Environmental ethics and the electric power grid a case for tech

Salve Regina University Digital Commons @ Salve Regina Ph. Dissertations (Open Access) Salve's Dissertations and Theses 2016 Environmental Ethics and The Electric Power Grid: A Case for Technological Momentum Paul A. Povlock Salve Regina University, paul.edu Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.edu/phd_dissertations Part of the Ethics and Political Philosophy Commons, and the Oil, Gas, and Energy Commons Recommended Citation Povlock, Paul A., "Environmental Ethics and The Electric Power Grid: A Case for Technological Momentum" (2016).edu/phd_dissertations/1 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Salve's Dissertations and Theses at Digital Commons @ Salve Regina. It has been accepted for inclusion in Ph.

Dissertations (Open Access) by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Salve Regina. For more information, please contact digitalcommons@salve. SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY ENVIRONMENTAL ETHICS AND THE ELECTRIC POWER GRID: A CASE FOR TECHNOLOGICAL MOMENTUM A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF THE HUMANITIES PROGRAM IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY BY PAUL A. POVLOCK NEWPORT, RHODE ISLAND MARCH 2016 Copyright © 2016 by Paul A.

Povlock All rights reserved. SALVE REGINA UNIVERSITY GRADUATE STUDIES This dissertation of Paul A. Povlock entitled " Environmental Ethics and the Electric Power Grid: A Case for Technological Momentum" submitted to the PhD Program in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Salve Regina University has been read and approved by the following individuals: Reader: - --.--- ----:�h# (___ Date I Mentor: Director, C � �J,:;. Date Provost: I Date CONTENTS FIGURES.

xiv Interdisciplinary Analysis. xviii Method and Structure .xx Relevance to the PhD Program at Salve Regina University. THEORY AND PRACTICE .1 Technological Determinism and Technological Momentum .3 The Electric Power Grid .22 Review of the Literature. BUILDING MOMENTUM: THE ROAD TO CHARLESTOWN .46 Marsden Perry in Rhode Island .48 Harriman and Chase in the Connecticut River Valley .64 Integration of the Systems .81 Zenith of the Holding Company: International Paper & Power .93 Disintegration of the Holding Company: The Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 .99 Growing Pains of NEPA .110 Education and Ethics for the Electric Power Grid Operator .116 Post War Expansion and Enthusiasm .127 The Lure of Nuclear Power .138 System Catastrophe: The Great Northeast Blackout .143 End of Decade Concerns.

Practice: Eighty Years of Progress for the Electric Power Grid. CONSERVATION TO ENVIRONMENTALISM IN THE OCEAN STATE .169 The Beginning of Environmental Thought in America .170 Competing Visions: Gifford Pinchot and John Muir .173 The First Conservation Groups in Rhode Island .181 Aldo Leopold and the Creation of a Land Ethic.189 Rachel Carson and Silent Spring .196 The Growth of Rhode Island Conservation Groups .203 Lynn White, Jr. and the Religious Component of the Environmental Crisis .204 Barry Commoner and the Laws of Ecology .216 The Creation of Earth Day .220 iv Founding the Environmental Protection Agency .227 Continued Environmental Action in Rhode Island .229 Environmental Thinking and Efficiency. RHODE ISLAND GOVERNMENT AND REGULATORY BODIES .239 The Republican Machine in Rhode Island .240 The Establishment of the Public Utilities Commission .243 The “Green Revolution” .248 The Democratic Machine in Rhode Island .252 Environmental Regulation in the Ocean State .273 Regulation, Efficiency and Momentum.

ALTERED MOMENTUM: THE CHARLESTOWN NUCLEAR POWER PLANT .288 NEES Nuclear Plans .289 The Vietnam War Peace Dividend in Rhode Island .295 Claudine Schneider and the Local Reaction .302 Opening Moves in Charlestown .306 Environmental Groups Respond.310 The Legal Front .320 Nuclear Catastrophe and NEES Culmination.331 Root Cause Analysis of the Failure of NEES .338 Technological Momentum Exemplified .349 PURPA and its Effects .353 NEESPLAN and Conservation.359 A New Wave of Environmental Thinkers: Arne Ness and Deep Ecology.370 Amory Lovins and the Strategy of Energy .375 New and Veteran Environmental Groups in the Ocean State .379 Balance of Power in Rhode Island: NEES and the Environmental Groups .391 The Travails of Brayton Point .397 Preventing the Next Energy Crisis .404 Disturbing the Equilibrium .411 Updating PURPA: The Energy Policy Act of 1992 .414 Rhode Island Reaction to the Energy Policy Act of 1992 .420 Brayton Point Woes (Continued) .426 Deregulation of the Rhode Island Electric Power Grid .428 Change in Momentum or Reversion to the Mean?. ETHICAL ENERGY IN THE ERA OF GLOBAL WARMING .441 New Problems and Older Concerns in the Environmental Movement .442 Rhode Island Environmental Groups in the New Century .452 Continuity of Power: Rhode Island Politics in the New Century .459 Acclimatizing the IEEE Code of Conduct .462 v Gas Turbines Triumphant .467 The Quest for Sustainable Electric Power .471 Greater Regionalization and the Repeal of PUCHA .488 Brayton Point Revisited .491 Technological Determinism and Momentum in the 21st Century .505 Findings: Technological Momentum or Determinism?. Basic Structure Of The Electric System 17 2. The Extension Of The Connecticut River Power 68 Company’s Transmission Lines Throughout The State Of Massachusetts And Rhode Island 3.

International Paper & Power Organizational Chart 96 Emphasizing the Electric Utility Portion of the Holding Company. vii In memoriam of James P. Povlock, 1929-2015, electrical engineer and father, and Eric J. Shaw, 1957-2016, mentor and friend.

viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author would like to express his gratitude to Mr. Jack Miranda and Ms. Julie Zecher, research librarians at the United States Naval War College, and Ms. Sabrina Rodrigues, Associate Professor for Special Collections and Archives at the University of Rhode Island for their assistance during the course of my research.

Eugenia Marks of the Audubon Society of Rhode Island and Mr. Greg Gerritt of the Environment Council of Rhode Island were gracious with their time and insight regarding their organizations’ files and background. The long suffering forbearance of the author’s wife during this period was one of nature’s unexpected blessings. ix ABBREVIATIONS AC Alternating current AEC Atomic Energy Commission AIEE American Institute of Electrical Engineers AAAS American Association for the Advancement of Science ASRI Audubon Society of Rhode Island CEQ Council on Environmental Quality CLF Conservation Law Foundation DC Direct Current EAB Environmental Appeals Board ECRI Environment Council of Rhode Island EDF Environmental Defense Fund EPA Environmental Protection Agency DOI Department of the Interior DDT Dichloro-Diphenyl-Trichloro-ethane FERC Federal Energy Regulatory Commission FTC Federal Trade Commission Hz Hertz IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers ISO Independent System Operator kV Kilovolt kW Kilowatt kWh Kilowatt-hours x MW Megawatt MWH Megawatt hours NALF Naval Auxiliary Air Field NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration NEES New England Electric System NEPA National Environmental Policy Act NEPA New England Power Association NEPEX New England Power Exchange NEPOOL New England Power Pool NWF National Wildlife Federation PG&E Pacific Gas & Electric PSI Pounds per Square Inch PUCHA Public Utility Holding Company Act PURPA Public Utility Regulatory Policies Act REMVEC Rhode Island-Eastern Massachusetts-Vermont Energy Control RIBBA Rhode Island Beach Buggy Association RICA&M Rhode Island College of Agriculture and the Mechanic Arts RICE Rhode Island Committee on Energy RIPUC Rhode Island Public Utilities Commission RIMS Rhode Island Mobile Sportsfishermen RIPS Rhode Island Public Service RIWF Rhode Island Wildlife Federation SEC Security and Exchange Commission xi UEP United Electric Power UER United Electric Railways V Volts WPI Worcester Polytechnic Institute xii ABSTRACT This qualitative analysis examines the effects of a growing environmental ethic on the electric power grid in southeastern New England from the late nineteenth century to the start of the new millennia.

The increased awareness of the environment evolved into a new belief system of the population and altered the methods of construction, operation and maintenance of the advanced technology system of the electric power grid. The manner in which this occurred suggests that technological momentum is a better concept than technological determinism with which to examine the development of technological systems in the modern world. This dissertation examines the trinity of actors affecting this process. The electric power companies, with the New England Electric System as the main protagonist, attempted to expand the electric power grid to meet expected consumer demand and economic opportunities.

A devoted cadre of nascent environmentalists, dismissive of the commercial and technological requirements of the electric power grid, suggested to the population that the new idea of protecting the environment should instead take priority. The interaction of these two forces led to a governmental response that attempted to continue to meet the population’s demands while preventing the degradation of the environment. The resultant transformation of the population’s perception of the electric power grid, its regulation by the government, and its operation by the system members, suggest that advanced technology systems are influenced as much by philosophical concerns as any technical constraints. xiii INTRODUCTION There's a powerful, obedient, swift, and effortless force that can be bent to any use and which reigns supreme aboard my vessel.

It does everything. It lights me, it warms me, it's the soul of my mechanical equipment. This force is electricity. - Captain Nemo to Professor Aronnax in Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea The development of the electric power grid in the United States transformed the nation into an energy-intensive society.

Americans had shown interest in electricity from the days of Ben Franklin’s earliest experiments and had profited from his workman-like accounts of his lightning rod to make their homes safer.1 Application of electric energy as a major power source was still over a century away however and electricity remained more of a curiosity than a source of power for society. In the 1800s electricity was used to power the telegraph stations that formed the communications network of the Victorian era and to energize other minor applications.2 Power to drive the Industrial Revolution was chiefly provided by coal-fired steam plants or water mills running intricate systems of belt-driven machines, while on the farms animal and human power predominated.3 This methodology, though grueling for the majority of the population involved in agriculture or industry, was nonetheless sustainable. Phillip Krider, "Benjamin Franklin and Lightning Rods," Physics Today, 59, no. Steve Parker, Electricity (London: Dorling Kindersly, 1992), 31, 37.

Vaclav Smil, Creating the Twentieth Century (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 14. xiv Thomas Edison’s electric power generation prototype built in New York City in 1882, showed how electricity could be used to drive industrial activities and fill consumer desires.4 Over the course of only a few years, Edison developed and built a pilot electric generation station in New York City, the transmission lines from its coal-fired dynamos to the electric load locations and all the electrical connections, circuit breakers and fuses necessary to energize the lights in the selected buildings.5 Edison’s construction was the first electric power grid in history, a combination of subsystems that generated electric power, transmitted it across metal cables to the designated establishments and then distributed the energy to the lightbulbs within those buildings.6 Under the guiding light of a host of ingenious inventors, engineers, and financiers, this system of electric power generation, transmission and distribution system rapidly expanded throughout the nation. By the middle of the twentieth century, the network of electric power plants and supporting systems provided a reliable and economic source of energy to all facets of society. This mature technology seemed poised to take the next great leap forward in the continuous quest for greater effectiveness and efficiency.

Instead, the flood tide of technological development was altered by forces that had seemed insignificant when the electric power grid had been created. Concurrent with the technological culmination of the electric power grid was the emergence of various schools of environmental ethics that took hold in popular 4. Hughes, Networks of Power (1983; repr., Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1983), 47. xv conception and gained political traction.

The new social construction of environmental ethics acted to alter the course of development of the electric power grid in southern New England from one based purely on technical efficiency and effectiveness to a vector that had to account for principled concerns for the environment. How this occurred is the central research question to be examined in this dissertation.