Kate’s Reflections on the Just Transition Conference

Kate and one of our leaders, Glenn at the Just Transition conference 

After attending the Just Transition Conference this past weekend, I walked away with my mind full of new issues, concepts, and ideas I learned from the various speakers.

First, I was surprised to see all of the statistics regarding coal plants in general and their decreasing success throughout the recent years.  I was also definitely surprised to hear about where the money is in our economy.  Les Leopold made a lot of great points, showing where the money is and how unbalanced our society is.

To accomplish our goal of a Just Transition, and any move in a new direction for that matter, money is a key component.  Funding is necessary to make up for energy that will be lost if the plant retires as well as the tax revenue that is needed for Tonawanda.  I also enjoyed hearing about the alternative energy options including wind and solar energy.  However, I did see that these would be very large scale projects that would make up for the lost energy and would probably have very high start-up costs associated with it.

The last panel that focused on the transition itself was my favorite panel of the day.  The panel brought in great speakers that have gone through or are in the process of going through very similar problems that we are.  I think they can really relate to our current state and were able to show us some sort of light at the end the tunnel.  There is a lot of information that was presented at the conference and I think the last panel was able to show everyone that it IS possible to transition to a new future.

In the end, I’m not quite sure what is the best direction for Tonawanda to go, but I think we need to keep spreading the word to get a broader base of support. There are a lot of criteria that needs to be kept in mind in moving forward and I think we need to get more support.  We need to be able to have a fund set up that can help with the financing of the transition.  Additionally I think we need to have a solid end goal for the site.  I don’t think at this time it would be wise to convert the site to natural gas energy because soon enough we would have to turn around again and move towards greener energy for the future.  Globally we are moving in the direction of greener energy and I think it is possible for us to be a part of the global move in that direction.  There definitely is potential for the site to become more a part of the community as well and reconnect us to the waterfront once more.

I think the conference did a great job bringing such a wide range of perspectives and I’m hoping that we keep the discussion open and moving in a positive direction.  Our biggest issue is that we need a plan so that if the plant closes we are prepared to do something about it.

Kate is an intern at the Clean Air Coalition, a Tonawanda resident and a student at SUNY ESF.