Tag Archives: Hydro Quebec

Phil Scott’s Clean Energy Fail Mary, and the Supply Crisis That’s Headed Our Way

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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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Oh Great, Here Comes the Next Energy Panic

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Hey everybody, meet BESS. Comely little lass, no?

BESS is short for Battery Energy Storage System. Inside those modular-home-lookin’ boxes are lots and lots of lithium-ion batteries. (The technology is changing; some newer BESSes have other kinds of batteries.) These installations store energy produced during off-peak times, often from wind or solar arrays, and save it for times of peak demand. They can also provide emergency power during outages.

These things, it says here, are poised to become key components of the electric power grid of tomorrow.

I hadn’t been formally introduced to BESS until I spent a few days in Long Lake, New York, a tiny town in the heart of the Adirondacks. While driving around town, I couldn’t help notice bright yellow signs along the roadside that said “Stop the Lithium Battery Farm” with a URL at the bottom. Following the link, I discovered that a group of local residents is trying to block the installation of a BESS.

Oh great, I thought. Another energy panic is upon us.

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When energy is “renewable” but not exactly clean

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Can we stop talking about how wind turbines destroy ridge lines?

Real shocker from VTDigger: The large-scale hydropower dams in northern Quebec, which provide much of Vermont’s supply of “renewable” electricity, have taken a human toll on First Nations communities in the far north. And will take an even greater toll as more dams are built.

Because of course they have and of course they will. Each dam floods huge tracts of land. The Innu and Inuit people depend heavily on using their land for hunting and gathering. Their lives are being constricted by the buildout of hydro power, which is in high demand from New England states eager to meet renewable energy targets. Which, in turn, means that more dams are in the works.

By exporting our environmental pain to faraway people. Or, as Inuit elder Alex Saunders put it, “Think about what you’re buying here. You’re buying the misery from the local people of northern Canada.”

You put it that, way, HQ’s “renewable” energy seems a little less renewable.

This isn’t a simple issue. HQ is a major resource for non-carbon-emitting power, and will continue to be. But the lives of indigenous people shouldn’t be swept aside — especially when Vermonters are so queasy about the esthetics of solar and wind installations in their home state, and seem to want to preserve Vermont’s [ahem, false] purity at the expense of others.

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They paved (a tiny bit of) paradise and put up solar panels

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VTDigger’s Friday feed is infected with a bit of uncharacteristic headline fearmongering.

HIGH SPACE DEMANDS FOR VERMONT’S FUTURE SOLAR FARMS IF ENERGY STAYS LOCAL

The story concerns a presentation to the Legislature’s Solar Siting Task Force by Asa Hopkins of the Public Service Department. And by “HIGH SPACE DEMANDS,” it means Hopkins’ estimate of between 8,000 and 13,000 acres of solar panels statewide. That’s assuming we are to meet our legally-mandated goal of 90% renewable energy by the year 2050.

Wow. That sounds like a lot of land.

Is it?

Not really. The state of Vermont has almost 6,000,000 acres. A conscientious reporter (or editor) might have thought to include that fact.

So, if you take the upper end of the estimate, solar panels would cover two-tenths of one percent of Vermont. (A conscientious headline writer might have asked whether “HIGH SPACE DEMANDS” is an accurate characterization.)

You know what? I’d take that, if it means getting 90% of our energy from local, renewable sources.

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The Burlington Free Press ignores an obvious contradiction, gives Mark Whitworth a free pass

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Oh boy, another Monday morning, we’ve had a bare-bones staff all weekend and we’ve gotta have a local story to fill that big front-page hole.

I know! Let’s profile a sage Vermonter type and run a big photo of him in a stereotypical Vermont setting!

And there you have it, on page A1 of today’s Freeploid: Mark Whitworth staring manfully at the camera, with a big pile of firewood behind him.

Whitworth, for those just joining us, is the recently installed head of Energize Vermont, the benign-sounding advocacy group promoting the anti-wind cause. Whitworth took over from that carpetbaggin’ astroturfer, Luke Snelling, who’s gone to San Francisco to seek his fortune by greenwashing corporations with environmental image problems. Which is what he used to do out of the Massachusetts office of his ad agency. Hence “carpetbaggin'” — he may be a scion of a Vermont family, but he wasn’t living here when he fronted for Energize Vermont.

Anyway, on to Whitworth who, as the headline informs us, wants Vermont to “SLOW DOWN, ASK QUESTIONS” when it comes to our energy future. Seems we’re in a “rush” to implement renewable energy. Yeah, stupid, isn’t it? Just because global warming is a goddamn crisis doesn’t mean we should “rush” to build our homegrown renewable infrastructure.

The story treats his views with respect, which is not out of bounds for a softball profile of a public figure. But this one line caught my eye, not to mention my ire:

“I’m not pro- or con-wind,” he said.

Cough. Snort. Chuckle. BWAHAHAHAHAHA.

All righty then, Freeploid, riddle me this. This article is on page A6*. On the next page, A7, directly across from this article, is an over-the-top rant of an opinion piece by Whitworth that accuses Vermont’s environmental community of being corporate stooges, and repeats the tired arguments of the anti-wind crowd.

*In order to see the layout, you’ll have to access a print copy of the Monday edition or have subscriber access to the Freeploid’s online e-newspaper. The digital version includes the same content, but it’s scattered around the website. 

He’s “not pro- or con-wind,” eh? And reporter Joel Banner Baird didn’t challenge him on his obviously false and self-serving claim? And the editors didn’t think the article and opinion piece made for an uncomfortable juxtaposition?

He starts his opinion piece by comparing Vermont’s renewable strategy to President Bush’s conduct of the Iraq War. He paints the build-out of renewables a for-profit hustle by what he calls the “Big Green Alliance of Green Mountain Power, policians, and ‘environmentalists.”

Because Mark Whitworth and his allies are pure as the driven snow, and all others have been Assimilated by the Evil Utility Borg. Got that, Paul Burns? Brian Shupe? Jake Brown? Sandy Levine? Chris Kilian? You’re all corrupt. Unless you change your tune and agree with Mark Whitworth.

He accuses GMP and its co-conspirators of seeking to “put 500-foot-tall turbines and massive solar fields wherever we want — on sensitive ridgelines, in wetlands and on prime agricultural soils,” and “string transmission lines all over the place.”

Yeah, no. Nobody’s proposing anything like that. As I’ve written before, and as anyone who checks the public record can see, there are only a handful of places in Vermont where wind is economically viable. And I don’t think any utility, no matter how profit-hungry, would try to site energy projects on sensitive lands. Seeking profit involves knowing when and where to build, and sensible utilities know they have to be careful and appropriate with their decisions. If they aren’t, they’ll waste a lot of time and money on projects that will never be built.

Also, if you want “transmission lines all over the place,” look no farther than Energize Vermont’s own green-energy plan, which relies heavily on Hydro Quebec power from the far north. That’ll require a big fat buildout of high-tension power lines right across the Northeast Kingdom that Whitworth professes to love so much.

Whitworth is a True Believer. He sees himself and his allies as the defenders of Vermont’s sacred honor, and anyone who disagrees is a turncoat and a corporate lackey. He is entitled to his opinion, and I respect his commitment. But he shouldn’t get a free pass from Vermont’s Largest Newspaper.