To the editor:
All that glitters is not gold. Cheap electrical power, exclusively green energy, jobs and local control are being promised with almost evangelical zeal. It really sounds too good to be true mainly because it isn’t.
Yes, the Bonneville Power Administration will make a low cost block of energy available to a Bainbridge power utility district, but that is energy at their pickup point, the nearest being in Gorst.
Getting it delivered on-island requires either our own trunk lines or an agreement with Puget Sound Energy to transport it for a fee to our borders.
Not so cheap anymore. And not so green either. Any chunk of hydro power we are allocated means someone else will not receive it — zero sum game. All the power green or not is placed on the grid with no identification as to source. What arrives at our door may be coal-fired for all we will know. Any jobs generated will mainly be in overhead — labor performed here is labor previously performed elsewhere — zero sum game.
And when is the last time you saw lower scale jobs being filled by islanders? More traffic on Highway 305 to bring in off-island labor which cannot afford to live here.
As for local control, when exactly has that worked to our benefit? Our water and sewer systems have repeatedly been in the news for system failures and unethical business practices. Why would this be different?
Then, how are we to pay for all this?
What is not mentioned is that the power industry is imploding with residential solar generation destroying the economic models of the past.
Germany, with which we share a common latitude, derives up to 30 percent of its electricity from solar and they intend to increase its use. If that happens here there will be insufficient revenue to repay bonds or operating costs without massive rate increases.
The city of Bainbridge Island is contracting with the same consultant who provided such services to Jefferson and Thurston Counties — estimates which drastically understated the acquisition costs and have resulted in higher, not lower, bills.
This is not a good idea.
VARON MULLIS
Bainbridge Island
