Last Sunday morning the sun rose over the mouth of the Piscataqua River, the currents braided around the bridges, the dark outline of the trees turned green. One tall smoke stack on the New Hampshire shore of the river caught the early light. At the base of the stack a small group gathered: hard hats, safety gear, two back packs. These 5 are our friends. They have been anticipating this - this morning, this climb, this possibility.
Two of them begin to climb the smoke stack, clipping in, hand over hand, step by step. Steady. Headed for the platform 270 feet off the ground with 30 pounds of banner and 20 pounds of rope.
This is a day of celebration and a day of starting fresh. In March we got a shut down date for the coal plant that we’ve been protesting since 2019. That’s worth a lot of celebration, the whole of the New England grid will be coal free. We’re showing it’s possible to move away from coal. In the afternoon of this beautiful summer day we join a festival at a park on the banks of the Merrimack River. A park where we can see the smokestack of the coal plant above the treetops.
But for now, back to that early morning climb.
Our climbers went rung by rung up the stack. Smoke stacks, it turns out, are loud. So it’s like climbing with the Cyclops working below. While they climbed steadily on, a small group of our friends arrived at a substation in Tamworth NH, spray paint in hand and an art design that weaves together the cost of keeping the remote jet-fuel burning plant on the grid and a defiant racoon. Over near the Vermont border another group of our friends descended on a Northumberland plant with wild flowers that remediate soil and handmade sunflowers “planted” in our 5 gallon coal buckets. This facility receives subsidies from our electric bills, but has not generated electricity since December of 2022. Here they hung a banner to describe our vision of leaving this infrastructure in the past: Peaker by peaker; plant by plant.
Northumberland
Tamworth "Last year this oil burning power plant cost us $331K"
Banner hung at Northumberland
Meanwhile, our smoke stack climbers are still ascending the rumbling monster. Part way up they move out of the cool morning shadows and into the golden light of sun that is rising as they are. That is all of us, climbing, step by step into the sunshine of a better world. They get to the platform and start to unpack. And in the shining sunlight they unfurl our 170 foot message, our demand, the possibility.
Once this banner is hanging in the light of morning a team at the languishing coal plant next door hang their 35 foot questions for the owners of the pile of coal.
Banner at Schiller reads "Congrats on the Battery Park, What's all this then?" referring to the massive pile of coal still stored in their coal yard.
These are the five remaining fossil fuel peakers in New Hampshire. All five are owned by Granite Shore Power - the private equity owned company that has been talking about Clean Energy Parks, but they are still burning fossil fuels, still making lots of money burning our future with these plants that only run occasionally and therefore are the most expensive, least efficient and most polluting of all the fossil fuel generators.
On this day of celebrating the closing date of the coal plant in Bow we are saying to Granite Shore Power and to you, we won! And that gives us the courage and perspective to take on something bigger. We’re ready to close every “peaker” plant in New England - the ones that only run on the hottest and coldest days - or not at all- that start and stop making them dirtier and more inefficient than most and also making them very costly to those of us who pay for electricity.
Begin as you wish to continue, they say. We did. We started big! We showed up at 5 plants on the same day with the same message for each one: plant by plant we will end the practice of profiting from the fossil fuels that are causing such damage, plant by plant we will continue creating communities that care for one another and for our tender, beautiful earth. Join us as we climb on.
Ways to climb on with us:
Watch our Instagram reel about this action and boost it! This is such a delight to watch.
Join us in the Peaker Plant Work - Find a Peaker (electrical generation facilities that only run at times of high, or peak, demand. Sometimes they don't even run but still get payments to stay available) near you! Do you already know about a power plant near you that only runs occasionally? Do you work with a community group about it? Are you curious to know more? Let us know, we'd love to get connected to/connect you to work in your area.
Community Conservation - This is about conserving energy and doing it together. Because we can do things together that we cannot do individually. We are forming pods of people to choose and track how we can change our energy use at high demand times. By doing this, we can reduce the need for these plants that run from time to time and we can increase community bonds at a time when when we need each other more because there's more stress in the world. Interested in forming a small group around energy conservation? Let us know, we'd love to support you building one!
Our community connections and deep commitments are the most important part of what we do. It's also true, we need some money to do what we do: from climbing to time spent organizing groups to try new things. Make a donation to NCNG.
Attend the Consumer Liaison Group meeting in New London CT September 12th Register HERE to attend in-person Register HERE to attend via WebEx. This quarterly meeting engages our electrical grid operator. The theme in September is offshore wind.
Grateful to be in this climb with you - Kendra, Marla and the whole action team
