FPL wants two new power plants. Is that our problem?
Maybe, maybe not. FPL’s plan calls for 100-foot power poles running up U.S. 1, smack through all the Busway and Metrorail stops where communities have planned for walkable neighborhoods. Respected scientists and elected officials have raised serious health concerns about the lines. And the plants would have a massive impact on our groundwater: water needed for drinking, for agriculture and for the restoration of the Everglades.
Do we need the power plants? If so, then they must be built. But here’s where the problem starts:
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We don’t know how much power is used now. Whistleblowers inside FPL have called into question the numbers the company reports on customer energy use, and FPL has ignored requests to open records to the public. -
We have no accurate forecast of how much power we’ll need in the future. Since the real estate crash, residential construction has gone into a coma, but, FPL has shown no revised forecasts for the growth of energy use.
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No cost-benefit analysis has studied alternatives. At a cost of $5,000 for every man, woman and child in Miami-Dade County, the new nuclear plants would suck up money that could be used for many smarter and cheaper energy strategies. These have not been seriously examined.
So why are we still talking about those power poles? It’s a bad habit we have in this county: some big powerful force—a power company, a football or baseball team, a developer—hijacks the public agenda. Sensible, forward-looking plans, like walkable communities along transit, are sacrificed for the benefit of the few and the powerful.
It’s time to break bad habits. Let’s start with these powerlines!
