Sullivan Planning Board member Graham Platner released his highly anticipated energy plan on Tuesday, outlining a bold roadmap to achieve rapid decarbonization by ensuring no new renewable infrastructure is actually built.
Sullivan Planning Board member Graham Platner released his highly anticipated energy plan on Tuesday, outlining a bold roadmap to achieve rapid decarbonization by immediately halting all local solar construction.
The 140-page blueprint, which aims to bring down sky-high electricity prices and meet critical climate thresholds, dedicates its central mechanism to ensuring renewable infrastructure is subjected to indefinite community review. According to the filing, the most efficient way to scale up the regional grid is to allow any resident within a five-mile radius to veto a transmission line if it disrupts their view of a historic parking lot.
The plan attempts to navigate the tension between the global scientific consensus demanding immediate emissions reductions and a local homeowner’s association that recently learned what an inverter is. Platner’s document resolves this by concluding that while the climate crisis is an existential threat, it must take a backseat to the aesthetic concerns of the Sullivan zoning board.
We are fully committed to a zero-carbon future, provided that future requires zero changes to the current visual landscape of the municipality.
The vote to pump the brakes on solar follows a familiar pattern for municipal energy transitions. Recent data from the IPCC AR6 report indicates that the single largest bottleneck to staying below 1.5 degrees of warming is the municipal variance hearing. Platner's framework codifies this approach, establishing a streamlined, 18-month preliminary comment period just to schedule the initial environmental impact assessment for a 50-kilowatt rooftop array.
The board is expected to review the first batch of delayed solar applications at their next quarterly meeting, which coincides with the start of the regional wildfire season.