National Grid “solutions” are pure propaganda

The opinion piece from Bryan Grimaldi of National Grid (“Simple solutions won’t solve climate change challenge,” Oct. 13) strives to be a voice of reasonableness, but is really just propaganda.

The idea of “clean” energy that National Grid puts forward is just more gas dressed up with buzzwords like “renewable” and “green.” The fossil fuel industry really likes both “renewable natural gas” and “green hydrogen” because they rely on current pipeline infrastructure. They are promoting these alternative fuels not because they’re reasonable, but so they don’t have to change the way they do business.

For example, their concept of “renewable natural gas” is chemically identical to regular “natural gas,” only sourced differently. Most reasonable estimates say this fuel could replace less than 5 percent of the current gas demand.

The other gas National Grid relies on in their vision is hydrogen. Hydrogen is very rarely found on Earth, and the process to capture it is extremely energy-intensive and inefficient. Even “green hydrogen,” which captures hydrogen using renewable energy, is a very inefficient, expensive process, making it similarly unreasonable.

National Grid’s plan is a win-win for National Grid and a lose-lose for everyone else. If we were to adopt their plan, they get to keep their pipelines. And if their plan fails because it is too little and too expensive (which it would be), they get to keep their pipelines. All of it adds up to New York failing to reach its climate goals and New Yorkers continuing to breathe polluted air. Now, that’s unreasonable.

Nan Faessler

New York City