Climate Solutions Week, created by Sustainable Hudson Valley, explores different environmental challenges and solutions including: a sustainable fashion runway, a how-to on disposing of refrigerators, a heat pump demonstration, making solar panels into art, and discussions about data centers. Events run through September 26.
Melissa Everett, Executive Director at Sustainable Hudson Valley spoke with WAMC's Lower Hudson Valley Bureau Chief, Elias Guerra about renewable energy and upcoming events:
Guerra: There has been a lot of discussion, especially in rural areas, about solar farms or solar arrays and a lot of local communities are worried about solar being built on prime farmland or forest land. how are you trying to encourage people build solar and at the same time of assuaging some of those fears about solar coming in?
Everett: Yeah, we have a program called Yes in My Backyard, and it is about supporting electrification, solar and battery storage, and supporting communities leading the decision rather than just saying yes or no to developer proposals. That to me is the absolute essence. People feel at this time in history like so much is happening to them. The last thing they need is a developer dropping in and saying, ‘There's great land. Want solar here?’ And the only choice that's really presented is yes or no. [And] you know, some tweaking the edges of a proposal.
Electrification is so important because you can't make burning fuels pollution free. You can you can capture more of the pollution, but you can't make that go away. And electrification can be pollution free and it is so much more efficient. So for us it's about how to shift the dynamic of renewable energy and battery storage development so that communities learn what's learn what they need to know and drive the decisions more.
And it's not just happening to them. Let me add that in upstate New York, farm groups like the American Farmland Trust have been documenting what are the threats to rural communities in farmland. And by far the top one is low density housing sprawling all over the place.
Guerra: I wonder, because this has been the big question for a lot of people, is the cost of energy for so many people is incredibly high. And I wonder how you think about r renewable energy as fitting into that question of bringing down the cost of utilities when so many people are struggling right now.
Everett: Yeah, so I recently learned how energy prices are set in real time by the ISO, the Independent System Operator that manages the energy system. And they stack with drawing on the least expensive sources first, and the least expensive sources tend to be solar and hydro, and some highly efficient gas systems. And then you go up into the fossil category and they're more expensive and so they're used only when needed. So, the more renewable energy in the mix, the more costs are going to be managed. And battery storage is also a piece of that.
Everybody's been noticing Texas. I've got a friend in Saugerties who's from Texas and they were having crazy semi-brownouts and blackouts and peak demand charges that were off the charts and they have scaled up battery storage and it has stabilized those costs tremendously.
Guerra: That's interesting that you bring up Texas as a place, that I have heard they're doing some innovative stuff around renewable energy. Although we might think of them as an area more associated with fossil fuels.
Everett: It's amazing how many people aren't pure and don't overthink it and they get a lot done.
Guerra: Yeah. And lastly, can you go back and tell me just what are some of the events that people can expect to see in Climate Solutions Week. And I saw that there was going to be some fashion, there's some sensory walks, some art building and a whole lot of lectures and information sessions.
Everett: Yeah, we're proud of the diversity. We're proud of the organizations. Vassar College is doing a tour of the land that they've reclaimed. They've rewilded a bunch of campus. City of Kingston is doing collection drive for refrigerant containing appliances. We didn't talk about that, but that they are a climate super pollutant.
And my most fun thing is in Woodstock, and another way of thinking about those ugly solar panels and the not in my backyard aspect. We have a fun event on public art and solar integrated. There is this brilliant little organization called Land Art Generator. They have been doing international design competitions for large-scale solar projects that are integrated with public art. Their tagline is ‘Renewable Energy Can Be Beautiful’. So a lot of opportunities to apply principles and think about what ifs rather than kind of who's got the right answer.
