The Call to Achieve

100% Carbon-Free Clean Energy

and
Suspend the Atlantic Coast Pipeline

A Report of the

Alliance to Protect Our People and the Places We Live

(APPPL)

www.apppl.org

by Rev. Mac Legerton

May 2018
Summary

Most residents and public officials in North Carolina know and agree we need to move
our state and nation toward 100 percent clean energy in the near future. There is
agreement for many reasons, including the economic, environmental, political, moral,
and spiritual reasons. We find that this is not only a major need, it is also a major
advantage. Communities, states and nations moving toward a clean energy economy
are already reaping huge benefits in job and economic growth that can’t be matched by
those in fossil fuel energy.
To reach 100 percent clean energy use in N.C., there are many steps to be considered
and taken. The first is to define what clean energy is. The second is to identify and
overcome the greatest obstacles. The third is to develop a plan and timeline to reach
the goal. The last is actually to make advancements and meet the timeline to achieve it.
In a few short years, there will be no denying the need, advantages, and necessity of
reaching this goal.
When public officials speak of their commitment to “carbon reduction” and business
officials speak of their commitment to a “low-carbon future”, they only identify and refer
to carbon dioxide as the problem and source of carbon-based, environmental harm.
CO2 is primarily released in massive amounts from the burning of coal, and secondly
methane gas. Yes, carbon dioxide is a major problem and was formerly thought to be
the fossil fuel mainly contributing to global warming. This is no longer the case.
What we call “natural” gas is actually 90 to 95 percent methane, a blend of carbon and
hydrogen (CH4). What we call “natural” gas is only “natural” when we leave it alone in
the ground. Since it is mostly methane, we need to call it by its real name and
acknowledge that it is a carbon-based fuel source. Scientists, including those with the
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), now recognize that methane
extracted by hydraulic fracturing, piping, pressurizing, storing and burning is the No. 1
source and massive producer of global warming.
Clean energy is not clean unless it is carbon-free.

Fortunately, there is a politically viable and popular solution to our pipeline predicament.
The solution is to postpone all work on the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline so that we
can enter public-private deliberations on: what exactly is clean energy and what is not;
how and when can we reach the goal of 100 percent clean energy; what if any “bridge
fuel” do we need to achieve this goal and if we do, what fuel is the best to use in
transition. The candid truth is that we will never come near 100 percent clean energy if
we create a new dependency on the dirtiest, most expensive and less green fossil fuel
on the market when all of its harmful costs are taken into consideration.
The Call to 100% Carbon-Free Clean Energy
What is genuinely clean energy? True clean energy is the use of sources and resources
that don’t significantly contribute to global warming. The three major sources of clean
energy are solar, wind and geothermal (heat from the earth). This means energy
sources that are free of carbon-based and carbon-producing fossil fuels created by
human beings. Another more complex definition is being free of “greenhouse” gases
produced by humans.
How to technically and successfully reach this goal and optional plans to meet it are
available. We need to choose which types and blend of clean energy to use and what
infrastructure to develop. Finally, a responsible and realistic timeline is essential. In the
end, success reaching this goal comes down to political will and viability, not technical
inability.
The problem with methane is that it traps heat in our earth’s atmosphere at least 80
times more than carbon dioxide does over the first 20 years of methane’s emissions.
Prior to the invention of “fracking” and the increased extraction and use of massive
amounts of this heat-trapping carbon, methane did not create such a problem for our
planet.
In reality, people and public officials have been misinformed and have spread and
advanced misinformation about what is actually “unnatural” carbon-based, methane,
hydraulically fractured, harmful and highly volatile.
Thus, we come to the predicament of the proposed Atlantic Coast Pipeline and the need
for public information, not misinformation, regarding this most harmful, economically
unstable and environmentally volatile of all fossil fuel products.
As I speak with public officials, university professors and civic organizations regarding
the proposed pipeline, few have any idea that what is touted as “natural” gas is at least
90 percent methane, that methane is a carbon, and that it is the No. 1 producer of
global warming among all fossil fuels. And when I explain that methane gas is not
cleaner, greener or cheaper than coal when all its costs and harmful impacts are
included, they are shocked and embarrassed.
Why has this information been kept from the public and our public officials? The answer
is simple. If it were widely known, no responsible public or business leader would claim
they seriously care about the environment while supporting the pipeline. We have
allowed the unfounded claim of “jobs” and misrepresentation of this methane gas
product as cheap, clean and green to dominate our politics and the political will of
elected officials in both of our major political parties.
Why would a major business industry want to call its product by another name? Perhaps
for the same reason that the tobacco industry did not like the term “coffin nails” or
“cancer sticks” for cigarettes. Honestly, there’s a striking similarity between what are
called cigarettes and natural gas. When both were produced and named, their harm
was not fully known. Once the industries promoting them learned of their significant
harm, they did everything they could to hide this knowledge from the public. They even
hired scientists to deny their dangers. The tobacco industry was eventually sued, the
truth was acknowledged, and billions of dollars were paid out in the tobacco settlement.
This same scenario that occurred with the tobacco industry needs to occur with
methane gas and the fossil fuel industry. The major difference in these two scenarios is
that that this fossil fuel product doesn’t just threaten the lives of individuals who
voluntarily breathe it in – it threatens the lives of not only every human being, but also
all life on the planet. The outcome of this scenario needs to be a moratorium and
eventual end to all use of methane gas as an energy source. For the sake of all of us,
our communities, and world, the sooner the better. This abomination is different. There
is no time to waste.

The pressure to approve methane gas pipelines everywhere, to construct new gas-
powered plants and shift old ones from coal, and to export this methane gas all over the
world – it’s all being done in the name of jobs, advancing rural and national economies,
making literally trillions of dollars for the fossil fuel industry, and creating a new, long-
term dependency on the most environmentally-destructive, fossil fuel.

What’s the energy solution? In short, we need to move as rapidly as possible toward
renewables while keeping minimal use of coal and nuclear as bridge fuels. We need to
nationally and internationally halt all development of methane gas and hydraulic
fracturing. If we are serious about jobs and our economies, the development, production
and use of solar energy and wind energy are already out-competing the fossil fuel
economy on every account. The jobs and economic argument for methane gas
production is financially, politically, and environmentally irresponsible.

Call to Suspend Work on the ACP Project for One Year - A Viable Solution

The solution is to postpone all work on the proposed pipeline for one year is a politically
viable and necessary solution to our pipeline predicament. For the first time, the
suspension will provide the opportunity for public-private deliberations on:
(1) what exactly is clean energy and what is not;
(2) how and when can we reach the goal of 100 percent clean energy;
(3) what if any “bridge fuel” do we need to achieve this goal and if we do, what fuel is
the best to use in transition.
The candid truth is that we will never come near 100 percent clean energy if we create a
new dependency on the dirtiest, most expensive and less green fossil fuel on the
market when all of its harmful costs are taken into consideration.
A suspension on all work on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline for one year will provide the
space and time we need, as a state, to consider our energy future. It will remove the
project from the field of “political football” where it is being used by both parties to seek
advantage prior to the November elections. Most important, it will provide us all an
opportunity to weigh in on the foremost decision our state has faced over the past 100
years and, most likely, the next 100 years to come.
Duke and Dominion Energy, the owners of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, have announced
that this unnatural, most harmful, carbon-based fuel that is 90%-95% methane gas and
produced by hydraulic fracturing is the bridge fuel that we need while we move toward
100% clean energy. In reality is the most environmentally and economically
irresponsible bridge fuel that we as a state and a nation could select when global
warming is considered. To date, the interests of private industry have set and are
setting our state’s public policy on energy.
During the period of ACP suspension, a thorough scientific analysis of the
environmental and climate impact of using carbon-based gas as a major energy source
will be conducted. Deliberations will include how to reach clean energy goals and
expand the environmental, social, and climate justice principles, standards, and
regulations. These include issues of energy sources, siting, cumulative impact,
affordability, and global warming. Intensive education of elected officials on the local
and state levels will occur in order to support a reduction of all carbon-based gas and to
rapidly transition to non-carbon, clean energy sources such as solar, wind, and
geothermal.

We need to suspend work on the Atlantic Coast Pipeline and on the production, use,
and exportation of all fracked, methane gas until this debate can occur. We certainly
need to stop building more fossil fuel infrastructure, including methane gas pipelines,
gas-powered plants, and off-shore drilling. The worst action and step to take is to is
contribute to expanding the use of harmful fossil fuels and exporting them around the
world.

About the Author: Rev. Mac Legerton is an ordained minister in the

United Church of Christ and co-ordained as an eco-minister. He lives in
Pembroke, NC, the alleged terminus of the Atlantic Coast Pipeline. He has
been engaged in community and campus ministry in Robeson County, NC
for over 40 years. He is co-founder of the Center for Community Action. He
has assisted in raising over $50 million for public/private community and
economic development projects in Robeson County and Southeastern NC.
He is a frequent speaker and retreat leader on the state and national level
in relation to contemplative Christian spirituality and social justness. In
recognition of his work in rural sustainability and social justice, he received
the 2007 Distinguished Service to Rural Life Award of the national Rural
Sociological Society.
Rev. Legerton has written extensively on the dangers of hydraulically-
fractured, unnatural, carbon-based, methane gas and considers it a greater
threat to all life on the planet than nuclear war. He has named this
planetary threat as the “new international alarming race” that again, is a
competitive race between the US and the USSR, for world control of the
most profitable, but most destructive, fossil fuel on the market.