By Josh Keefe, Maine Focus Reporter

December 23, 2019 6:00 am

On an unusually cold November night, Rep. Seth Berry, D-Bowdoinham, co-chair of the legislative committee charged with regulating the state’s utilities, stood in the auditorium at Mt. Ararat High School in Topsham. Before a crowd of roughly 60 people, he explained his plan to seize control of the Maine electric grid from the state’s two largest electric companies and their foreign shareholders.

Berry introduced…

“Nobody here likes this". The turbines would be spread out on three sides of the 7,000-plus acre Great Heath.

Note that the Great Heath is the largest raised bog (or peatland) in the state of Maine.

Website for Downeast Wind's owner, Apex Clean Energy:

https://www.apexcleanenergy.com/leadership/

Apex…

North American Windpower - Michael Bates - December 20, 2019

The House passed a tax extenders package this week that includes a one-year extension of the production tax credit (PTC) for wind but failed to move forward an investment tax credit (ITC) provision for offshore wind power.

The House passed a tax extenders package this week that includes a one-year extension of the production tax credit (PTC) for wind but failed to move forward an investment tax credit…

Two national companies that operate natural gas plants in Maine are stepping into the fight over Central Maine Power’s power line proposal for western Maine. They’ve created a new political action committee supporting a potential ballot item aimed at killing the CMP project.

The new PAC is called Mainers for Local Power, and it will be funded by two Texas-based companies, Calpine and Vistra. Calpine owns a natural gas electricity generation plant in Westbrook, and Vistra owns one in…

House foregoes new tax credits for storage, offshore wind as it approves $1.4T spending bill

• The U.S. House of Representatives approved a broad spending bill on Tuesday extending tax credits for wind energy, which expire at the end of 2019, for another year. 
• The House had proposed a wide-reaching clean energy package of tax credits, including new incentives for energy storage and offshore wind, and extensions for electric vehicles…

Solar and wind bills, subsidies, mandates etc., brought to us by layer upon layer of dysfunctional agenda-driven government will create never seen before burdens on Mainers. These burdens will have the greatest effect on the folks who can least afford it.

Listen to today's important 14 minute WVOM audio for James LaBrecque's five year prediction of where electricity costs are headed. While each new bill, subsidy, mandate, etc. is always sold to Mainers as representing a supposed small…

General Motors and Tesla have been pushing for more than a year for extension of the credit, which phases out once an automaker hits 200,000 vehicles sold, and many lawmakers had been pushing to include the extension. The tax credit is aimed at defraying the cost of electric vehicles that are more expensive than similarly sized internal combustion engine vehicles.

Both GM and Tesla have already hit 200,000 EV sales. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat who authored a proposal to…

A different kind of fire was applied to Terra-Gen corporation 12.17.19 by the Board of Supervisors of tiny (140,000 people) Humboldt County.  

Four to One against a project offering forty-seven 600 foot high monsters on top of seismically active ridges in the Cape Mendocino Bird Flyway - truly what's "not to like" about that - and a company which drops money left and right to change people's minds and even offered the Wiyot people one million dollars (1/10th of the total tax…

Having lost much of its central banker incubation skills over the past decade, and handing over the crown of Wall Street's most profitable trading desk to Morgan Stanley, in recent years Goldman Sachs has been best known for enabling and profiting wildly from Malaysia 1MDB criminal fraud, which culminated with the arrest of former Malaysia PM Razak, but not before Goldman made billions in illicit profits from selling bonds offered by the country's sovereign wealth fund.

And while…

In a state that relies on driving and tourism, some wish to make automobile use far more costly. While this article seemingly attempts to create justification for toxin-producing solar and toxin-producing electric car batteries for a more electricity-reliant future, as usual, there's not a single mention of nuclear power.

12/15/19

Reducing emissions from transportation is a long, difficult road for Maine

A preference for…

By Fred Bever 12/12/19

A new task force will convene for the first time Thursday to consider how and where to lease potentially vast swathes of the Gulf of Maine to offshore wind-energy developers. The outcome could have big consequences for Maine's fishing industry, and for the state's role in the next wave of renewable energy development.

An earlier round of auctions awarded leases in federal waters off southern New England, where several large-scale wind projects…

Hydro-Quebec, the Canadian energy company poised to supply hydropower to a proposed transmission line through western Maine, is joining a campaign to defeat a referendum that could scuttle the $1 billion project at the ballot box next year.

The company’s relationship with the provincial government of Quebec could draw protests from project opponents who see it as a foreign attempt to influence an election.

However, the Hydro-Quebec effort appears to be legal because Maine…

President Trump's son has chimed in on TIME's decision to name Greta Thunberg as Person of the Year, noting a significant 'other' that are fighting for their lives too...

"Time leaves out the Hong Kong Protesters fighting for their lives and freedoms to push a teen being used as a marketing gimmick. How dare you?"

*  *  *

While many among the resistance must have been hoping for "The Whistleblower" to be crowned, TIME Magazine…

This article explains in detail how the efficiencies of wood stoves are calculated using the higher heating value or lower heating value of the fuel. In case of condensing wood stoves, the higher heating value must be used.

The US uses higher heating value, HHV, as the basis for calculating efficiency, Europe uses lower heating value, LHV.

This leads to European stoves having calculated efficiencies greater than US stoves, which deceives lay people in the US,…

Some of the more important articles in this issue are:

Another Round of Energy Pork

With climate change Science and Economics should be paramount

Ontario saves $500± Million by dumping wind turbines

Expect the ECB to Use a “Climate Crisis” to Justify Their Next Stimulus Plan

Rolls Royce wants innovative financing for its first-of-a-kind nuclear SMRs

Short video: Gates Goes Nuclear

Bitter Cold Stops Coal, While Nuclear Power Excels

Nuclear Power isn’t…

American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funds can not be used if they create: "a substantial and specific danger to public health or safety."

Falmouth Massachusetts USA

12/7/19

Andrew R. Wheeler is the Administrator of the United States federal government's Environmental…

"There have been no complaints about the existing wind farm, other than those few people that just plain hate wind towers and don’t want to look at them".

By Eesha Pendharkar, BDN Staff • December 6, 2019 1:00 am

Updated: December 6, 2019 7:16 am

Years ago, when the Clifton Planning Board was considering an application that would allow Pisgah Mountain LLC to build five wind turbines, Chair Bruce Jellison decided to do his own research. He…