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

[maineguy]

Personally, I wouldn't live near any biomass plants and am perfectly happy living within a 20 mile radius of a nuclear plant.

 

[NHClimber]

PB, didn’t the whitefield biomass plant recently change hands? What is the history with it and how much area does it service? Btw, although just a walk and not a hike, the pondicherry’s are beautiful to see especially in the fall.

 

[TCD]

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

Thanks, Tim and Rocket, for this information.

Facts matter.

Southern NE states like Mass are happy ripping up the north woods so they can virtue signal. As I said upthread, a few Gas or Nuclear plants in their own states would be beneficial for all involved, but they're just not interested. This BS will go on for a few more years until the lights go out, and then some folks will wise up.

 

[peakbagger]

You are correct, Stored Solar (a reference that biomass is actually solar energy stored by photosynthesis in the form of wood ) from Maine bought. Whitefield NH, Springfield NH Tamworth NH and East Ryegate in VT. They already owned plants in Maine where they got a poor rep. I really do not know how many of the NH plants they bought are actually running. I think East Ryegate has a subsidy from VT so its probably running. The plants can vary in size but usually 20 MWs is normal. All biomass plants in NH except Berlin have been struggling as they all sold into the Mass renewable market and that is gone. Berlin has a special deal with NH but one of these days it will not be renewed. The number of homes the smaller plants could theoretically provide depends on how much an average home in the area uses. A really rough number would be 2000 homes each for the 20 MW plants. I think Berlin is 70 MWs.

Speculation is that Stored Solar is bought them cheap and hoping that new subsidies will come up for biomass. Add in the shortage of baseload generation and that many mean they can either run the at a profit or sell them.

 

[NHClimber]

Thanks. Why won’t Mass buy energy from these biomass facilities? Isn’t renewable?

 

[JoshandBaron]

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!

That is incorrect.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1937331

https://theconversation.com/native-people-did-not-use-fire-to-shape-new-englands-landscape-129429

 

[peakbagger]

Thanks. Why won’t Mass buy energy from these biomass facilities? Isn’t renewable?

No, It was renewable and then Mass changed the regulations to make it not renewable based on the flawed Manomet study. Some of NH plants had spent a couple of million to upgrade to new emissions regulations for NOX in order to sell in the Mass market and then Mass pulled the rug on them. Other states still regard biomass as renewable but their incentive programs for renewable are less lucrative or not applicable for out of state generated renewable power. I think VT has or had generous incentives but they are limited to instate generation. I think that may have changed as VT had previously excluded Hydro Quebec hydro power as renewable but in the run up to VT Yankee closing discussions the law was changed on the last day of a legislative session prior to the Christmas break with little debate to declare HQ power to be renewable. Subsequently a couple of the largest utilities in VT were bought by Canadian companies and now can access HQ power. They do not own the big transmission lines in VT so they can't get the power down to Mass. VELCO a non profit owned by VT utilities owns the transmission lines but they are in the business to supply power around the state rather than wheel power through their system. Last thing I knew they were barely able to keep the transmission system reliable enough to meet federal reliability standards. There have been a couple of attempts to build biomass power plants in southern VT but they have not stopped by ACT 250 and other local objections.

 

[NHClimber]

Thanks. That is helpful and interesting. I can see how for MA biomass isn’t sexy enough for their green movement. Thanks for that insight.

 

[maineguy]

Stored Solar? OK, I guess then we can have "Stored Organic" for oil and gas companies and solar could become "NIMBY Nuclear".

 

[rocket21]

That is incorrect.

https://www.jstor.org/stable/1937331

That source does not fully support your claim. By the way, the history teacher I alluded to in the post (that I concluded with a wink) was a Massachusetts full-blooded Native American.

 

[B the Hiker]

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!

Recalling the Introduction from Reading the Forested Landscape, I believe most Novembers, many Native Americans burned out the understory, after the leaves had fallen, to make room for next year's blueberries.

Kind of non sequitor, given how series the need to renewable energy is right now. We are facing an existential crisis as a planet at the moment.

 

[richard]

Yeah, we’ve only got 8 more years! ��

 

[peakbagger]

A general observation is given how poorly the US has responded to the more immediate Covid crisis, I do not hold out a lot of hope on a unified rapid response to AGW.

 

[egilbe]

I've been out in the desert Southwest for the last few months. Currently staying on BLM land outside Pahrump. You would think the SW would be a mecca for solar power, wouldn't you? But, Pahrump citizens are protesting a plan by a California power company to build a solar farm nearby in the Mojave desert. Apparently, the desert is as fragile as Alpine zones. A thin crust builds up on the surface and it protects plant and animal life until the next rains come. Rare and endangered species, such as the Mojave tortoise burrow under that crust and hibernate. The crust is hard, doesn't blow around as dust. Once it's broken, the dust does blow and blows badly.

As an aside, who knew that Death Valley was so beautiful?

 

[peakbagger]

BTW, on more big powerline in Maine. This one seems to be far more legit.

 

[peakbagger]

An interesting article in the Indepth NH website describing the ISO NE grid being on the edge this winter due to natural gas supply issues and the lack of new power entering the region. http://indepthnh.org/2021/12/06/new...-edge-this-winter-rolling-blackouts-possible/ Its not a transcript but it looks like ISO is not planning to have CPC's contribution to the grid (it would not have been done by this winter)

I think this comment from the head of ISONE is telling Van Welie said he is disappointed that Maine residents voted against the New England Clean Energy Connect transmission line, but said he could foresee two or three 1,200 MW lines bringing Canadian hydro power into New England, but they will be more expensive and take more time.

“People do not want to see (the transmission lines),” van Wilie said. “If you bury them, you lose the objection, but you incur a much higher price, but that is one way to solve the problem.”

My guess is at some point HQ will hook up with a company that buries the cables. The Portland Pipeline (running through my property) that runs from Portland to Montreal is effectively a stranded asset as there is no demand for their services of pumping crude oil to refineries in Montreal. It exists and could support several HVDC cables in place of empty oil lines. Plus I expect that there would be congressional support to run HVDC cables in Interstate hiighway right of ways. Not cheap but probably far less public objections.

This is not the first year with similar predictions. ISO-NE has been pushing hard to get involved in the natural gas system for several years but to date they have not been allowed to.

 

[peakbagger]

The judge threw out the CPC request for the injunction against enforcing the referendum. He also slammed CPC for claiming vested rights by spending a large amount of money $410 million to date to partially build the line despite losing a prior referendum.

https://www.wmtw.com/article/cmp-question-1-injunction-denied/38540972 No doubt its moving to higher court.

The big potential change is that buried in the new infrastructure bill is increased federal control of the siting of transmission lines critical for national environmental efforts. This was tried before under prior administrations, it looked like there was a lot of teeth to it, but court cases and state's rights ended up blunting the effort. It would be difficult to apply to CPC as it would open up the thorny issue that Hydro Quebec would not certify that this was actual new hydro generation (rather it was rebranded existing hydro backed potentially with fossil.). The other sticking point was that CPC was intended to be a private "merchant" transmission line rather than a public line. It would be questionable if the FERC would be allowed to force the construction of essentially a private transmission line. IMO if the FERC does force transmission corridors, they would probably force it in parallel to the existing public DC line that runs down the NH and VT border. The distance is shorter, and my guess is it would be buried. The governor of NH replaced all of the PUC commissioners who objected to Northern Pass with conservatives so another run for a transmission line in NH may turn out differently.

 

[peakbagger]

And now the next shoe to drop, it's off to the Maine Supreme Court who previously ruled that the prior people's referendum was invalid. https://bangordailynews.com/2022/01...mission-corridor-goes-to-maine-supreme-court/

 

[srhigham]

Mostly off topic, but the Winter/Spring 2022 Appalachia has an article summarizing the "nine-year fight" against Northern Pass. It's mostly a victory lap story for the AMC. They mention the Clean Energy Connect in passing at the end of the article as the next stage of the battle.

 

[skiguy]

Mostly off topic, but the Winter/Spring 2022 Appalachia has an article summarizing the "nine-year fight" against Northern Pass. It's mostly a victory lap story for the AMC. They mention the Clean Energy Connect in passing at the end of the article as the next stage of the battle.

I guess there will probably be an increase in AMC camps and lodging fees which some operate via a lease on public lands too pay for it then.����