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To destroy or transform?
Two fossil fuel transitions offer glimpse into industry’s future
By Sarah Kerson and Chloe Bennett
The world is hotter than it should be. The last seven years have been the warmest on record, according to the World Meteorological Organization. Extreme heat, hurricanes and wildfires are intensifying because of rising global temperatures caused by fossil fuel emissions, a fact the U.S. has known since the 1970s.
There is no longer a question of whether or not our global temperature will increase – it’s a question of how much. Temperatures are expected to rise, reports from The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change say, if greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb. Countries have convened to plan for a temperature cap of 2 degrees Celsius, a goalpost from the 2015 Paris Agreement.
But our warming world is dependent upon fossil fuels. It keeps the lights on, homes warm and cars running. Reliable energy solutions such as wind turbines and solar panels offer a path forward, away from gas and oil. As of 2021, about 20% of energy in the U.S. already comes from renewable sources.
Some fossil fuel industry leaders are looking to pivot toward renewable energy sources, whether by choice or necessity. In Queens, a 1960s power plant is on the cusp of transforming into a solar and wind energy hub. Ravenswood Generating Station, sitting on the waterfront of Long Island City, is seeking approval from regulators for offshore wind, solar energy from upstate New York, and battery storage. In South Philadelphia, local community members are demanding a say in what will happen to the site of a shuttered oil refinery.
“We cannot meet our climate goals without stopping the burning of fossil fuels.”
– J. Mijin Cha, an associate professor of urban and environmental policy at Occidental College“A lot of people are trying to find a way to both address climate change while continuing to burn fossil fuels, and the truth is that can never happen,” said Dr. J. Mijin Cha, an associate professor of urban and environmental policy at Occidental College. “We cannot meet our climate goals without stopping the burning of fossil fuels. And so if we stop burning fossil fuels, we need an energy transition into other sources.” While installing solar panels and driving an electric car can be ways to reduce your personal carbon footprint, it’s a drop in the bucket of the massive, global-scale shift needed to avert rising temperatures.
That shift will require millions of workers in the fossil fuel energy sector to transition to other lines of work. But it’s not as simple as retraining coal miners to build solar panels. “There’s a geographic disconnect between where jobs are being created and where jobs are being lost,” Cha said. “Solar jobs are happening where there are good solar policies, which is in more blue states. A lot of the fossil fuel extraction is in more conservative states.”
Cha studies just energy transitions – how to equitably transition workers and communities away from fossil fuels and toward a low-carbon future. “Just transition at its heart is a really disruptive idea,” Cha said. “Transition has always occurred and will always occur,” she said, pointing to the industrial revolution and globalization, “but we have very few examples of it being just.”
Workers at the Philadelphia Energy Solutions oil refinery faced a sudden transition in the summer of 2019, when they found out from a report in Reuters that the refinery would close after a series of explosions just days prior.
“It was so abrupt the way it happened,” said Bilal Motley, a former manager at the refinery who was there the morning of the explosions and fire.
In the early morning hours of June 21, 2019, residents of South Philadelphia were shaken awake by a series of explosions at the refinery. Jeanette Miller, a lifelong resident of the Grays Ferry neighborhood bordering the refinery, had her windows open.
“These refineries are ticking time bombs.”
– Jeanette Miller, Grays Ferry neighborhood resident“It was a scary thing because they had the potential to harm the whole of Philadelphia, not just Grays Ferry. That’s what everyone needs to know,” she said. “These refineries are ticking time bombs.”
Jeanette Miller, Grays Ferry resident and Philly Thrive member.
Motley, who has been openly critical of the refinery and produced a documentary about his experience working there, credits a quick-thinking board operator for diverting hydrofluoric acid during the incident. If not for that, he said, “I think it would’ve been America’s Chernobyl.” Five workers suffered minor injuries, but no one was killed.
Motley now works at a local healthcare nonprofit. He often worked night shifts at the refinery, and said he experienced frequent headaches working there. But he also says he misses things about working at the refinery.
“I miss the can-do attitude. I miss that camaraderie,” he said. “I just don’t miss the environmental issues, the headaches, the no sleep and the potential danger, which ultimately led to the explosion.”
A U.S. Chemical Safety Board report released in October confirmed an earlier finding by the agency that blamed the explosion on a corroded pipe. The pipe in question was installed in 1973 and corroded more quickly than other components in the piping unit because of a high amount of nickel and copper.
The refinery had been in operation for 150 years, and was the largest facility of its kind on the east coast until its closure. The site was purchased by Hilco Redevelopment Partners (HRP) in bankruptcy court in February of 2020.
“Before the refinery exploded, it was the single largest source of toxic air pollutant exposure for Philadelphians. And as you might imagine, the communities that lived right around it bore the brunt of that,” said Dr. Marilyn Howarth, the Director of Community Engagement for the Center of Excellence in Environmental Toxicology at the University of Pennsylvania. Howarth said pollutants emitted by the refinery can cause a host of health problems, including asthma and cancer. Benzene, a known carcinogen associated with oil and gas refining, is still present at the site, according to a report released in June by the Environmental Integrity Project.
“There’s no amount of benzene that’s safe,” she said. “Any amount can cause cancer,” she said.
The EPA’s Petroleum Refinery Sector Rule requires refineries to measure benzene levels at their fencelines, requiring corrective action when levels reach a net annual average of over nine micrograms per cubic meter. At a virtual community meeting in September, HRP said the average benzene concentration at the perimeter of the property in 2022 was 1.3 micrograms per cubic meter. HRP also announced it would stop monitoring for benzene at its fenceline at the end of this year.
Residents of Grays Ferry and Point Breeze, South Philadelphia neighborhoods that border the refinery, suffer higher rates of cancer than other neighborhoods in Philadelphia. A compilation of data on cancer in Philadelphia by Drexel University estimates neighborhood rates of cancer at 513 and 525 per 100,000 people, respectively. In Philadelphia, that number is 473 cases per 100,000 people.
Sylvia Bennett, 79, has lived in Grays Ferry since 1965. After growing up in a neighborhood where toxic chemicals leached into the air by the refinery, two of Bennett’s daughters are now battling cancer.
Both discovered they had breast cancer within months of each other, and one has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma, a blood cancer. And Bennett says her experience is not unique.
“I watched children that grew up with my children die. Liver cancer. Lung cancer. Kidney cancer,” she said.
Bennett and Miller are a part of an environmental justice organization called Philly Thrive, which fought to close the refinery. Philadelphia Energy Solutions, which operated the refinery beginning in 2012, filed for bankruptcy shortly after the explosion at the refinery. Philly Thrive is now fighting for a say in what happens to the 1,000 acre site.
“What we want them to do now is clean up the ground,” Bennett said. “And no more fossil fuels that’s poisoning and killing people around here. Babies, children have liver trouble, lung trouble, asthma. My oldest daughter has asthma from living in the area, so we want the best for our community.”
Sylvia Bennett, Grays Ferry resident and Philly Thrive member.
The responsibility for cleaning up environmental contamination and pollution at the refinery site is split between HRP and Evergreen, a company in charge of managing legacy contamination for sunoco, which owned the refinery until 2012. HRP is responsible for cleaning up the site from spills from after 2012, and Evergreen is responsible for spills from before that.
HRP, which has rebranded the refinery site as “The Bellwether District” and intends to turn it into a life sciences and logistics hub, agreed to negotiate a community benefits agreement with local organizations. HRP says it will begin talks for that agreement in 2023.
The company declined an interview request. “From day one, we have committed to listening to our neighbors and transforming the former refinery into an economic engine that will create thousands of jobs for Philadelphians,” communications manager Alex Smiley said in an email.
A community benefits agreement has been a top demand of local community groups, including the United South/Southwest Coalition for Healthy Communities, which began early last year to ensure local residents have a say in the refinery’s redevelopment. The coalition has pressed for a carbon-free redevelopment of the site and for resident involvement in the planning of the use for the site.
Philly Thrive dropped out of the coalition in order to stage direct actions around the redevelopment of the refinery. In October, seven activists were arrested at an oil tank farm near the refinery site, calling for it to be closed permanently. HRP, which also owns the tank farm where petroleum products are stored, stopped operating it in 2021. Smiley said “99% of legacy petroleum” has been removed from the site. But the company has left open the possibility of resuming operations and received an updated operating permit from the Philadelphia Department of Public Health’s Air Management in October.
“Why would you want fossil fuel infrastructure there? Why wouldn’t you put modern technology, green energy, clean energy that the community would benefit tremendously from by not being polluted anymore?” said Shawmar Pitts, a lifelong Grays Ferry resident and strategy organizer for Philly Thrive.
Shawmar Pitts, Grays Ferry resident and Phillly Thrive strategy organizer.
Pitts and his neighbors have long borne the brunt of pollution from the refinery–and they’re not alone. According to a 2017 report by the NAACP, African-Americans are 75 percent more likely to live in “fenceline” communities, or neighborhoods bordering sites that produce dangerous pollution.
A little over 100 miles north of Grays Ferry, residents of Astoria, Queens have been battling similar health issues since the 1960s. But they could see a change in the coming years.
Claudia Coger remembers a time before Ravenswood Generating Station. Her children grew up in Astoria Houses, in a neighborhood that later earned the nickname “asthma alley” because of its air pollution. By the time the power plant was constructed and operational in 1963, Coger watched her children graduate from high school and move away. But the effects of the power plant were discovered decades later.
Red peakers jut out from Ravenswood Generating Station, which opened in the 1960s.
In 2010, Coger’s granddaughter and two great-grandchildren moved into her apartment in Astoria Houses. She said her family began experiencing health problems almost immediately.
“All three of them lined up with asthmatic problems and machines and allergies,” Coger said.
Coger said her granddaughter had to pay more than $500 to receive at-home breathing machines for her two children. At least once, she said, her great-grandchildren were hospitalized overnight with an asthma attack. The difference between the time she lived with her children and grandchildren was the power plant, which is located about a mile from Astoria Houses.
The natural gas power plant, nicknamed “Big Allis,” emitted nearly 1.1 million tons of carbon dioxide in 2020, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency, though the emissions were down last year from 1.2 million tons in 2019. Methane found in natural gas is associated with respiratory illnesses like asthma and bronchitis, according to the Allergy and Asthma Network.
There could be a change in the air near Ravenswood in the coming years. State legislators and the power plant’s owner are looking to transform the station into a renewable energy hub with wind, solar energy and battery storage to ensure power generation. Rise Light and Power, which bought Ravenswood in 2017, published a plan last August that would flow solar energy from upstate New York and offshore wind into the power station. Transitioning from fossil fuels to renewable energy has been top of mind for the company, lawmakers and environmental organizations since 2020. Part of that is because of its historically unjust location.
Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing complex in the state, sits next to Ravenswood Generating Station.
“It’s almost perfectly suited to kind of become an environmental justice project, a just transition project,”
– Daniel Chu, energy planner for the NYC Environmental Just Alliance“It’s almost perfectly suited to kind of become an environmental justice project, a just transition project, because it’s located directly next to one of the largest, if not largest public housing project in the entire nation,” Daniel Chu, energy planner for the NYC Environmental Just Alliance said.
Ravenswood Generating Station is closer to Queensbridge Houses, the largest public housing in the state. The buildings are part of a neighborhood where 17% of seniors over 65 are below the poverty level. Part of The New York City Housing Authority, Queensbridge Houses are among a population that earns a yearly average of $24,454, less than half of New York City’s average income as of 2020.
By the time Ravenswood opened in the 1960s, Queensbridge Houses had existed for more than 20 years. Rep. Carolyn Maloney, whose district covers part of Long Island City, has spoken out against the power plant’s location and has called for its removal should the proposed transition not receive approval.
“It’s no accident that Queensbridge and Big Allis, the polluting power plant, are so close together,” Maloney said during a March 2022 rally. “It’s no accident that there are 10 peaker plants within one mile of Queensbridge residents.”
Destruction of Ravenswood isn’t in the future that Clint Plummer, chief executive officer of Rise Light and Power, envisions. Plummer was first approached about guiding the power plant through a renewable transition in 2020 after accumulating several years in the offshore wind industry. Using the 27-acre plant’s existing infrastructure as a nucleus for renewable energy, instead of disturbing new land, made for a persuasive offer after years of complicated negotiations with land owners and jurisdictions.
On top of reducing carbon emissions and rectifying the power plant’s environmental injustices, Plummer said Ravenswood’s age is enough reason to transition.
“Think about somebody that’s driving a 1962 Ford F-150 pickup today. Might be a cool showpiece, but it’s not going to be the most efficient, and it’s not going to be the most reliable,” Plummer said. “That’s why we need to replace this generation.”
The power plant is on Astoria’s waterfront facing Manhattan.
Replacing and transitioning the power plant away from fossil fuels could happen in 2030, according to Plummer. But local environmental organizers are hopeful that the company’s newest proposal receives approval sooner than that. Chu said the power plant’s transition could be an example of a just transition because of its inclusion of the community and workers.
“If you have agreements or understanding with local community members to make sure that they can also take part in this benefit of increased job and increased funding and increased investments, that’s something that can benefit the local environmental justice communities on top of the health impacts that we’ll see,” Chu said.
Rise Light & Power has shared its proposed transition in public meetings with its neighbors. In September, the company brought its latest plan to the Old Astoria Neighborhood Association, a nonprofit that holds discussions related to the neighborhood’s waterfront, including Long Island City. Wil Fisher, a spokesperson for Rise Light & Power, said the company wants the community to not only come aboard, but to push for the transition. “This is actually a moment that we can change and we can do something about this,” Fisher said.
Public support for the transition is vast according to OANA President Richard Khazumi, who has lived in Astoria for nearly 20 years. “I don’t know of anybody ever saying it’s not a good idea,” Khazumi said. “From my standpoint, the same thing – there’s no reason on God’s given Earth.”
A mural from NYCHA’s Queensbridge Houses depicts the neighborhood.
Although it’s unclear how Ravenswood’s transition will affect consumers’ bills, Khazumi is optimistic that his will decrease. In October, Khazumi said his energy bill was around $1,000 for his three-story building in Astoria. “I think you’ll see more and more people looking for ways to mitigate that and some of it will be, I think, towards adding solar power and other things to their buildings,” he said.
As of 2022, some renewable energy such as solar and wind was cheaper than fossil fuels. But Plummer said he doesn’t know exactly how much residents will be paying once the smokestacks are retired.
“While we can’t say definitively what energy bills are gonna be in the future, what we do know is that just as a function of the age or the infrastructure that we have today, that there’s going to be a replacement cycle coming, and that when we look at that replacement cycle, it’s going to be, we believe, more cost effective to be replacing this capacity with renewables than any other,” Plummer said.
Topping the list of unanswered questions is how the transition will affect its over 100-people workforce on site. The company said it will retrain the staff for Ravenswood’s next life in an August news release, but it’s unclear if there will be cuts within the workforce, which is unionized under Utility Workers Union of America Local 1-2.
“‘That’s my job, you know, what’s going to happen to me?’”
– Union President James ShillitoUnion President James Shillito said there is still fear among the workers. “The guys and gals that work in these facilities, well, they’re threatened.,” Shillito said. “‘That’s my job, you know, what’s going to happen to me?’”
But to complete a just energy transition, experts, including Cha, say economic impacts should take high priority. Workers at the power plant now make anywhere from $20 to $50 an hour, according to Shillito. The low end of wages may not change, he said, but it’s possible the high end will.
“We have a lot of skilled people,” Shillito said. “And you know, just because right now they produce power with fossil fuels, doesn’t mean they can’t learn to produce it in a cleaner energy way, whatever way it is.”
As of November 2022, Ravenswood remains a mostly diesel-fired power plant with a long list of regulators to pass through, including New York State Energy Research and Development Authority and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Their next announcement, Plummer said, will be related to their next move on offshore wind following a review from the state.
Transitions away from fossil fuels are happening outside of the Northeast as well. In 12 years, states such as California and Texas are projected to generate over 50 percent of their energy from renewable sources, according to a survey from consulting firm Deloitte Insights. But as of December 2022, the Permian Basin in West Texas releases the highest amount of greenhouse gas in the world and Southern California is close to building new natural gas power generators that would produce 93 megawatts of energy.
Stopping fossil fuel operations must come from state and federal legislation, Erin Baker, faculty director of The Energy Transition Institute at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst said.
“There’s not a lot of reason why a fossil fuel company would change anything if they didn’t have to,” Baker said.
But collaboration between marginalized communities like Grays Ferry and Astoria and regulators is vital to any energy transition.
“Think about workers in these power plants, Chu said.” Think about their residents nearby these power plants, how they can have opportunities or funding or things on top of pollution reduction that they can benefit from the project.”
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To destroy or transform? Two fossil fuel transitions offer glimpse into industry’s future 