Public Comment. Volume III - Montana Legislature

Such facilities are still quite expensive, so we had to gauge our electrical needs carehlly.
We soon learned that most American appliances, even if made in Asia or Mexico, are energy hogs.
Thus, we found ourselves with a super efficient refigeratorlfreezer crafted in Denmark, with the best
home heating and domestic hot water system coming from Gennany, another clue about which
developed nation is still in the backwaters.
Our goal is to divest ourselves totally from dependence on any fossil fuel. We are not yet
there. We are still in the intermediate stage noted in #4 above, depending on propane for some of
our requirements. The main thrust of the hydrogen/fbel cells era is currently in transportation where
it certainly needs to be, so we expect to wait several years before residential scale, safe hydrogen
generation kits become available.
Meanwhile, we watch with envy as the new systems go on line for other purposes. The
foregoing notwithstanding, we are using about half the energy of conventional homes of the same
size, but there is not a single amenity that we really want that we can't or don't have as a
consequence of going off-the-grid. More important, six years of hands on experience with nearly
all aspects of the new energy era, except hydrogen, which will come along soon, has provided us all
the training we need to speak as authoritatively as any promoter, lobbyist, or professional engineer
pushing an Eminent Domain project. Indeed, we are better qualified because we do not suffer from
tunnel vision.
It is most regrettable that the proposed Tongue River R.R. in eastern Montana ever received
a pennit. Here is why: The rationale of the promoters was that the new railroad would enable coal
to be transported for a few cents less cost per ton to upper Midwest fossil he1 buming power plants,
thereby, by simplistic logic, supposedly benefitting the people of that region, not to mention the
promo ters themselves.
In the first instance, it is a fact that the Burlington Northern Santa Fe R.R. absolutely does
not require the T.R.R,R. to maintain the financial integrity of its existing coal transportation
infrastructure. But what made the whole argument so spurious (meaning not genuine or true,
counterfeit, not authentic, pretended) is the following: delivery of coal to burn in the
. .
Midwest. even low sul~hur coal. at s w v less cost s not m the ~ubllc tnterest because it will
postpone the dav when less enviro-v d a systems will be retrofitted into the senerating
process there. There is voluminous evidence, mounting daily, that power plant emissions are an
important part of the disturbed atmospheric condition which conflonts the world today.
Nobody knows when the threshold of irreversible climate change could be reached. With
such a danger looming, The Precautionary Principle should take precedence over waiting for
absolute certainty. That, pure and simple, is the most important reason why the Tongue River R.R.
should never be built. That so much pristine territory in southeast Montana could be punctured by
a facility which at best has a viable life of perhaps three decades is bad enough; the two reasons
together ought to be considered overpowering by all concerned.
EQC Eminent Domain Study -1 53-