Robert Bryce: Maine Voters Reject Transmission Line — How NIMBY Blocks Renewable Energy Expansion

News coverage of Tuesday’s elections was dominated by Glenn Youngkin’s victory over incumbent Democrat Terry McAuliffe in the Virginia gubernatorial race. But when it comes to energy policy and climate action, the lopsided result of a referendum in Maine over a high-voltage transmission project proved yet again that land-use conflicts are the binding constraint on the expansion of renewables in the United States. The rejection of the 145-mile, $1 billion project also showed that the myriad claims being made by politicians and climate activists that we can run our economy solely on renewables are little more than wishful thinking.  

On Tuesday, Mainers voted – by a margin of 59% to 41% — to reject the New England Clean Energy Connect project which aims to move Canadian hydropower to customers in Massachusetts. The referendum was a stinging rebuke for the builders of the project. But it’s not yet clear if the vote will kill the line. On Wednesday, Avangrid Inc., the parent company of Central Maine Power and NECEC Transmission LLC, filed a lawsuit in Maine state court challenging the referendum, alleging it violates “both state and federal law.” Avangrid is a subsidiary of the Spanish utility Iberdrola.

While the outcome of the legal battle is uncertain, there is no doubt that high-voltage transmission projects like the one in Maine are deeply unpopular all across the country. As the Portland Press Herald put it, the battle over the NECEC has been “one of the most divisive and expensive environmental battles in Mai....”

Furthermore, the rejection of the project by Maine voters shows that the all-renewable scenarios that have been published over the past few years by academics from elite universities like Princeton, Stanford, and Cal-Berkeley – all of which depend on massive buildouts of high-voltage transmission capacity – are simply not feasible. The best wind, solar, and hydropower resources are in rural areas where electricity use is low. Moving power from those remote sites to cities requires long transmission lines. The more renewable-energy capacity gets added to the grid, the more transmission capacity must be built. And the more transmission lines get built, the more rural Americans will stand opposed. 

As I noted in a report I wrote earlier this year for the Center of the America..., converting the domestic electric grid to run primarily on renewables will require mind-boggling amounts of new transmission capacity.

Continue reading at: https://www.forbes.com/sites/robertbryce/2021/11/05/maine-voters-re...

What’s in the latest ‘Build Back Better’ budget deal for renewable energy

Excerpts

...................In total, the latest 'Build Back Better' budget reconciliation framework stands at $1.75 trillion, with $555 billion for the climate and clean energy -- the largest investment ever by Congress. Reports indicate, however, that the deal isn't done yet, and negotiations are still taking place..........................

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What's in the Build Back Better plan for renewables?

While the Clean Electricity Performance Program, a carrot-and-stick mechanism designed to accelerate utility efforts to decarbonize the grid, was removed from the Build Back Better plan during negotiations with moderate Democrats, it appears that many of the clean energy programs initially proposed remain in the bill.

The White House indicated that the latest version of the budget bill restores the production tax credit (PTC) and investment tax credit (ITC) to their full values, and taxpayers are eligible for direct pay instead of tax equity offsets. The bill will further incentive production that takes place in the U.S.

Abigail Ross Hopper, CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association, called the Build Back Better plan the "most ambitious and transformational" clean energy plan ever put forward by Congress.

"Solar is a job-creator, and the long-term tax incentives for solar, storage, and domestic manufacturing will put us on a path to decarbonize the electric grid, reach the President’s 2035 clean energy target, and create hundreds of thousands of quality career opportunities in every community," Hopper said.

The Residential Renewables for All campaign cheered the survival of the direct pay (25D tax credit) in the bill.

“Washington now has an opportunity to ensure that middle- and low-income families — no matter where they live or how much they earn — can power their homes with clean, affordable energy sources," the group said.

The Build Back Better plan also creates a new ITC for standalone energy storage. In September, a coalition of more than 50 environmental, renewable energy, and transportation groups called on Congress to include long-term clean energy incentives in the budget reconciliation package.

The cost of an electric vehicle made in the U.S., using domestically-sourced materials, will be cut $12,500, the White House said.

"The investment tax credit for stand-alone energy storage is critical to accelerating the pace of storage deployment on the electric grid," said Jason Burwen, interim CEO of the US Energy Storage Association. "Combined with new manufacturing incentives available for batteries and federal procurement of next-generation long-duration storage, the Build Back Better Framework will supercharge efforts to rapidly transition to clean energy while building a robust energy storage supply chain here at home."..............................

Read the full article at: https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/policy-regulation/whats-in-the...

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Comment by Thinklike A. Mountain on November 6, 2021 at 1:39am

Out with the Uniparty - largely one big farce to preserve the status quo, Americans be damned so long as there's still things to loot.

Republicans Bail Out Biden and Pelosi to Pass $1.2 Trillion So-Called Infrastructure Bill

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2021/11/05/republicans-bail-out-...

 

Maine as Third World Country:

CMP Transmission Rate Skyrockets 19.6% Due to Wind Power

 

Click here to read how the Maine ratepayer has been sold down the river by the Angus King cabal.

Maine Center For Public Interest Reporting – Three Part Series: A CRITICAL LOOK AT MAINE’S WIND ACT

******** IF LINKS BELOW DON'T WORK, GOOGLE THEM*********

(excerpts) From Part 1 – On Maine’s Wind Law “Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine if the law’s goals were met." . – Maine Center for Public Interest Reporting, August 2010 https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/From Part 2 – On Wind and Oil Yet using wind energy doesn’t lower dependence on imported foreign oil. That’s because the majority of imported oil in Maine is used for heating and transportation. And switching our dependence from foreign oil to Maine-produced electricity isn’t likely to happen very soon, says Bartlett. “Right now, people can’t switch to electric cars and heating – if they did, we’d be in trouble.” So was one of the fundamental premises of the task force false, or at least misleading?" https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/wind-swept-task-force-set-the-rules/From Part 3 – On Wind-Required New Transmission Lines Finally, the building of enormous, high-voltage transmission lines that the regional electricity system operator says are required to move substantial amounts of wind power to markets south of Maine was never even discussed by the task force – an omission that Mills said will come to haunt the state.“If you try to put 2,500 or 3,000 megawatts in northern or eastern Maine – oh, my god, try to build the transmission!” said Mills. “It’s not just the towers, it’s the lines – that’s when I begin to think that the goal is a little farfetched.” https://www.pinetreewatchdog.org/flaws-in-bill-like-skating-with-dull-skates/

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Hannah Pingree on the Maine expedited wind law

Hannah Pingree - Director of Maine's Office of Innovation and the Future

"Once the committee passed the wind energy bill on to the full House and Senate, lawmakers there didn’t even debate it. They passed it unanimously and with no discussion. House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat from North Haven, says legislators probably didn’t know how many turbines would be constructed in Maine."

https://pinetreewatch.org/wind-power-bandwagon-hits-bumps-in-the-road-3/

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