Entergy would like customers to believe that a gas plant will fix the frequent power outages, but it won’t. The primary cause of the numerous power outages is Entergy’s failure to maintain and repair poles and wires in our neighborhoods. This is a problem Entergy has ignored for years.
2. Entergy’s claim that a new gas plant would be needed during extreme weather doesn’t hold water.
Entergy plans to build the gas plant in a high-risk flood hazard area, where FEMA policy discourages the building of a new power plant. Entergy executives admitted that they planned the gas plant without considering the City of New Orleans Flood Damage Prevention Ordinance, which adopts FEMA standards.
3. A gas plant raises our electricity bills - for 30+ years.
With the oversupply of electricity on the grid, there are no customers outside of New Orleans lined up to buy electricity from Entergy’s gas plant that could contribute to paying the expensive construction cost.
Entergy has already collected $30 million from New Orleans customers for the new gas plant. The money collected is the first year of installment payments. There will also be additional installment payments and costs for fuel, maintenance, and management. The total cost for the gas plant is expected to be $650 million, which New Orleans residents and future generations are on the hook to pay to Entergy for the next 29 years.
Currently, low-income residents pay up to 20% of their income on Entergy bills, which ranks New Orleans second among US cities where low-income households struggle to pay the highest energy burdens in the nation. The gas plant will cause Entergy bills to go up for every customer.
Source: ACEEE, “Lifting the High Energy Burden in America’s Largest Cities,” April 2016.
4. Only 13 Permanent Jobs Will Be Created
Entergy’s promise of jobs with a new gas plant turns out to be, at most, 13 permanent jobs. The greatest potential for job growth is in energy efficiency and renewable energy, which is the fastest growing job sector in the US economy. There are more than 250 New Orleanians working in the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries.
5. The Math Doesn't Add Up
In February 2017, Entergy admitted that it overestimated customer demand for electricity. Entergy requested a suspension on the application, but came back to the City Council in July with the exact same plan plus the option of a second slightly smaller gas plant. Running out of reasons for building a new gas plant, Entergy now argues that in an extraordinary event when there are two simultaneous failures of the transmission system during a 50-hour period when electric use is high, a gas plant would be needed. A transmission upgrade would be a cheaper and more effective solution than a new gas plant for this unlikely situation.
6. A Gas Plant is Dangerous & Unfair
Entergy’s first and second gas plant applications to the City Council failed to consider the harmful health impacts and safety risks of building a gas plant in New Orleans East, near predominantly African American, Vietnamese American and Latinx neighborhoods. Each gas plant proposal would annually release more than 1 million pounds of harmful air pollution that can cause lung damage, asthma, cardiovascular disease, heart attacks, and cancer.
Gas plants pollute, and gas plants can explode and have pipeline ruptures as we have seen around the south (Pascagoula, MS, Gibson, LA, Waco, TX, and New Orleans East, LA). The risk of fires and explosions are an ever-present threat to the lives of New Orleans residents whose homes, schools, playgrounds, churches, hospitals, and businesses are near Entergy’s chosen location for a gas plant.
Additionally, each year Entergy gas plant is expected to also release over 1 billion pounds of greenhouse gases contributing to climate change. Entergy’s refusal to adopt sustainable energy alternatives instead of a gas plant would erase the progress our city is making on climate action. Entergy’s gas plant would send the wrong message, closing the door on important opportunities for investing in our city and making our neighborhoods climate resilient.
Documents reveal that a prior agreement was made with Entergy to develop a new gas plant of at least 120 MW in New Orleans with Michoud as a potential site for it. This prior agreement took place outside of the public process for energy planning (Integrated Resource Planning) and the gas plant application process. This agreement sets up an unfair, undemocratic process for Council decision-making.
7. A gas plant worsens subsidence & threatens our levees.
In New Orleans East, a community devastated by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, flood risks are far from abstract. The neighborhood experiences some of the highest rates of ground sinking, or subsidence, in the city, leaving families with cracked foundations and driveways that are caving in.
A NASA study released in May 2016 links the exceptional rate of sinking to groundwater withdrawals by a now-shuttered Entergy gas plant that operated for decades in New Orleans East. Entergy’s new plant would be built on roughly the same site as the old one, sucking up more water—and potentially destabilizing nearby levees—while spewing more of the pollution driving climate change, which leads to extreme rainfall, stronger storms and rising seas.
"We are digging a big hole in front of our door and one day, not us, but our children, will fall into it,” said Anthony Tran, a parishioner at the local Mary Queen of Vietnam Catholic Church during a packed community meeting in January.
8. We Need & Deserve Real Solutions
It’s time for a renewable and efficient energy future! Modern technology is cheaper, cleaner and better than outdated technology of burning gas to generate electricity. Energy efficiency, solar and wind energy are all cheaper and cleaner than Entergy’s gas plant. Transmission upgrades, batteries (energy storage) and smart grids are better than a gas plant to prevent power outages and maintain grid reliability. The combination of these 21st century technologies presents real solutions for New Orleans residents and businesses.
