“Electrify everything” is the answer to how we can save our world and decrease the ravages of climate change. When surveys ask people what they can do to help the planet, half of them say recycling. Recycling is valuable, but it has minimal impact compared with electrifying our world. We need to quickly change to electricity produced by renewable energy as our main source of power. Electricity can efficiently power our homes, cars and industry.

Our 20th century electricity grid is slowing the transition to renewables. The U.S. electric grid needs to be two to four times larger by 2050 to supply our ever increasing need for energy and to allow emerging renewable energy to be connected. There are hundreds of energy projects awaiting connection to the grid and 90% of them are renewable power projects.

The major impediment to the expansion of the grid is the present regulatory process, which involves multiple agencies and can go on for many years for each project. Senate bill S4753, which currently before the Senate, gives the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission control of expanding the grid, reduces the time to challenge a project from six years to five months, allocates cost on the basis of electricity use, and continues current environmental standards. These measures would greatly speed modernization of our grid and speed up the change to electricity produced by renewable projects.

Please ask Sens. Collins and King to support the grid modernization bill.

Nancy Hasenfus
Brunswick