N.E. Clean Power Connect in Maine - Should we care ?

[TCD]

You know it's not that complicated. Energy comes from gas and nuclear.. In the far distant future it may come from fusion. Energy does not come from solar or wind.

Decide if you want energy, or if you want to freeze in the dark. It's black and white; it really is a binary choice.

 

[NHClimber]

How energy is produced is simple - agreed. How it is distributed is complicated.

 

[skiguy]

With all of this going forward Snow Shoe design and use will most have to be innovative.Not to mention traction.

 

[peakbagger]

BTW Maine DEP just pulled the permits to construct https://www.wmtw.com/article/maine-dep-suspends-cmp-corridor-permit/38338243

I agree the grid is complex and the devil is in the details. Years ago when my former company was thinking of connecting a new power plant to the grid we worked with a very private consultant mostly consisting of retired energy exec and regulators. They knew the details and how to work them to their advantage. They did not advertise and if you looked on the early internet they did not leave many fingerprints. They cost a bundle but they saved us a lot of time and hassle. I have no doubt if someone opposed to our project hired them, they would work just as hard to stop us. Of course compared to global warming the grid is simple

 

[skiguy]

As the saying goes.......

 

[TEO]

Energy does not come from solar or wind.

I don't think that I've seen a more incorrect statement of VFTT before. Life does not exist without solar energy. Boats don't sail and blowdowns don't make a bushwhacker's life misery without wind energy.

 

[Puma concolor]

Older but interesting article about the source of much of the objection to the transmission line. Of course, folks want to wrap it up in virtue about being all about protection of natural wildlife habitat … but having taken several trips to the Maine/Quebec border area observing the culture of rural Maine, it really not-so-surprisingly came down to hunting ground and snowmobile trails.

https://www.mainepublic.org/business-and-economy/2018-10-25/some-maine-outdoorsmen-are-worried-about-the-potential-impact-of-the-cmp-transmission-line

I know ya all are trying to solve New England power grid issues as well as climate change in general but the focus here is much more basic. Northern Mainers need big gas powered vehicles to get through the winter and aren’t too concerned about the energy needs of major New England population centers. So A) they don’t want their hunting ground and snowmobile trails screwed with and B) they don’t care about renewable energy. So this project was probably destined to fail from the start.

Interesting how “think globally, act locally” has gone the way the way of the dinosaur. Folks are now expected to act in ways that are not in their own best interests in order to support group think anti-climate change positions.

 

[peakbagger]

I do not agree that this is a primary source of opposition but agree it is one of many. Politics makes strange bed fellows and this is definitely the case on this project. Conservations groups with a major base of support in Mass, (CLF) supported the project as it allowed Mass to meet climate goals and kept new power development out of the Mass. Maine power generators (natural gas CC plants in Veazie and Wesbrook, Nuclear plant in Seabrook) were looking at loss of demand so they opposed it. CMP has pissed off a lot of voters due to a major failure of a new billing system and past decisions that led to poor power reliability, especially in rural areas so to some this was a protest vote against CMP. The prior Maine governor and current Maine governor supported it for the short-term economic boost and longterm support from CMP (CMP is apolitical when if comes to writing checks to politicians to support their wishes). Very similar to NP and the north country of NH, the folks who actually lived and worked in the area who would be most impacted were propped up by both sides to give the illusion that what they wanted actually mattered. There were also business interests and to lesser extent consumer interests that realized that the state was missing out on getting an appropriate level of compensation for the impact to the land and just as importantly the compensation to ratepayers for the use of the existing right of ways that had been purchased with rate payer dollars. Maine has a small but growing local renewable energy business that opposed the project as they felt it threatened local renewable generations projects (mostly solar).

The only counties that supported the project were outside of CMP territory as well as predominantly conservative republican. They reportedly voted for the project as the passage of the referendum was linked to possible antigun legislation (the link is complicated) and also a general distrust of the "greenies" opposed to the power line.

Heck no doubt some of the Friends of Bigelow who long ago forced the state to buy the Bigelow Preserve and keep the executive and legislative branch from messing with public lands came out of retirement to oppose the project.

 

[NHClimber]

A lot of competing interests for sure. Fundamentally and perhaps simplistically, it just seems that people ultimately vote for what will directly impact them positively or negatively, and having power run through your local area that benefits the ever growing urban and suburban sprawl of MA while not directly benefitting the people of ME didn’t appear to be compelling to Mainers. It’s not hard to blame them. I can imagine the hiking community not reacting well to solar and wind generation being placed all over the mountains we hike. Doubt that would be received well despite what I suspect is a lot of support for green initiatives by the hiking community (there’s always an excuse of “it would be more efficient/better for the energy generation to occur somewhere else”). People like to throw money at politicians who support these causes and like to put down/shame those who are less supportive, but when push comes to shove, they don’t want it directly negatively impacting them. Like wanting electric cars but don’t mine any of the rare earth metals in my back yard. It’s less the substance and more the constant hypocrisy that bothers me.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

8% of the current New England grid energy input is from renewables. 18% of the renewables comes from wind and <1% comes from solar. Gas is 53% and nuclear is 33% making 86% from gas + nuclear and 8% from wind + solar.

Source: www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress

Anecdotally I see Facebook posts from people with solar and it helps them charge their EVs, run their mini split ACs, and net negative meters during peak sunshine (summer) but most do not become independent at night or in the shorter day months.

Tim

 

[maineguy]

75% of the "renewables" are from burning wood and garbage. Hardly eco-friendly. I know, I have a wood stove

 

[maineguy]

It’s less the substance and more the constant hypocrisy that bothers me.

Yes, and that's hypocrisy with a capital H.

 

[rocket21]

8% of the current New England grid energy input is from renewables. 18% of the renewables comes from wind and <1% comes from solar. Gas is 53% and nuclear is 33% making 86% from gas + nuclear and 8% from wind + solar.

Source: www.iso-ne.com/isoexpress

Anecdotally I see Facebook posts from people with solar and it helps them charge their EVs, run their mini split ACs, and net negative meters during peak sunshine (summer) but most do not become independent at night or in the shorter day months.

Tim

In fairness, those "current" graphs are real-time on a cloudy day; over the course of a full year, it will look a little different (and it could also look a lot different on a cold winter night). Last I knew, the fuel mix does not include behind-the-meter generation (e.g. net metered solar). Nevertheless, unless there's storage (e.g. a battery) involved, if you're charging an EV at night, you're not charging off solar.

 

[peakbagger]

If you really want to talk burning wood I will gladly drift over to it. I converted a coal fired generating station to biomass (wood) in North Carolina 15 years ago 9mostly forest residuals and small percentage or scrap railroad ties that formerly were rotting in fields and have spent some time inside several of the regional biomass boilers (Greenville, Old Town, Berlin, Whitefield, Springfield and Alexandria) and on occasion do "tune ups" Be really careful on what source of info you read regarding biomass generation as biomass is far too generic. The New England plants burn forest residuals, mostly tops and branches. No land owner will voluntarily cut a tree for biomass chips, the economics do not make sense. The company harvesting the trees for things like lumber or pulp logs just leave the tops and branches in the woods if there is no low grade biomass market so the carbon is not sequestered. The biomass operations in the news these days are the "Not on my continent" formerly coal fired power stations in England and Europe. These are a different beast, they are sourcing biomass pellets from around the world from very high yield short rotation forests. The pellets in this case are the only product, they are not a byproduct and it takes a fair share of fossil fuel to get it from the SE US to its ultimate destination.

There was a very flawed study called the Manomet study that was used by the state of Mass to declare biomass power as non renewable. Even the authors admitted that were told what conclusions to come to when they accepted the study. They also admitted that the type of biomass plants they modeled were based on cutting trees to burn instead of forest residuals. Hydro Quebec had been lobbying behind the scenes for years to sell more hydro to Mass and Mass specifically had excluded HQ power previously. By declaring biomass not renewable that created a renewable power vacuum in Mass that conveniently could be filled once the HQ prohibition was conveniently removed from the standards.

As for heating your house with wood, modern EPA stoves are remarkably clean burning and efficient, they still put out particulate emissions but properly vented they disperse pretty quickly. Unfortunately, many folks burn poorly seasoned partially green wood and that style of burning is quite inefficient to the point where modern stoves just will not burn at all. Unless a wood seller had a kiln its highly likely any wood you buy is only partially seasoned. For most hardwoods it takes two years of proper seasoning and oak my take longer. If you look at life cycle emissions from the source to house, wood heat is generally far lower impact than natural gas or oil. Ideally install a wood boiler with thermal storage and the systems can get very efficient.

 

[maineguy]

There is no way that burning wood for home heating is cleaner than natural gas, or oil for that matter. The particulate emissions from wood burning are far, far higher than natural gas or oil. There is virtually no particulate matter with natural gas. Maybe a power plant with scrubbers, etc will lower the amount, but it is still significant. And if you are burning it in your home, then it is much worse (for the local residents) than if it came from a wood burning power plant far away. As for CO2 (and I don't buy into that hysteria) it seems that the jury is still out because of the way the you can calculate net CO2 with wood.

And remember, those stove ratings are done under laboratory conditions, hardly the way they are used in reality.

What I have read is that burning wood for your home may be cheaper, but not better for the environment. And since we heated our home exclusively with wood for 15 years, I can say that it is a lot more work.

 

[peakbagger]

I agree if you look at the end of the chain at your house but my statement was look at the total impact from when fossil comes out of the ground (including the prep work to get it out of the ground) to your home the overall impacts are larger for fossil, its just that they are far away out of sight and out of mind.

 

[bikehikeskifish]

In fairness, those "current" graphs are real-time on a cloudy day; over the course of a full year, it will look a little different (and it could also look a lot different on a cold winter night).

Yes, that graph was this morning, late November, on a cloudy day. Here is the % for all of 2020 (from: https://www.iso-ne.com/about/key-stats/resource-mix/). Any way you slice it, NE cannot survive on wind and solar alone at the current generation levels.

Tim

 

[rocket21]

I recollect from pre-colonial history class that the Native Americans in present-day New England used to purposefully burn large swaths of land on a regular basis. What a blatant disregard of their carbon footprint!

 

[maineguy]

I agree if you look at the end of the chain at your house but my statement was look at the total impact from when fossil comes out of the ground (including the prep work to get it out of the ground) to your home the overall impacts are larger for fossil, its just that they are far away out of sight and out of mind.

I'm not sure about that, but let me ask you a question: What kind of power plant would you rather have 20 miles down the road from you; wood/refuse, oil, natural gas, or nuclear? I'm discounting solar and wind since they don't produce power 24/7

 

[peakbagger]

Well I do have 2 power plants less than 20 miles away, both are biomass plants. They can run 24/7 from locally sourced low grade wood. No worries about pipelines and worldwide demand for natural gas. One is an older plant in Whitefield NH (upwind) but still has Electrostatic precipitators very effective on fine particulate with added on CO and NOx catalysts, its immediately upwind of the Presidential Ridge. If I extend out a bit I have East Ryegate and Bethelhem biomass plants upwind. The other plant is Berlin which has one of the most complex environmental control systems I have ever run into (Wet ESP and sorbent injection). You seem to have mixed up fuel sources, biomass plants are covered by a completely different subpart of the regulations than refuse. Biomass is subpart DDDDD while Refuse is subpart H. If a boiler is burning a mix of wood/refuse it would be subject to Subpart H which has far stricter regs and a lot more profitable as they get paid to burn trash. Why pay for wood when someone is willing to pay the plant to get rid of trash? A wood/refuse boiler is basically not something that exists unless it is burning contaminated wood. I wouldn't be any more or less upset if a natural gas plant was upwind except if their SCR was out of tune, that cat piss smell can carry for quite a distance and the cooling tower plume can have localized weather effects. As for nuclear upwind its definitely a rhetorical question as I dont see a lot of new plants going in. The new SMR designs are pretty well thought out and I would be far less concerned about them, than the Russian nuclear power barges being marketed worldwide as the Russians do not believe in containment.

BTW, The "green" city of Burlington VT gets most of its power from a biomass plant located right on the lake.

I am far more concerned by my neighbor's illegal outdoor wood boiler installation than power plants upwind. The state will not enforce the regs and the local town officials decided to ignore it.