Every electron is not neutral December 4, 2021

Philip Landrigan and Anna Goldman | CommonWealth Magazine

We New Englanders have a spectacular opportunity to move rapidly from polluting fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy. This transition will benefit us all: It will slow climate change, reduce pollution, save lives, and preserve New England’s beautiful environment for our children and their children.

A wholesale transition to renewable energy will also save us money. The cost of producing electricity from solar power has fallen by 90 percent in the past decade; wind power’s cost has fallen by 50 percent. In many parts of New England, it’s now cheaper to produce electricity from renewables than from any fossil fuel.

But if we are to seize this moment, keep our skies blue, and prevent our planet from overheating, we need to educate ourselves about an obscure but very powerful organization: ISO-New England, the group that manages our region’s electric power grid.