Gov. Phil Scott’s office has announced an energy partnership with Nova Scotia that could lead to Vermont getting a lot of its electricity from offshore wind farms planned for the ocean southeast of the Canadian province.
It’s a nice bit of pre-election publicity, seeking to rub some of the tarnish off Scott’s dismal record on renewables at a moment when he needs to shore up his centrist support. Doesn’t it sound great? A new source of cheap, clean power that doesn’t clutter up our own landscape? What could be better?
But there are spiders aplenty in this highly speculative attic, even if you leave aside the gross hypocrisy of Phil Scott advocating for wind power. To begin with, this is a three-year agreement concerning a development that will take at least twice that long to build — if it happens at all. And the press release itself, designed to put the best possible spin on this agreement, is heavily laden with qualifiers. Italics in the next paragraph are mine:
The headline touts the deal as “an agreement to explore bringing offshore wind power to New England through Vermont.” The agreement “establishes a framework for collaboration” on energy development. It “opens a path” to clean energy that “could help hold down electricity costs.” Access to New England markets “could support investment and jobs in the province.” The agreement “will support information sharing and explore opportunities” to bring wind energy “to New England through Vermont.”
Explore. Framework. Opens a path. Opportunities. Could. Could. All that from the office that’s doing its best to put the best face on this deal.
Now let’s do a quick map check. Yeah, “to New England through Vermont” makes no geographic sense at all. Distance from Halifax to Montpelier: 679 miles. From Halifax to Boston: 409 miles. The most direct line to New England is decidedly not through Vermont. And New England’s biggest electricity markets are in Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut.That’s the shortest possible route for transmission lines and the most lucrative potential markets. Is Nova Scotia really going to bypass all of that to take a 270-mile detour through little ol’ Vermont?
We’re getting very close to “Aside from that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?” territory. And that’s before we even get to the question of whether Nova Scotia will ever build a vast array of ocean-based turbines, not to mention how much the power would cost after considering the price tag for turbine construction and hundreds of miles of transmission lines.
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