke loaded language, such as calling the percent of income spent on energy a person’s “energy burden.” (How large is your “cellphone burden”?) Surely, this “energy burden” will rise substantially if the U.S. mandates “clean energy” policies that drive up electricity costs. Electricity prices in the U.S. are ​well below those in Europe, which has mandated such policies, for example. Ultimately the authors imply that when this transition occurs in the U.S., the poor shouldn’t have to pay more, as they are already overburdened. Yes, there are already energy assistance programs in place, but the authors suggest that they are underfunded. And they lament that there “is little public information about how to save energy” (p. 95), even though this information is more widely available than ever due to near universal access to the internet. If you simply type “how can I save energy?” into your web browser, you’ll see what I mean. Finally, they add that “energy insecurity” leads people to use risky heat sources, noting that “eighty deaths and 1,700 fires are caused each year by space heaters” (p. 88). This is undeniably tragic. However, they omit the ​trend that shows that the number of these fires has almost fallen in half in the past couple decades. They certainly have a bias toward pessimism.

Some chapters are much stronger, especially one titled “Backyards and Ballots,” which addresses pushback against massive clean energy facilities—especially wind farms, which can create a “loss of place” in rural communities. “The crucial point is that people are not reacting in some sort of irrational way that can be explained by NIMBYism but are instead acting rationally to a sense of disruption and loss” (p. 147). 

An energy transition would require huge increases in production of cobalt, lithium and other metals. However, Carley and Konisky caution that this will impose massive burdens on some people in poor countries. They describe life among cobalt miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) as downright hellish. Likewise, workers who process e-waste in Ghana must burn plastic off wires and burn other metals to get to the precious metals they want in discarded electronic equipment, releasing toxic waste into the soil and into the air they and their neighbors breathe. In both cases, however, these industries provide workers with options they didn’t have before. If the demand for cobalt disappeared, would workers in the DRC be better off? Would workers in Ghana be better off if all our electric waste was simply thrown into landfills? Poverty abounds in these countries, and it is the poverty that pushes people to accept these risky jobs. (The authors report that the poverty rate in the DRC is 60 percent. They also mention that one-third of Detroit’s residents live in poverty. Rather misleading, given that poverty in the DRC is measured using the World Bank’s standard—about $3 per day in today’s dollars—while poverty in the U.S. is measured on a completely different scale. Our poverty line is about twelve times higher.) 

If we insist on a rapid transition away from fossil fuels—a genuinely bad idea given the small impact on greenhouse gasses and the massive costs (see my review of E. Calvin Beisner and David R. Legates, editors, Climate and Energy: The Case for Realism, for example)—the best policy will be to put people at the center of the equation. We can do this by allowing markets to operate flexibly and motivating each other to take responsibility for ourselves.