Michael Judge

MA Undersecretary of Energy

Katherine Antos

MA Undersecretary of

Decarbonization & Resilience

Dr. Devon Battaglia

Senior Manager of Physics Operations for the SPARC Tokamak at CFS

Jessica Strunkin

Community Relations and Local Government Affairs Principal

DEEP DIALOGUE

MONDAY, JULY 28

4 - 5:30 PM On Zoom

Zoom link: https://rb.gy/scwk8b

Will we see Fusion Energy in our Lifetime?



Commonwealth Fusion (CFS) is a company located in Devens, MA whose mission is to deliver on the promise of fusion energy. We'll hear from two of its employees about the company, the development of fusion energy, and how fusion could someday meet our clean energy needs.

Dr. Devon Battaglia is Senior Manager of Physics Operations for the SPARC Tokamak at CFS. Dr. Battaglia has been involved in fusion energy for his entire career, kicked off by a high school summer internship program at the University of Rochester's Laboratory for Laser Energetics (LLE). He earned a B.S. in Engineering Physics and a B.A. in Music from Lehigh University and a PhD in Engineering Physics from the University of Wisconsin - Madison. Prior to joining CFS, Dr. Battaglia worked for over a decade as a research scientist at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory. He has played a key role in operating tokamaks around the world and serves on a number of US and international committees, including the Women+ in Plasma Physics Committee for the American Physical Society. He lives in Harvard, MA and is a proud husband and dad to two school-aged children.

Jessica Strunkin joined CFS as Community Relations and Local Government Affairs Principal in 2023. She leads the company's engagement with local communities and stakeholders to broaden awareness of fusion energy and to highlight the economic impact of CFS on the region. She regularly interacts with local officials, business leaders, educators, and neighbors, organizing quarterly community events at CFS headquarters for public education and interactions with the CFS team. Jessica was also part of the CFS site search team for the location of the ARC fusion power plant, the world's first grid-scale fusion power plant, which will be in Chesterfield County, VA.

On the State House steps with

Rep. Sena (L) and Rep. Meschino (R)

Meeting with Rep. Barber

ECA Mass had a very successful Lobby Day this year! Thank you to the 28 ECA members who showed up at the State House on June 18 in green ECA Mass t-shirts, ready to advocate for our top priority bills in meetings with more than 20 legislators.

Members met with chairs and co-chairs of Environment and Natural Resources (ENR), Transportation, Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy (TUE), and Financial Services. These are all important committees that either have had or will be holding hearings on ECA Mass priority and endorsed bills. Members also had discussions with some representatives of top leadership including Rep. Hogan and Senator Creem’s aide, and with some of our allies, including Senator Eldridge, Reps. Meschino and Owens. Meetings focused on the importance of supporting legislation that continues to address the state’s emissions reduction goals. Here are the ECA Mass legislative priorities and endorsed bills.

Photo credits to Stan Eichner. 

Tina Grosowsky

What: Climate Bank Webinar

When: Weds, July 16 at 12 noon

Purpose: Help prepare you to meet with your state legislators about the Climate Bank bill by explaining the bill, providing tips from Rep. Meschino for making constituent meetings impactful, sharing a constituent meeting agenda template, used extensively by Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL), and answering your questions., that the Coalition encourages its participants to use. In short, the webinar will prepare you to hold a constituent meeting with your state rep. and senator. Feel free to invite your friends and neighbors.

Next Steps: Register here.

ECA Mass is part of the newly formed Climate Bank Coalition and we're building grassroots support for S.786/H.3937, An Act Creating A Climate Bank In Massachusetts. The bill's lead co-sponsors are Sen. Paul Mark and Rep. Joan Meschino. The bill is one of this session's linchpin bills for climate financing. Private sources of investment are one of our State's few remaining, largely untapped sources for financing the transition to a clean energy economy. Creating a public/private partnership, the proposed climate bank is specifically designed to attract substantial private funding with a limited amount of public seed money. In light of the retrenchment of federal support for clean energy projects, S.786/H.3937 offers a very timely and self-sustaining partial solution to that challenge.  

The Coalition's core intention...

Tina Grosowsky

In addition to preparing for June Lobby Day, your Legislative Team has been busy tracking bills, testifying before committees, developing strategies to advance our legislative agenda, and thinking about reorganizing a bit to become even more effective in supporting our priority policies.

Legislative Team Members Speak Out

Hearings held by the Telecommunications, Utilities, and Energy (TUE); Transportation; Environment and Natural Resources (ENR); and Labor and Workforce Development committees have already addressed many of our priority bills. ECA Mass members have supported testimony on several of natural solutions, transportation and budget/finance bills and contributed original testimony on six bills:

• Energy affordability, independence and innovation (H.4144)
• Effective drought management (S.662/H.1003)
• Plastic bag ban (S.590/H.933)
• Polystyrene ban (S.629/H.912)
• Updated bottle bill (H.3464)
• Heat illness in outdoor public sector workers (H..2172/S.1367)

New Developments

New developments in legislation we're following closely include....

Roger Luckmann

As temperatures climb in the summer months and air conditioners kick on, a heavy electric demand could mean the power company needs to supplement with dirty ‘peaker’ power plants. Peaker power plants are often old, inefficient, and very expensive to operate. They run primarily on natural gas and oil. The more we can do to keep peak energy use down, the higher the chance these polluting plants will not be used.

Enroll in Green Energy Consumers Alliance’s Shave the Peak program, and you will get a friendly reminder text with information on what you can do to curtail energy consumption during peak hours. The highest peak use on a sunny day might be about 6–8 pm, which could trigger the operation of peaker plants.

Here are practical ways to “shave the peak” during those specific hours:

• Pre-cooling. Use your air-conditioner in a couple of rooms before 5 pm. Then turn the air conditioner down a few degrees at 6 pm.
• Draw the blinds to keep the sun from heating up rooms.
• Consider using fans to cool off instead of air conditioning because they use far less electricity.
• Plan your trip to the air-conditioned library or mall during peak hours.
• Plan to wash or dry the laundry or run the dishwasher in off-peak hours.
• Charge your electric car from 9pm to 7am.

Sign up for Shave the Peak to get reminders to reduce your electricity use when it matters most.

Note: Our air would be cleaner, and we’d be paying a lot less for power if we shifted power use to off-peak hours on a year-round basis, but it’s especially important when the weather is hot.

Tina Grosowsky

For those of you who registered (and/or attended) our Make Polluters Pay webinar, we've got some resources for you. Shout out to Dan Zackin and Rachael Boyce of Better Future Project, the co-leads of Make Polluters Pay, who did a fantastic job of walking us through the bill, An Act establishing a climate change superfund, and discussing how we can take action.

We encourage you to share the information with your wide circle of friends, neighbors, family members, etc. We especially ask that you sign the petition addressed to the Governor, the Speaker of the House, and the Senate President. There are additional actions you can take, as well. Again, please see below.

The links to both the Senate and the House versions of the Make Polluters Pay bill are below. If you click on "Petitioners," you can see if your local representative and senator have signed on. If they have, please write and thank them. If they have not, please ask them why they haven't and/or urge them to do so.

Find the recording here. Passcode: #gG0.Ukm

Sign the petition here.

House Bill: https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/HD3369



Senate Bill: https://malegislature.gov/Bills/194/SD1674

Find a letter template to reach out to your legislators here.

Tina Grosowsky

Greenlight America is a mobilization hub that supports local and state-based groups across the country who are working to get clean energy projects built in their communities. They are now working in MA and are looking for volunteers to help provide support and testimony that counters the opposition’s misinformation. Many clean energy projects are being opposed by individuals and groups that are funded by dark money and/or informed by their allies.

Right now, Greenlight America is focused on...  

We send announcements of our meetings and Action Alerts to eca-mass@googlegroups.com, which includes all those on our active list. 

Please contact Dawn Edell if you want to confirm you are on our active list.

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